Page 19 of Pursuit of Her
"Necessary?" Eve's voice rose slightly, the first crack in her control. "You disappeared without a trace. No body. No goodbye. Nothing but questions and a case file eventually stamped 'presumed dead.'"
Reagan lowered her hands slightly. "The gun isn't necessary, Eve."
"Four men are dead by your hand," Eve countered. "I think it's exactly necessary."
The practical acknowledgment of what Reagan had done settled between them, the first truth in a conversation that would require many.
"You've seen the evidence I left," Reagan said. "You know what they did. What they were."
"I'm a police captain, Reagan. I don't get to decide who deserves to live or die." Eve's words were firm, but something flickered in her eyes—doubt, perhaps, or the first recognition that the lines between right and wrong had blurred beyond recognition.
"The system failed those women," Reagan pressed. "It failedme. And it would have failed you if I'd stayed."
Eve's expression shifted minutely. "What are you talking about?"
"They tried to kill me, Eve." Reagan took a single step forward, stopping when Eve's grip tightened on her weapon. "When I discovered how deep the corruption went, they came for me. The night I disappeared? I didn't leave. They tried to kill me."
Lightning flashed again, thunder following immediately, directly overhead now. In the stark illumination, Eve's face revealed the first hint of uncertainty, the detective in her processing new evidence against a conclusion she'd accepted years ago.
"Who?"
"The Phoenix Network," Reagan answered. "The men I've been hunting. Davenport ordered it, but they all knew. They all benefited from my disappearance."
Eve's gaze never left Reagan's face, searching for deception, for the truth behind ten years of absence. "You could have contacted me. Found a way to let me know you were alive."
"They were watching you," Reagan said softly. "After I 'disappeared,' they monitored you for years, waiting to see if I'd reached out. If I had, you would have been next."
The admission hung between them, rain-soaked and heavy with implications. Eve's weapon lowered fractionally, though her finger remained alongside the trigger guard, not on it—the instinctive caution of a trained officer.
"So you've been what? Hiding in the shadows for a decade, planning your revenge?" Eve asked, anger threading through her words.
"Justice," Reagan corrected. "Not revenge."
"You're executing them, Reagan. That's not justice. That's playing God."
"I'm exposing them," Reagan countered. "Making sure everyone knows what they did, what they covered up. The executions are secondary to the truth."
Eve shook her head, water spraying from her hair with the sharp movement. "You don't get to make that distinction. Murder is murder, no matter how righteous the cause."
The echoes of their final argument from ten years ago resonated through the present confrontation. The same fundamental division: Eve's belief in the system despite its flaws,Reagan's conviction that some corruption ran too deep for conventional justice.
"There are five more names on my list," Reagan said, her gaze steady. "Men who destroyed lives and escaped consequences through their connections. Men who ordered my death and would order yours if they knew what you've discovered."
"So you've appointed yourself judge, jury, and executioner." Eve's voice hardened again.
"Someone had to."
Their standoff continued, the storm raging around them mirroring the collision of opposing forces they represented. Two women who had once moved in perfect synchronicity, now positioned on opposite sides of a moral divide neither had created but both had chosen.
"I can't let you kill again," Eve said finally, conviction hardening her voice.
"Are you going to arrest me?" Reagan asked quietly.
The question wasn't a challenge but a genuine inquiry. Would Eve choose the badge over what they had once been to each other? Would duty triumph over the truths Reagan had uncovered?
Eve's expression tightened. "I should. Four men are dead."
"Four predators who escaped justice," Reagan amended. "You've seen the evidence. You know what they did."
