I was a mess after that. I took a walk down the office hall and stood in the break room, staring at the wall for God knows how long until someone walked through the door behind me, jolting me out of my rage-and-lust stupor. Before whoever it was could ask me questions, I turned and left, walking swiftly to the ladies’ room this time and hiding in a stall. I was a professional counselor, and I spent thirty-six minutes—I counted—hiding in a goddamned toilet stall, trying not to cry.

Fucking Jace Riggs.

Fuck him and his chest and his stomach and his hands and his long legs in jeans. Fuck his nice hair and his gorgeous mouth and those fucking eyes that said there was so much more going on in his head than he let on. Fuck his I-give-up attitude and his don’t-mess-with-me defenses and his insanely fuckable smarts. Fuck all of it.

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths—really not advisable in a bathroom stall—and when I felt human again, I splashed water on my face and walked calmly back to my office. I didn’t have another appointment today; all I had to do was wrap up my paperwork and go home.

I sat at my computer and pulled up Jace’s electronic file. I pulled up the form the court was expecting me to fill out. I stared at it for a few minutes, and then I started typing.

I wrote that John Christian Riggs, known as Jace, was adjusting as well as could be expected to post-prison life. I wrote that he had a job, a stable place to live, skills that would keep him employed. I wrote that he was free from the addiction, mental illness, or anger problems that were the most frequent contributors to recidivism—that is, ex-cons ending up back in prison. I wrote that he presented himself in counseling as polite, well-mannered, cooperative, and generally willing to please. I wrote that he had stated no desire to return to his former job of stealing cars, that he seemed to have learned his lesson and paid his debt to society. I recommended that his follow-up be put on a reduction schedule and ended.

I need the court off my back, Jace had said. Maybe I couldn’t help him, but there was one thing I could do for him, anyway.

You should help him, you idiot, I told myself as I hit send. That’s supposed to be your fucking job.

I stood up and took my purse from my desk drawer. Heading out of the office, I popped my head in John’s door. “Going home,” I said. “Have a nice night.”

“Tara,” he said, putting a file in his filing cabinet and closing the drawer. “I need to talk to you about something. Close the door behind you.”

Surprised, I did.

“Jace Riggs,” John said. “You had an appointment today?”

Shit. Had Jace complained about my conduct? Well, if he had, I’d face it. To say I’d been unprofessional was an understatement. “Yes,” I said.

John shook his head. “I told them to tell you.”

“Told who what? To tell me what?”

“Reception. We weren’t supposed to take any more of his appointments. He’s off the roster.”

“He is?” I felt a beat of panic, not on my own behalf this time. “Is he in trouble again? Is he being sent somewhere else?”

“No, nothing like that.” John neatened his desk and powered off his computer, preparing to go home. “We weren’t supposed to have him in the first place. He wasn’t supposed to be on the list for counseling at all.”

That was baffling. “Why not?”

“Turns out he’s a CI,” John said. “An important one, in fact.”

I stared at him. A CI—a confidential informant. Jace had been an inside informer to the police.

Why did you start stealing cars?

Because I was good at it.

“He was informing on his father’s stolen car ring?” I asked John.

“Not just that,” he said. “The stolen cars were being run by some bigger criminals—drugs, weapons, that kind of thing. Apparently, Riggs’ information went straight up to the Detroit PD and the state investigation. It was instrumental to a few of their arrests.” He shrugged. “A Riggs, right? No one would have guessed. No one did guess.”

I could feel my stomach turning itself in knots. I’d raked Jace over the coals, trying to get him to tell me why he’d stolen cars. I’d given him the bullshit about how he didn’t fit the profile. And he hadn’t said a word. “Someone should have told me,” I said.

“It should have been in the file, I agree,” John said. He looked at my face, which was probably red. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “It’s just that I would have handled his counseling differently. I, um, spent time talking with him about why he picked a life of crime.”

“Ah,” John said. “Well, I saw your report in my inbox, so no harm done, right?”

“Can I ask you something?”

He was heading for the door. “Sure, I guess.”

“Why doesn’t a CI get counseling like every other ex-con?”

John sighed. “I don’t make the rules, Tara. I guess it’s assumed that CI’s aren’t real criminals, in the standard sense, so their treatment is different.”

“Jace Riggs might not be a real criminal, but he spent twenty months in prison,” I argued. “He has to readjust exactly like every other con. He needs help just like anyone else. More, maybe. I mean, why did the system let him do time in the first place, when he was helping them get so many arrests?”

John was watching me talk, frowning. When he spoke, it was in the calm I’m-an-expert voice he no doubt used on his clients. “You seem rather upset about this.”

“Do I?” I shook my head. “Pardon me if it seems unfair that the system would use Jace Riggs to get arrests, then hang him out to dry when he got caught. Then try to deny him help after he did his time. Pardon me if I point out that Jace Riggs got a raw deal.”

“Tara,” John said calmly, definitely in counselor mode now, “Jace Riggs really did steal those cars. He’s a grown man who did illegal things and pleaded guilty to them in court. Maybe he would have had a tougher sentence if he wasn’t a CI. Have you thought of that?”

I stared at him, knowing I looked like a fool, unable to stop my hot cheeks or my passionate words. “Someone should have told me,” I insisted. Maybe it was the crazy day, but I couldn’t stop myself. “If I’d known, maybe I could have actually helped him instead of filling out a bullshit form. I got into this job to help people. That’s why I do it in the first place.”

“He’ll be fine.” Now John’s voice was firm. He hated emotion, and he certainly hated it when it was holding him up from going home for the day. “Jace Riggs is going to be just fine, whether he gets counseling or not. You can’t help every single one of them, Tara. It’s one of the facts of the job. The sooner you learn it, the longer you’ll last in this career. Am I making myself clear?”

I choked my words down, felt them in the back of my throat as I swallowed them. “Yes. You’re clear.”

“Good. Now go home and have a glass of wine, and start over tomorrow.” He turned and was gone, off to his family.

I did go home. And I intended to do as John said—have a glass of wine, maybe a bath, a nice dinner, watch some TV. My usual single girl’s night in.

Instead, I let myself into my lonely little apartment, changed into casual jeans, a T-shirt, a sweater, and flip-flops, washed my face, brushed out my hair, and walked back out again. I got back in my car and drove across Westlake, across the train tracks that bisected the town, and I headed for Welmer Road. The big, ramshackle house where the Riggs family lived.

I wasn’t Jace Riggs’ counselor anymore.

Maybe now, we could finally have a conversation.