Shades of Gray Read Online Free PDF

marijuana. When I called him on it, he basically told me to shut the
     fuck up and forget I ever saw it.”
    “Upstanding guy,” Cole said in disgust.
    “Maybe I was naive and too idealistic. I mean, to me, when I took the oath as a police
     officer and when I joined the S.W.A.T. team, it meant something to me. I had a very
     clear vision of right and wrong. Everything was very black-and-white to me with no
     gray area. But even being that way, I wanted to give Derek the benefit of the doubt
     and I was reluctant to turn him in because, like an idiot, I thought I was in love
     with him and I felt loyalty to him because we were lovers.”
    Cole frowned.
    “Yeah, tell me about it,” she muttered. “You aren’t thinking anything I haven’t said
     to myself countless times since. I was young and an idiot. To make a long story short,
     I confronted him and told him that if I ever caught him doing it again I’d turn him
     in.”
    “I’m guessing that probably didn’t go over too well. Is that what caused the breakup?”
    Her lips tightened. “No. And no, he didn’t take it well. Told me he didn’t take threats
     and that I needed to butt out. At that point our relationship cooled in a major way,
     but I figured he’d get over it and that my threat would dissuade him from doing it
     again. I’m still pissed at myself that I even gave him that second chance. It wasn’t
     the right thing to do, but I was thinking with my heart and so I went against everything
     I believed in. I hated myself for that.”
    “Damn,” Cole murmured. “Don’t you think you’re being a little too hard on yourself?”
    “No,” she said bluntly. “I wish I would have been harder. Two months later, we assisted
     in another drug raid. This was a big one. Several police officers went down, and Derek,
     the asshole, instead of worrying over his fellow officers, was more concerned with
     taking money from the scene. I went to my commander the next day and told him what
     I saw.”
    “Oh shit.”
    “Yeah, exactly. Internal Affairs got involved. It was a big, messy investigation.
     Derek was smart, though, and he didn’t leave any sort of trail. No deposits to a bank
     account. No change in spending habits. He’d planned long term and was apparently stashing
     the money where it couldn’t be found and was going to use it at a later date or maybe
     quit and then move off somewhere and spend the cash. I don’t really know what his
     plan was, but whatever it was, it certainly didn’t include me in the picture.”
    “So they didn’t have any evidence on him?”
    “No,” she said softly.
    “Is that why you left then? Because you couldn’t work with him any longer?”
    She hated this part. It still had the power to unravel her even after all this time.
    “P.J.?”
    She looked up, not really wanting to continue the conversation at this point.
    His gaze was intense. Peeling back layer after layer until she felt bare and vulnerable
     under his scrutiny.
    “What aren’t you telling me?”
    She drew in a long breath and then let it out. “What I left out is the fact that my
     two best friends, or rather Derek’s best friends who I thought were my friends too,
     along with Derek hung me out to dry.”
    Cole slipped his hand over the knee closest to his reach and squeezed gently. “What
     happened?”
    “Up to this point, Derek and I had kept our relationship secret. It was against policy
     for members on the same team to fraternize, a rule, mind you, that didn’t exist before
     I joined because I was the first female on that team. But Derek went to our commander,
     along with Jimmy and Mike to corroborate his story, and told him that Derek and I
     were lovers and that he broke things off with me and that I’d launched my accusations
     out of revenge. Jimmy and Mike backed up his story by telling him a bunch of made-up
     shit, like that I’d threatened to ruin him when he broke up with me. And then they
     leaked that story far and