Wyatt tapped the end of his cheap pen on the desk. How were they supposed to find a guy who didn’t exist? Everyone had their picture online these days. Not to mention they also had DNA and a partial fingerprint from Mr. Thomas. Those could help, but Wyatt hesitated to believe they would.
He gripped the desk phone to his ear. “That’s everything we have.”
“Okay,” Wyatt’s cousin Geoff said. “That’s great. There’s never been evidence before, not in any of the cases listed as possibly linked. When I fill in the special agent assigned, he’ll probably be ecstatic to hear that Mr. Thomas slipped up.”
“Nina doesn’t think so.” Wyatt glanced at her, sitting at the spare desk across from him and doing something with her phone. “She thinks he left evidence on purpose.”
“And you?”
“I’m inclined to agree, but we don’t know for sure. We still have to run it, because if he does want to get caught, or however he thinks this will end, it’s the job. He needs to be brought to justice.”
Geoff said, “I’ll contact the special agent assigned to that case and let him know. I still didn’t hear back from my email two days ago, so if I don’t hear anything by end of day I’ll call you back.”
“All right. Let me know.”
“Be careful.”
Wyatt caught Nina’s gaze and said, “I will.” He hung up and told Nina what Geoff had said.
“You mean that he’s going to come back and end you on purpose.”
Wyatt didn’t regret telling her it was likely Mr. Thomas intended to return and finish him off. “He tried to kill me, and then Ronnie. Of course he’s going to come back and try again. He’s probably seriously mad right now.”
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes wide. “And I’m not allowed to be concerned about that?”
“About me?”
“Of course! Who else? This is basically my fault. He knows I told you, so he’s coming after you.”
People in the office were starting to stare. Wyatt didn’t blame them, if the drama playing out between him and Nina was more interesting than paperwork. But he had to know, and she had to say it. Out loud. Because Mr. Thomas had seen something in Nina in Tashi’s backyard when she’d yelled his name that had made him turn his attention to Wyatt, and he needed to know why he’d thought there was a connection between them.
She made a frustrated sound deep in her throat that was more amusing than anything else. Plus cute. He let his gaze move over her face. Definitely cute. She said, “I’m not supposed to care about you?”
“I am a very care-about-able person.”
“That made no sense.” But she smiled, and wasn’t that the whole point?
“Do you want me to feel bad that he’s more concerned with me than you right now? I don’t want him anywhere near you, Nina. I’d rather you packed your bags and disappeared to a desert island to lie on the beach while I go out and catch this guy.”
She sighed. “We’ve already had this conversation. I’ve spent most of my adult life in countries where I didn’t speak the language beyond a couple of phrases that involved ‘infiltrate’ or ‘semiautomatic.’ I’d like to stay in America if that’s okay with you.”
He shrugged, feeling the pull of a smile on his lips. “Hawaii works for me.”
And why was he now picturing her on a beach, walking with him, smiling? Wearing his ring. No, no, no. That wasn’t the plan. Marriage? Wyatt had never been that type, even if Nina had that sweet PTA-mom look about her while still knowing how to kill a man twice her size with her thumb. It was kind of irresistible. But he would resist.
“I don’t want him to hurt you.” Her words were soft.
“Ditto.”
She broke out of whatever had been subduing her and chuckled. “So noted.” She sighed. “I guess we’re at an impasse, then.”
“Or you watch my back, and I watch yours.”
“That could work.” She tipped her head to the side. “Did Geoff say anything else of note?”
“He’s going to put in the request to run the photo and the partial print through the databases he has access to while he’s waiting for the other agent to get back to him. And he’s going to ask them to run everything through Interpol’s database, since we didn’t get anything out of our test or on the photo.”
“You think he’s some kind of international criminal?”
Wyatt shrugged. “We know he’s never been in the military, and he’s never been convicted of a crime either, otherwise we’d have his name. Who knows? Maybe Geoff’s search will turn up something and the FBI will be able to put together enough evidence to get a takedown for all the murders, not just Ronnie’s injury and Tashi’s shooting.”
Nina nodded slowly, quiet again. “That would be nice.”
“Dinner would be nice. An arrest warrant is relative, in the grand scheme of things.”
“The grand scheme being your stomach?”
Wyatt shrugged. “I am hungry. And we’ve been sitting here all day.”
* * *
Nina sat alone at the restaurant table. She didn’t want to look around that office again. They’d all started giving her that weird “she’s freaking out” face again. She was done being the one everyone knew about and felt sorry for. At least Wyatt seemed to get it. He cared about her, or so she thought. Maybe as much as she cared about him.
It was strange to know she had the attention of a good man. Nina figured she could certainly get used to it, especially when it was the first time in her life it had happened. She hadn’t spent much time with a good man, not this much time, really ever. They had been thrown together through some insane circumstances, but she was determined that Mr. Thomas’s actions weren’t going to ruin any of it.
Something was happening between her and Wyatt. Something Nina thought might be huge—caring, affection. Attraction. All of it was there in spades, and she prayed it wouldn’t get crushed. The thin strands that seemed to stretch between them were like the most delicate of silk thread, so beautiful but so fragile. Anything could snap them, and then it would all be severed and there would be nothing but what could have been.
Nina flipped her phone, end over end, on top of the table. She’d finished her soda twenty minutes ago and hadn’t started on the refill the waitress had brought that she didn’t want. Who needed that much caffeine?
She dropped the phone to thumb through her texts, not really expecting anything new. But there it was. Baltimore Public Library. Nina wasn’t the type to sit back and do nothing. Especially after years of covert operations.
Nina bit her lip, not thinking about it overly much, and typed.
Who are you?
It wasn’t that she expected a reply, but she had to do something. Hanging around like a sitting duck hadn’t ever been her forte. Ask Sienna. And so maybe it had gotten her in trouble when Sienna had amnesia and Nina had dropped off the CIA’s radar to stick by her and make sure she wasn’t in trouble. But it wasn’t every day when international criminals crawled out of the woodwork wanting her best friend dead or alive.
Wyatt wound through the tables headed in her direction. He looked so strong, so capable of carrying all this on his shoulders. Nina knew from experience that old adage was true—the bigger he was, the harder he would fall when Mr. Thomas decided to finish him off for good.
Nina wasn’t going to let that happen.
Her phone buzzed on the tabletop. She swiped to see the text reply.
That is the question.
“Something good?”
She glanced up at Wyatt, and the phone dropped from her hand to clatter on the table.
“Guilty face.” He smirked. “Are you sure you were a spy?”
“Rusty spy.” She got up, swiped up her phone and purse, and headed out of the restaurant ahead of him. The cat-and-mouse game Mr. Thomas was intent on playing was getting to her. She knew that. Her stomach burned, and it wasn’t the sandwich she’d just eaten.
Nina halted halfway to the car, so fast Wyatt nearly slammed into her back. “You know what? Forget this.” Nina pulled up the contact and dialed the number.
“Little Mouse.” His voice was smooth, but with an edge to it that made her want to throw up thinking about those shots he’d put in Tashi.
“Who are you?”
Wyatt’s whole body jerked. He moved as though he wanted to grab the phone and smash the thing on the asphalt of the parking lot. Nina stepped back, determined to make Mr. Thomas reveal too much or mess up somehow. “I asked you a question.”
“My, my.”
Wyatt turned away; he got on his phone, talking about “traces” and “locations.” At least he wasn’t glaring at her anymore.
“Tell me. I want to know. I should know. Why do you think it’s been years, and I won’t give this up? You killed my mother, and my father is dead because of you. Now you try to kill Ronnie. Sorry that didn’t work out.”
“That was her name?”
Like he didn’t know. “I’m going to figure out who you are.”
“Perhaps. It has been years, and you haven’t managed it yet, Little Mouse.”
Nina gritted her teeth. “In the meantime if I hear you touched Emily or got anywhere near her, or even looked in her direction, I will bring my entire arsenal down on your head.”
He chuckled.
When it didn’t cease, Nina spoke over it. “I promise you.”
She hung up. He wasn’t going to give her anything. That was a stupid thing, and she shouldn’t have done it, but she was just so mad.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” She turned to Wyatt. “You hung up before we could get a location.” He lifted his hands and let them fall back to his sides. “Do you at least feel better? Because it didn’t help in any other way.”
She glared at him.
“Nina?”
Mr. Thomas had killed her mother. He’d sentenced her father to incarceration and death behind bars. And Wyatt thought she was trying to feel better?
He took a step toward her.
Nina took a step back.
“Ni—”
She lifted one hand, palm out. “Don’t come near me.” Her cheeks were hot, almost tickling.
“Honey, you’re crying.”
Nina blinked. She swiped at her cheeks, and her fingers came away wet. “I—” She choked on the word. Her breath came in gasps. Nina bent forward and hung her head, trying to stop the spinning in her mind. She couldn’t think. She could barely get air. Her throat was blocked. Tears streamed down her face, and she realized she was crying aloud.
Wyatt lifted her up so she was standing. But she didn’t have the strength. He held her weight while she cried for her mother, for her father. Had she ever actually done that before?
She wasn’t sure she had.
Wyatt’s hand rubbed up and down her back, and she clung to him, her body purging itself of all the pent-up emotion she’d been collecting for years. All of it surged to the surface. All the grief, all the fear. All the pain she’d never told anyone about, not even Sienna, really.
No one.
* * *
Wyatt settled in the armchair and watched Nina sleep. Curled up on his couch, she was covered in the afghan his mother had sent him last Christmas, taking a nap.
He had his own phone in his hand now. He didn’t want Nina’s cathartic crying to affect him, but it had. He couldn’t deny the fact that seeing her expunge that much emotion made him wonder how he’d feel if something happened to his parents. To his father.
Through the entire investigation Wyatt had watched his dad, a man he’d idolized his whole life as the epitome of a strong, capable cop, just...diminish. He hadn’t believed it at first, not willing to accept that anything could bring the old man down. But it had, and now Wyatt had seen it again, in Nina. He couldn’t deny that even the strongest person could be brought low if the circumstances were bad enough.
Wyatt picked up the phone, and for the first time in months he dialed his father’s number.
“Somebody kick it?”
Wyatt blinked at his father’s fast response. “Nobody’s dead.” His dad thought a family emergency was the only reason he’d be calling. “Not that there haven’t been a few near misses.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Serial killer, right?”
Wyatt reiterated everything again, not surprised at all that his dad had heard through the cop grapevine even given that he was retired. “I got Geoff on it.”
“Good call,” his dad said. “You really have no idea who he is?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay.”
His dad sounded like he was thinking through the problem. Assistance, coupled with the lack of extreme awkwardness that had been between them before, washed through him. Evidently they could be civil to each other when it was about police work, and likely not for any other reason. If necessary, Wyatt could spend the rest of his life with his relationship with his father being nothing but a cop-to-cop bond. He didn’t want to do it, but he could.
“Dad?”
“Uh-oh, what?”
“You don’t have to be like that.” Wyatt sighed. “This doesn’t have to be like that.”
“What do you think it’s going to be like? I quit my job. I couldn’t handle it.”
“You retired from the force.”
“Because after thirty years of dealing with it, I finally caught a case that chewed me up and spit me out. So I decided to be done. I quit, and you transferred because you couldn’t handle the fact that your old man couldn’t hack the job. You didn’t want to be around all the boys and gals, wondering if they thought you wouldn’t be able to hack it either.”
“That’s not what it was.”
Nina shifted in her sleep, so he got up and paced to his kitchen so as not to wake her.
“If you say so.”
“I like being a marshal. I—”
“If you say so.”
Wyatt glanced at the ceiling. “Will you let me finish? This isn’t about me proving I’ve moved on or that I’m doing better. You retired. Apparently, you’re fine with it. You caught the worst of cases, the one everyone dreads. Something awful happened. But do you know what I realized? I am like you. I’ve always been like you. And it hit me, because I’m so like you that I would have done the same thing. I did, faced with a case where the outcome didn’t sit right with me. So I transferred.”
“You wouldn’t have let that little girl die.” His dad’s voice was gruff. “You wouldn’t have messed up like I did.”
“I like that you think that, even while I don’t like it at the same time because I know it’s not true.”
“That makes no sense, Wy.” His dad chuckled.
“It’s not funny either.”
“Seems funny to me,” his dad said. “Funny a pair of cops can’t see what’s right in front of their faces.”
Wyatt glanced back at the couch. Was there something right in front of his face now? He remembered how it had felt to take care of Nina when she was so upset, that it had made him hurt just to see and hear it.
“Anyhow, your mom wants you at lunch on Sunday.”
“I’m in the middle of something.”
“Know that. I stopped by to see Tashi at the hospital today. Bring the girl with you.”
“Dad—”
“Nina, right?”
Wyatt glanced at the ceiling again. He really needed to clean up there. “I’ll call Mom. We’ll be there if we can make it. Things are pretty intense right now.”
“I got that. I’ve been looking into it. I’ll let you know if I connect anything.”
“Thanks, Dad.” And he really meant it. Another set of trained eyes—the eyes of a homicide detective—might help a great deal. They said goodbye, and Wyatt hung up.
He blew out a breath and went back to Nina. Things might actually be looking up finally. Mr. Thomas was out there, plotting who knew what. But in here, it was him and Nina, and whatever came next, she wasn’t going to face it alone. Wyatt was going to make sure that they faced it together.
Nina rolled over on the couch and opened her eyes. “What happened now?”
Wyatt only smiled. But before he could answer her question, his tablet started to ring with an incoming video call.