Chris was completely nuts.
Had he just promised to protect this woman and her child, regardless of the consequences? The words had left his mouth before he could stop them, and he was still totally dismayed at the attraction and protective feelings he was developing toward Eleni. He wasn’t looking for a relationship. And even if he were, getting involved with a victim from a case was strictly taboo.
And what about Katie? He didn’t want to be around children. In fact, every child reminded him of the dead little girl he’d lost during his last case, and caused an ache in his heart that was nearly debilitating. Good grief! He wasn’t even sure he would still be an FBI agent next week. He was still going back and forth about whether or not he could even do this job anymore. He gritted his teeth, strangely nervous about his vow, yet for some reason he couldn’t or didn’t want to identify, he couldn’t bring himself to immediately take back the words.
Eleni squeezed his hands, then led him back over to the couch and ended up sitting beside him. Her hands were warm again, and he found himself enjoying her closeness. Suddenly, despite her fear that the letter had invoked, she was now the stronger one, and he could tell that there was no way she was going to let him off the hook without an explanation. She turned and their eyes locked. “I heard what you said, and I truly appreciate your attitude, but I also see this look on your face that is somewhere between terrified and horrified. Do you want to explain?”
He didn’t. He hadn’t even shared his feelings with Tessa, who was like a big sister to him. There was something about Eleni that drew him closer, despite his misgivings and concerns. He couldn’t explain it. He didn’t even want to analyze it. All he knew was that he felt at ease with her, as if he could talk to her and she would listen without judging him. He hadn’t felt that camaraderie and compatibility with anyone else in a really long time. The sentiments made no sense to him, and scared him on a totally new level. He’d only known Eleni for a few days, and had only spent a small amount of time with her. How could he feel this way about someone that was virtually a stranger? Still, he couldn’t deny the peace he felt just by being around her. She exuded strength and joy without even trying.
He backpedaled anyway. He wasn’t ready for these feelings. He didn’t want to even admit they existed. It was better for both of them if he just packed them away and locked them up, deep in his heart. He was a mess inside. That last case had thrown him for such a loop, it was no wonder he didn’t know if he was coming or going. It wasn’t fair to offer anyone more than he could give, and once they solved this case, they would each go their separate ways. She would return to her life and her daughter, and he would return to...return to what? The career that he wasn’t even sure he wanted anymore? Turmoil twisted inside of him.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he finally acknowledged. He scooted farther away from her, and she noticed, but didn’t comment. “During my last case, a little girl was kidnapped and murdered. I’ve had bad outcomes before, but nothing like that. Now I’m not even sure if I want to stay in law enforcement. Maybe I’m not cut out for this type of work. I don’t know.” He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Either way, I shouldn’t be making any promises right now. Especially those I can’t keep.” He grimaced. He couldn’t leave it like that either, steeped in uncertainty. “Look, I can tell you that for the next two days, I’m going to do everything I can to figure this out. If you have been targeted, and it certainly looks like you have, then we need to stop the perpetrator before he tries to hurt you again...or hurts anybody else.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment or two. Then she smiled at him. “Are you hungry?”
He blinked. Had she just drastically changed the subject? He tilted his head, trying to read her. “Yes, I guess. I kind of skipped lunch when I was running around Chicago, looking at store surveillance tapes and trying to find you.” He glanced around the cabin. “Do you have anything here to fix? This place isn’t exactly on the Magnificent Mile.” In fact, they were out in the boonies, at least an hour away from Chicago, and he hadn’t passed any stores or restaurants during the last thirty minutes or so of his trip out to find her, so he doubted there was much to choose from if they needed to find a place to eat.
“Of course. I was planning on staying here for the weekend, so I brought food with me, but if you’re wanting a Michelin star meal, you’ll be sadly disappointed. I was thinking of just whipping up some pancakes. Can you handle that?”
“Got any bacon?”
She put up her hands and tilted her head with an expression of disbelief. “Of course!”
“Deal.” He stood. “First things first. I need a plastic storage bag to put that letter in. As soon as I get back to town, I’ll take it to the lab to have them check for fingerprints, although I doubt there will be any. If the sender was careful enough to avoid writing anything so we couldn’t identify the handwriting, he or she was probably careful enough to wear gloves.”
“Agreed.” She stood and moved over to the kitchen, then rummaged around in the cabinet until she came back with a zippered storage bag for the letter. A few minutes later, she was stirring the pancake batter in a ceramic bowl, and he had secured the letter and gotten it ready for the lab. “You can fry up the bacon while I get these pancakes going. It’s in the fridge, and the pan is under the sink.”
He followed her directions, and soon had the bacon sizzling on the stove. The small cabin was suddenly permeated with wonderful cooking smells, and he took a deep breath, letting the comfort food soothe him. He flipped a couple of pieces over, watching her surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye as she poured batter on a small griddle. “So, you let me off the hook pretty easily a few minutes ago.”
She glanced in his direction, but kept her focus on the pancakes. “Yes, I did. I’m really glad you told me about that case, and I’m so sorry you had such a horrible outcome. What you told me actually explains a lot of questions I’ve been having the last few days. Since I first met you, I’ve gotten the impression that Katie and I make you feel uncomfortable. Now I understand why. I didn’t want to make you feel worse by asking you a lot of questions when you clearly needed some space.”
“I appreciate that.” He moved the bacon around in the pan some more, still uncomfortable and not wanting to look her in the eye. “But as long as I’m baring my soul, I should probably admit that I’m attracted to you, and it scares me to death.”
She smiled, but again kept her focus on the pancakes. She must have sensed intuitively that he was still struggling, and he appreciated the fact that she was giving him time to work through his thoughts.
“Why are you scared?” she asked gently.
“Because my last relationship didn’t end well, and my entire future is up in the air at this point. That last case has me reconsidering my entire future.” He shrugged. “I’m not any grand prize anyway.”
She laughed. She actually laughed at him! He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He wasn’t used to being laughed at, and actually hadn’t laughed himself in quite a long time. He frowned, thinking back over his words. “Is what I said really that funny?”
She finished pulling the pancakes off the griddle and turned off the power, then turned to face him, her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding? Good grief, Agent Springfield! You’re one of the most attractive men I’ve ever met. I know at least a dozen women who would love to settle down with you if you gave them even the slightest indication that you were interested.” She smiled, even though he knew he had a look of abject disbelief on his face. What she was saying couldn’t be true. He was too big, too awkward, to attract anyone of Eleni’s caliber. He knew that. Maybe she was just being kind. She reached out and gently touched his face as she continued, “You’re a strong and professional man with a wonderful future in front of you. I realize you’re going through a rough patch right now, but you’ll work through it, and come out better on the other side, whether you stay with law enforcement or not. That’s just the type of person you are. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
She was touching him again. But even if she wasn’t, he would still be frozen in place by her words. Attractive? Him? He’d always thought of himself as an oversize grizzly bear, graceless and shy, especially around women. And she’d only known him for a short time. How could she make such bold statements?
“You’re burning the bacon.”
“Oh!” He quickly stepped back to move the pan off the burner and turned the power off, then used the tongs to take the bacon out and lay it flat on a plate covered with paper towels to drain. “Sorry.” He’d never met someone like Eleni, who was so transparent, so honest. He certainly didn’t have to wonder what she was thinking. He liked that. Her next words even further convinced him.
“Look, I feel the attraction between us, too. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. But I’ve lost so much in the last year, that it scares me to even consider going down that path.” She looked over at him again, but this time her gaze lingered. “But I hope you understand, my hesitance has absolutely nothing to do with you. Does that make any sense? I know I probably seem like this tough, aggressive reporter that’s not scared of anything. But I’m actually afraid to fall in love again. I can handle a lot, but I don’t think I could manage losing someone else I care about.” She moved the boxes away from the table, then grabbed the plate of pancakes and carried them to the table. “I guess that’s why I’m so driven to protect Katie. Losing her would destroy me.”
Chris brought the bacon over as well. Once again, he was surprised by her words and her plain speaking. “You’re tougher than you think. And what does the Bible say? ‘I can do all things through Christ.’”
She raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re a Christian?”
He smiled. “I am. You?”
“Me, too,” she said, as she handed him an empty plate and some silverware. “Maybe we should both take your advice, and let God take care of the hard stuff. I pray and try to give things to Him, and then a few minutes later, I end up grabbing the stress and worry right back. I’m not very good at ‘letting go and letting God.’”
“I do the same thing,” Chris replied. “I find myself struggling the most when I forget to include God in the equation.”
It was her turn to smile. She brought over two glasses of ice water, some syrup and butter, and then sat and motioned for him to take the other chair. “So now that we’ve both acknowledged our feelings, where do we go from here?”
He sat, then reached out his hand so they could pray before eating. “Well, I can always use another friend, and if we’re going to be working together to solve this mess, that seems like a pretty good place to start. Why don’t we just focus on that?”
“Agreed.” Eleni nodded and took his hand. “Let’s pray and eat, friend!”
Chris blessed the food and the two dug in, neither one shy about filling their plates. Eleni had done her best to put the big FBI agent at ease, and it seemed to be working. She could tell he was still struggling, but the issues that were bothering him didn’t have a quick fix. She was honored, though, that he had given her a glimpse into his pain. He’d also seemed truly shocked that she found him so attractive, and she was glad that her words had helped heal even a little of the emotional scars he carried. It was obvious that neither one of them were in a place to act on the attraction that existed between them. But the man was hurting, and if she could do anything at all to help him, she wanted to do that. She reached for another slice of the crispy bacon and smiled. It was still edible. A little overdone on the edges, but edible.
The awkwardness and electricity that had been sizzling between them lessened, and had been replaced by a comfortable camaraderie. It was good to know he was a Christian. That meant a great deal to her, and she was glad she’d shared her own relationship fears with someone who had similar beliefs. It gave their friendship a good foundation that they could both build upon.
“So tell me about your husband, Charlie Townsend,” Chris asked between bites.
Eleni shrugged. “Sure. What would you like to know?”
“Anything. Everything. I’m trying to find any link at all between your family and the murders. Even the smallest detail might help.”
“Well, we met in college, at Loyola University downtown, to be specific. I was a scholarship kid focused on journalism, and his major was business. We graduated the same year, and then he went on to get his MBA while I started working at a small publishing house. After Charlie got his master’s, he got a job in real estate, and stayed at the same company until his death. He handled residential properties, never commercial. He never had any complaints and wasn’t involved in any shady dealing or lawsuits.” She took a sip of water. “We’re pretty ordinary people, Agent. That’s another reason why this whole thing is so strange. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt any one of us.”
Chris sat back. “The only thing that strikes me as a possibility is your work on your last exposé. But as you said, if they wanted revenge or even to stop your work, the timing of these recent attacks just doesn’t make sense, and then Charlie’s death wouldn’t be involved either.” He pushed a piece of pancake around in a puddle of the syrup on his plate. “You know, sometimes, we don’t know what we don’t know. I wonder if you, Charlie and Katie saw a crime or something else that looked ordinary enough at the time, but the perpetrator doesn’t want you to make any connections. They could be moving proactively to take you out of the mix so your testimony could never come back to hurt them.”
Eleni grabbed the last piece of bacon and gave him a sheepish grin. He smiled and motioned for her to keep it, so she took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s possible, I guess. But I really don’t remember anything odd or out of place happening in the last few weeks, or even before Charlie died.”
Chris’s cell phone rang, and he stood and took the call, taking his empty plate over to the sink as he spoke to the caller. Eleni could tell it was a business call, so she busied herself with clearing the rest of the table and starting the dishes. It didn’t take her long to finish, and she went to the pantry and pulled out two empty brown paper bags, then sat down at the table again and pulled out a handful of papers from the top of the closest of her mother’s boxes. She sorted through them, putting the papers that needed shredding in one bag and the items she wanted to keep or look at a second time in the other. This first handful of paperwork was old phone and electric bills, and she was quick to dump those in the recycle bag. She had no idea why her mother would have saved these in the first place, but she couldn’t think of a use for them, and the accounts had been closed upon her mother’s death, so getting rid of them all seemed like the smart move.
A few minutes later, Chris returned to the kitchen area, stowed his phone and sat back down. “Good news! Because of the chemical makeup of the cyanide that was used to poison everyone at the restaurant, our lab was able to track down the manufacturer, who just provided us with their sales receipts. We have a suspect. His name is Henry Jackson, and he started working at the restaurant about two months ago as a dishwasher. Apparently, he was using a fake name and social security number at Marino’s, which is why his true identity didn’t pop up in our initial inquiry.” He smiled inwardly. “I owe our tech guy a gift card for Chick-fil-A. He’s the one that noticed the discrepancies and discovered the problem.”
“Chick-fil-A?” Eleni questioned.
“Yep, he’d eat there every day if he could. I wouldn’t be surprised if he moonlights there on the weekends.”
Eleni laughed. “Probably the best money you’ll ever spend, right?”
Chris smiled in return. “You bet.” He stood. “I’m going to head into town and join in the raid. Are you game?” He glanced at his watch. “If we leave now, we’ll miss the arrest, but we can walk through the perpetrator’s apartment and see if you notice anything that might tie him into the case.”
He was actually going to let her come along! She jumped to her feet. “You bet,” she said, repeating his earlier words.
He grabbed the plastic bag that had the letter inside. “I also want to get this to the lab ASAP. If it had Jackson’s fingerprints, we’ll be halfway home with this case.”
Eleni couldn’t believe it. Chris Springfield was not only going to share information with her, he was also going to let her accompany him back to Chicago and walk through the perpetrator’s apartment. “Thrilled” didn’t begin to describe her excitement. Finally, it looked as if they might actually have a lead that could help them figure out this mess. Then she could bring her daughter home, and life could return to normal once more.