Forty-two hours later, Molly’s plane touched down at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on a sultry, late-summer afternoon.
Thirteen weeks into her agreement with Josiah. Over four months after the death of her husband. She was fourteen weeks pregnant.
Two plainclothes detectives from the Atlanta PD met her as she deplaned. One of them, a world-weary man in a gray suit, introduced himself as Frank Williams. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sullivan.” His tone was polite as he eyed her with a penetrating gaze. “I’ve got two uniforms appropriating your luggage from the airline. If you would kindly come with us to the police station.”
“Of course.” She kept her expression closed to scrutiny, her voice calm. “I expected as much. That’s why I called you.”
The drive to the station was riddled with pleasantries. How was her flight. Had she missed the Atlanta summertime. The air felt like pea soup today. Frank liked sweet tea on a hot day. His partner, Molly believed his name was Rubio, drove in silence. Apparently Rubio didn’t feel the need for pleasantries.
Neither did she. She stared out the window at the scroll of familiar scenery and answered questions when they were asked. At the station, they took her into an interrogation room and tucked her luggage into a corner.
Was she under arrest? No, of course not, but Frank didn’t mind if he said so himself: he thought it was exceedingly odd she would disappear for such a significant amount of time when her husband had just died and so many personal issues were unresolved.
Could she tell them what happened the Saturday night her husband died?
Would she mind going over that again?
They just needed a little clarification… Could she narrow down the timelines in her story a bit more?
She told them a deeply edited version of what had happened and stuck to it no matter how often they circled back around to question various points.
What happened the night of the doomed party. How she had emptied out the house safe when she left.
How Austin had found her at the hotel and chased her into the elevator. How she had filed a restraining order, hired Nina, found a place to stay, filed for divorce. She had given her hard copy of the Seychelles file to Nina, whose office files had burned in the fire, but she had kept a copy of all relevant documents in a zip file in her email account.
She left out any mention of Josiah completely. Funny. He was the most important part of it all.
Her composure cracked when she told them about the attack. Her memory had grown foggy on the details. (True enough.) She got away from Austin, drove her car back to the Airbnb rental, and realized she was in way over her head and needed to disappear.
True, true, and true. After spending months under Sarah’s tutelage, she knew the importance of telling at least some version of the truth. Even if they weren’t aware of it, many people had a rudimentary truthsense.
“About that,” Frank said. “How did you disappear so completely?”
At that point she stopped feeding them information. “I don’t have to explain that,” she said. “I felt like my life was in danger, so I did what I needed to in order to hide and survive.”
They didn’t like that, so they circled back around again, taking turns and questioning her for several hours. She asked for water and bathroom breaks when she needed them. Her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, but she did have to pee a lot.
At one point, they brought her a cup of coffee that she left untouched, and later a sandwich from a fast-food place. She ate some of that.
As far as why she stayed away for so long… she had heard the news that her lawyer had been killed and her husband had died.
Frank had stepped out for a moment, so Rubio asked, “Why didn’t you come back when you first heard the news?”
“Because the money in that offshore account didn’t appear out of thin air,” she said flatly. “And Austin attacked me for a reason.”
“Had he ever been violent with you before?”
“No.”
“Where do you think the money came from?”
As Rubio asked those questions, the door opened and Frank returned, followed by another man who redefined the room when he stalked in.
The newcomer wore dark slacks and a white shirt that was open at the throat and rolled up over the arms. He had a muscular, spare frame and moved like a wounded panther, limping slightly, his hard face expressionless. His amber, catlike gaze sparred with hers.
She had been leaning forward, elbows on the table. Now she sat back to tuck her hands underneath the scarred tabletop to hide how they shook.
Her hungry gaze soaked in details. He’d lost weight since the last time she’d seen him. He looked leaner. He looked mean.
Mottled bruises marred his deeply suntanned skin. A new scar slashed along the knife-edge of his jaw, curving around to the back of his neck to disappear into his collar. It looked as if…
Abruptly, she pressed her mouth hard with the heel of one hand. It looked as if he had almost been decapitated. Her stomach heaved. While she hadn’t suffered any morning sickness, for a moment she thought she might vomit up the few bites she had eaten of the chicken sandwich.
The two detectives didn’t notice her reaction. They had focused on the newcomer. Rubio looked shocked. “DA Mason. Good to see you. We hadn’t heard you’d been released from the hospital, or that you’d already returned to work.”
“I left the hospital this afternoon. Officially, I’m on medical leave.” Josiah turned the laser beam of his attention away from her to focus on the two detectives. “But I’m making an exception for a few special cases.”
“I see. Well…” Rubio gave Frank a look that clearly said now what?
Frank responded with an infinitesimal shrug.
Josiah’s hard gaze swung back to Molly. “Mrs. Sullivan, I was one of the guests at the party the night you and your husband had difficulties.”
Hearing her name spoken in his deep voice after so many weeks was like touching a live wire. He was so angry at her. He hadn’t tried to speak to her telepathically. She didn’t dare reach out to him either. Her control felt precarious enough as it was.
“I remember.” She met his gaze steadily.
“Frank has filled me in on things.” Josiah crossed his arms. “If you were so afraid for your life that you’ve stayed away all this time, what made you come back now?”
You. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. I had no way to find out. Hospitals don’t give out information to anyone other than family. I had only the news to watch.
She waited until she could speak again without losing her shit. “I was tired of waiting and wondering when it might be all right to claim the life I deserve. I decided I needed to have my questions answered about what had happened more than I needed to hide in safety. That I needed more than anything else to confront this.” She spread out both hands, indicating him and the two listening detectives.
His cold expression hadn’t warmed in the slightest. He said to the detectives, “Go grab some coffee.”
“But, sir…” Under the pressure of Josiah’s icy stare, Frank’s protest fizzled into silence. He muttered to Rubio, “Come on. Let’s do as the man says.”
As they filed out, Josiah pulled out the chair across the table from Molly and sat. Holding her gaze, he deliberately put his hand over the recorder that was stationed in the middle of the table and switched it off.
What was he doing now?
Even as she opened her mouth to ask, he said, “The audio might be turned off, but the camera isn’t. They’re watching everything you do.”
“Understood.” More than anything, she wanted to reach out to touch him. She clenched her hands together under the table. “How will you explain wanting to talk to me without the recorder on?”
“I’ll tell them the truth, that you’ve been my CI and you’ve given me what information you had that’s pertinent to another investigation. They won’t like it, but they’ll have to accept it.” Anger blazed in his expression. He said fiercely, “The only reason I’m not biting your head off right now is because you look like shit.”
“Likewise, because you do too,” she muttered. Her gaze fell and skewed left to the new scar, and sudden wetness blurred her vision. “How are you walking around after an injury like that?”
“Magic. My coven called in a trauma specialist who arrived in Atlanta this morning.”
She folded her arms and gripped her elbows tightly. “But how are you standing upright? You shouldn’t be out of the hospital, not after an injury like that. I don’t care what kind of magical healing you’ve had.”
“As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’m still in the hospital.” He planted his fists on the table and leaned forward, the knuckles showing white. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re weeks early.”
A fine tremor shook through her. Pulling out her phone, she activated the screen, scrolled to the call log and held it up at an angle that allowed him to see but obscured the view from the camera mounted high in one corner. “Two days ago, you woke me out of a sound sleep around four a.m. Then I couldn’t get in touch with you. All I got was an error message.”
His hot gaze dropped to the phone, and the muscle in the side of his jaw tightened. She must have dialed Josiah’s number a hundred times, only to listen to the same message over and over.
The number you are trying to reach is not in service at this time.
The phone trembled in her hand. He looked like he might leap across the table at any moment. He said tonelessly, “I lost my phone in the crash.”
“Hospitals have telephones.” She whispered so she wouldn’t shout. She wanted to hit him. “You didn’t call. Not even to leave a message.”
His expression tightened. “I couldn’t. I wasn’t conscious until this afternoon. When I got back to my place and looked through my work emails, Frank had emailed to say you had called and were on your way back to Atlanta. I got here as fast as I could. You shouldn’t have come, Molly.”
She had been eviscerated two days ago. Now her raw emotions spilled out. “Your accident made national news. Did you know that? I scoured every online news service I could find, but none of them offered any real updates. All they said was that Atlanta’s district attorney was fighting for his life after being in an accident involving multiple vehicles. Staying away was not an option.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” he hissed.
Her lips went numb. “Somebody tried to kill you?”
“That’s why you shouldn’t have come back.”
The words blasted her. Feeling buffeted, she flinched and then jumped up to pace erratically. “I don’t care. I don’t care. I’m done with this shit. You woke me up. You were trying to say something. Then your presence settled on the bed, and I could see the outline of your body. You looked like you did in New Orleans when you would lay beside me, only you were transparent.” Backing into the corner underneath the camera’s pitiless lens, she shouted, “I thought you had died!”
He sprang up, knocking his chair back, and launched at her. Pushing her against the wall, he leaned the length of his body on hers. Tears spilled over as she felt his taut, muscular length pressed against her. His scent was strange, overwhelmed with something antiseptic.
She knew so much more now about how to read a person’s Power and physical state, and she used those skills to scan him. His Power was seriously depleted, his body under tremendous strain as he recovered from massive injuries.
But his heart, that sturdy, good heart, was still beating strong.
He buried his face in her neck. “You didn’t catch what I said?”
Her arms locked around his waist. “No,” she said hoarsely. “I was sound asleep, and whatever it was shot by too fast. By the time I had woken up enough to figure out something had happened, you’d fallen silent. Then you faded away.”
“I said I love you,” he whispered. “I should have said it before. I shouldn’t have waited until impending death dragged it out of me. You were talking about your mother, remember? You said she’d always been a bitch to you, but she was getting elderly and you wanted to be available in case she changed. I thought, how like you to be so loyal to someone who doesn’t deserve it. I’d fallen in love with you long before then, but that was the moment when I knew for sure.”
She released a shaky breath. “I love you too, but you sure don’t make it easy sometimes.”
“I will,” he said into her hair. “I swear it.”
She snorted. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I’m keeping this one. Sometimes you’re too loyal for your own good, and sometimes I hold on to my promises for too long. I should never have asked you for more time. It was easy to risk my life when I was the only one involved. Then it became unbearable.”
“I understood.” Her fingers couldn’t stop roaming the expanse of his wide, tense back. “It made me frustrated and angry, but I got it. You’ve had other people depending on you, and you were right—you wouldn’t be the kind of man I would want to be with if you could abandon them so easily.”
“Fuck this fucking camera,” he muttered viciously. Shoving away, he stalked around the room like a caged animal, then rounded on her. “Go back to California.”
She shook her head, mouth grim. “That genie’s out of the bottle.”
His eyes flashed yellow fire. “It isn’t. You flew back under your own name. That leaves your new ID intact. We can get you out of the city, to another airport.”
“I’m not leaving.” God only knew what their watchers were gleaning from this furious confrontation. She walked toward him but stopped with her back to the camera, keeping her expression obscured, because God only knew what it revealed. “I meant what I said. The agreement we made has blown up in our faces.”
He slashed at the air with a hand. “That’s not acceptable!”
“I don’t recall asking for your permission.” She searched his expression as his anger boiled higher. “You said it wasn’t an accident.”
“It wasn’t!” he snarled.
The sick feeling returned to the pit of her stomach. “What happened?”
“I got T-boned,” he bit out. “Twice. First on one side, then on the other. If I hadn’t already started to swerve and accelerate, I would have been crushed. I threw the communication spell to contact you just before impact.”
She felt the blood leave her face again. “Who did it?”
“The two trucks are licensed to a local shipping company. We know they were stolen, but our seer said there’s a direct connection between the drivers and our quarry. She said he’s here everywhere she looks. The drivers disappeared. We collected what evidence we could find, swabbed the steering wheels, and now we’re searching through law enforcement databases to see if we can find a match.” His mouth tightened. “Milaya, you need to reconsider. You’re a corroborating witness.” His fists opened and closed while frustration twisted his features. “Right now my magic is more depleted than it has been in decades. I can’t protect you.”
“I didn’t ask you to. I thought you were dead.” At his expression, she rubbed her face and reached for patience. “I didn’t return without taking precautions. This time you’re going to have to trust me.”
* * *
Josiah stared at her in angry incredulity.
The time when he had pressed against her had been all too brief. Every raw, stressed cell in his body screamed for more contact. But as desperate as he was to touch her again, he had to confront this reckless, dangerous naïveté.
“You’ve gotten a couple of months’ training under your belt, so you think you can handle whatever might come your way?” he said harshly. “I never would have guessed you’d be that naïve.”
“I’m not!” Anger made her eyes flash with blue fire. “Give me some credit here.”
The door opened, and Frank and Rubio walked in warily.
Frank said, “Everything okay, chief?”
Josiah rounded on them, his expression savage. “I’m not finished.”
“Too bad, because I am,” Molly said. She looked at Frank. “I contacted you, and I’ve just spent several hours cooperating with you fine gentlemen and answering your questions.”
“Actually, that’s not quite true.” Frank raised his eyebrows and scratched at his chin with a thumbnail. “We still have a few questions you’ve refused to answer.”
“Is that so?” she snapped. “Tough shit. You don’t have cause to hold me. I’ve done nothing wrong other than leave my affairs in a mess, which may be irritating, but it’s not illegal. I’m not responsible for spoon-feeding every detail of my private life to you, especially when it doesn’t have any relevance to your case.”
“Says you,” Rubio remarked.
She glared at him. “And it’s not my job to speculate about what may or may not be going on. That’s your job.”
Verbally, she was on fire, but Josiah suddenly realized how dark the circles were underneath her eyes, how brittle the damp sheen was in her blue gaze. She had been through hell these past few days.
He needed to take her in his arms again so badly he had to turn away.
He was so close to blowing their subterfuge. For a blinding moment he couldn’t think of any reason to continue with it. Almost he opened his mouth to spill everything and lay claim Molly and the baby. It would feel so damn good to finally say it.
If he did, it would shoot him to the top of Frank and Rubio’s suspect list, but who the hell cared? He had alibis all over the damn city with the emergency responders he’d talked to throughout that endless Saturday night. He might need to go on administrative leave until he was cleared, but the DA position didn’t mean shit to him anymore.
Both he and Molly were already in danger. They should be together. Face whatever came next together.
One thing stopped him. His injuries, and the subsequent healing, had taken every ounce of stamina he had. He was only standing out of anger, fear for her safety, and sheer, bullheaded determination.
And while the danger to him had made its presence known loud and clear, so far only he, Frank, and Rubio knew that Molly had returned to town.
Trust me, she had said, but damn, that was hard to do when her life, along with the life of their baby, was at stake.
“She’s right,” he said to the detectives. “This has gone on long enough. Wrap it up for tonight. Will you give her a ride to wherever she’s staying?”
“Yeah, we can do that,” Frank replied.
Josiah pivoted to confront her angry, exhausted face. “If you can provide us with a copy of the Seychelles bank statements, I’ll consider that enough cause to believe there’s a credible threat to your safety. Can you do that before you go?”
Her mouth tightened, but she replied readily enough, “Absolutely. Like I said, I’ve got copies stored in a zip file in my email account. All I need is a few minutes with internet access.”
Frank said, “We’ll stop at my desk on the way out.”
Josiah reached out telepathically. <I’ll get a new phone first thing so I can apologize for being an asshole. I’ll use the same number.>
Her expression softened, and the damp sheen returned to her eyes. <Forget about the damn phone for now. Just go somewhere safe so you can get some rest. It hurts to look at you.>
<I would not leave you, milaya.> Josiah held her gaze. <Not for anything, except right now you’re better off without me.>
Her mouth worked. She shook her head but didn’t try to argue.
“Are… we done?” Rubio asked, looking cautiously from one to the other.
“We’re done,” Josiah said. “At least for the moment. After you get a copy of the zip file and verify everything, have a squad car stationed outside wherever she stays tonight. I want a police presence on her twenty-four seven. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” replied Frank.
Josiah leaned back against the table, ostensibly to wait as the others left, but mostly because he wasn’t sure his legs would hold him up any longer. His body ached all over, especially in his hip and neck where he had taken the most damage.
Molly wasn’t fooled. She gave him a grim look as she followed Frank. Rubio was the last to leave and wheeled her luggage out.
When Josiah was alone, he rubbed the back of his neck and let his shoulders sag. He’d broken into a light sweat from the effort to stay upright.
But his night wasn’t over yet. He had to convince his coven that watching over Molly was the right thing to do.
He could hear their arguments already, and they were all valid points. Right now they were stretched too thin. They had other urgent matters to attend to, like following leads from the crash site as quickly as possible before they went cold. And protecting Molly wasn’t in their mission.
But keeping watch for any suspicious activity that might happen around her… that might just sell it to them.
After catching his breath, he pushed upright and limped out. As he passed through the squad room, Molly sat at a desk while Frank leaned over her. Their attention was focused on the computer screen in front of them.
As Josiah’s gaze lingered on the pair, she sat back, and Frank let out a low whistle. “I thought my inbox was bad, but yours takes the prize. People cared about what happened to you.”
“I guess they did,” she said. Her voice had gone husky with emotion. “There’s the zip file.”
“I’ll take it from here,” Frank told her. Once she moved out of the way, he palmed the mouse. A moment later, his eyes narrowed, and he straightened. “Okay lady. Like the DA said, looks like you’ve got a credible threat.”
Josiah didn’t wait to hear more. He stopped by the scheduling desk to see if he could catch a ride from a squad car. The desk sergeant assured him they could take him back to his apartment, and he limped outside to meet the patrolmen.
Half an hour later, when he unlocked his front door and walked inside, he found his coven waiting for him. All of them.
He gave their tense, unhappy faces a thoughtful look as he limped over to the nearest leather armchair and eased into it with a grunt. Everything in his body hurt.
“What?” he said.
“What are you doing, running around all over the place?” Maria strode over to glare at him point-blank. “You nearly died. The specialist said to take it easy!”
He closed his eyes. Gods, what he wouldn’t give for the chance to simply rest until he woke up naturally. “I know.”
“You can’t keep pushing yourself like this. Maybe the crash didn’t kill you, but a heart attack could.” She squeezed his hand.
“I need a new phone. Then I’ll go to bed, I promise.”
“I’ll get you one,” Steven offered.
Josiah nodded his thanks. “What else? You didn’t gather here because I ignored doctor’s orders.”
Anson said grimly, “I’ve been sensing magic sparks. Several discernible ones have appeared throughout the afternoon and evening.”
He raised his eyebrows and looked at Maria. “People?”
She nodded. “I think so. They haven’t appeared all at once, and they haven’t converged, but I think there’s a gathering of some kind going on. I mean… other than us, of course. We’ve gathered too.”
His breathing suspended as he absorbed the news. “Are they friendly or unfriendly?”
“That’s unclear.”
“Do they connect to our mission?” Richard asked.
At that, she didn’t hesitate. “Very much so.”
“Doesn’t sound very friendly to me,” Henry muttered.
“We need to take turns keeping watch,” Josiah said. “See what kind of activity occurs and if we can get a lock on their locations.”
Anson said, “Agreed.”
“I regret I can’t help with that at the moment,” Josiah told them. Sick exhaustion dragged at him, and he raged against it.
“Nothing’s more important than you recovering your energy ASAP,” Henry said. “We need you for whatever comes next.”
“Agreed,” Richard said.
He didn’t have any other choice. The sooner he recovered, the sooner he could reunite with Molly to face whatever came next. Damn the subterfuge and the lying. He was done.
But there was one last thing he needed to attend to before he could fall into bed.
“There’s something else you should know,” Josiah said. “Molly’s returned to Atlanta. She heard about what had happened to me, and she was worried I might have died. So far the only people who know she’s back are the detectives working the case surrounding her husband and, of course, me. I went to the station to see what was going on. They were questioning her this evening.”
He paused to look around, gauging their reactions to the news. Richard glowered. Anson and Maria looked noncommittal. Henry wore a more skeptical expression. As always, Steven looked friendly. It was his go-to face. That and his heavy-framed glasses camouflaged his dangerous, lightning-fast brain.
Then Maria sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I would have flown back too if I were her.”
“We need to keep watch on her too,” Josiah told them.
“To do what, exactly?” Richard asked. “It’s not our job to babysit her.”
“Hold on now,” Henry interjected. “We have the arrival of unknown magic users, Josiah’s been attacked, and now Molly’s here. It’s all got to be connected. I think we should take turns keeping watch in her vicinity. And Josiah shouldn’t be left alone either, not until he’s back on his feet.”
“I agree on both counts,” Anson said. “Josiah and Molly are our two known hot spots. If things are reaching a boiling point, it’s likely they’re going to boil over in either one of their directions.”
Steven pushed his glasses up his straight nose and smiled. “And also! Since we’re all together and Josiah didn’t die, I have news too. I broke the encryption on the data we stole. We now have a full client list from Sherman & Associates.”