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He hesitates, shoving his hands in his pockets and frowning.
“Don’t worry, kid. I’m not going to make you relive the past. I want to talk about us.” I glance at the ceiling, then at him.
He nods and shuffles in, then settles on the barstool across the kitchen island. I wait for him to take a drink. He grimaces and exhales after swallowing, then his face lights up when the flavor hits.
“Wow, that’s good.”
“A gift from Chloe on Gwen’s birthday a couple months back. We pull it out for special occasions.”
“So does this mean tonight’s special?”
“You tell me.”
He squares his shoulders. “It’s pretty fucking special to me. I kind of don’t want it to end. I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface, you know? Like there’s so muchmore… more than I can conceive of. I want it all, but it’s scary too. Like the first time I attempted a high-dive.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, it’s like that. Scarier, in some ways.”
He lifts one eyebrow. “How does anything scare you? Aren’t you trained to jump out of planes and shit?”
“Yep.” I take a long swallow. “But nothing holds a candle to what I’m feeling now. And you were the catalyst. Your thirst for adventure kind of threw us both. We were in a rut. You shook us out of it, pushed us to look for more. I hope you realize you’re a part of it now. Part of us.”
“Whether I like it or not?” he adds.
I smile. “Whether you like it or not. But I sure fucking hope you like it enough to stick around.”
He takes a deep breath and stares into his glass, rotating it between his fingers on the countertop. Then he spears me with an intense look.
“I owe you an apology for shutting you out earlier, but I need to thank you for pushing. I think I needed it. I’m all-fucking-in, man. Body and soul.”
He raises his glass, and I raise mine. We clink them together, then drink, the weight of what we’re toasting hanging between us. It’s about more than just us, more than our individual feelings for the woman upstairs. We drink in silence for a few seconds, eyes still locked, so I know we’re likely on the same wavelength.
“When we find him, you know what needs to happen,” I finally say.
His jaw flexes and he holds my gaze, the fire in his eyes evidence that he knowsexactlywhat I mean. He doesn’t say the words out loud; he just nods and offers a grim smile.
“I’m right there with you.”
The three weeksthat follow prove the sincerity of Lance’s pledge. He nags his brother daily for updates, but results are slow to come. Ambrose has to use back channels to get access to the intel he needs, which mostly consists of security cam footage from around campus on the night of Gwen’s attack.
When he hits a roadblock, he calls me, and I head to the campus security building to see whether I can grease any wheels. I’m not above resorting to threats to get what we need, but it turns out the university’s head of security was on the Teams, and he sends the footage over to Ambrose after only a short conversation.
We narrow it down to faculty who had access to the building that night. After-hours, only those individuals with security badges can enter, though it’s always possible someone else snuck in. But the possibility of it being a stranger is slim, so I start scrutinizing every male professor who keeps office hours in the same building.
It takes another conversation with the security team to procure a list of people who actually used their badges that night, which narrows things down even more. Finally, Ambrose comes to us with a list of half a dozen names.
“If I give this to you, I need you to promise not to go vigilante on me, okay?” he says when he visits Gwen’s brownstone to deliver the list. She and Lance are both still on campus, and since he’s taken some of the load of sticking by her side off me, I opted to meet Ambrose alone.
“It never crossed my mind,” I lie, reaching for the thumb drive he holds.
He releases it, and it’s all I can do not to run to my laptop and open the files.
“I hope you know how much I’m putting my neck out for you three. But I can’t just start questioning these men without the chief nailing me to the wall for it, so this is where I need you to do more legwork. Try to engage these men in conversation when you can, casually steer questions to the day of the attack, gauge their reactions when you start to poke. If they start to sweat, that’s a good sign they’re hiding something.”
“I’m trained in interrogation tactics,” I tell him.
He narrows his eyes. “This isn’t a war zone; it’s a college campus. Nobody’s getting waterboarded.”
I scowl. “No one’s getting tortured.”
