Page 47 of Hunted in Hope Town

“Now, we should get dressed and start looking into Colleen, don’t you think?”

He eyed her dubiously. “Just like that?”

She smiled at him. “For now. I guess the rational place to start would be with the Chicago office. Is there someone there who might tell you why she left?”

“If Colleen is involved in this, it’s possible there were others in the office who are involved too. Who turned or whatever this is. I can’t just call up my old coworkers and see what they know. It’s too dangerous. Zach has already involved more people than I like.”

His fingertips moved up and down her shoulder, just like they used to do when they’d lay in bed together on a lazy weekend day they both had off work. Rare, but always a warm memory.

“What about Boyd Cavalier? You always trusted him. He was your best friend.”

Ellis was quiet for a while. “He was on a different undercover detail when you were hurt. Last I heard he’d transferred to Nashville, but we haven’t been in contact.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t call him up and catch up.”

“Out of the blue?”

“Sure. Friends fall in and out of touch. I think he’d understand why you might have retreated into yourself. He thinks I’m dead and you’re in Alaska, right?”

Ellis was frowning, but he nodded.

She moved out of the bed, began to pull the borrowed clothes back on. “And he would have reached out, right? He didn’t just…never talk to you again after you lost your wife?”

She could feel his eyes on her as she got dressed, but she focused on the task at hand. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than their old life back.

“No, he…tried. I never responded. I didn’t really know how to lie to him. Seemed easier to just cut him off.”

“So, call him up. Tell him the truth.”

Ellis sighed, tossing the covers off and reaching for his own clothes. For a strange moment, Kirsten almost felt…shy about watching him. Like she was Jessica again for a moment, but she only had to reach out for her memories to find them.

To remember she had seen this man in every state of dress and undress. They had explored every inch of each other for years. She knew every scar—well, not every scar. The exit wound on the back of his shoulder had happened right when she’d had her own injury.

He must have had his own serious recovery from that, and she hadn’t been there. Not in her own present mind. It hurt, but Ellis was talking to her in that FBI agent lecture way he had.

“The truth doesn’t solve everything, Kirsten. Not in this instance. Not with lives on the line.”

She knew he believed that. Had probably been trained to believe it. But she couldn’t. “I think, if there’s a very basic lesson to be learned from everything that happened, it’s that…holding ourselves back and not helping each other, not trusting each other to be there when we needed each other, emotionally, has to be some kind of lesson.”

“In our relationship, maybe, but this is essentially an investigation. You can’t trust anyone in undercover work.”

“Except your team backing you up. You trusted Boyd to be your backup during that one case. What was it? The human trafficker? He was your best man at our wedding. We need someone who can look into Colleen without it leading anyone back to Hope Town, don’t we?”

He sighed. “Well, you sure didn’t forget how to be stubborn.”

She smiled at him. “I think I’m going to really lean into it.” She sobered a little. “I can’t go back to who I was two years ago. I don’t think you can either. Things have changed. Life has changed. But there’s still enough of who we were, what we felt, to build something new.”

“Once we take care of this threat.”

“Then call Boyd, Ellis.”

He reached out, put his hands on her shoulders, gave her a squeeze. His gaze was pained, and she could see the ghosts of the past two years in his eyes even if they weren’t the same for her.

“Your life is on the line again,” he said very seriously. “I failed you last time. I can’t again.”

She frowned. Damn him and his superman complex. “You didn’t toss me over a balcony, Ellis.”

“I wasn’t there. I took this case when I shouldn’t have. You can’t talk me out of blaming myself for everything that happened.”