Page 93 of Wells

"Covington, so a lot less busy than here. You're born and raised in New Orleans, right?"

I keep breathing through the constriction that starts low and climbs. "Yeah, for the most part. Left for college, lived outside the city until my dad died, but close enough that I was around a lot. I never got too far away."

"I bet it was a great place to grow up. So much to do and see."

"I can't complain. How did you end up in New Orleans?"

She shrugs, the motion quick and dismissive, already pulling back from what she offered.

"I needed to get out of Covington. I came for a job."

She takes another sip of her drink. The straw rattles against the ice. She doesn't elaborate, and I don't push.

"Maybe you can show me where you grew up sometime. I've never been to Covington."

She nods. "I'd like that. We should make a day of it. There's a cool gator hatchery there. I haven't been in years, might be fun to check out."

"Absolutely. That is one thing I can say I've never seen."

She locks her arm in mine and rests her head on my shoulder. I like this, the two of us in the daylight, more than anything that ever happened behind a screen and a mask.

I pull in front of the valet stand of the Black Orchid, the lounge bar my dad treated as a second office. It's still where Vin spends most of his non-working hours.

The sun hits the windshield at an angle that makes me squint. My phone is dark on the passenger seat.

I could leave this alone. Ridge told me to drop it. The case has already eaten a year of my life. But Dane's account sits on one side, Vin's memory on the other, and between them is a gap I can't close without asking questions that might fracture something I've built my life around.

The morning with Cera lifted something I've been carrying about all of this. I stood in the sun and moved through shapes I didn't know my body could make and enjoyed being with her, with no threads to trace through portals, no screens, no bank records or phone logs to pull apart.

But those things are my life. I might enjoy experiencing things with her, but I can't completely shut all of this down.

I pull my phone and message Vin.

You here yet? Just pulled in.

The reply comes just as the valet opens my door.

Already in a booth. Ordered you a bourbon.

I step out of the car and hand him my key.

Vin looks up from his phone as I approach the table. He's in a collared shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his phone in one hand and a glass in the other. He stands to greet me.

"Wells."

He extends his arm and offers a firm handshake. His expression is calm, patient, the way it always is when I walk in with something tangled.

"What you got that was so urgent to meet on a Saturday night? Couldn't wait until Monday?"

Vin is into restoring antiques and has turned into a sort of hermit. He doesn't like his weekends to be disrupted because that means he has to pull himself away from his workshop.

"Something's come up with Dad's case, and I wanted to run some of the details of that night by you."

Vin's mouth tightens. He exhales through his nose.

"Ridge told you to drop it, Wells. You can't let that keep weighing you down. It's been over a year now."

"I know what Ridge told me."