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NINETEEN
Chandler met with Peter Scorlini at a small café not far from the prison where Peter worked. The man looked the same as Chandler remembered from his youth—tall, broad, alert eyes, and polite smile. There was more gray in his hair now and a small paunch around his waist, but the man still looked as if he could take out a defensive lineman if need be, which probably came in handy at his job.
He’d gotten there before Chandler and stood as Chandler approached. “Looking good, son. The SEALs suited you well.”
“Thanks.” Chandler shook his hand and slid into the opposite side of the booth from Peter. The café was a typical greasy spoon, packed with locals and abuzz with the sounds of conversation and food frying on the grill in the back. A waitress brought them waters and took their orders—just coffee for both. Once she’d left, Chandler got down to business. “So, please tell me you have some good news for me. I could use it about now.”
Peter winced, sitting back as the waitress poured coffee into his white mug before doing the same for Chandler. She left a silver pot for them on the table to serve themselves afterward. “Yeah,” Peter said. “I heard about the fire on the news. That’s awful. I hope your client is doing okay.”
“She is, more or less. She’s shaken by it all, of course—but she’s strong. Resilient.” Amazing. Gorgeous. Images of Eden as he’d left her, tangled in the sheets of his bed after making love to her, flooded his mind before he pushed them aside. This was business. No room for emotions here, no matter that keeping them separate for him was getting more and more difficult. He cleared his throat and frowned into his coffee. “What did you find out about Ross and his visitors?”
“There was one person, actually, who showed up over and over these past few months,” Peter said, leaning closer as he lowered his voice. His gaze darted around the place before he continued. “Look, this information is confidential. If it gets out that you heard it from me, I could lose my job, Chandler. Promise me you won’t rat me out as the source.”
“I promise. Not a word from me about you,” Chandler vowed. “Who was it?”
“Guy named Terry Ross.” Peter sat back, cupping his mug between his large hands.
“Terry Ross?” Chandler scowled. The name was familiar. Had come across it when he’d run the background check on Jeff. Terry was his older brother—the one he’d assumed wasn’t in touch with Jeff because of how young they’d been when they were separated. If he remembered correctly, Terry was the older one. He’d been seven when their parents had died, compared to his brother, who had been five. Huh. He hadn’t ignored the thread of the brother, but a quick search had made it seem like there wasn’t any overlap between the two. There’d been nothing in the public record tying them together. No crimes committed by the brothers, no shared addresses listed.
Nothing.
Well, shit.
Part of him was pissed at himself for not digging deeper into Terry from the start. But the other part of him felt marginally better. At least he’d have some good news to share with Eden when he got home. They finally had a lead. A good one, that might get them somewhere on the case and hopefully relieve some stress for poor Eden.
“Can you do anything with that?” Peter asked, waving the waitress off when she came to check on them. When Chandler nodded, Peter mustered a smile. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “I need to get back. Took part of my lunch break coming here to meet you, but I’ve got a meeting with the warden I can’t miss.” He slid out of the booth and stood. Chandler did the same, dropping a few bucks on the table to cover their check, plus a generous tip for the server. They shook hands again and Peter gave him an awkward bro hug. “Please say hello to your dad for me and let him know I’ll be calling soon. It’s been too long since we got together. And remember what you promised.”
“I will.” Chandler thanked him again, then they went their separate ways. He got in his car and waited until Peter pulled away, still thinking about the case. He was glad they’d met, and he was even more glad to have a name to track down. Except, Chandler knew the best thing to do would be to turn the information he’d gotten over to the police and let them handle it—bring Terry in for questioning, see if he had an alibi for the time of the fire, see if his height and build matched what was captured by the security cameras.
But he couldn’t, not when the only reason he had Terry’s name and knew of an ongoing connection between the brothers was because of information Peter had given him. Information that could get Peter in serious trouble. It was possible the police were looking into Terry already…but if they weren’t, there was nothing Chandler could do to put them on his scent.
If only he could just dive in and solve the problem himself. Track down Terry. Confront him. Throw him in a jail cell next to his brother and make sure he couldn’t hurt Eden ever again. As a SEAL, Chandler was used to handling problems directly. But dammit, he wasn’t a SEAL anymore.
Shit, shit, shit.
Chandler sighed and rested his head against the seat, staring up at the ceiling of his car. For someone who prided himself on always completing his mission, it felt like an epic fail. He allowed himself to wallow for approximately thirty seconds before pulling himself together. There was a lot he couldn’t do. A lot of ways in which his hands were tied. But dwelling on them wouldn’t help anyone. What mattered was keeping Eden safe and getting her to testify so they could put Jeff Ross behind bars for a long time, where he belonged. When the trial was over, Terry would no longer have anything to gain by going after Eden—and then, hopefully, she’d finally be safe.
And sure, it was frustrating as fuck for him to have to run down the clock like this, unable to do anything but wait to see when the next attack might come. He wished he could do more. Wanted to do more. God, he’d loved those “save the day” moments when he was a SEAL, swooping in like a fucking superhero and taking out the bad guys in a single bound.
But he was a civilian now, and this life had a lot more boundaries. Superheroes were undercover.
Instead of going back to his house right away, Chandler stopped by the agency instead. He’d done a quick search back at the start, but now he wanted to run a full background check on Terry Ross. He wasn’t surprised to see it turned up several brushes with the law for Terry, though not nearly as many as his brother, Jeff. There were pictures of the guy too, which would help them keep an eye out for Terry. He definitely matched the height and body type of their arsonist—though he knew that wasn’t exactly a smoking gun. Still, Chandler printed those out, thinking maybe they might help jog Eden’s memory.
Then Chandler headed home to tell Eden what he’d found out. When he walked in, the smell of baked cheese and garlic made his stomach rumble. He locked the door behind him and reset the alarm system before taking off his coat and sniffing the air. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Hey,” Eden said over her shoulder from where she was working at the kitchen counter. “I got done with my meeting with the insurance adjuster early, and he seemed pretty confident the claim would move quickly, so I thought we’d celebrate with some of the frozen lasagna you had on hand.”
“Yum.” Grinning, he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing the nape of her neck and peering over her shoulder to see what she was working on. “Anything I can help with?”
“Not really,” she said, chopping veggies and tossing them into a large salad bowl nearby. “I’m just waiting on the lasagna to finish baking, then I’ll stick the garlic bread in for five minutes and we can eat.” She fed him a bite of carrot and ate one herself before putting the knife in the sink and turning to kiss him properly. Already, things between them felt so comfortable and domestic and nice. It kind of felt too good to be true. He kept waiting for something to go wrong. When she pulled back, Eden tilted her head. “Did your contact have anything for us?”
Right. The case. That was where his focus should be at present. Not on how perfect she felt in his arms. Chandler let her go, walking over to take a seat at the breakfast bar while she got the garlic bread ready for the oven. “He did.”
Eyes wide, Eden stared at him. “Great!”
“Yeah. Turns out Jeff Ross has had a regular visitor lately. His older brother, Terry.”
“Seriously?” She blinked at him. “I mean, we knew he had a brother, but it didn’t seem like they were part of each other’s lives and… Damn. Why didn’t we dig more into that?”
“I asked myself the same thing.” He got up and walked over to his jacket and pulled out his phone, loading up the images he’d saved. “Here’s Terry Ross’s mug shot. Do you remember seeing anyone like him from right before your accident?”
Eden came over and scowled down at the photos on the phone. A beat stretched out into two as her eyes narrowed and her brows knit closer together. “No. Dammit. The night of the accident is still a blur. I wish I could remember.” She turned away and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I wish… God, it’s so frustrating!”
“I know.” Chandler gathered her close again, running a hand up and down her back until she relaxed against him. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll still get to the bottom of this,” he whispered into her hair. “We’re making progress.”
“Are we?” She sniffled against his chest. “Because I don’t feel so sure right now.”
He agreed, though he’d never say it. He’d hoped maybe seeing the guy’s face would spark something for Eden, something they could take as evidence to the cops and get Terry arrested, but nope. So, they’d wait. Wait and watch and pray justice was served, and Eden’s memory came back in time.
