37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
There was a lump in her throat. No matter how much Kathleen swallowed or tried to clear her throat, it wouldn’t go away. It made her feel nauseous, and she struggled against the sensation. She couldn’t afford to fall apart.
She pulled on gloves and began a thorough ransacking of Michael Milford’s house as Finn carried the unconscious bodies of the two Aides outside. Any storage media, phones—with the battery pulled out—files, photos. She shoved it all into a tote bag hanging off the back door, the whole time studiously ignoring the body on the floor.
Her training told her to call it in. It wouldn’t be hard to stage things to argue self-defense. There might be some heat from internal affairs, but her track record would weigh in her favor, and Michael Milford—as far as all records were concerned—was a nobody.
That wasn’t why Kathleen hesitated, though.
It wasn’t Michael Milford that concerned her as much as the group he worked for. She barely even knew what Command did or how deep their roots went. It would be safer—for Finn and for her—if Michael Milford’s death was not associated with them.
He had to disappear.
Kathleen packed a bag of his things, including toiletries and clothing someone would take on a hasty trip out of town. What to do with the body? There were plenty of places where one could hide a body and not have it discovered for decades.
“Kitten?”
Kathleen didn’t know how long Finn had been trying to get her attention. She was even less certain what her face told him when she looked at him. Whatever it was, his expression tightened in response.
“Let me take care of this for you,” Finn said.
The words had that old feeling of ‘I will protect you,’ and Kathleen balked instinctively. “He has to disappear.”
“He will,” Finn said quietly. “This is what I do.”
The implacable tone in his voice made her take a beat. Finn watched her with a patient, expectant air. He was asking, not telling. Exhaling, she let the tension drain from her. She could accept help from him.
Kathleen tried to swallow away the lump in her throat. “Okay.”
Finn’s gaze turned toward Gibson, seated at the kitchen table, bent forward, his head resting on his hands. He had regained consciousness not long after the fight finished, but he still didn’t have his normal color.
“You should take Gibson home,” Finn said.
Kathleen’s heart constricted. Was he leaving her again? “Where are you going?”
“It’s better you don’t know,” Finn said. “I’ll come and find you.” His voice turned softer. “Promise.”
Her throat closed up. She would not cry. She would not. Kathleen injected some anger, and she thought she almost—almost—covered up the quiver in her voice. “You left and didn’t come back before.”
Finn’s brow creased, a troubled weight settling on his features as he moved before her. “I know. I’m sorry for that.” His fingers ghosted over her skin as he traced a path from her forehead, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m not good with… words. I can’t really explain how sorry I am. All I can say is I won’t leave you again. Not by choice. I promise you. I’ll always make my way back to you.”
Kathleen desperately wanted to believe him, but it was more than she could deal with right now. She was exhausted, covered in the blood of a man she had just killed, and she just wanted to go to the place she felt the safest.
"Is it safe? For me to go home?"
Finn’s fingers dropped from her hair as he glanced sideways, his jaw tightening. "Handlers work independently. They certainly don't share their failures. I'm not sure what Milford told Apollo's Handler to get his help, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near the truth. He certainly wouldn't have talked about you, for fear someone else could've used you to get at me and undermine him."
"That sounds exceptionally paranoid."
"Yet useful for us."
The crease in Finn’s brow deepened when she said nothing more, and Kathleen’s heart tightened. She caught his hand between hers before he could withdraw. She couldn't leave the words unsaid this time. “Come back to me when you’re done, and we’ll figure things out.”
He looked down at her, relief steadying his gaze as his fingers squeezed hers before releasing them. Finn walked to Gibson, helping the detective to his feet, the pair moving ahead of her.
“I guess this means I have to grudgingly approve of you,” Gibson muttered toward Finn.
Kathleen wondered if her partner was aware she was right behind them or just didn’t care.
Finn said nothing.
“Because if you hurt her…” Gibson continued before pausing as they reached his truck.
Finn looked at the man with a tilt of his head.
Gibson sighed heavily. “You’re supposed to take that as an implied threat. I can’t actually say it.”
Finn shrugged. “Sorry. I have no idea how these things work.”
Gibson grumbled and slid into the passenger side, grimacing.
Finn shut the door behind him, gave her a look full of reassurance, and walked back toward the house. Kathleen wanted to say something—thank him, reassure him—but the words stuck in her throat. She wondered if it was like that all the time for Finn.
She wondered when she would see him again.
Instead of lingering on that depressing thought, Kathleen climbed into the truck and drove off. Despite the concussion she thought he had, Gibson firmly rejected her offer to take him to the hospital. She knew why. That would involve answering questions neither of them was prepared to answer.
“Besides,” he said with a knowing smile as he exited the truck in front of his house, “I can call Sally and have her come baby me. That’s the beauty of being hurt. Someone gets to look after you.”
Was that a pointed comment at her? Judging by his knowing grin, definitely. Kathleen made a face.
Gibson chuckled. “Look after my truck, Harper.”
Driving back to her building felt strange. Or rather, Kathleen felt strange, out of balance. She remembered little of parking and going up to her condo. Everything, including her mind, was on autopilot.
How much of her life was real? Were her parents actually dead? Did she actually grow up in foster homes? Was all the awful stuff that happened to her a figment of some sick Command scientist’s mind?
The one person who might have given her answers—even if it was just to taunt her—was dead. She knew how carefully Command protected itself and guarded its secrets. As much as the knowledge made her want to tear apart Command and demand answers, the chances of getting any, let alone anything satisfying, were minimal at best.
She couldn’t tell if the tightness in her chest was anger, frustration, or resignation.
Kathleen might have been standing in the middle of her kitchen for minutes or hours. The faint scent of blood brought her back to awareness. She was covered in it. Stirred by a sudden, urgent need to be clean, she stripped out of her clothes, careful to bundle them all into a plastic bag.
Twisting the taps in the shower, she stepped into the scalding heat. The clear water turned bloody, and with it, the lump in her throat present since Milford’s death finally burst.
Kathleen rarely cried. In her youth, cycling through a series of foster homes, she had grown to associate crying with weakness. She realized it wasn't solely that, but she had trained herself so well to resist the urge that it rarely became overpowering.
As if in response, the emotion that flooded her felt like a rushing dam of sorrow and guilt. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying. Her body shuddered, and she brought her hands over her face, leaning against the shower wall as the tears spilled out of her.
“Kitten.” Finn’s voice was barely audible over the rush of the water. The mix of shame at him witnessing this and the relief that he was here made her sob harder.
Of course he heard her over the sound of the water, even as muffled as it was. The door opened, spilling cold air in as he stepped under the spray of water, fully clothed.
Through teary eyes, Kathleen frowned. “Your clothes.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, pulling her against his rapidly drenched shirt.
Kathleen took an uneven breath and leaned into him, reveling in his warmth as her fingers curled into his shirt. “I know I shouldn’t cry for him. I know what he did to you. What he made you do.”
“You’re not crying for him. You’re crying for you. And it’s okay to feel.” Finn touched their foreheads together, his hands wrapping tightly around her, enveloping her. “You taught me that. He taught me that emotion was weakness. But it’s not.” His hand traced a slow path down her bare back and up again, a soothing gesture. “It makes us human. And that’s more precious than anything.”
Kathleen let him hold her until the last of the sobs died in her throat. When she finished, his hand stroked over her hair, and he eased away. He chuckled when she murmured a protest and reached for the shampoo. She let her eyes close as he worked the liquid through her hair with his fingers. It was incredibly soothing, but it was far more than that. Gibson was right. Letting someone look after her was something special.
By the time Finn replaced the shampoo with conditioner and washed that away too, the tension that had been in her gut for days was gone. She felt relaxed, and it had nothing to do with being clean, or with being home.
It was him.
Finn was her home.
He guided them out of the shower and toweled her dry. It must have shown on her face because he paused, the towel wrapped around her, his big hands holding it closed.
“What is it?” he asked.
Kathleen didn’t have the words, but she didn’t need them. She felt the corners of her lips curve upward as she pushed up on her toes. She brushed his lips with hers and saw his eyelids flit closed and open again, filled with a desire that dilated his pupils.
Despite that, he resisted with visible effort.
“Let’s get you dry and into bed,” Finn said.
Kathleen’s hair was still damp enough that she raised a protest in the back of her throat. It was half-hearted, though, because her eyelids were heavy, and the soothing motion of his hands guiding the towel across her body was absurdly comforting. She let her weight fall forward, leaning into him.
“I’m soaked,” he said with audible exasperation. “That can’t be comfortable.”
“Don’t care.”
He huffed with amusement, scooping her into his arms. Pressed against his chest, it felt like she was floating.
She didn’t remember him setting her down.
Kathleen woke as the sunlight brightened the edges of the room around the blinds. She was totally relaxed and pleasantly warm, and the reason for both was the very sexy, naked—or at least mostly naked—man in her bed.
Her head rested on Finn’s bare chest, the rise and fall of it hypnotic. With effort, she lifted her head—to find his warm blue eyes were already watching her.
“Morning, kitten.”
“Hi,” Kathleen said, and she could feel a scratchiness in her throat.
The intimacy of waking in bed together felt so much bigger than mere sex, and it made her throat even drier.
She croaked a syllable, and Finn passed her a glass of water, helping to steady it as she sipped, claiming it back from her when she was done.
“Have you been awake long?” she asked.
“Awake, and desperate to hit the bathroom, but I didn’t dare disturb you.”
“What?” Alarmed, Kathleen drew herself upward, but he laughed, pulling her back down.
“I’m joking,” Finn said, his arms enveloping her. “I enjoy listening to your heartbeat when you’re asleep. It’s soothing.”
“That’s kind of creepy,” Kathleen said jokingly, but she relaxed, settling her cheek against his warm chest. “I think I need to get a white noise machine for the bathroom so you can’t hear me pee.”
Finn was quiet for long enough that she wondered if she’d said something wrong. She turned her head, resting her chin on his chest. His expression was contemplative, blue eyes sharpening on her as he became aware she was studying him.
She knew Finn struggled with expressing himself, so she tried to be patient, even though her gut felt tight at the thought of what might be going through his head.
“Are you asking me to move in?” Finn asked.
Kathleen’s brain blanked for a moment, and she replayed the conversation in her head. She wasn’t, but… the idea of losing him again, of not spending every moment she could with him felt wrong. “I don’t know what time we’ll have. Whether Command will come and bust down the door and take you from me. But whatever time we get, I want to spend it with you.”
“So… yes?” His half smile had a teasing quality to it.
She would deny to the ends of the earth his words brought color to her cheeks. “Yes,” she whispered.
His thumb traced over her cheek, and then slid into her hair, urging her forward.
Just as their lips were about to meet, he halted. Finn’s throat visibly tightened as he swallowed, eyes lowering. “I’ll make it up to you, for leaving.”
“Yes,” Kathleen said. She felt a promise of later pooling heat between her legs. “You will.” She smiled as her finger traced his jaw, bringing his gaze back to hers. “But you can start with breakfast in bed.”
Finn laughed, and this time, when he leaned forward to capture her lips, she let him.