Chapter 3
MACY
As Grayson enters the bathroom, I take a deep breath while uncovering the bulletin boards I’ve been working on for months.
He’s the same man I’ve worked with previously, yet different.
At first, I didn’t recognize him while trying to unearth the identity of the agent Markwell had keys cut for, careful not to ruffle the curtains blocking the panoramic ocean views.
Grayson’s hair, once in a man bun, is now cut short, and there are a few more lines on his handsome face. Both are signs of the years that have passed since we last saw each other. But when he spun to take in a break in the picture-perfect ocean, my pulse raced.
Though his appearance has changed, he is still the Grayson I’ve been infatuated with for thirteen years.
The years have been kind to him.
I can only pray that they’ve been as nice to me.
I’m skeptical. The covert operation I’ve been conducting for a year and a half is intense, and the stakes are higher than ever. With Grayson joining me, however, I am optimistic for a positive change.
Alex, the head of the Criminal, Cyber, Responses, and Services Branch, and Grayson’s brother, made a wise choice in assigning Grayson to this case.
Grayson is the top pick for investigations like this.
He can think from both the victims’ and the assailants‘ perspectives, and his unorthodox methods have led to an impressive success rate.
Agents still discuss his role in bringing Katie Bryne back stateside after nine years of captivity, and I’m praying he has the skills to solve a thirteen-year abduction.
I make my expression neutral when the bathroom door creaks open, even without the toilet flushing. The rattling pipes in this building are impossible to ignore. They could wake the dead.
As Grayson approaches the dining room, his eyes sweep the bulletin boards I covered with white sheets when I heard the tapping of boots on wooden floorboards. They house hundreds of surveillance images and blueprints of suspected target compounds.
Last month, Markwell accused me of including more details in these reports than the ones I’d provided him with during the brief sharing of intel. His accusation was justified. He kept things from me, so I returned the favor.
Although my paper trail is meticulous, it is also a tangled web of deception I’m worried will take me down with it.
Is that why Grayson has arrived? Is he here to help me unravel the mess before it swallows me whole, or will he rip it from my hands?
God, I hope it is the former.
I like Grayson. I’ve had a crush on him for over a decade, and my fascination stems primarily from his ability to empathize with victims’ families and his knack for knowing the right thing to say.
He was the only person who listened when I told him my fears that Kendall had been abducted and had not run away, as the other agents and officers had suggested. He made my worries feel valid and helped me have a voice when everyone else was silencing me.
If he hacked his empathy along with his hair, my crush will be squashed like the roach I found eating crumbs in the kitchen last night.
In silence, Grayson absorbs the information in front of him. His blond brows furrow more the longer he drinks everything in. Deep down, I understand he’s here to help, but I can’t stop worrying that I’m in denial. Not solely about the case, but also the secret I can’t hide for much longer.
I am weeks from giving birth, and I’ve not prepared a single thing.
The thought of becoming a mother is as daunting as the uncertainty surrounding my sister’s disappearance.
Thirteen years have passed since Kendall vanished—years filled with searching and hoping for a miracle.
Our parents stopped looking a month after she disappeared, believing she had run away. But I refuse to give up.
I blink back tears of gratitude when Grayson puts on his agent’s hat instead of his interrogator’s cap. If he were planning to remove me from my post, he would have gone with his usual “bad cop” ruse.
He shouldn’t be able to pull off that ruse so easily, but his acting skills will surprise you if you ever sit across from him in an interrogation.
“What have you got, Agent Machini?”
My sigh of relief is silent even before a ton of words swallow it.
“I’ve narrowed down the list of suspects to three main areas.
” On a map, I highlight the locations in question.
Despite the bureau’s belief that the housing and murders of these women are occurring out of the country, only one area crosses geographical boundaries.
“Although the nature of the business appears to be trafficking, they’re not solely trading sex. ”
“Babies?” Grayson predicts, on the money.
I make an agreeing gesture, then continue.
“And not solely manufactured ones.” I leave Grayson speechless when I spread files for five Jane Does across the dining table.
“Unlike these victims”—my hand hovers over the files Grayson must have taken from Markwell’s office—“these females only have one C-section scar.”
“So someone stole their babies from their wombs?”
Again, I nod.
Though this isn’t the right time, Grayson shifts our conversation where it needs to go so we can move past it.
“Is that what that is about?” He nudges his head to my stomach.
His nonchalant way of referring to my pregnancy doesn’t bother me.
I’ve not accepted that I’m pregnant yet, so how can I expect anyone else to?
“It looks real, Mace. It feels real, too.”
I wet my lips whilst swiveling to face him.
“That’s because it is.” I hate his deep exhale, but I’m relieved it loosens the tension enough for me to speak honestly.
“The prime suspect at the beginning of our investigation was an IVF specialist. Allegedly, the patients he couldn’t help conceive naturally didn’t want a random baby.
They wanted a child of their own, so Dr. Valdemar helped them find a surrogate. Rarely was the surrogacy voluntary.”
My grinding teeth ring through my next set of words.
“After selecting their prime pick, the couple’s eggs and sperm were in vitro fertilized into their surrogate.
They didn’t use donors. I went undercover at Dr. Valdemar’s clinic as a woman seeking conception without a partner before her motherhood clock rang out.
” My laugh is the only dishonest thing in my following statement.
“I’m not getting any younger, so it was an easy ruse to pull off.
” I speak as if I’m already forty instead of nearing it.
Two months ago, I celebrated my thirty-eighth birthday.
“I went through with the procedures, believing both the egg retrieval and insemination process would fail because of my age. When that occurred, I could request one of Dr. Valdemar’s highly sought-after surrogates.
” I stare Grayson straight in the eyes. “Neither the retrieval nor the implantation failed. I conceived during the first round of IVF.”
“So you shifted your focus to these victims?” With a hook of his thumb, he highlights the women who had their biological children stolen from their wombs.
Dark locks brush my back when I disagree with his assessment.
“I took the morning-after pill and continued my assignment as planned with my team. It was during a second appointment with Dr. Valdemar that I learned Plan B isn’t one hundred percent accurate.
” Guilt hardens my tone. It is the same shamed tone I used when I tried to brush off Grayson’s worry that one of our fellow agents had sexually assaulted me years ago.
“I thought I could have it taken care of, but…”
I barely choke on a sob I’m struggling to contain when Grayson moves to where I am quicker than a bolt of lightning brightening a moonless sky. His brisk strides whip up a smell that shouldn’t register as familiar after such a prolonged stint of absence, but does.
His support opens the floodgates—as it always does.
“I’m not getting any younger, and since I have put so many years into finding Kendall, I thought maybe I could have something solely for me.
It is selfish, and I feel horrible, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk into the clinic.
It was a lot harder than swallowing a pill in front of my male colleagues. ”
I can’t stand the tears welling up in my eyes—I despise them—but they nearly spill when Grayson’s calming voice cuts through the sob I’m struggling to contain. “That’s okay, Mace. It’s okay to want something for yourself.”
“Is it?” My voice is as raw as my heart feels. “Because it certainly doesn’t seem okay. I have no idea where my sister is, and even though I should be doing everything possible to bring her home, I got emotionally invested in something that doesn’t even belong to me.”
Grayson balks as if I slapped him. He’s mistaken my confession to mean that I used surrogate sperm and eggs. That wasn’t what I was referencing. I meant the joy my unborn child should give me but that I am reluctant to accept.
When you suffer a loss, you don’t just grieve what you lost. You grieve the life you will never live.
I’ve not been in a relationship since Kendall’s disappearance.
I have never given a man the chance to steal my focus away from her case for even a second.
That’s how three years slipped by between our last visit and our reunion.
But I’ve also never considered how fast the clock above my head was ticking until I stared at the jellybean-shaped blob on the ultrasound monitor in Dr. Valdemar’s office.
I hate my selfishness that day months ago, though I doubt I’d change anything if I could go back. This pregnancy, although unexpected, is my only chance at happiness.
Though unprofessional, and I’ll wallow in its pity for hours later, a childish tear topples down my cheek when the honesty of my statement smacks into me.
I brush it away, but I’m not fast enough for a skilled marksman like Grayson to miss.
He snatches up my wrist before I can assure him I am fine and pulls me into his chest like he did three years ago when I took the murder charge for a man snowed under with the grief I caused.
Maddox would have never killed Agent Moses if I hadn’t made out that the vehicle he was driving caused his only love’s death.
He had loved Demi for years, and I should have known better than anyone how painful it would be to set aside that type of obsession as if it meant nothing.
I’d done it for years before my ruse, and I am still doing it now.
I wanted to tell Grayson for months that I’m pregnant, but I chickened out every single time. Over two-dozen unsent emails sit in my drafts folder.
There’s one difference between Maddox and Demi and Grayson and me, though.
Demi reciprocated Maddox’s feelings. Grayson never has mine.
I shouldn’t be shocked. He’s the beloved golden boy of the FBI and drop-dead gorgeous.
He could have anyone he wants. On a scale of one to ten, Grayson is an eleven, and I’m… me.
After giving me time to settle the wetness in my eyes I’m praying like hell Grayson will allow me to blame on hormones, he asks, “How long have we got?”
He says “we” with so much possessiveness that excitement burns away the last of my tears that his shirt didn’t catch.
Don’t mistake what I’m saying. My response isn’t personal.
I’m still wearing my agent hat. I worked my ass off on this case, and I was terrified the agent brought in to force me into maternity leave would steal it out from under me.
When I inch back and peer up at Grayson with glistening but leak-free eyes, he clarifies, “How long do we have until you can be selfish without feeling guilty?”
My cracked lips part as I fight to bite back a grin. I should have realized he’d understand my guilt better than anyone else. I’m certain he has experienced similar, though I don’t have the foggiest idea how comparable our stories are. I am not important enough to be that privileged.
Grayson raises an eyebrow, impatiently waiting for an answer.
I swallow the nerves bubbling in my stomach. “Six weeks, give or take a week.” My due date is approaching, yet given that I skipped all the appointments the receptionist scheduled following my scan, the date may have changed.
“Six weeks?” Grayson whistles as if he’s the father-to-be fretting over an upcoming delivery before he scans the mountains of paperwork in front of us.
“Then I guess one of us better order pizza while the other accepts the offer of paid maternity leave that landed in their inbox ten minutes ago.” He hits me with a frisky wink while dumping a crinkled twenty into my palm. “I like my pizza without pineapple.”
I laugh, and for a minute, everything feels right again.