Chapter 25 Grayson
GRAYSON
Igrip the steering wheel, wringing it of the frustration strumming in my veins.
The van is silent except for the occasional rattle of the surveillance equipment in the back.
Macy sits beside me, her arms folded and her gaze fixed out the window.
Tension radiates off her, though it has nothing on the fury bubbling in my gut.
She blew my cover.
She said my name to Cameron.
Although I feel compelled to request an explanation from her, my experience has taught me that reacting with anger is neither practical nor advisable when everything is balancing on a knife-edge.
Even though I am feeling anything but, I keep my voice low and controlled. “You had no right to mention me.”
Macy doesn’t flinch or glower. She doesn’t even look at me.
I hate that even more than her breaking my cover.
“We don’t have time to stall, Grayson. I needed to know if she recognized your name.”
“Did she?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
She recognized my name as much as she did my face, but instead of being honest, she annihilated any chance of an amicable reunion with brutal coldness.
Macy twists her torso my way, her eyes finally finding mine. A storm of emotions nearly hides the spark of defiance in her eyes. Regret, fear, jealousy—they’re all there, but so is a woman who knows how this game works and the best way to play it for a guaranteed win.
“She did. She knows who you are, and she is exactly who you said she was.” For almost three seconds, she wrangles with guilt before she blurts out, “But I didn’t get an honest truth from her. Not one.”
“Because she’s scared,” I defend, working the only excuse I have like a stripper works a pole.
“Perhaps.” Macy’s focus shifts back to the scenery whizzing by her window. “But she’s not running like a scared woman would.”
I almost murmur yet until I remember how long we stalked Cameron’s building, waiting for her to do precisely that. Through the brooch on Macy’s “forgotten” coat, we watched a handful of soap operas with Cameron before we trekked her stalk when she headed to bed a little after midnight.
As my agitation spikes, I’m tempted to scald Macy for acting recklessly, but I get it. Sometimes you have to push against the barriers to find the treasure hidden beneath them. I just wish she had told me her plans first.
Though I guess I didn’t give her much chance.
We make the trip home in silence. It isn’t the comfortable silence we shared while eating dessert last night. This is the silence of two people striving not to say or do the wrong thing. It is highly uncomfortable and unlike us.
When we reach the apartment, I park the van out front and kill the engine. Macy grabs her bag and heads inside without waiting for me. I follow while struggling to unravel the mess of the past twenty-four hours.
I’m hurt Cameron didn’t acknowledge that she knows me. My entire life’s work has been for her, yet she dismissed our months together as if they meant nothing. Her response has me worried that I’m looking too deeply into everything else and being more risqué than I usually am.
Inside the apartment, everything is quiet. Adeline cleared out hours ago, right around the time Macy returned to the van, red-faced but mute. She knew she was in trouble, but instead of instigating World War III, she maintained a quiet front, shunting the task onto me.
I didn’t immediately fight back, because I was so convinced Cameron would run that I had my ass in the driver’s seat and my foot on the pedal before Macy joined me inside the van.
Macy drops her bag onto the kitchen counter before rummaging through it. With a breathy sigh, she pulls out the sketchbook and charcoal Adeline ordered before she adds more details to Cameron’s sketch.
In silence, I profile her, trying to gauge her headspace. She’s shut down, all business as she outlines the features of Cameron’s beautiful face.
In less than twenty minutes, her picture comes to life before my eyes.
Macy’s talents are unsurpassed, although something is off with the image.
Something is missing.
“What happened to her mole?”
The pain in Macy’s eyes when she lifts them to my face cuts me raw. I feel like quitting, but if I don’t give this case my all, both of us will be disappointed.
Every woman we bring home frees another half-dozen.
I can’t forget those odds, and neither can Macy.
“She had a mole below her left eye.” A ghost-like smile spreads across my face, caught up in the fondness of a memory. “Anytime she blinked, her eyelashes touched it.”
Macy blinks in the way I’m recalling, dusting her gorgeous freckles with her long lashes, before she murmurs, “Freckles fade as we age.”
“Liar,” I whisper, bringing the unpleasant tension down a notch while sending the chemistry through the roof.
“These haven’t faded the slightest in almost thirteen years.
” I brush the back of my hand down her freckled cheek, doubling their hue while also staining them with a salty droplet her bursting eye couldn’t hold back any longer.
This is the first time she’s displayed hurt when my hands are on her, and it cuts my maturity to the rawness of a boy instead of a man. “Mace—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She angrily brushes away her tears before she digs her phone out of her pocket. “I’m just emotional thinking about how I will feel once I am in your shoes. That’s all it is.”
She’s lying, but I let it slide. Instead, I give her more reasons to consider how she’ll feel when we finally bring Kendall home. “You know this changes nothing, right? We’re working this case like we do every case because every woman we bring home—”
“Frees another six. I know,” she interrupts.
“Then what’s the issue? Why are you upset?”
I know why. I just can’t admit it out loud.
The fear of losing everything you know is debilitating. I’m still struggling to pull myself out of the rubble.
After encouraging eye contact, I say, “My objectives are the same. I promise you, they are.”
Her smile is authentic but weak. I’ll take it, though. I’d pick her smile over her tears any day.
After dipping her chin, which threatens to free a handful more tears from her soaked eyes, she logs into the photos app on her phone, peruses an image, and then screws up her nose.
“It must have been one of those fading freckles I’ve never had the privilege of owning.” She shows me an image on her phone. “See, no mole.”
When I remove her phone from her hand, wanting to zoom in on the area I’m referencing, Macy excuses herself to the bathroom.
Everything about Cameron is precisely as I remember. Her eyes, her lips, and her high cheekbones are there, but her mole is gone, erased from her face like she wishes she could erase me from her life, and her hair is as molten as Macy’s.
Needing to ensure I’m not mistaking the features of the only two women who have truly fascinated me, I enter the living room to gather Cameron’s file.
Printouts of her missing person flyers are in there.
They show her profile in precise detail—including the mole under her left eye.
It is proof I haven’t mistaken the tiny freckle high on Macy’s left cheek as one of Cameron’s features.
Why would the syndicate responsible for Cameron’s disappearance remove a detail like that? Moles aren’t like birthmarks. They’re not hereditary. Organizations like this prefer their merchandise to be perfect, but just like Macy’s freckles add to her appeal, Cameron’s mole also increased hers.
It makes me wonder if it was a deliberate act to hide her identity, which is usually reserved for people hiding in plain sight, not deep in the trenches of the trafficking conglomerate.
Confused, I dump Cameron’s file onto the coffee table before slouching low. I’m exhausted, but I don’t see rest coming anytime soon. More questions plague me now than the night Cameron was abducted.
My brows furrow when a quick scan of the room has my eyes locking in on a black dot on the wooden base of a side table lamp.
I forgot about the micro-recording devices I installed to snag Thompson.
That little camera has been recording and uploading footage to the bureau’s servers for days.
I positioned it where I did because it has a bird’s-eye view of the apartment.
It can see everything, and I mean everything—including Macy through the partially cracked-open bathroom door, haphazardly removing the tape I placed on her stomach earlier.
Fuck.
Not wanting to stomp on Macy’s privacy more than I already have, I peel off the micro camera, careful not to leave any marks on the lamp’s wooden frame.
The sticky residue holding it in place stubbornly clings to my fingers.
It feels gross against my calloused skin, so I can only imagine how frustrating it is for Macy to have layers of it coating the silky-smooth skin on her stomach.
After dumping the now-disconnected surveillance device in a pile of many, I grab a bottle of tea tree oil and some cotton swabs from above the refrigerator, then head to the bathroom.
“Need some help?” I push the door open a smidge more before jingling the tea tree oil.
Macy grimaces while picking at a stubborn strip of medical tape. Her frustration vanishes when she realizes what I am holding. “Yes, please. Anyone would swear you placed the tape on with superglue.”
When I join her in the bathroom, she attempts to remove the tea tree oil from my hand. I pfft her. I put her in this situation, so I’m responsible for getting her out of it. Right?
My morals are on board, but my heart doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. It is a swirling mess of confusion.
After kicking down the toilet lid, I sit before gently tugging Macy to my half of the bathroom. Her shirt is already bunched under her boobs, so I notch down the waistband of her pants until they sit as low as the tiny bow on her cotton panties.