Chapter 17
Rowan remained in the shadows of the many mausoleums as he followed Adalyn at a distance. She’d argued with him about coming to this meeting, but he wasn’t letting her do this alone. None of them were. And it made him crazy that her first instinct was to handle things by herself. He wanted to be someone she leaned on, counted on.
“I see him,” she murmured, her voice low through the earpiece.
A slight rain had started, more mist than anything. He pulled the hood of his jacket up, the dark color of it only helping him to blend with the shadows. There were a handful of lights in the place, but no active groundskeeper. This particular cemetery was walled in and they’d had to pick the lock of the main gate after shifting one of the spotlights away from it. When they left, they’d return the light back to its original position.
He peered around the big concrete slab of the mausoleum, saw Adalyn hug a man half a foot taller than her. The same one from the pictures Hailey had pulled of Detective Rory Collins.
Adalyn’s high school boyfriend.
And not at all the reason he’d insisted on being her backup on the ground tonight. Nope.
She shoved her hands in her raincoat as she huddled next to one of the mausoleums with the man. “Thank you for meeting with me so quickly.” Her voice was crystal clear through the earpiece.
“Of course. How’d you get in anyway? I used the side entrance and didn’t see you.”
She just shrugged.
“Ah,” he finally said. “So what’s going on? And what kind of help do you need?”
“Just like that? You’ll help?”
“You wouldn’t have reached out if you’d thought otherwise.”
Rowan found himself irrationally annoyed at the man. For…reasons.
“True enough,” she said on a laugh, her body language relaxed.
Which told Rowan a whole lot. She could act when she needed to and was good at her job. Former job, specifically. But he didn’t think she was acting now. There’d been a hint of softness in her expression when she’d talked about the detective and told them she was meeting up with him.
“Do you know who Omar Ali is?”
“The name is familiar, yes.”
“Okay, good. I believe he’s the one who wants me dead because he thinks I had something to do with the death of his cousin, Bes Ali. But he wants to kill anyone close to me or anyone who matters to me before he kills me.”
“Jesus, Addy.” The man scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re sure?”
“No. I’m not sure of anything at this point, but he’s a good suspect. And I believe he’s currently in town. Since he normally splits his time between Miami and Cairo, I’m playing the odds that he’s combining this trip to New Orleans with a little revenge. Especially since…” She held out her phone. “I received two texts from different burners with…see for yourself.”
The man cursed as he looked at the images, then the video on her phone. “The bombing could have been a lot worse than it was, I heard.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched tight. “Something went wrong though and the secondary trigger didn’t go off.”
Yeah, they’d heard the same from Tiago’s friend the fire inspector. The secondary device was supposed to have brought the entire building down and likely would have affected nearby buildings and people with the projected blowout.
“Do you know who’s on that case?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. Detective named Fitzroy. He’s working with the fire inspector, guy named Kayce Laurent.”
Adalyn didn’t betray that she knew any of that, simply nodded. Okay, so clearly she wasn’t telling this guy everything, just seeing how knowledgeable the detective was. Rowan wasn’t sure why he cared one way or another. (He definitely knew why he cared.)
“So tell me what you know about Ali,” she said as he handed her phone back.
The man shoved his hands in his own raincoat, shrugged. “That’s a different division than me, but I’ve heard the name mentioned. We’ve got a small team that works with ATF so that’s who would know anything about Ali.”
“Do you know anyone on that team?”
Sighing, the handsome bastard nodded. “Yeah.”
“Could you potentially reach out, tell him you heard from a CI that the Feds are watching Ali, moving in on ATF’s turf? You might be able to get some intel that way.” She cleared her throat. “Then relay it to me.”
Even from a distance, Rowan saw the man’s body language change. “You’re sure about the Feds involvement?”
“Yep.”
“Freaking Feds, never checking in with us,” he muttered. “They’ve taken over three of my cases recently.”
She just waited as he stewed on that.
“So I’m assuming Fleur is safe if you’re here meeting with me?” he finally asked.
“Of course.”
“Good.” The man nodded, and the silence between them stretched before he cleared his throat. “She’s talented. I’ve been by her gallery a few times, usually when I’m working a job in the area. She gave me a painting when I got married. It was really thoughtful and my wife loves her work.”
“Yeah, Fleur told me. Congratulations, by the way. Fleur said you hit the lottery.”
All the tension in his shoulders eased. So maybe this was simply ex awkwardness that wasn’t so awkward anymore. “Yeah I really did,” Collins answered, sincerity ringing in his voice. “We’ve got three girls. They’re out of town this week for the holiday, decided to visit her mom over in Lumberton to get away from some of the Mardi Gras madness.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“Still wrapping up a case. I’m going to head out Thursday.”
“Are you at least enjoying being a bachelor for a few days?”
Laughing, he pulled out a cigarette. “Nope. I miss my girls. The house is too quiet without them.”
Adalyn knocked the cigarette out of his mouth before he could light it. “Shit, sorry, old habit.” She sounded surprised by herself.
The detective laughed, the sound booming. “I only do this when they’re gone but apparently I can’t even embrace my one vice.”
She snickered slightly, her body language even more relaxed now. Rowan liked seeing her like this, even if he was annoyed by the handsome detective.
“You smoking was the only thing that humanized you,” she said. “I swear you were always like Captain America.”
He shook his head even as he put his pack away. But then he pulled it out, handed it to her. “Just throw this away later or I’ll end up smoking it and regretting it.”
She tucked it into her jacket pocket as lightning streaked across the sky, the first hint of it since the mist had started an hour ago. Both of them slightly jumped, then laughed at themselves. “I’m really glad you found what you were looking for,” Adalyn said softly, clearly referring to his wife and kids.
“Yeah, me too. Not that I regret anything between us, but…”
“We were just kids.”
“So what about you? Are you…”
“Definitely not going there.”
“All right, but I’ll get it out of you later. Because now that you’ve opened up the communication, you’re not shutting me out again. Once this mess is settled, you’re coming to dinner and meeting my wife and girls.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t say it all polite like you don’t mean it. Because it’s happening. They’ll want to meet the woman who convinced me to break into one of the most haunted houses and spend an entire night there.”
“Which you didn’t do.”
“I stayed until four in the morning. It counts. And I still have nightmares about that place. You know they still haven’t sold that shithole. It’s just an eyesore now that ghost tours stop and gawk at.”
“I actually did know that but only because Fleur told me.” Adalyn shook her head, then glanced up as the rain started coming down in earnest. “Listen, I don’t want to keep you out here any longer with this shitty weather. If you can find something, that’s great, but absolutely do not put yourself in danger. Do not get on anyone’s radar.”
“I won’t.”
“Swear it.” There was a hard note in her voice.
The detective simply nodded, then pulled her into a hug that definitely took her off guard. “I’ll see what I can find,” he said when he stepped back. “And you’re not going to be a stranger anymore.”
“I won’t be.”
Rowan believed her. Or at least in that moment, she meant it. She waited until the detective stalked off before turning in his direction. As the rain started coming down harder now, she picked up her pace, her boots sloshing in the puddles as she met him at the mausoleum he’d been using for cover.
“Come on,” she murmured, barely stopping by him. “Let’s get out of here before lightning or the freaking ghosts get us.”
Once they’d locked up again, then jumped into the SUV, the rain was coming down in buckets. “At least no one will be able to tail us in this,” she muttered as he slowly pulled away from the curb. The cobblestone road made the ride bumpy.
“So why’d you two break up anyway?” Rowan asked. Because apparently he had no filter.
She paused, but then shrugged. “We were just dumb kids. We were… He lived in the complex my grandma owned. The one Fleur and I now own. His mom liked to call herself an artist, but she was really just a junkie. I only realized later that the only reason my mémé never kicked them out was because of him. She loved him, thought of him as one of her own.” There was a wistful note in her voice. “And to answer your very nosy question, I ended things because I was headed to college and we had no future. We never even…”
She cleared her throat, looked out the window, though she wouldn’t be able to see much past the rain.
“Anyway, whatever. We lost touch, then my mémé died when I was in college and I just sort of cut everyone out. Not intentionally. If it wasn’t for Fleur, I’d have completely cut ties with this place.” There was a wealth of regret in her voice.
“I should say I’m sorry for being nosy, but I’m not. I’m curious about you.” Always had been. In Afghanistan, she’d been this mysterious, skilled woman who spoke multiple languages and seemed unflappable by any situation. An ice queen who got the job done. Getting to see past that, to see where she came from… He liked it and wanted to know more.
She ran a hand over her wet hair, pushed a few strands out of her face as he pulled up to a red light. The swish swish of the windshield wipers and the low hum of the heater were the only noises in the interior. Then she cleared her throat. “So what about you? Do you have family?”
“You don’t know?”
“I mean, I’ve seen your file, but that was years ago and I didn’t dig.” She sounded almost affronted that he assumed she had. “And if you get to ask personal questions, so do I.”
“Okay. That’s fair.” He smiled at her imperious tone. “Mom retired to Florida with her sister—my aunt, who is an old hippie and hilarious. She’s one of my favorite people on the planet. They’re like oil and water in terms of how they lived their lives but no two sisters ever loved each other so much. They run a food truck in Orlando and are having the time of their lives doing it. My brother and his husband ended up buying a house not too far from them with their two kids so my mom and aunt get their grandkid fix all the time. And I visit at least four times a year, not including major holidays.” Sometimes he wished he lived closer, but he had to live his own life, something his mom had made very clear to him. She hadn’t wanted him to ever have any regrets.
“That’s a very neat and tidy answer.”
“Yeah, it’s the bones of my family I guess.”
“It doesn’t tell me nearly enough, Mr. Nosy. What about your dad? And why’d you join the Marines?”
“I always knew I was going to join the Marines. That was just something that was going to happen. And my dad bailed when I was five. No clue where he ended up and I never looked.”
“You and I have that in common,” she said softly.
“He bailed on you?”
She lifted a shoulder, but her body language had shifted, the air in the SUV suddenly vibrating with energy. “You could say that. My mémé didn’t give him a choice. She basically paid him off to leave my sister and I with her. And…she also broke his knee because he thought it was okay to slap us around.”
His fingers tightened on the wheel at the thought of anyone hurting her or her sister. “She sounds like quite a woman. And I only wish she’d broken more than his knee.”
Adalyn grinned at that. “Me too. But he was a loser and a coward. I like to think that the world gave him what he deserved.”
“I’m surprised you never looked him up.”
“I guess I never needed the closure. I just didn’t care what happened to him.”
“Yeah, I get that. It’s why I never looked up my sperm donor. Knowing where he is wouldn’t have changed anything.”
She nodded, leaned her head back against the headrest on a quiet sigh.
“Listen, Adalyn, I’m sorry about—”
“Nope. We’re not talking about the past. Not doing that.”
“That’s super healthy.”
She sniffed once. “It sure is. We don’t need to talk about anything at all. I’m good. Promise.”
“Well maybe I’m not.” He slowed at a yellow light, stopped as it turned red. They were at a corner across from a bar with a bright neon sign that declared two-for-one drinks. The windows were darkly tinted so he couldn’t see inside, but even in the rain, there was a cluster of six people racing across the wet street to get inside.
“Fine. What do you want to say?” she asked.
“That I’m sorry!”
“What are you sorry for?” The cool mask she kept in place fractured, fell away as she turned to him. And it wasn’t anger he saw, but hurt flashing in her green eyes. “For assuming that I screwed up and then said ‘oh well, have a nice life, sorry for your loss’? For assuming that I didn’t grieve just as much as you did!” She shouted the last part.
And he felt her pain because it mirrored his own. He looked away, hating the hurt there. Hating that he was the one who’d put it there. Hurting her was one of his few regrets in life and something he’d do anything to take back. “I’m sorry for all that. I’m sorry for assuming that you didn’t care. I knew you did, but I was in pain. And I screwed up. There’s no excuse for it either.”
“It’s fine,” she finally said, her voice tight and controlled. Back to normal. “It’s in the past.”
“It’s clearly not in the past. And I don’t know how to make it up to you other than to say I’m sorry. I wish I could take everything back, Adalyn.”
“It’s fine,” she repeated. Then she paused, and he saw that crack in her armor again. “Or maybe it’s not because you should have known better. You should have expected more from me!” Her voice cracked on the last word and she turned away from him, shifting in her seat so that she wasn’t even looking at him.
Gripping the wheel, he pulled forward as the light shifted to green, his throat tight with emotion as he tried to shove down his guilt and pain. Because maybe there was nothing he could ever do to make things right between them.
And deep down, he knew that was a loss he’d feel forever.