Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
MADDEN
Every muscle in my body protested as Rios and I crossed the threshold into the Brewhouse, as if my skin hadn’t quite caught up to the reality that we were allowed to be somewhere ordinary again.
The hum of the crowd, the scrape of chairs, the splash of laughter—they all sounded strangely muffled, like coming up from underwater too fast. Rios’s hand stayed at my back until we reached the edge of the dining room.
His thumb traced a silent check-in, anchoring me, even as he read the space for exits and threats.
That sign of vigilance was such a comfort.
“I’ll be right over there if you need me.” He caught my eyes, waiting for my nod—my consent to let him go. I managed it, but barely.
He squeezed my hand—a flash of pressure, the kind you only give when words are too thin to hold everything you want to say—and slipped toward the bar where Ford and Sawyer waited. I watched him go, wishing I could go with him.
But that wasn’t why we were here. I’d come to see Astrid because we both needed a piece of normal, and that wouldn’t come until the last of this was closed out.
I spotted her at a table by the windows, two drinks sweating onto napkins, a basket of fries untouched.
She looked up as I approached, and for a moment, neither of us moved.
The exhaustion on her face mirrored my own, etched deep and dark as bruises.
When she stood, we slid into a brief, hard hug that said we were both still here.
When we pulled apart, I saw how red her eyes were, and I didn’t bother pretending mine weren’t the same.
There’d been tears of relief and exhaustion once we’d made it back to Sutter House and passed the news on to Willa and Sawyer.
We sat, shoulders slumping toward the sticky tabletop like we could rest our weight on it. Astrid shoved the fries at me. “Eat. You look like you haven’t since—well. Since.”
I took one, more for something to do with my hands than any real hunger. The salt stung the inside of my mouth. “I’m not sure I’ve eaten anything in the past several days that wasn’t forced on me by one Carrera or another.”
She gave a little huff, not quite a laugh. “We’ll circle back to that.”
The bar noise receded, and we sank into the kind of hush that only came after holding your breath for way too damned long. There was only the clink of ice in our glasses, and the steady, shaking exhale we both let out together. Some of the weight seemed to leave with it.
“How is Priya?”
We’d escorted the two of them back to Astrid’s place from the clinic.
Rios hadn’t been willing to leave until he’d seen the security system himself and heard her lock the deadbolts and arm it.
Even then, he hadn’t wanted to go, but Chris Shelton, one of the local police officers, had shown up saying that he’d been put on guard duty.
Wes Mullowney hadn’t been apprehended yet.
Astrid’s smile was raw and real. “Safe. Her parents haven’t let her out of their sight since they got in late this morning.
She slept finally—really slept. Her mom cried so hard she made herself sick.
Her dad keeps bringing her toast and tea like it’s a cure for anything.
But she’s okay.” She reached across the table and laid her hand over mine.
“I don’t know how to thank you for that. ”
“There’s no need to thank me. I just did what needed doing.” I winced. “And I kind of ignored you to do it. I’m sorry for that.”
Astrid held up a finger. “First, I’ve known you for twenty years, and I know what you’re like when you get into a project.
Head down, no distractions. No reason for a case to be different.
Second, you did what no one else was willing to do.
You and Rios both.” She stopped, closing her eyes for a moment.
“I never thought it would go that far. I never thought you’d be in danger from poking around.
Not really. When I heard about the fire yesterday, I—”
I squeezed her hand back. “Don’t. I’m okay. Rios got me out. And it’s not like you actively asked me to help. I inserted myself. I saw that Carson wasn’t going to keep looking, and I made that call. I’m the one who brought Rios into the broader investigation. None of this is on you.”
But it hadn’t stopped me from dreaming of smoke and flames when I’d finally caught a few hours of sleep this morning. I’d probably be circling that for a while.
For a moment, Astrid looked like she was going to argue the point, but she only cleared her throat.
“So, speaking of Rios.” Her eyes flicked to the bar, where he stood with Ford, posture coiled like he couldn’t help tracking the perimeter.
Even as we looked, his gaze tracked to us—to me—and one corner of that sensual mouth lifted.
“I didn’t see that coming.”
I smiled back at the man who’d somehow become the anchor of my world. “Neither did I.”
“I mean, if you’d asked me, I’d have said you didn’t actually like him. But obviously you two had some serious, forced proximity chemistry going on with this case.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I protested.
Astrid arched a brow.
“We learned how to respect each other’s professional capabilities.”
Her grin turned wicked. “I can imagine that he has all kinds of professional capabilities with that mouth and those hands…”
Heat burned my cheeks as my brain and body reminded me of exactly how true that statement was. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the confidential details of the case.”
She hooted with laughter. “Good for you, girl! You deserve some good in your life. And from the looks of it, he’s very good for you.”
“I trust him. And I can’t say that about many people.”
“It’s good to have someone you know will catch you if you stumble.”
“I think, maybe, we caught each other.”
She didn’t say anything as the words hung between us, only blinked a little like she was watching her own personal Hallmark movie.
I watched him, absorbing the way he laughed—low and guarded—at something Ford said, the way he scanned the room every so often, always coming back to me. “He makes it easier to breathe.”
I didn’t realize I’d made the admission aloud until Astrid’s hand found mine again. “Hold on to that. The world’s not going to get simpler anytime soon.”
That was the God’s honest truth.
A comfortable hush slipped over us. I sipped my tea, feeling the cool spread through me, and with it the noise and texture of the rest of the Brewhouse. As if the volume on the world had been unmuted.
She let me sit in that silence. Perhaps she needed it too.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said quietly. “Still here. Not—” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “Not gone.”
I squeezed her hand. “Me too.”
“What’s the plan now?”
“I hardly know.” I hadn’t come home to find a missing girl or fall in love with a man who’d once hated me.
The entire texture of my life felt different now, and there hadn’t exactly been time to think about it.
Plus, Rios and I hadn’t actually talked about what came next.
If there was a next. He was every bit as much in transition as I was, and the subject of us beyond our attraction hadn’t made it on the docket of discussion.
But maybe, when all this was over…
Maybe.
That was as much as I was willing to count on at the moment.
A murmur swept through the bar. Something about the wave of it, building and flowing across the room, had the hair on my arms standing straight up. Astrid and I both looked around as Bree hollered, “Everybody quiet!”
All the patrons went silent as she pointed a remote at the big TV in the corner of the bar that usually played some variety of sports.
I was out of my seat, trying to get close enough to read the headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen, even before the volume got loud enough to catch the newscaster’s voice saying, “—ends in violence on the Outer Banks.”
I couldn’t make out the words until I’d reached Rios.
KIDNAPPING SUSPECT KILLED IN SHOOTOUT WITH POLICE
My brain began to buzz so loudly, I barely registered the rest of the report. Rios pulled me into him as the reporter continued to talk about how Wes Mullowney had fired on police after being cornered on his boat earlier in the afternoon.
Carson came on screen, looking appropriately sober.
“The suspect was wanted for questioning in connection to the kidnapping of a local grad student recovered last night. The student is safe and recovering with family. The suspect’s residence showed evidence of a planned abduction.
There is no indication he was working with anyone else. ”
“It’s over.” The words swept through the crowd inside the Brewhouse, becoming another of those waves that rose to a crescendo of applause and jubilant cheers.
Rios and I only looked at each other. This was the nice, neat solution. An end that the public could cling to.
But he and I knew better. This was only one end to a much, much larger story.