Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Noah
The house is silent, but it’s a heavy silence.
The kind that settles low in your bones and hums there, a warning more than a quiet.
Alicia stands at the window, arms folded tight, watching headlights and taillights mingle on the street. Streetlight gold slides across her reflection: pale skin, tired eyes, the tremor of nerves she’s still trying to suppress.
I stand in the doorway, earbuds in place, speaking to Hudson, but watching her. Hudson’s voice fills one ear, but every other sense is tuned to Alicia—each small breath, each motionless second.
“Should we place security outside Richard Whitmore’s home?”
It’s a fair question. Alicia didn’t feel it was necessary—and I don’t think she wanted to open herself up to her ex’s fifty questions. But she might feel differently now.
“If he’s open to it, we can place Jake on the street,” Hudson says, expanding on his question.
“It’s an upscale neighborhood. A man sitting in a car—someone will call in suspicious activity. If we add security, it needs to be on-site.” I picture Jake idling at the curb, a stranger in suburbia—exactly the kind of thing that makes neighbors call 911. I’m right on this one.
“Get Alicia’s take.”
“Will do,” I say. “I’ll touch base in the morning.”
The call ends and I pocket my phone and earbuds. Today ended up being nothing, but it doesn’t feel like it. The weight pressing on Alicia proves that.
“She’s home safe,” I tell her, needing to hear it aloud.
“I know.” The confirmation rings thin. “But that doesn’t make it stop.”
“You did everything right,” I say, even knowing logic rarely gets a foothold in fear.
“I didn’t protect her.”
She’s not looking at me, but I shake my head. “You reacted. Fast. You found her. That’s protection.”
I could remind her that she was at her father’s house, that if anyone’s at fault, it’s him, but today’s event isn’t what has her shaken. It’s what today might have been. It’s where the fault might have fallen. It’s about everything her mind can do with that kind of opening once fear gets inside.
Her gaze stays on the dark street. “You didn’t see Richard’s face. He thinks I’m endangering our daughter.”
His name rubs like grit. I want to tell her Richard’s fear isn’t protective—it’s possessive, controlling, the kind that wears concern as a respectable mask. But she isn’t in a place to hear that. Not tonight.
So I don’t say it.
I’ve spent hours trying to find the thing that will ease this for her, and I’m running out of words. Some things have to burn through on their own.
She finally turns away from the window, her eyes shining but steady. “You ever feel fear in your throat?” she asks, voice rough.“Like it gets stuck there and won’t let you breathe?”
“First time in the field—we lost comms for three hours. Static and silence. Every minute sounded like blood in my ears. I thought we’d lost a man. That kind of helplessness”—I exhale slowly—“it’ll eat you alive.”
“That’s what it feels like,” she whispers. “Helplessness. Like something’s waiting to attack and there’s nothing you can do.”
I reach for her hands and cover them with mine, trying to bring warmth back into her frozen fingers. “You can’t live in that moment forever. You learn from it, and then you move.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Trying.”
For a long moment, we stand there together, reflected dimly in the darkened glass. Two people held in the same uneasy stillness. Outside, the wind kicks up and sends brittle leaves skittering over the sidewalk.
“Get some rest,” I say, knowing she needs to put the scare behind her. “I’ll close everything up.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“You will.”
I brush a strand of hair behind her ear and cup her face. She’s beautiful like this, even wrung out and shaken. Maybe especially like this. All that strength she wears so cleanly through the day is still there, but softer now. More human. More exposed.
“You’re allowed to exhale, Alicia.”
She nods, but her eyes drift back toward the street.
It’d be easier if Stella were here. If Alicia could hear her moving around upstairs, could put eyes on her whenever she wanted, could sit beside her on the couch and watch something mindless until this sharp edge dulled.
Something ordinary. Something that would let her body believe what her mind can’t yet accept—that her daughter is safe, that today was only a scare.
The sound cuts through the moment like a crack in glass. I step back and pull it from my pocket. KOAN portal notification.
“Problem?” Alicia asks.
“Maybe. I’ll deal with it.”
I head downstairs to the guest room to grab my laptop. A few minutes later I confirm it’s nothing urgent—just team confirmations for next week’s rotations.
Alicia appears in the doorway. I hadn’t heard her approach.
“Is there anything I can do? To make this go away? To make these people not want to target me? My family?”
That’s the kicker. We still don’t know exactly who these people are.
We’ve got theories. Possibilities. Last week I could’ve convinced myself this was all precaution, that maybe she wasn’t being targeted at all.
But someone breached her vehicle. Someone’s tracking her.
And the best working theory we’ve got is that somebody doesn’t want Alicia’s documents making it into discovery.
I hesitate, already hating what I’m about to say.
“You could make everything public.”
“I can’t do that to my clients,” she says. “Besides, we don’t know enough.”
Her steel-blue eyes go wild for a second—not with panic exactly, but with the desperate need to be understood. Her shoulders draw back. Her chin lifts. Defiance and fear, side by side.
“I hear you,” I say, because I do.
Then I pull her into me and hold her.
It isn’t much. It isn’t a solution. But it’s what I can give her, so it’s what I do.
By Sunday morning, the house feels hollow, like the echo of last night never really cleared.
Alicia is up before I am. I’m not sure she slept much at all.
Last night was the first time we shared a bed without making love, and somehow that felt more intimate than the nights we did.
Like we crossed into something quieter and deeper.
Less about wanting and more about staying.
About being there when there was nothing to offer but your presence.
After coffee, she heads down to her home gym, and I decide to give her some space.
Truth is, I need a little myself.
I step outside to check the carport and call Maya while I walk. It’s been a few weeks since we talked. She’s busy. I get it.
“Hey you,” she says, answering on the second ring.
I huff out a laugh. “Can’t believe I caught you.”
I was half expecting voicemail. Maya’s a pediatric nurse, and keeping up with her schedule is like trying to grab smoke with your hands. If she’s on shift, she doesn’t answer.
“I’m on break. Good timing. Are you home this weekend?”
Ah. She’s assuming that’s why I’m calling.
“You know, New Jersey isn’t my home base anymore, right? I’ve got an apartment outside of DC.”
“I actually didn’t realize that. So when Dad complains you haven’t come home, he means to his place.”
His place. Him and Linda.
“You don’t get the same treatment?”
“Well, I mean, I live in Chicago. A flight is required. It’s different.”
“Maybe.” I’d say it’s more that Maya is his baby girl and can do no wrong, and I’m the son that can do no right, but that’s not a Maya issue. And I didn’t call her to check in on Dad. “What’s up with you? How’re things?”
“Good. No complaints. Phoenix started her last rotation before she’s done with residency. She likes the doctors. And so far it hasn’t been as demanding, so we get to see each other more.”
“What’s this rotation?”
“Dermatology.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. It is.” She and Phoenix have been together for years now. Phoenix is part of the reason Maya ended up back in Chicago, back in the city where we grew up. “What about you? Dad says you’re working constantly. Any truth in that or are you avoiding him?”
“I call him every Sunday.”
I don’t owe him my weekends. Never have.
“Right.” She breathes out, and I can’t tell if it’s a sigh or a huff. “So what are you working on these days? Dad said it’s protection, but I thought you were doing investigative work.”
“Yeah, the team I told you I joined—”
“Hunting the bad guys, that’s what you said. The ones above the law.”
“Yeah, well, still on that team, but this has turned into more of a protective detail.”
“For anyone I’d know?”
“Doubtful.”
“So you’re bored out of your mind.”
“Not even close. It’s been intense. The twelve-year-old daughter went missing yesterday.”
“Whoa. She okay?”
“Yeah. She was actually staying at her dad’s. She went out with a friend—didn’t tell him.”
“Oh, so this detail—it’s a divorced woman?”
“Yeah,” I say, wondering why her tone shifted with the question.
“Single?”
I glance toward the house. “Yeah.”
“Your boss going to have a problem when he learns you’re seeing the client?”
My mouth opens, ready to deny, but I don’t lie to Maya. Not anymore. Not after telling her that Mom would get better. Not after telling her that nothing was going on with Dad and Linda.
“What makes you think—”
“Dad told me.”
I told Dad about dinner. That was it. But he drew his own conclusion. He assumed the worst and I proved him right.
“Well, tell me about her,” Maya says. “I’ve got five more minutes.”
I lean against the brick fence and look out over the courtyard.
How do I explain Alicia?
“She runs a crisis management firm. She’s on the ball. Sophisticated. Wicked smart.” I rub my thumb along the phone’s edge, searching for the right words. “She’s the kind of woman who always walks into the fire first.”
“One kid?”
“Yeah, a daughter who loves playing hoops. A little headstrong, like her mom.”
If Mom were alive, she’d like them both. That thought hits out of nowhere and lodges in my chest.
“So,” Maya says, amusement creeping into her voice, “a hot single mom has taken my big bro’ off the market. That tracks.”
I can’t help the grin—it’s ridiculous and dead-on.
“What tracks?”
“She’s not just some hookup.”
No. She isn’t.
Not by a long shot.
“Tell me more,” Maya says, sounding entirely too interested.
Morning light glints off the windows, and I catch a warped reflection of myself. I’m smiling like an idiot.
“What’s she look like?”
“Black hair, shoulder length, dark blue eyes… It’s a color you don’t see often. Heart-shaped face.” I pause, searching for something that gets close. “You know Courteney Cox?”
“The Friends actress?”
“Yeah. Not exactly, but there’s something there. And in the way she carries herself? Dresses? She’s got this Olivia Pope thing. You remember Scandal?”
Maya and I have burned through enough television over the years that she definitely remembers.
“So she’s white.”
She says it casually, but not carelessly.
We’re a mixed-up blend by most people’s standards. Dad’s Mexican American. Mom was white, though her family came out of Alaska and there was Native heritage in her line. Most of my life, people have looked at me and decided what I am before I ever opened my mouth.
“She is.” I keep my tone easy. “And?”
“Has she told anyone yet?”
“We’re keeping it quiet.” I push off the fence and start walking again. “For a lot of reasons. Her daughter. My job.”
Maya goes silent.
“You’ve got an opinion,” I say. “Say it.”
My tone comes out sharper than I intended, but Maya has dated pretty much every race and background under the sun. Dad married two white women. If she’s got an issue, I want to hear it straight.
“It’s nothing.”
I look up at the hazy morning sky. That’s one of Maya’s favorite lies.
“Look,” she says, “I believe in judging people by who they are. You know that. But there are still assholes out there. That’s all I’m saying. If you end up needing somebody to vent to, I’m here.”
If Alicia runs into problems because of us, I’d bet the bigger issue is the age difference, not race. But I haven’t brought age up to Maya, and I’m not about to start now.
“So far, no issues,” I tell her. “It’s new. Don’t go borrowing trouble. I’m good.”
“Mm-hm.”
“You go save those kids.”
“Yeah, yeah. I do actually need to go. But before I hang up—has Dad said anything about high cholesterol?”
I frown. “No. Why?”
“I don’t know. Linda messaged me asking about some results Dad got on a physical. I’m probably going to call her.”
Alicia comes into view through the kitchen windows.
She’s got a bottle of water in one hand, and from the look of her, she gave herself a brutal workout.
Her hair is pulled back in a high ponytail.
Lycra skims every long, toned line of her body.
She raises the bottle in a silent hello as she passes, and light catches on the sheen of sweat at her throat.
Then she turns toward the stairs, her hips moving with easy, unthinking rhythm.
My body reacts before my brain gets involved.
“I’ve got nothing for you on Dad. Keep in touch. And tell Phoenix I said hi.”
I end the call with every intention of following Alicia upstairs and putting that shower to much better use. But before I even make it off the patio, my phone vibrates again.
Hudson.
With a quiet curse, I drop back into the chair and answer.
“Morning,” I say in greeting.
“We received an update on the police investigation.”
It takes me a second to switch gears. “The Delacroix murder investigation?”
“Yes. One of the reasons Alicia’s a person of interest—”
“You mean other than her being the one who was with him when he died? Who found him?”
“Right. There’s a witness who claims she was seen talking to him earlier—drinking coffee—and she followed him to the back.”
I sit straighter.
That doesn’t match what Alicia told me. Then again, witness accounts get messy all the time. People misremember. Fill in blanks. See what they expect to see.
“Okay,” I say slowly, dragging a hand over my face while I absorb it.
Hudson doesn’t pause long.
“The witness is missing.”
The words hit like ice water down my spine. “What?”
“That’s what our source says. There’s information in the portal.
Can you take some time tomorrow—see what you can find?
I’m sure the police are searching—but I don’t know how much they care at this juncture as they’ve got the witness statement on record.
I’d love to find this witness though and learn if someone put them up to it. ”
“You think it ties back to the Crawford case.”
“Worth checking.”
“I’m on it,” I say.
The call ends, but I stay where I am, phone still in my hand.
If this witness was paid to make a false statement—if somebody saw an opportunity to smear Alicia and took it—then disappearing makes perfect sense.
They’d have every reason to stay hidden.
They took money. They lied to police. They crossed a line that gets a hell of a lot harder to explain once somebody starts asking the right questions.
And if our hunch is right, even if I find them, getting anything useful out of them won’t be easy.