Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
VALEN
Honeybee.
I test the word on repeat, my lips moving with no sound.
I have no memory of it, but there’s no denying there’s a fondness, a familiarity around it that I can’t ignore.
And something tells me I shouldn’t, so I’ll hold on to it. For now.
A patrol car eases down the street.
It’s not the first patrol tonight or even the second.
But that silver sedan three houses down—the one with tinted windows—hasn’t moved in the hour I’ve been here.
No lights. No movement. Just sitting there, watching the same street I am.
And it’s not my employee, Rip, who’s two cars in front of the suspicious sedan.
I’ve run the plates. They don’t belong to anyone on this street, yet it’s here. Nothing came back in the report either. Nothing I can link to Clover, anyway.
As the patrol car turns down another street, its brake lights glow in the rearview mirror just as an image flashes in my mind.
A small child dressed in white, her long, light brown hair blowing in the breeze. With a smile that scorches my skin.
Fuck me. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes. Is this the childhood I don’t remember? Is this Clover woman—the one who appears to fear her own shadow—the key to all my memories?
I can’t deal with this right now. Roman should’ve given me a warning. Instead, he just threw me into the fire, expecting me not to burn.
A headache looms as I force myself to focus.
Why does this stranger feel like someone I want to remember?
Or is she a nightmare coming back to haunt me?
I despise not being able to piece it all together, but no matter how hard I push myself, all I have are fragments of my lost youth.
Instead, I turn to what I can control.
My tactical checklist—the one that keeps me sane when everything else falls apart. Weapon: holstered, safety off. Exits: two visible, one probable. Threats: none confirmed. Heartbeat: too fast. Breathing: shallow. Fix it.
Memories are locked in my mind somewhere.
I know they’re the key to my past and my future.
But no matter what I’ve done, I can’t recall more than a snapshot or two about my life until the moment I woke up in that hospital room at seventeen—feeling as though a part of me was missing but not understanding where it went or why it was lost.
Knuckle by knuckle, I unclench my hands from the steering wheel, dragging my fingertips over the leather. The stitching is rough against the grain, and that’s what I focus on—something real.
I gasp for breath—a result of the after. I may not remember what put me in that hospital as a teenager, but I’ll never forget the pain of it—it’s the one thing I haven’t been able to master.
Movement in Clover’s window catches my eye. It’s as though she’s pulling the oxygen from my lungs with every step she takes behind the blackout curtains she keeps tugging on. I lean forward in my seat—my body reaching for her, telling me to move, to go to her, but I don’t. I can’t.
I have a job to do.
She presses her button nose to the window again, and something in my chest catches. She’s beautiful in her fragility, but it’s more than that. There’s a fierceness underneath, a survivor’s spine holding her upright when everything in her wants to crumble.
I recognize it.
I’ve felt it.
Is she as lonely as I am?
Don’t go down that path, V.
My job is to protect her physical well-being, not concern myself with emotional baggage I can’t even deal with for myself.
I make a mental note about her anxiety and the possibility of her being a flight risk, then focus on what I can control. The patrols on her home. The detail that follows her every move. The cameras that track visitors as they come and go.
Not the sadness that makes my chest hot when she presses her forehead to her fucking bulletproof window.
Another flash, another vision that has me screwing my eyes shut tight.
It’s the same child, reaching out a hand. Is she reaching for me? Why is she crying? I blink and another vision assaults my senses. Honeybees float around her. That same shy smile I saw today on Clover.
This was supposed to be an easy job, but the longer I sit here, outside her home, the more I realize nothing about Happiness, Georgia, is going to be easy.
Because I’m starting to suspect that everything I need revolves around this little Honeybee.
A shadow falls over my car.
My hand is on my weapon before I register the sheer size of the man standing outside my window, completely blocking out the light from the streetlamp behind him.
He has to be six five, built like a linebacker who never stopped lifting, with a face that’s seen decades of weather and a gaze that misses nothing. And he’s holding a casserole dish.
In the middle of the fucking night.
What the hell is wrong with the people in this town?
I roll down the window a few inches, keeping my hand near my holster.
The giant doesn’t speak. He just studies me with the kind of quiet assessment that reminds me of our best interrogators at Styx and Stone.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
He attempts to thrust the dish through the three inches of open window.
I don’t take it. Instead, I scan our surroundings. “It’s three in the morning,” I remind him.
“Yep.” His voice is deep, unhurried, like a man who has never had to raise his voice to be heard.
I’ve faced down criminals, terrorists, men with nothing left to lose. None of them has ever unnerved me quite like this silent giant holding a casserole in the dead of night.
Is this old man trying to poison me? Could he be Clover’s stalker?
It’s the kindness, the concern that flashes through his eyes like lightning that I don’t know what to do with.
“Agnes saw your car,” he finally says with what feels like relief. His shoulders droop forward, if only a fraction, and the lines of his face soften. “She texted the tree, so I told them I’d check it out.”
“Texted the tree?” I mutter.
“Emergency system. Whole town’s on it.” He pushes the dish toward me again. “Are you here to protect or hurt her? ’Cause I know Rip is just a few cars up the road. Doesn’t make sense to have two of you here.”
“Protect,” I say. “Always. My cousin owns Styx and Stone Security, the company Greyson Reyes hired to protect her.” I don’t tell him I’m also an owner.
After my accident, my aunt kept me out of the spotlight, and letting Roman handle things now, as the face of our company, allows me to work in the field without fear of being recognized.
He holds my gaze for a long moment. He must find whatever he’s looking for because he nods once—a single, decisive motion—and shoves the baking dish through the window.
I grab it before it ends up in my lap.
“Tuna. Diner’s recipe.” He straightens to his full height, blocking out the streetlight once again. “I’m Moose. I live down the street.”
“Why do you have a warm casserole at this time of night?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me as I set the dish on the passenger seat.
“Agnes texted,” he says.
It answers nothing.
“So you just…had this in your oven?”
He narrows his gaze. “No, smartass. Agnes texted. I walked outside and took a look. You seemed harmless, so I heated it up. That’s what we do here, son. Especially on this street.”
“What’s so special about this street?” Perhaps I need a lobotomy. It’s either that or I’m running on fumes because actively engaging in this conversation is completely out of character for me. “And why was Agnes up at this time of night?”
“This here is R&R Road,” he sighs. “Short for Retired and Resting Road. The founders of Happiness intended this street for us folks who need a little more care, ya know? It’s the first and last street patrolled each day.”
“This is a senior citizen street?”
“Agnes walks Pothole at two every night. His sleep patterns are all out of whack. She saw ya first and called Chief.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. The ridiculousness of this conversation keeps escalating. “Do I want to know who Pothole is?”
“You’ll see if you stick around. He’s a potbelly pig who’s kind of an asshole. The kids in town though, they told Agnes she couldn’t keep calling him Potbelly Asshole, so she shortened it to Pothole. All said with the affection of a loving mother, of course.”
“Of course,” I agree, barely containing an eye roll.
“You need anything, you come find me,” Moose says and steps back from my car.
“And if I don’t need anything?”
A knowing smile crosses his weathered face. “Then you stay parked here, keep your eyes open, don’t let anything happen to our girl over there, and you’ll see me around.” His smile fades. “She’s been scared long enough. It’s time someone stood between her and whatever’s chasing her.”
What could be chasing a woman like Clover Danforth?
“The packages,” he adds, his voice dropping conspiratorially. “They come like clockwork when she’s least likely to catch them. Whoever’s sending them knows her schedule better than anyone on this street. And trust me, that’s hard to do.”
He turns to leave, then pauses. “Park on the other side tomorrow. Agnes’s roses are over here, and she’ll have you towed for blocking their moonlight. Something about a moon goddess and restful roses.”
Then he’s gone, swallowed by the darkness, and I’m more confused than I’ve ever been.
I look down at the still-warm casserole when my phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.
Unknown number: Moose says you passed. Don’t make him a liar. -Agnes
How the hell did she get my number?
My phone buzzes again.
Rip: Moose is good people. I got a casserole my first night too.
Rip: And I see you’ve been added to the text tree. Sorry about that.
Rip: She threatened to have me banned from the diner if I didn’t give her your number.
Rip: Roman approved it.
Awesome. Even my best agent has been turned by a street full of septuagenarian sleuths.
Unknown number: Moose may have passed you, but I’ve got my eyes on you.
Unknown number: This is Chief, by the way. I know every move you make before you make it.