Chapter Twenty-Two
Too soon. This was all happening too soon.
Maeve couldn’t feel the warmth from Callen’s hand anymore, as though some part of her was already shutting down. She’d known the truth would come out. But she should’ve had more time. And she didn’t even blame Dr. Yarrow. He was protecting his case the best he knew how. By exposing her.
Callen slipped his hand from hers, leaving her to stand on her own two feet. “What the hell is he talking about? Why would the Vegas office say you’re not one of their agents?”
Her heart pounded hard. Too hard and too fast. To the point she wasn’t sure Callen couldn’t hear it from where he stood. Maeve tried to straighten, but the sutures made that impossible. “I can explain.”
Dark eyes leveled on her, and suddenly she was right back on the Kolob Arch trail, seeing him for the first time in over a year.
Seeing the hatred and the anger and the blame in his gaze.
His words barely reached over the buzz coming from the wall of refrigerators, from where she assumed Lauren’s remains—though stripped of anything needing to be preserved—waited to be taken home to Salt Lake. “What did you do?”
Maeve’s gaze darted to Dr. Yarrow. The medical examiner had given her access to his equipment and workspace based on her word and outdated credentials.
She’d lied to him—to Callen—but there hadn’t been any other option.
Pressing a hand to her stomach, she tried holding herself together.
In vain. Whatever remnants of their relationship she and Callen had revived wouldn’t survive, but she had to try.
“Springdale PD gave up on Lauren in less than two months after she disappeared with no new leads, but I couldn’t leave her out here.
I couldn’t stop. I made a promise to bring her home, and I was going to do everything I could to keep that promise. ”
Maeve tried to relieve the pressure in her gut, shifting her weight between both feet, but the heaviness had nothing to do with her posture.
It came from the hard lines sharpening in Callen’s expression.
“But after that notebook went missing from my hotel room, my superiors called me back to Salt Lake. They learned about my personal connection to Lauren and suspended me from working the investigation. I should’ve been fired then, but my case history saved me.
I didn’t… I didn’t tell you because you were already dealing with so much.
I didn’t want to add to your grief or take away from what you needed.
So I pushed it all down to deal with later, but then you asked me for an update on the investigation, and I didn’t know what to say.
I couldn’t lie to you. You deserved to know I’d been removed from the case, and then we broke up, and I…
My job was all I had, and my career was on thin ice. Until I was injured in the field.”
It took everything she had not to sink at the pure vitriol carved into Callen’s expression.
A sick feeling swirled through her as he stared down at her.
His mother had told him the details, but the slight tremor in his hands revealed how much he hadn’t known, that it affected him.
Her jaw ached under the pressure of her clenched teeth as everything she’d tried to bury at the back of her mind slipped free.
“According to the psychologist I was ordered to meet with after I was released from the hospital, I was no longer fit for duty. Mentally or physically. So I was suspended from the FBI.”
The tendons in Callen’s neck bulged as he took a step toward her.
Not once since she’d met him had he used his size and intensity to intimidate her, but Maeve couldn’t help but step back.
He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that. But a tendril of anxiety burned through her at not being at full strength from the shooting.
“So transferring to the Vegas office after you moved out, being called in to collaborate with Springdale PD—it was all a lie? Is Iliana Meyer even missing, or was that just an excuse for you to show back up in my life?”
Her mouth parted. Did he really think so little of her? Maeve already had her answer. Had she given him any reason not to? “Iliana is missing. She disappeared under the same circumstances as Lauren. I never lied about that.”
“No. You just lied about everything else.” He shook his head, not even willing to look her in the eye at this point, and that hurt more than Dr. Yarrow exposing her for the liar she was.
Hurt more than the sutures pulling at the edges of her skin in an attempt to keep her insides where they belonged.
The past few days hadn’t been the reunion she’d imagined, but she and Callen had come to an understanding since she’d faced him on that trail.
It was brittle and still had a lot of cracks, but those cracks weren’t the fissures they once were.
He’d held her during her nightmare, kissed her as though he’d never stopped giving a damn about her and fought to keep her conscious while she bled out.
He’d ordered his brother to watch over her in the hospital because he’d been at her side for days and needed the break.
In the blink of an eye, he’d smoothed over the rough patches still left on her heart and made her feel wanted. Loved.
And she’d fallen for it. Fallen for him all over again.
“Springdale PD doesn’t have the manpower or the resources to keep searching for her.
I do. I still have the inheritance, and since I’m not tied to any agency, I can go wherever the case takes me.
” Maeve reached for him, needing that connection, needed to believe that she could still fix this.
That was all she’d ever wanted since losing Lauren’s notebook.
To make this right. “I can find her. Just like I found Lauren—”
“You didn’t find Lauren.” Callen dodged her attempt to touch him.
“Her killer left her on that trail to get your attention. To get to you. Don’t you realize that?
All of this—her death, Iliana’s disappearance, the killer zip-tying me to the steering wheel before driving my truck into the Virgin River, even that bullet the surgeons pulled out of you.
It’s all tied back to you. My sister is dead because of you, Maeve. ”
She couldn’t hold back the flinch cutting through her as though he’d physically taken a blade and carved her up.
Couldn’t deny anything he’d said. It was true.
All of it. Everything the killer had done was for one purpose and one purpose only: He wanted her.
And Lauren, Iliana, Callen, they were the ones paying the price.
“Do you even realize what you’ve put at risk?
” His question was more growl than words.
“Everything we’ve learned about Lauren’s disappearance and murder, everything that might lead us to recovering Iliana Meyer, is inadmissible in court, Maeve.
None of it will be considered evidence because you lied about being an agent.
The chain of custody on any evidence, including that Taser you found at the scene, is broken.
Any prosecutor worth their salt will tear apart this investigation before it even starts.
Because of you. Because you compromised it. Again.”
Her throat tightened, cutting off her air supply. Blood rushed into her face and neck, her eyes stinging. He was right. How could she have been so blinded by the promise she’d made to his family to not even see history repeating itself? “I wanted to fix it.”
“But you didn’t. You made things worse, and now we might never find out what really happened to Lauren.” Callen threaded a hand through his hair, wrenching his attention to the medical examiner she’d forgotten was there. “You have my number?”
Dr. Yarrow nodded. “I’ll contact you as soon as I can release your sister’s remains.”
“Thanks.” Callen didn’t bother looking at Maeve as he maneuvered past her and toward the exit leading to the stairs to the funeral home above.
Maeve could only follow him through the morgue’s heavy double doors on his heels, barely dodging the swing as they started closing behind him. The temperature climbed a few degrees as she left the examination room behind, but her insides were still cold. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” He ascended the first couple of stairs. “I need to tell my parents not to expect the release of Lauren’s remains anytime soon.”
Guilt surged like morning acid reflux. The ME had told her Springdale PD was interested in discussing her involvement in the case, which would only slow their search for Iliana.
And without any solid evidence connecting the cases of two missing women, there was a chance Lauren might not ever be able to come home.
She grabbed for the railing to haul herself up after him, but it would be hard to keep pace.
Still, they couldn’t leave things like this.
She couldn’t go another year knowing she’d failed him. “Callen—”
“Don’t, Maeve.” He turned on her then, stepping down into her personal space. “We’re done. You’re so hell-bent on doing things yourself, find your own way back to the hospital. You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
Done? Maeve backed down the two stairs she’d managed to climb, doing everything in her power to stay on her own two feet.
Her heart stuttered in her chest. No. He didn’t understand.
She could still fix this. She could keep her promise to Cieron and his parents, and things would go back to the way they were supposed to.
Before Lauren had gone missing. She didn’t have any other choice. She didn’t have anyone else.
But she couldn’t say that. She couldn’t stop him from ascending the rest of the stairs and shoving through the door sectioning off the morgue from the funeral home. Before she had a chance to process what’d happened in the past few minutes, Callen was gone.
And for the first time in over a year, she didn’t know what to do.
Everything she’d done, everything she’d given up, had fallen short.
Tendrils of cold worked through her clothing despite the heavy metal doors doing their job to keep the refrigeration where it belonged on the other side.
She couldn’t stay here, and she doubted Dr. Yarrow would welcome her presence a minute longer, considering she’d lied to him about her connection to Springdale PD and the investigation.
And Callen had been right. Blood seeped through her shirt.
Then the pain spread, almost waiting for her acknowledgment before it stole the air from her lungs.
She had to go back to the hospital to assess the damage, but the idea of getting there on her own sucked the strength from her legs.
Callen wasn’t coming back. Those final two words had hammered the last nail into the coffin that was their relationship, but if she gave it any more thought, she might never leave this basement.
Maeve wrapped her hand around the stair railing and pushed one foot in front of the other.
One step at a time, holding her breath when the pain got to be too much and moaning to an empty stairwell between attempts.
Until she reached the main floor. The funeral home itself was dark, lit with nothing but backup lighting.
The front double glass doors closed behind her as she stepped free of the freezing interior.
Night had fallen sometime in the past couple of hours, isolating her further.
She’d only paid for a couple nights at the motel.
Her belongings had probably been tossed in the nearest dumpster, her laptop sold or stolen and her car towed from the lot.
Extracting her phone, Maeve tapped the contacts app to call for a ride.
She hovered over the meager list. Helen.
Tommy. Cieron. Callen. People who’d once been her family.
She wasn’t so sure that was the case anymore, and a sob threatened to break free.
The sound of shuffling tugged at her attention from behind.
She turned to face the interruption, just as lightning exploded across her skull.