Chapter 17
Seventeen
Lincoln came to as pressure dug into either side of his neck, pinching the muscles and holding him face down against the table.
His heart leaped, his pulse raced, and tension arced through him.
Fight or flight? Both? If he lifted his head and upper body off the table with enough force, pushed back the chair hard enough, maybe he could escape.
“It’s just me, L. Relax.” Rumbly, soft, and not the Georgia accent Carter affected for the townspeople.
Nor the unaccented voice he used for FBI interactions.
Nor the Jersey he teased Lincoln with from time to time.
This voice was a slow, sexy drawl, and the way Carter said the last syllable of relax reminded Lincoln of his college roommate, a Texan.
Texas. Was it just another accent or was it where Carter had spent his childhood?
Bounced around foster homes in the Lone Star State until he’d enlisted?
Except, from the hours of research Lincoln was definitely not doing each night, it looked more and more like the accident that had made Carter an orphan had occurred here in Apex.
So how had he wound up in the Texas foster care system and not Virginia’s?
Lincoln’s curiosity peaked, then waned, as Carter dug his fingers into tight, aching muscle. Lincoln’s mind and body noodled. “Not the smartest move,” he said, covering the threatening moan. “Sneaking up on an FBI agent.”
“Unless you are an FBI agent. And it’s still probably not the stupidest move I’ve made today.” Carter’s fingers kneaded higher, ruffling the ends of Lincoln’s hair, before he removed his magic hand and sank into the chair beside Lincoln.
Lincoln did groan then, in protest, and Carter chuckled. He hauled him upright by the back of the shirt, and Lincoln scrubbed his hands over his face, chasing away the sleep. “I thought I made a stupid move today too,” he admitted. “But it wasn’t. Maybe yours wasn’t either.”
“You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
“I asked Jeremiah for help.”
Carter lurched forward in his seat, a hand on the back of Lincoln’s chair, the other grasping the edge of the table. “You what?”
Lincoln reared back, as much as Carter’s boxing-in allowed. “He’s not a suspect.”
“The fewer people who—”
“Know the better, yes, I remember, but he knows where everything is in here.” Lincoln swept an arm toward the rows and rows of archives outside their workroom, boxes and file cabinets full that Jeremiah had expertly raided. “He knows what to look for and where to find it.”
Carter’s knuckles went white. “And I don’t?”
That stung and took Lincoln’s observation completely out of context. “That’s not what I said.”
“So you just picked the first person who came down here?”
And stung some more. Lincoln angled to meet him head-on, his own anger rising.
“Earlier you said you realized how hard this was for me. Do you have any idea how hard it was telling Jeremiah the truth? How disappointed he was when I told him we’d be leaving?
That I wasn’t here to help him? The poor kid is drowning, and I took away his fucking life raft.
So no, I didn’t just pick the first person who came down here.
I picked the person most likely to help us, even though he was the hardest person to tell. ”
The stiffness in Carter’s arms gave way, his elbows collapsing, and he dropped his chin to his chest. “Fuck, L, I’m sorry.”
“We’re tired and on edge, I get it, but don’t take it out on me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lincoln reached out and loosened Carter’s fingers, one by one, from the death grip they still had on the table. “Don’t take it out on the furniture either.”
Carter snorted an exhausted laugh. “What’d you find?”
Dread settled in the pit of Lincoln’s stomach. His news wasn’t going to help Carter’s dark mood either. He drew four piles of photos toward them. “Pictures of Larry from around the time each cycle started.”
Carter spread out the pictures. His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened, lines forming at the corners of each. He was seeing the same thing Lincoln had—a happy man, not one who looked distressed or like he needed an escape from his life.
“He’s smiling in all these,” Carter said.
Lincoln gestured to a pile on the adjacent table. “In those too.”
“What are those?”
“Pictures of Larry in and around town during Dr. Fear’s cycles.”
Carter’s voice rose. “He’s got an alibi?”
“Technically, he could have gone back and forth but it makes it a lot harder. And that doesn’t square with the profile.”
“But that”—he jabbed a finger at the alibi stack—“doesn’t square with the way he acted this morning.”
The dread in Lincoln’s gut dropped to his feet, a lead weight taking his stomach with it to the floor. “You went to see him? Without me?”
“You were busy here.”
“He’s our prime suspect.”
Carter gestured, arms wide, at the stacks of photos. “You’re telling me he’s not.”
Not the point. “You went there without backup.”
“Wasn’t needed.” Carter shot out of his seat, too quick for Lincoln to grab a wrist or handful of fabric. “I didn’t intend to make an arrest.”
“What did you intend to do?”
“The same thing I’ve intended to do since we started this. Give Dr. Fear another target.”
Lincoln stood more slowly, unsure of the steadiness of his legs. “What did you do, Carter?” he asked, voice shaking, sure he wouldn’t like the answer.
“I told him who we were.”
Nope, didn’t like it one bit, but Lincoln’s knees weren’t wobbling anymore, infused instead with indignation. “You told him who we were? After you just reamed me out for telling Jeremiah the same. Jeremiah, who we’d eliminated as a suspect, BTW.”
Carter sneered. “BTW.”
“What?” Lincoln snapped.
“You’re forty-two and you talk like a teenager.”
“Because I have one! You’re thirty-two and you leave your shit all over the place. What’s your excuse?”
Carter rocked back a step. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”
Lincoln tried to rein in his voice, tried to get them back on track. “I feel like you’re so focused on Larry being Dr. Fear that you’re looking for confirmation instead of assessing the whole picture.”
“Are you saying I don’t know how to do my job? Or do you just not care anymore, now that Ollie’s kid’s been rescued?”
So much for back on track. Anger took the wheel, speeding around dangerous curves.
“That’s horseshit.” Lincoln spread his arms toward the tables covered in work.
Covered in how much he’d cared since dropping everything and rushing here last week, staying here even after Ruby and Chase had been rescued. “Does this look like I don’t care?”
“Barry and Trudy are important to people too. I’m trying to save them before this town loses someone else. They’ve been welcoming to us here, and we can help them.”
“I’m not suggesting otherwise. We’re still here, aren’t we? Doing our job.”
“Is that all this is? A job?” Carter took two steps forward, bringing them nose to nose. This close, Lincoln could feel his partner’s ragged breaths, could see the equally ragged emotions swirling in his tired green eyes. “Did I lie to Larry when I told him we weren’t just a cover?”
Lincoln froze, on the cusp of the truth, fighting the dizziness of the same tilt-a-whirl he’d been slung around since arriving in Apex.
Since Carter Warren introduced him as his husband.
Carter wanted this to be real too. Of course he did.
The kitchen night before last, the kisses since, indicated as much, as did all those moments Lincoln glimpsed the tender eagerness beneath Carter’s cocky grin.
Lincoln wanted to tell him the truth, but that truth, at least for him, didn’t come without some qualifications, without cautions, and with both of them riding twin blades of exhaustion and anger, would Lincoln’s words destroy everything?
He couldn’t risk that, couldn’t risk their possible future or the lives of Barry and Trudy.
“Look, we both need some rest. We can take a few hours, a time-out.”
Carter lifted a hand and cradled Lincoln’s cheek.
His fingers shook, almost as much as his voice.
“Eight years I’ve waited for a shot with you.
A lifetime I’ve waited for a place where I might fit in.
I like it here, L, and I like you.” He dropped his hand, and his eyes hardened, a wall going up and blocking Lincoln out, and fucking hell if that didn’t hurt far more than it should. “Forgive me for taking a shot at both.”
He turned for the door and Lincoln lunged, grabbing his wrist. “Carter, wait! I didn’t mean—” Carter shook off his hold and Lincoln stepped back, holding up his hands.
“We need to talk about this but not when we’re both so on edge.
” Carter looked unconvinced. Lincoln kept talking.
“I’ll go to the lab and work there for a bit.
You stay here and look through the photos. See if anything jumps out at you.”
“Why would I do that? I don’t understand what I’m looking at here.”
“I didn’t—”
“What you need is here, Agent Monroe. I’ll meet you at the lab at four for our check-in with Beverley and Kirk.”
He stormed out and Lincoln stared after him, unmoving, his wind and legs knocked out by two words.
Agent Monroe.
Not Professor, not L, not babe. And that hurt worst of all. Brought an ache to Lincoln’s chest, a sting behind his eyes, and a shortening of his breath into panicked huffs. All signs that pointed to the truth. A truth that Lincoln should have spoken.
That Carter hadn’t been wrong to tell Larry this wasn’t just a cover.
Four o’clock came and went with no sign of Carter.
Lincoln pushed the meeting with Beverley and Ollie back an hour and texted Carter to meet him at the lab.
As five o’clock approached, Lincoln paced the rows between lab benches.
Still no sign of Carter. It didn’t look like he’d even been here.
He checked the where-are-you text messages he’d spammed Carter with. Delivered but not yet Read.