CHAPTER 14
Tessa
The interstate south of Seattle opens up past the industrial corridor, cranes and container yards give way to stretches of Douglas fir. Cole drives the way he does everything—contained, deliberate, but only one hand perched casually on the wheel.
We have Marissa Hale’s address pulled up on the navigation and Cole isn’t happy with me that we’re taking this trip.
We’ve been on the freeway for twenty minutes and the silence between us speaks volumes. He’d made his position clear before we left the building.
Arms crossed over his chest in his apartment this morning, working very hard to keep his voice level, he told me in no uncertain terms that driving to Tacoma only two days after a four-man breach team came through my living room window was not an idea he was willing to entertain.
I told him I was going with or without him and I thought his head might explode. He’d stared at me for a long moment, jaw tight, war raging in his eyes. I stared him down and then he grabbed his keys.
So here we are.
“She may not even open the door,” he says finally, eyes on the road.
“She’ll open it,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I allow. “But she will.”
He exhales through his nose, a sound I’ve catalogued over the years as the specific moment the man knows he’s not going to win an argument and hasn’t fully accepted it yet.
“Tessa.” My name on his tongue—low and careful—means he’s about to verbalize a thought he’s been sitting on. “Two nights ago, someone cut through your living room window.”
“I know. I was there.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I turn to look at him fully. “Cole. I watched a man get run down in a parking garage. I hid behind a car while his killer walked toward me. I woke up to a perimeter alert and spent several long minutes not knowing if we were going to make it out of my house.” My voice stays steady because I need it to.
“I am aware of the danger. I am not pretending it doesn’t exist.”
Both hands move to the wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Then act like it.”
“I am,” I retort with frustration. “But I have a job to do and that means going to Tacoma.”
His eyes stay fixed on the freeway. “I don’t like it,” he says.
“I know you don’t.”
“I want it on record that I strongly object.”
“Noted,” I say. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re with me.”
He doesn’t answer right away, but when he finally does, his voice has lost some of its edge. “You sure she’ll talk?”
“No,” I say honestly. “But she has information and she’s carrying it alone. People don’t carry things alone forever.”
He glances at me briefly. “That’s a theory.”
“It’s an observation,” I correct.
He doesn’t argue, which means he’s filing it away rather than dismissing it.
The miles unspool quietly, and eventually the early-morning clouds break just enough to let a thin blade of sun shine through.
“Do you regret giving up smoke jumping?” I ask, wanting to fill the void with a topic other than shop talk.
It isn’t what I planned to say but the car feels like a confessional, and I’ve been curious about what this man has been doing with his life for the last five years. I think the fact we’re sleeping together again gives me the right to be curious.
“I don’t regret it at all. I’m where I’m supposed to be.” He turns to look at me pointedly.
“Did you go straight to Jameson after you left?”
He shakes his head. “I worked a private security contract in Dubai for eight months.”
“Dubai,” I repeat. “Was it nice?”
He lifts a shoulder, checks his mirrors again, making sure we’re not being followed. Three days ago, I would have thought that was paranoia, but not now.
“It paid well,” he says flatly. “And it wasn’t here. I needed a change of scenery.”
“And then Jameson,” I say. “Tell me about the work you’ve done since you joined them.”
Cole launches into a recap of the last few months, mostly security details and nothing too dangerous sounding. He certainly did not have the opportunity to shoot anyone the way he did in my house two nights ago.
The drive to Tacoma doesn’t take long and before I know it, we’ve arrived.
Marissa Hale’s house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac in a subdivision built sometime in the nineties, the kind of neighborhood where every third house has the same roofline but different shutters.
Hers is a pale-yellow split-level with white trim, a minivan in the driveway, and a child’s bicycle tipped on its side near the front steps.
Cole pulls to the curb and cuts the engine. He surveys the street in both directions—a sweep of the visible sightlines, a note of the neighboring houses, the parked cars.
“You want me to come up?” he asks.
“No. I think it’s best if I talk to her alone.”
“Then let me do a sweep of her house and grounds first.”
I take off my seat belt and turn to face him. “For what? A rabid racoon? Because that’s the only danger here. You think some random mercenary is in there ready to kidnap me?”
Cole scowls. “No, but those were professionals who came after you and they have resources. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that they’re watching all of Erik’s family and friends, in the chance you approach them.”
I had not considered that, and I almost capitulate and let him come in. But then a thought occurs to me and I shake my head. “No. Not possible. If you thought there was even a remote chance of that happening, you would not have let me come.”
He sighs heavily and waves his hand. “Fine. Go do your reporter thing.”
I leave Cole in the car, knowing he’ll watch the street like a hawk but not worried about it.
The doorbell sounds hollow from the outside and soon I hear footsteps approaching. The door opens on the chain.
Marissa Hale looks like a woman who hasn’t slept since her brother died. She’s in her mid-thirties, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail that’s coming loose, wearing a sweatshirt that says TACOMA across the chest in faded letters. Her eyes are red-rimmed but alert.
“Can I help you?” she asks, and I hear the fatigue in her voice.
“I’m Tessa Ward. We talked on the phone a few days ago.”
“I told you not to come,” she says quietly.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Who is he?” she asks, nodding toward Cole sitting in the car at the curb.
“A friend.” I hold her gaze. “He just drove me here.”
She studies me for a long moment and then surprisingly, the chain slides free.
I follow her into the living room, noting a crayon drawing half-finished on the coffee table next to a stack of library books. She doesn’t offer me anything to drink, perching on the edge of the armchair while I take the couch.
“I meant what I said on the phone,” she starts. “I don’t know specifics.”
“I know,” I say gently. “I’m not here for specifics. I’m here because you knew him probably better than anyone.”
Her face shifts, the practiced defensiveness giving way to a rawer vulnerability underneath. Her fingers lace tightly together and she stares at them. “He was my little brother,” she says, and the words come out drenched in pain.
“You were close,” I surmise.
She nods, eyes still pinned on her hands. “Very.” She glances toward the drawing on the table. “My kids adored their uncle Erik. The funeral is in two days and they don’t really understand what dead means, and I haven’t been able to explain it.”
I glance around. “Are they here?”
She shakes her head. “Out on an adventure today with their dad. He wanted to get them out for a bit.”
“Kids are resilient,” I say softly, and she nods with a watery smile.
Marissa takes a deep breath. “So, what do you want to know?”
“When’s the last time you talked to your brother before… he died?”
She looks up at the ceiling, face scrunched in recollection before her eyes come to me.
“Well, we talked all the time, but one call stands out about three weeks before he died.” She picks at the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“This call was different. He was scared. I could hear it underneath everything he was saying even though he was trying to sound normal.”
“Did he tell you why?”
She shakes her head. “He wouldn’t say specifically.
Just that he’d found information at work he didn’t know what to do with.
That he was trying to figure out the right thing.
” Her jaw tightens. “I told him to quit. Just walk away and find another job. There are a hundred companies in Seattle that would hire someone like him.” Her voice fractures slightly. “He said it wasn’t that simple.”
“Because he’d already seen too much,” I say quietly.
Her eyes come up to mine for the first time since I sat down. “That’s what I figured out later.” She swallows. “He said the people involved were the kind who didn’t leave loose ends.” A pause. “I didn’t understand what that meant at the time. I thought he was being dramatic.”
I give her a moment.
“The last time I talked to him,” she continues, “was three days before he died. He called from a number I didn’t recognize.
” She exhales shakily. “He told me he loved me. Told me to hug the kids. Said he was sorry he hadn’t been around more.
” Her voice drops to barely above a whisper.
“He knew. I think he already knew what was coming and he was saying goodbye and I didn’t even realize it until after. ”
The room is very quiet around us. Somewhere in the distance a dog barks.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, and I mean it in all the ways that don’t fit neatly into a conversation like this.
She purses her lips, composing herself with the practiced efficiency of a woman who has been holding it together in front of two small children for days and has gotten very good at it.
After a moment she gives me a look that isn’t quite suspicion anymore. “You said he reached out to you. That he trusted you.”
“He did,” I say. “He wanted me to help him expose his employer in an arson scheme to devalue land so they could grab it cheap. He was bothered that in one of those fires, a husband and wife who were camping died.”