Chapter 12
Noah threaded his fingers through Sabrina’s as he led her through the National Park Service building to Jacob’s office. She didn’t protest, but the look she slanted him dripped question marks.
“I haven’t seen you since Saturday,” he murmured and brushed a thumb over hers. “I missed you.”
“So you said,” she said, giving him a smirk. “Several times. Both on the phone and when you picked me up this morning.”
But she didn’t seem to mind an extra dose of touchy-feely, nor did she push him for any further clarification. Which was good. Because he didn’t know how to explain the sudden urge to ensure everyone—especially Jacob—knew she was with him.
This rush of possessiveness wasn’t his normal vibe at all. And he didn’t think he’d be the type to listen to emo songs and eat a gallon of ice cream while his girlfriend visited her mother either, but here they were.
Sabrina had upended everything inside his skin. He kind of liked the way it unbalanced him. Shouldn’t all great experiences do that?
“Your brother’s going to kill me for bringing you along,” Sabrina said, matching his stride as they rounded the corner.
“Probably.” Noah’s grin widened. “But what are little brothers for if it’s not showing up unannounced at an official interagency meeting. Besides, Jacob likes you. So I’m counting on you to smooth things over.”
Maybe in more ways than one. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t hope his brother could see him with Sabrina, see how great they were together and get over himself. Jacob would readily admit his warnings had been unfounded.
And the way things were going, Noah fully expected Sabrina to be by his side a whole lot more at family events and Thanksgiving and such. It would be nice if Jacob was already on board.
They reached Jacob’s office door, the buzz under his skin different this time. Better. Because he wasn’t trying to get information for his article alone, but was here with someone who’d fiercely insisted that he should do the thing he loved, that it was important to reclaim what he’d lost.
Noah had a speech prepared for when his brother realized Sabrina hadn’t come alone. Three actually, ranging from “I ran into her at the door” to “She kidnapped me and forced me to drive.” Hopefully one of them would convince his by-the-book brother to bend a little.
He pushed open the door, speech number one locked and loaded as he guided Sabrina over the threshold.
Jacob glanced up from his desk. “Officer West, right on time.” When his gaze narrowed and zeroed in on Noah, he held up a hand. “Are you a packaged deal now?”
Noah grinned. “I figured my invitation got lost in the mail. I forgive the oversight.”
“I take it you two know each other,” Sabrina deadpanned, which earned a solid laugh from Noah. Jacob actually cracked a smile. “Nice to see you, Agent Colton. It’s been a while.”
Jacob stood and extended his hand to Sabrina, holding it a touch too long for Noah’s taste. “Whatever this joker told you to get you to bring him along for the ride, it’s all lies.”
“Hey,” Noah protested, crossing his arms hard over his torso as he tried to ignore how jealous that innocuous handshake among colleagues had made him.
“I brought her, not the other way around. The gentlemanly thing to do when you find out your brother has information about a case you happen to be interested in.”
“Yeah, always the gentleman.” Jacob snickered. “I’ll just call someone to escort you out.”
Noah sighed. Obviously, Jacob wasn’t in a charitable mood, though why Noah had thought his brother might be willing to throw him a bone, he had no idea.
“Agent Colton.” Sabrina stepped in front of Noah smoothly, angling her body so he was almost hidden behind her. “As you’re aware, SAR played a key role in recovering our Jane Doe. I’m certain it wouldn’t be a breach of protocol if the specialist sat in on our interagency briefing.”
There were a lot of heavy, suggestive glances going on between Jacob and Sabrina, which made Noah a little squirrelly, but she was pleading his case, so he kept his mouth shut.
Jacob folded his hands, eyebrows raised. “Are you officially requesting the SAR specialist’s presence, Officer West? As a lead officer responsible for the coordination between our departments?”
Beaming, Sabrina nodded vigorously. “Why, yes, Agent Colton. I am. How kind of you to ask.”
“Fine.” Jacob waved a hand dismissively as if he didn’t really care one way or the other. But then he eyed Noah. “Don’t make me sorry.”
“Not a chance, Agent Colton,” Noah said with just a smidge of sarcasm that was one hundred percent warranted as he parked himself in a chair just in case his brother changed his mind. Though it wasn’t bolted to the floor. Jacob could still kick him out, so that felt like not so much of a safeguard.
Really, he needed a bag to hold the remnants of his heart, which had liquefied and poured out all over the floor at Sabrina’s feet.
She’d gone to bat for him. For no reason other than because she knew this case was important to him.
That more than anything should prove to Jacob that his relationship with Sabrina was not a disaster waiting to happen.
Jacob settled behind his desk, shuffling papers in a way that seemed designed to make Noah twitch. His brother had perfected the art of antagonizing him over the years.
“Our victim’s name is Annie Ross.” Jacob’s gaze fixed on Sabrina as if he truly meant to pretend Noah wasn’t there. “Fingerprints matched an arrest record from two years ago.”
Noah’s fingers tightened around Sabrina’s before he realized he’d reached for her hand again. She squeezed back, and that tiny gesture steadied him.
They were finally getting somewhere.
“Prostitution charge,” Jacob continued, his voice carefully neutral. “Her residence on record at the time was a small town here in Utah called Wilson. After that, she disappeared. No job history tied to her social, no phone, no address. Just…gone.”
The words hit Noah like stones dropping into still water, ripples of possibility expanding outward. His investigative brain fired up, connections forming. They were dealing with a woman who’d erased herself.
Or been erased.
“Time of death?” Sabrina asked, her officer voice a stark contrast to how she’d bantered with Jacob moments ago.
“Medical examiner puts it at twenty-four to thirty-six hours before Officer West found her.” Jacob’s gaze slid to Noah for a brief second. “Cause of death appears to be hypothermia.”
Appears to be. Noah caught the careful phrasing, Jacob’s penetrating stare alluding to more than what he could say out loud, saw Sabrina’s slight head tilt that said she’d noticed too. His brother was throwing him a bone after all. Huh.
He opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but Jacob’s phone buzzed. His brother glanced at the display and something in his expression shifted. The name Mae Copeland flashed on the screen.
“Need to take this. Test results from the lab,” Jacob said shortly, his tone painfully casual.
Test results? The look on his brother’s face did not scream, I’m taking a call from a colleague! The opposite in fact.
Was Jacob dating one of his coworkers? And he’d had the nerve to read Noah the riot act about being careful. Noah shook his head, his mind still on Annie Ross, the more important mystery here. A woman had vanished from the system only to reappear dead on a mountain.
And he’d landed center stage in the lead role on this story.
Jacob stepped into the hallway, phone pressed to his ear. Through the glass in the door, Noah watched his brother’s shoulders relax, his usual rigid posture softening. Interesting.
Maybe their father dating Susan had rattled something loose in all of them.
“Is your brother seeing someone in the lab?” Sabrina murmured, following Noah’s gaze.
“You noticed the less-than-professional vibe too?” He turned to study her profile, still caught off guard by how naturally she fit here, in this moment, reading his brother just as easily as he did.
“Definitely. That is not his typical smile.” Sabrina nodded toward the glass. “Which is so unlike him. He’s normally so by the book.”
Noah studied Sabrina with piqued interest. “You think it’s a bad idea to date someone you work with?”
The look she gave him had plenty of subtext. “Everyone thinks that at some point. It’s just a question of how convoluted it gets before you clue in that it’s a terrible idea.”
“We work together,” he reminded her, suddenly struck that they should have had this conversation a long time ago. Was she breaking one of her cardinal rules for him? What did that mean?
“That’s different. You freelance. So next time I need an SAR specialist, I can call someone else. Voilà. Now we don’t work together.”
Blinking, Noah processed that. It was a throwaway comment, one Sabrina didn’t even seem to realize had tripped him up. But it had. How would they work search and rescue together after Ripley was trained if Sabrina didn’t even plan to call him next time she needed him in an official capacity?
“Noted.”
Jacob came back in the room then, stalling the conversation. But not the churn in Noah’s chest.
Jacob tucked his phone away with the kind of deliberate care that suggested he knew exactly how much he’d revealed and didn’t know what to do about it. “Where were we?”
“Annie Ross,” Noah supplied helpfully. “You were about to tell us everything you know about her.”
“I was not.” But there wasn’t much heat in the denial. “Though I suppose you’re going to find ways to dig into this no matter what.”
“I will.” Noah grinned. “You know me.”