Chapter Nineteen
Ellis didn’t immediately respond because he didn’t want to yell at her, and if he opened his mouth, he thought he might just do that.
Out of fear. Out of terror.
Yeah, he could admit that now. He was terrified, and it pissed him off, because there was nothing to do with that feeling but feel it. Deal with it. Fear couldn’t dictate his choices like they once had, even the fear for her well-being.
So he took his time. To settle, to breathe, to remember that…at the end of this was a brand-new lease on life. He wanted that. Needed it.
“It’s very possible there is no one out there to trap,” Ellis finally said, like that really mattered to what she was saying.
“That would be the ideal scenario, right?” Kirsten replied. “But it’s also possible someone is lying in wait. Boyd could have led someone here, through no real fault of his own. Someone could know where we are, and the more time we give them, the more time they have to hurt us.”
“And you want to put yourself out there as bait?”
“I don’t want to. I think I need to.”
It was all he could do not to pound his head against the wall. “You never need to use yourself as bait. That’s law enforcement 101.”
“Don’t pretend like you’ve never taken a risk that put you in danger.”
“Yes, but that—”
“Don’t say it was your job. You know what my job is? Staying alive. Having a life. You and I both know we can’t hide up here forever. At some point, if we don’t have answers, Zach is going to tell us it’s time to give up.”
“He’s not going to tell us that.”
She fixed him with a hard look. “This isn’t even his cabin, Ellis.”
Ellis didn’t have any quick response to that. He’d been on assignments he had to give up before because the mission had run out of money or information or whatever. And this was Zach’s partner’s family’s cabin in some roundabout way, so they’d likely want and need it back at some point.
But that didn’t mean he had to risk his wife’s life. Again. It also didn’t mean there weren’t other cabins, other places to hide.
But it wasn’t a life—that he knew.
“We’ll sleep on it,” he said instead. “You’re exhausted, and one night doesn’t change anything.
If someone’s out there, they’ll have to hunker down against the elements.
” He turned her toward the bed, nudged her into a sitting position.
“We’ll face everything in the morning rested and renewed with fresh eyes. ”
She looked up at him, and there were a million emotions in her gaze, her expression, in her.
He wished there was some way to wipe it away for her.
So he knelt in front of her. “Kirsten, I get where Boyd is coming from with his theory, but…it just doesn’t add up.
What could you have known? I was the one undercover, and we all know that they went at you as a punishment for me infiltrating them. ”
“You said it yourself, before Boyd crashed the party. You said I couldn’t go around thinking I remembered everything.”
“You know that’s different.”
He could tell she did not know that, but she didn’t argue with him. “I’m only sleeping on this if you’re sleeping on this, so if you plan to placate me until I fall asleep, then sneak out there and make plans with Boyd without me, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
He smiled in spite of himself, in spite of the situation, because this was the woman he’d loved since almost that first moment. And since he was learning or growing or something, he said it.
“I love you.”
He could tell the words took her off guard, even though he’d been saying them. Even though they had to be written all over his face every time he looked at her.
Her smile was soft and warm. “I love you too, Ellis.” She cupped his face and pressed her mouth to his. “Now let’s get some sleep.”
He didn’t know how he could, but apparently in a warm bed with his wife in his arms it wasn’t so hard. He woke up before she did, while the world was still dark, but it was morning. He heard Boyd moving around out in the main room, so he slipped out of bed.
Hopefully they could get a little conversation in before Kirsten woke up. So he could tell Boyd to lay off the idea that Kirsten didn’t remember something important.
Ellis didn’t think she did. He didn’t, but the what-if nagged him, because nothing about this whole situation fully added up.
Boyd was in the kitchen, poking at the coffee machine with the occasional irritated grunt.
“Never could work an analog machine,” Ellis said in a quiet voice, elbowing Boyd out of the way so he could handle it.
“I do just fine,” Boyd replied, keeping his voice low while Ellis finished up and got the coffee brewing.
Then they stood in what might have been a companionable silence, waiting for coffee, if there weren’t a few big-ass elephants sitting in the room.
“I need you to go easy on her. Especially about her memory. She’s been traumatized in so many different ways. We don’t need to add to it.”
“Is it adding to it if I’m right and just unearthing a trauma that’s already happened?”
Ellis wasn’t sure he had a great answer for that. He didn’t like any of the answers. Because it was traumatic to remember awful things. He’d seen her reaction to remembering him shot, remembering being tossed from the balcony. It was just heartbreaking.
But if something was there…it was there either way.
“Look, Sutty, I’m here to help you. Be safe, get to the bottom of things, and stop whoever sent that threat. It’s not going to be easy or comfortable, or you wouldn’t have reached out for my help. You would have handled it yourself, like the pro you are.”
“If you recall, I just asked you to look into a few things, not show up unannounced.”
Boyd grinned. “Come on now, it’s been a while, but you’re very familiar with the Boyd Cavalier experience.”
He was, and maybe he should have been annoyed, but there was something so familiar about this. Working together. Their different tactics and personalities and how it…matched, complemented.
Which he supposed was the real problem. He knew Boyd wasn’t totally wrong to push this. He just wanted him to be wrong.
They poured their coffee in silence, sat down at the table. When the silence finally broke, it was Boyd who spoke, his voice low and serious.
“I thought about it some, and maybe my theory isn’t quite right, but there’s something to do with her, not you. I believe that.” It was the serious that got to Ellis, because Boyd tended to go lighter and more irreverent, even when things were serious.
Still. “She was a teacher. The only connection to anything remotely criminal was me investigating them.”
Boyd frowned at that. “A teacher,” he said, clearly thinking about that in some deeper way. “In Chicago.”
“I think I’d know if she taught one of the Carusos’ kids or something, Boyd. They all get sent to private anyway.”
“But it doesn’t have to be a Caruso. Just someone connected. I think it’s the thread to pull. Who was she connected to that year, in the school. It can’t hurt.”
Ellis couldn’t argue with it can’t hurt, even if he hated it. “The internet up here isn’t the best, and that’s a lot to sort through.”
“Yeah, what the hell else are we going to do up here?” Boyd looked around. “To my way of thinking, it’s this or set a trap.”
Luckily Ellis didn’t have to make that decision, because Kirsten emerged from their room. There was a confused expression on her face, and she was holding her phone weirdly. Kind of like holding it out to him.
“Dr. Leigh emailed me,” she said, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
“The psychiatrist,” Ellis explained to Boyd. “What did she say?”
Kirsten handed her phone to Ellis, who tilted the screen so Boyd could read the email at the same time.
Kirsten,
I wanted to check in on you and make sure everything is okay. Remembering things can be painful and confusing. Sometimes it can be hard to talk in person. If you want to write things out, that’s an option too. I’m here for you either way.
Dr. Leigh
“I don’t think this is right,” Kirsten said. She was wringing her hands, pacing again. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Why?”
“She’s never emailed me before. She would just…call.”
“The time stamp is ten thirty. It was late. Maybe she was worried she’d wake you up,” Boyd suggested, but he was taking it seriously. Ellis knew the question wasn’t doubt, it was working through the possibilities.
“Then she’d wait until the morning and just call. It’s not time sensitive to check in on me. She’d call me in the morning. Either she has some kind of reason to believe something is wrong and is fishing, or…”
“This isn’t Dr. Leigh,” Ellis finished. “It’s someone fishing for information on what you remember,” Ellis muttered. Which meant Boyd’s theory about Kirsten knowing something had a hell of a lot more credence now. “But who?”
“Her assistant might have access to her work email, right?”
Ellis nodded. “Colleen would be the most reasonable culprit in all this.” But he still couldn’t figure out how she was connected. Neither his nor Zach’s nor even Boyd’s investigation had unearthed any connection to anyone they knew of from the Carusos.
“She was pretty pissed off about Ellis telling her she needed to back off,” Boyd said.
“This isn’t just petty revenge because he wouldn’t cheat on his wife,” Kirsten replied, frowning. “I didn’t like the woman, but you’re talking about… It’s too much.”
“Unstable people do unreasonable, unstable things.” Boyd shrugged. “Maybe that’s all this is. A little revenge for thwarting her dating life.”
“Give me a break,” Ellis muttered.
“People have done worse for less.”
It was an incredibly uncomfortable thought. Boyd was right, but that didn’t mean Ellis had to believe something that felt so…silly.
“What about your last year of teaching?” He ushered Kirsten into his seat, then went to pour her a coffee. “Do you remember that at all?”
Kirsten inhaled, looking down at her phone like she couldn’t just set Dr. Leigh’s email aside.
“I guess. More or less. I had five periods, three world lit and two American lit.”
“Did you piss any parents off?”
“Oh, plenty.” She thanked Ellis for the coffee when he brought it to her. “But that’s hardly unusual. Or reason for someone to threaten me.”
“Let’s put a list together. Just to see if we can find any connections.”
“I could do that,” she said cautiously. “But I think I have a better idea.”
Ellis already knew he wasn’t going to like it.
“I think Ellis should call Colleen.”
Ellis was standing behind Kirsten, so he couldn’t see her face, but he could see Boyd’s. And how hard he was trying not to laugh.
“And why would I do that?” Ellis managed to grind out.
“I’ve been dead for two years—that’s what everyone thinks. Maybe with me out of the way, you’re interested. Haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. Whatever works.”
Now Boyd wasn’t trying to hold back his laughter at all. He was letting it loose. He even punctuated it with a knee slap.
Ellis glared. Then tried to keep his tone equitable as he spoke. “She knows you’re not dead, as we’ve established.”
“Which is why she might be intrigued. Intrigued enough to meet you somewhere…isolated.” Kirsten gestured to the cabin around them. “Maybe even with whoever she’s working with or for.”
KIRSTEN WASN’T SURPRISED he didn’t like the idea, but she did think he would have relented once he knew he got to be the bait—not her. He was never going to let her put herself in danger, but he’d put himself.
And she knew Boyd would protect Ellis in whatever ways he could, so it wasn’t too big a risk. Calculated.
“She’s fishing. She wants something. Let’s give it to her.” Kirsten picked up the phone with the offensive email. “You didn’t want me to be the bait. You’re the FBI agent. You can be the bait. And then this stops.” And they could get their lives back. Whatever that looked like. Good or bad.
It was better than this weightless in-between of hope tangled with fear.
“She’s got you there, Sutty,” Boyd said. It surprised her a little that he’d take her side, but only a little.
Boyd was the kind of man who liked to act, regardless of consequences, because he didn’t have the kind of responsibilities that Ellis did.
“And where, pray tell, will the two of you be?” Ellis asked. His jaw tight, but his tone even enough.
Kirsten knew him well enough to know he was livid under that careful facade. He wouldn’t let it out. He would work through it.
No wonder she loved him as much as she did. And because she loved him, she didn’t want to risk him, but she’d lived the life of the spouse of an FBI agent. She was already old hat at worrying about his safety. What was one more assignment?
“Well, you and Boyd can figure out the rest of the plan, can’t you? Tactically or whatever.” She waved offhandedly, in a way she knew would irritate Ellis, and she didn’t want to irritate him exactly, but she wanted him to…act. To risk.
“Let’s at least lay it out,” Boyd said. “See what we can come up with. And if we don’t come up with a good way to go about it, we nix the plan. No harm, no foul.”
Ellis’s jaw worked. He looked from Kirsten to Boyd. Then inhaled deeply. “Fine. But you need to eat some breakfast first,” he told her. When his back was turned, moving into the kitchen to scrounge her up some breakfast, Boyd winked at her.
And she mouthed a silent thank you.
They’d find a plan. They’d find a way out of this.
She had to believe that, because otherwise she might crumble. She wouldn’t crumble now. For Ellis. For herself.
For their future.