Chapter 12 #2
We spent the next hour changing directions, using shop windows, doubling through public passages, and teaching her how to identify a tail without announcing she was looking. She made mistakes because anyone would. She also learned irritatingly quickly.
At the third turn she stopped outside a bakery and studied the cakes in the window.
I nearly walked past her.
"Why'd you stop?"
"Blue coat."
I followed her gaze through the glass reflection.
A man in a navy raincoat stood near the bus shelter across the street.
"What about him?"
"He was outside the chemist twenty minutes ago."
"Lots of people wear blue."
"He also has a tear near the right pocket."
I looked again.
She was right.
"Anything else?"
"He's carrying the same newspaper folded backward, and he hasn't opened it once."
I smiled.
Skye looked at my reflection.
"You're smiling."
"You've been known to notice."
"Was I right?"
"Aye."
Her satisfaction lasted approximately three seconds.
"Is he following us?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because he's waiting for the number twelve bus."
As if summoned, the bus pulled in.
The man boarded.
Skye stared after him.
I laughed.
She turned on me. "You knew?"
"Saw the timetable."
"You're awful."
"You noticed the right things."
"For the wrong reason."
"That's how you learn."
She folded her arms. "I liked you better when I thought you were mysterious."
"You never thought that."
"No. I thought you were irritating."
"Closer."
We continued through the town until we reached an old stone church overlooking the western road toward Croft House.
The grounds sat high enough to give us a distant view of the estate without bringing us anywhere near its perimeter.
From there, I could see the road network and Skye could see the architecture.
She lifted the binoculars.
"The western garden wall is intact."
"Door?"
"Too much vegetation."
I studied the road.
"Security car near the south entrance."
"Same one?"
"Different plates."
"Cloned?"
"Probably."
Skye lowered the binoculars. "So what am I looking for that you aren't?"
The question caught me.
I handed them back.
"Tell me."
She studied the estate for several minutes without speaking.
Then her posture changed.
"Greenhouse."
"What about it?"
"Wrong orientation."
I looked toward the glass structure barely visible through the trees.
"Explain."
"A nineteenth-century greenhouse would face south or southeast unless the terrain made that impossible. That one runs west."
"So newer."
"Much newer." She adjusted the focus. "And the path doesn't lead toward the gardens."
I followed the line.
The narrow paved path disappeared behind the greenhouse and continued toward the western wall.
The supposed greenhouse had very little to do with growing anything; its real purpose was to provide architectural cover for whatever had been hidden behind it.
"Could conceal the laundry entrance."
"Exactly."
I looked at her.
She had that expression again, the one she wore when a building surrendered something it had been trying to hide.
"Good catch."
She lowered the binoculars.
"Was that a compliment?"
"Aye."
"Without insulting me first?"
"Don't get used to it."
She smiled and looked back toward Croft House.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
There was no immediate danger. No guards moving toward us. No alarms. No adrenaline offering an excuse for the awareness that had been sitting between us since last night.
That made it harder to ignore.
Skye eventually lowered the binoculars and leaned against the stone wall beside me.
"The kiss was a mistake."
I looked at her.
She stared toward Croft House.
I knew a trap when I heard one.
"It was."
She nodded thoughtfully.
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
I should have laughed, looked away, and reminded both of us that we were standing in a churchyard while studying the building where her best friend was being held. Instead, I turned fully toward her, making a decision I could no longer blame on fear or adrenaline.
Skye did the same.
There was no anger between us this time.
No fear. No security guard moving through trees and no argument sharp enough to strip away restraint before either of us could think.
There was only the quiet recognition that had been building since the moment she looked at me in Alderwick House and decided fear wasn't a good enough reason to back down.
I lifted one hand slowly enough that Skye had every opportunity to move away if she wanted the moment to end, but she stayed exactly where she was.
My fingers slid along the side of her neck, gentler than they had been in the SUV, and her eyes held mine as I leaned closer.
"Still think I'm retreating?" I murmured.
"Frequently."
"Smart mouth."
"You like it."
"Aye."
This kiss was nothing like the first.
I took my time because there was nothing forcing us to hurry.
Skye's hand settled against my chest instead of twisting into my shirt, and when her lips met mine there was no fury underneath them, only heat and choice and something more intimate precisely because neither of us could blame it on danger.
I kissed her slowly enough to learn the shape of her mouth, the way she breathed when I angled her closer, the quiet sound she made when my thumb moved beneath her jaw.
She stepped into me willingly, closing the remaining distance until the cold stone wall at my back and the warmth of her body against mine became the only things I noticed.
The first kiss had felt like losing control, but this one was far more dangerous because I was giving that control away deliberately and discovering I didn't particularly want it back.
When I finally pulled back, Skye's eyes remained closed for a second before she looked at me.
"Still a mistake?"
I rested my forehead against hers.
"Aye."
Her lips curved.
"Liar."
I almost kissed her again.
Instead, I let my hand fall from her neck and forced myself to remember Croft House.
"We need to go."
She didn't look offended.
Didn't push.
She simply took one last glance toward the distant estate before picking up the binoculars.
"Because we're finished here?"
"Because if we stay another five minutes, I'm going to prove your point."
Her eyebrows rose.
"Now that sounds interesting."
"Skye."
She laughed and started toward the path.
I followed her, watching the western approach to Croft House while trying not to notice how easily she had started walking beside me rather than behind.
By the time we reached the vehicle, Hawkeye had sent confirmation that the eastern road offered two clean exits and Trigger had identified a blind section near an abandoned farm track.
Storm reported that Croft House security rotated vehicles every six hours, while Raze had found the company supplying medical equipment and a pattern of deliveries we could exploit.
The pieces of the Croft House operation were finally coming together, but so were Skye and I, and that was the one development I had no idea how to plan around.
I had spent fifteen years building a life where people could stand beside me without getting far enough inside to become something I could lose.
The club had already weakened those walls.
Skye was walking through them like she had walked through every other building in this investigation, noticing seams I had assumed nobody could see and finding doors I had spent years pretending weren't there.
What frightened me wasn't the possibility that Skye might eventually find one of those doors and open it. It was the realization that somewhere along the way, I had started wanting her to.