Chapter Nine
He was out of his mind.
And he really couldn’t avoid going home anymore.
Callen shoved through the front door, stepping into silence.
He hadn’t talked to Maeve all day. In fact, he wasn’t sure he even had an updated number for her, but he imagined she would’ve found a way to get ahold of him.
Either through his supervisor or through Simpson.
Closing the door behind him, he listened for signs she was still in the house. And came up empty.
Warning pooled in his gut. “Maeve?”
No answer.
What had he expected? For her to be here when he got home to soothe the frustrating and alarming need to check in with her?
He’d caught himself almost tapping her contact information—whether it was current or not—a dozen times on the trail.
He’d managed to control himself every time, but that didn’t stop him from wondering whether she’d eaten something before she’d left the house or whether she’d gotten enough sleep.
Past experience told him no to both. He knew her.
Knew her tendencies to sacrifice herself for her job.
And he was being ridiculous. One kiss, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all day.
Was he actually disappointed that she hadn’t been here when he’d walked through the door?
Hell, he had to stop thinking about that kiss.
It’d messed with his head all day, to the point he swore he could still taste the hints of her toothpaste despite brushing his own damn teeth and shoving granola bars and trail mix in his mouth all day.
Wasn’t possible. Maeve had somehow managed to slip past his defenses while recovering from whatever nightmares had plagued her and wearing that too-thin matching pajama top-and-bottom set that showed off her curves and smelling like her signature amber and vanilla.
The combination of her body heat and the feel of her pressed against him had overridden his senses and shoved him right back where he didn’t want to be, but could he really blame her?
Or was he just looking to justify kissing her?
Didn’t matter. It wouldn’t happen again. There was obviously a lot they still needed to unpack from the way things had ended in order to move forward in working together, but he wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her past his defenses. Not for her contribution in tearing his family apart.
“Get it together.” Callen tossed his uniform jacket on the end of the couch, where Maeve had set her belongings last night, and headed for the kitchen.
No dishes in the sink. Only a single mug in the dishwasher.
She hadn’t eaten anything before she’d gone…
wherever an FBI special agent went during the day.
All right. Maybe she’d grabbed something on the way out the door.
But why did he care? He didn’t. She was an adult who could take care of herself, and he needed to get a damn grip.
He pulled the leftovers from their silent dinner from the fridge and opened the first container.
Maeve’s sweet and sour pork. If he valued his life, he wouldn’t eat it.
She’d never been the type to share food.
Didn’t matter if it was Chinese, a bowl of soup or a piece of gum.
He’d learned all that the hard way. Then again, what better way to make sure the lines between them stayed crystal clear than to get under her skin?
Propped against the counter, Callen ate the first few pieces of pork cold, each bite solidifying in his stomach.
Damn it. It was close to six in the evening. She was probably hungry. Taking the container with him, he headed down the short three-way hallway leading to both bedroom and the bathrooms and knocked on her door. “Maeve, if you’re hungry, I’ve got leftovers…”
The door swung inward. It took him a second to realize what had changed since he’d left for work this morning.
The bed had been stripped, the dresser had been cleaned off and there wasn’t any sign of the woman who’d shoved her way back into his life.
Gravity tugged at his insides. She’d left, probably to the nearest hotel or motel, but what surprised him more was the heavy feeling settling on his shoulders.
The same feeling he’d tried to ignore when he’d come home a year ago to find her belongings gone.
He’d logically known then what to expect after demanding her engagement ring back and telling her to find a new place to live, but seeing all the empty space where her stuff used to sit, where she’d taken a cold apartment and added warmth with decor and photos and books, had gutted him.
It was easy to figure out why she’d left.
It was most likely the same reason he’d avoided coming back to the house for as long as he had.
That damn kiss. Scrubbing his free hand down his face, Callen almost ripped the doors to the hallway closet off their hinges.
Scents of detergent and humidity had him opening the top-loading washer.
She’d washed the bedding. Setting the sweet and sour pork container on the shelf, he switched the damp bedding to the dryer.
Maeve wasn’t gone. He knew that. She still had a case to work, and there was no way she’d turn her back on seeing this through.
What she would do? Exclude him from the investigation to avoid a confrontation between them.
“Over my dead body.” She wouldn’t cut him out.
He wouldn’t let her. Callen slammed the dryer door a little harder than necessary, then grabbed the Chinese container and tossed it in the garbage.
There were only so many places in town where she could go, and considering the hotel was under renovations due to the flood, she would’ve gone back to the motel that’d been full last night.
He crossed the living room to collect his jacket from the sectional. His phone vibrated in his back pocket. Pulling it free, Callen lost every ounce of frustration in a rush, leaving him more than a little disoriented. He connected the call. “Hey, Mom.”
His mother’s face filled the screen, a little off-center and too low to get a full view of anything other than the top of her fully white, slicked, straight hair. “Hello, darling. I thought you were going to call last night.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Something came up.” Rather, someone, but his parents didn’t need to know about Maeve. “I sent a text letting you know I wasn’t going to make it. Did you see it?”
“Is that Callen?” His father’s gravelly voice registered a split second before the old man himself pushed his way into the frame.
Stark lines puddled beneath his dad’s eyes, as though age was dragging all the skin in the man’s face down.
His beard and mustache—normally kept neat and short—had gone gray like he’d been electrocuted repeatedly over the last year, but Callen had felt that too.
The shock of grief anytime Lauren crossed his mind.
He couldn’t imagine what it was like losing a child.
Losing a sister was bad enough. “You finish reading that book I told you about? What’d you think of the ending?
Crazy, huh? The killer was right there in front of you the whole time—”
“Oh, stop, Tommy. I haven’t gotten that far.
You’re going to spoil it for me.” Helen Russell’s laugh didn’t reach her eyes as she slapped her husband’s arm.
There’d been years Callen remembered when that hadn’t been the case, but their monthly family book club—and time—had started bringing the smile he remembered back.
Cieron was the only one who didn’t show, didn’t call, didn’t seem to want anything to do with the family.
Leaving Callen to shoulder the weight alone.
“I’m just teasing.” His dad leaned in and planted a kiss on his mom’s forehead. “The killer is—”
“Utter one more syllable and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.” Turned out, his mother’s “mom voice,” as she liked to call it, was just as effective on a doting husband, shutting Tommy Russell up in an instant.
Callen couldn’t stop the laugh from charging up his throat.
Moments like this had made more of an appearance over the past few months.
Where he’d gotten glimpses of life before Lauren had gone missing.
More were on the horizon each week he checked in, but they would never outshine the darkness as long as his sister’s case remained open.
Until then, he’d protect the ones left with everything he had.
“How’s your week, honey? Anything exciting going on in Zion?” His mother clapped both hands together, her lipsticked mouth parting. “Oh, that reminds me, did Maeve get ahold of you? I keep forgetting to ask.”
“Maeve?” Callen didn’t understand. His hand gripped the sides of the phone until his case protested. “What are you talking about? You’ve been talking with Maeve?”
“Well, we’ve stayed in touch since you broke up. I told you that. She calls every couple of weeks to check on us, and she sent us that framed photo of you, Cieron and Lauren for Christmas last year. You know, the one on the bookcase.
“Last time I talked to her, she was headed to Zion. I told her to call you.”
“You’ve stayed in touch with my ex.” The words made sense as they left his mouth, but Callen couldn’t wrap his head around the meaning.
His next exhale faltered. He remembered the photo.
It’d been taken the same year he’d gifted Lauren, Maeve and his mom the Tasers.
Maeve had been the one to take it. For once, all three Russell children in the same house, and his mom had wanted an updated photo to replace the one of them as teens almost two decades prior, but he hadn’t thought much about how it’d shown up on the bookcase. “For a year.”
“You say that like she stopped existing after you broke up with her.” The mom voice was back, directed at him, and Callen couldn’t stop every nerve ending in his body screaming for him to hang up before he dug his own grave.
“Do I have to remind you, Maeve has been part of this family since she was seventeen years old? She isn’t just Lauren’s best friend.
She’s like another daughter to me. She was going to be my daughter after you got married, and she’s done nothing but try to make things right since Lauren disappeared.
If it weren’t for her, your father and I wouldn’t be able to laugh with you today. ”
Tommy Russell lost the playfulness in his expression. “She made a mistake, boy. We know that, she knows that. But we’ve forgiven her. You have no idea how bad things got after you broke off the engagement. She didn’t have anyone.”
“Wait. Back up. You said you talked with her a couple weeks ago, and she told you she was coming to Zion?” Callen couldn’t think straight.
Maeve had been talking with his parents, and they’d forgiven her?
How bad had things gotten for his parents to get to that point?
Heat exploded from that hollow place in his chest. None of this made sense.
How had Maeve known to come to Zion before Iliana Meyer had disappeared?
His mom nodded, strands of her white hair sliding free from one shoulder. “Yes. She said she needed to start at the beginning.”
He didn’t understand. Maeve had been in Springdale and Zion for weeks rather than just the past two days?
Why hadn’t she told him? Why come here at all?
It couldn’t have been to look into Iliana Meyer’s disappearance.
The forensic analyst’s vehicle hadn’t been found until six days ago.
Callen ran through everything, every conversation, every move made on Maeve’s part since showing up at the scene of the skeletal remains yesterday morning. “The beginning of what?”
“Of Lauren’s case. Didn’t she tell you?” Helen Russell finally centered herself on the screen. “She’s still looking into your sister’s disappearance.”