“Good,” he murmured, his arms tightening around me. His hand moved leisurely up and down my back, soothing and steady. “You scared me last night.”
I tensed. “Sorry.”
He felt it—my tension—and gradually released me. Our eyes met. Something shifted in his face, like the last wisps of sleep had clearedand reality had roared back. He glanced at the window, where sunlight spilled through the thin curtains. His mouth pressed into a tight line.
He rolled onto his back, and I scooted slightly away.
Grabbing his phone from the nightstand, he cursed under his breath. “It’s late.” He ran a hand through his wild hair. “We should get going. Checkout is soon.”
“Right.” I pushed the blankets off and climbed out of bed.
We got ready in silence. Brushing our teeth. Packing our things.
Neither of us mentioned the kiss.
The drive back to Ember Hollow was just as quiet. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any real damage to Fox’s SUV—only a few scuffs on the bumper that looked like streaks of black paint.
Once we finally got back to the cabin, Fox went straight to the dining table, where his laptop waited. He’d made the space a makeshift workstation since the mysterious call from my father.
“Do you think we should be worried about whoever ran us off the road?” I asked.
His eyes flicked to me before returning to the screen. “I’m not sure. There isn’t really a solid way to figure out who did it, but I’ll try.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand what they were trying to accomplish. If they wanted to hurt us, why didn’t they stop? Why drive away?”
He shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t want to risk being seen on the highway.”
“Maybe,” I echoed.
“Either way, we need to stay vigilant.” He turned his attention back to his keyboard and started to type.
“Do you have the recording of your interview with the Shadow Stalker?” he asked casually.
My heart skipped. The simple reminder of the interview made my throat go tight. My time with the serial murderer had felt like so much more, in many ways.
“I do.” I rummaged through my bag for the recorder. “Why?”
He held out his hand. “I was going to extract the audio.”
I hesitated, clutching the device a little tighter.
“This is my interview,” I said, not sure why I sounded so defensive.
But this was big. It would set our documentary apart from any other out there. It felt like both a blessing and curse.
Also, knowing Fox was going to listen to it made me a little…uncomfortable. Not because I didn’t trust him, but because he wouldn’t react well to what he was going to hear. If I was protective of my work, Fox was even more protective of the people in his life.
The people he loved.
I shook my head. Fox didn’t love me like that. Not anymore. He simply felt some sense of obligation to me. It didn’t matter that we’d kissed last night. Emotions were running high; it was a one-time thing.
He hadn’t even brought it up. He probably never would. It would be like it never happened.
He looked at me again, something shifting in his expression. “I know it’s your interview,” he said, voice gentle. “If you’d like some help cleaning up the audio, I was going to go ahead and do that. But I understand if you want to work with it yourself.”
Of course. The audio would need some tending to. It would be echoey and who knew how clear our voices were through that speaker. Getting it production-ready could take days.
I slowly handed it over. “Okay,” I agreed. “Thank you. Make sure you get copies of the raw audio on the cloud, an external hard drive, and a thumb drive.”
