Charlie’s Adam’s apple bobs, and he white-knuckles the steering wheel.
“Ma’am, you can bet we will.”
Looking satisfied with herself, she pulls around us and goes up the drive just as Justin and Nacho begin loading their truck.
“Fuck, that was close,” I breathe as Charlie turns onto the highway. When he doesn’t respond, I look over, and his brows are stitched together in concentration.
“Hey, Charlie—you okay?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never left a kid behind before. I just more or less told Ant I’d never do that, and not even an hour later…fuck,” he shouts, banging the steering wheel.
“Hey, now. We didn’t have enough information to remove a child from their home.”
“I should have talked to him.”
“You didn’t have time.”
“I know that,” he says, grinding his molars. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“True. But that’s why you’re so good at this. You’re willing to do the hard things.”
He takes a deep breath. “Thanks, Bram. Now that we have the documents, I can hand them over to our friends, who can go over it with pattern-recognition technology. They should be able to figure out what all these marks mean pretty quickly.”
“Excellent.”
We pull into Wild Heart and park in front of the bunkhouse. A few minutes later, Justin and Nacho join us. Justin and Charlie immediately go to one another, embracing as they murmur in each other’s ears.
I walk over to the truck and get in next to Nacho.
“Don’t forget to take your comms out,” he says, grinning.
“Good call,” Levy says over the comms. “And don’t forget those cameras either.”
He appears on the porch a second later and walks up to the window, holding out his palm. Nacho and I deliver our surveillance equipment to him, waving as we take off.
As we head down the road, Nacho turns to me. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got lucky,” I say, scrunching my nose as we pass the property we just infiltrated.
“You’re telling me. I was worried the German thing wouldn’t work with that dog.”
“Yeah, but that was only kinda lucky.” Tapping my lip, I continue, “I actually feel lucky about something else.”
“Yeah? What do you feel lucky about?”
I hesitate, but Nacho’s sincere interest makes me plow forward. “I feel kind of like this is the thing that’s been missing from my professional life.”
“What? You mean the breaking and entering?” he asks, laughing at me.
“Ha-ha, no. But maybe also yes. Actually getting in and finding out information that will probably lead us where we need to go, having to pivot in the moment, keeping calm while doing so…I think I’m meant to do more with that.”
Nacho catches my eye, pride shining in his.
“It was sexy hearing you work through the problem.”
“I’m glad I can turn you on, Ignacio. If you’re up for it, some time with you would make me feel so much better.”
His smile breaks like a sunrise. “Yes, Dr. Barlowe. I would like that very much.”
