She recognized my name as much as she did my face, but instead of being honest, she annihilated any chance of an amicable reunion with brutal coldness.
Macy twists her torso my way, her eyes finally finding mine. A storm of emotions nearly hides the spark of defiance in her eyes. Regret, fear, jealousy—they’re all there, but so is a woman who knows how this game works and the best way to play it for a guaranteed win.
“She did. She knows who you are, and she is exactly who you said she was.” For almost three seconds, she wrangles with guilt before she blurts out, “But I didn’t get an honest truth from her. Not one.”
“Because she’s scared,” I defend, working the only excuse I have like a stripper works a pole.
“Perhaps.” Macy’s focus shifts back to the scenery whizzing by her window. “But she’s not running like a scared woman would.”
I almost murmuryetuntil I remember how long we stalked Cameron’s building, waiting for her to do precisely that. Through the brooch on Macy’s “forgotten” coat, we watched a handful of soap operas with Cameron before we trekked her stalk when she headed to bed a little after midnight.
As my agitation spikes, I’m tempted to scald Macy for acting recklessly, but I get it. Sometimes you have to push against the barriers to find the treasure hidden beneath them. I just wish she had told me her plans first.
Though I guess I didn’t give her much chance.
We make the trip home in silence. It isn’t the comfortable silence we shared while eating dessert last night. This is the silence of two people striving not to say or do the wrong thing. It is highly uncomfortable and unlike us.
When we reach the apartment, I park the van out front and kill the engine. Macy grabs her bag and heads inside withoutwaiting for me. I follow while struggling to unravel the mess of the past twenty-four hours.
I’m hurt Cameron didn’t acknowledge that she knows me. My entire life’s work has been for her, yet she dismissed our months together as if they meant nothing. Her response has me worried that I’m looking too deeply into everything else and being more risqué than I usually am.
Inside the apartment, everything is quiet. Adeline cleared out hours ago, right around the time Macy returned to the van, red-faced but mute. She knew she was in trouble, but instead of instigating World War III, she maintained a quiet front, shunting the task onto me.
I didn’t immediately fight back, because I was so convinced Cameron would run that I had my ass in the driver’s seat and my foot on the pedal before Macy joined me inside the van.
Macy drops her bag onto the kitchen counter before rummaging through it. With a breathy sigh, she pulls out the sketchbook and charcoal Adeline ordered before she adds more details to Cameron’s sketch.
In silence, I profile her, trying to gauge her headspace. She’s shut down, all business as she outlines the features of Cameron’s beautiful face.
In less than twenty minutes, her picture comes to life before my eyes.
Macy’s talents are unsurpassed, although something is off with the image.
Something is missing.
“What happened to her mole?”
The pain in Macy’s eyes when she lifts them to my face cuts me raw. I feel like quitting, but if I don’t give this case my all, both of us will be disappointed.
Every woman we bring home frees another half-dozen.
I can’t forget those odds, and neither can Macy.
“She had a mole below her left eye.” A ghost-like smile spreads across my face, caught up in the fondness of a memory. “Anytime she blinked, her eyelashes touched it.”
Macy blinks in the way I’m recalling, dusting her gorgeous freckles with her long lashes, before she murmurs, “Freckles fade as we age.”
“Liar,” I whisper, bringing the unpleasant tension down a notch while sending the chemistry through the roof. “These haven’t faded the slightest in almost thirteen years.” I brush the back of my hand down her freckled cheek, doubling their hue while also staining them with a salty droplet her bursting eye couldn’t hold back any longer. This is the first time she’s displayed hurt when my hands are on her, and it cuts my maturity to the rawness of a boy instead of a man. “Mace?—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She angrily brushes away her tears before she digs her phone out of her pocket. “I’m just emotional thinking about how I will feel once I am in your shoes. That’s all it is.”
She’s lying, but I let it slide. Instead, I give her more reasons to consider how she’ll feel when we finally bring Kendall home. “You know this changes nothing, right? We’re working this case like we do every case because every woman we bring home?—”
“Frees another six. I know,” she interrupts.
“Then what’s the issue? Why are you upset?”
I know why. I just can’t admit it out loud.
