She was furious. Not at the decision. At the position. At the fact that loving someone meant standing in a hallway watching them leave and pretending the fear inside was manageable when it was the least manageable thing you'd ever felt.
"Three days ago I was in your arms," she said. "And now you're asking me to sit at my desk and not know if you're safe. Do you understand what that costs me? Nobody taught me how to be the person who waits, Jake. I never had to learn because I never let anyone matter enough to wait for."
Jake didn't tell her it would be fine. Didn't tell her he'd done this a hundred times. Didn't reach for any of the easy answers that would have insulted them both.
"This time is different," he said.
Emily's chin came up. The tell he'd learned to read in two weeks, the one that meant she was about to cross-examine someone and God help whoever was on the stand.
"You think you can't get hurt because it's not a war?"
"No,” he said. "It's different because I have something to come back to."
The cross-examination died on her lips. The anger was still there, he could see it in the set of her shoulders, in the way her fingers gripped the coffee cup she'd carried from the lobby and never drank. But it wasn't the only thing there anymore.Underneath the fury was the thing that had made her drive to Clearwater, the thing that had made her sayI love youwith her eyes open and her body still joined to his. She looked at him in the fluorescent light of a government hallway with paralegals walking past and phones ringing in offices, and Jake saw the exact instant it landed.
Not that he'd be careful. Not that it wasn't dangerous. That she was the reason he'd come home.
She didn't say anything. She reached out and straightened his collar, the one that was already straight, the small adjustment that let her touch him in a place where touching him wasn't allowed. Her fingers rested against the fabric for one second longer than the gesture required.
Then she turned and walked toward her office. Back straight. Heels on tile. The sound of her moving away from him at a pace that said she didn't trust herself to go slower.
Jake took the elevator down. Crossed the lobby. Stepped into the Florida sun.
He had three days to find a ghost. And for the first time in his life, a reason to come back from the hunt.
CHAPTER 19
The box was sitting on the porch where the delivery driver had left it two days ago. Jake had walked past it twice since then, both times telling himself he'd get to it when the timing was right. Now, pulling into the driveway with Ray's voice in his head and Emily's fingers on his collar and three days of silence about to start, the timing was as right as it was going to get.
Ranger was already at the door, nosing the cardboard with the professional suspicion of a dog who'd spent three years evaluating packages in places where packages killed people. He circled it once, sat, and looked up with an expression that saidcleared, but I have questions about your priorities.
"Fair enough."
Jake picked up the box and carried it inside, Ranger padding behind him. The house was still in a way that had substance to it. Not the usual morning-without-Emily quiet, the kind that meant she was in court and he'd see her tonight and the day had a shape to it. This was the silence of a house he was about to leave. Three days. Maybe longer, depending on what the streets gave him.
He'd driven home instead of heading straight out. The smart move was to go now, start working his contacts, put distancebetween himself and the federal footprint before anyone noticed the leash was off. But the box had been sitting on his porch for two days, and he'd ordered it for a reason, and the reason was still sitting at her desk across town processing what he'd asked her to let him do.
Cut me loose.
He saw her in that hallway every time he closed his eyes. The composure that was one degree from cracking. The way she'd straightened his collar because she couldn't touch him the way she wanted to. The sound of her heels moving away at a pace that said she didn't trust herself to go slower.
She'd authorized it. In front of Ray. Like a professional. And it had cost her, how much, he hadn't finished calculating.
He set the box on the kitchen island and opened it. Packing material, a power cord, and the frame itself, smaller than he'd expected. Matte black. Clean lines. The kind of thing that wouldn't announce itself on a desk already buried under depositions and legal pads.
He'd ordered the Aura four days ago. Hadn't told anyone. Hadn't planned some elaborate presentation. He'd been scrolling through his phone after Emily fell asleep on the couch, her head on his shoulder, Ranger across both their feet, some courtroom drama she'd insisted on playing for background noise flickering on the screen. He'd stopped on a photo he didn't remember taking.
Emily and Claire at The Anchor. Two weeks ago, maybe. Friday night. Emily was laughing. Not the professional version of herself she wore to work, the one that came with composure and eye contact and the projection of a woman who knew she was being assessed. This was mouth-open, head-back, genuine laughter. Claire had said something that Jake couldn't remember, and Emily had let go. Her hand was flat on the bartop, her posture had collapsed into an unguarded looseness, and she looked like someone who had forgotten to be careful.
He'd taken the photo without thinking. The way you do when you see someone you don't want to lose.
That was the night he'd started paying attention to the other pictures on his phone. Not posed ones. Not selfies where everyone mugged for the camera. The ones he'd taken because his thumb found the shutter before his brain caught up.
He plugged in the frame, downloaded the app, and started scrolling.
Claire and Emily at the bar, heads together over a photo on Claire's phone, matching expressions of disbelief. He didn't know what they'd been studying. Didn't need to. The photo was about two women who had each other's backs so completely that the rest of the world was irrelevant.
He added it to the frame.
