He didn’t look at it. She opened it anyway. The photograph on top made ice slide down his spine.
It showed the Colombian jungle. Tactical gear. Him.
The dead body of a serial killer.
Everything in him went utterly still. That photo shouldn’t exist. The mission had been off the books, the evidence scrubbed, the witnesses paid off. He’d covered his tracks so thoroughly that his own command couldn’t prove what he’d done.
But here it was. Proof.
His hand tightened on the glass. Every muscle in his body tensed, his internal threat assessment cranking into overdrive.
Who the hell is she?Who does she work for?
“Colombia,” she said, her tone conversational. “Eighteen months ago. You went off-mission for twelve hours.”
Garrett said nothing.
“Local women were disappearing from villages near your operational area. Turning up dead. Tortured.” She paused. “You tracked the killer to his compound in the jungle.”
His gut cramped. “You telling me or asking me?”
“I’m telling you I know what you did. And I know you left no evidence.”
Except that damned photo she had. He finally looked at her. Really looked. Those intelligent eyes were steady on his face, reading him the way a psychologist reads patients. No fear or judgment. Just calm assessment.
“Then you don’t know anything,” he said.
A small smile touched her lips. “I know you killed a predator the Colombian authorities couldn’t touch because of political connections. I know you saved lives that night. And I know your command suspected what you’d done but couldn’t prove it, so they branded you a rogue operative and cut you loose.” She leaned forward slightly. “I also know you’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Garrett picked up his glass, finished the whiskey in one swallow. The burn down his throat was familiar. Comforting. “What do you want, Doc? I’m not interested in therapy.”
“Good, because I’m not offering it.” She slid another photograph toward him. “I’m offering you this.”
It was a professional headshot of a woman with the US flag behind her. FBI credentials visible. A woman with brunette hair pulled back, serious blue eyes, and the kind of beauty that came with competence and intelligence.
The eyes and the name on the badge stopped his heart.
Special Agent Claire Dawson.
Time stopped.
The bar faded. The music disappeared. Everything narrowed to that photograph and the name beneath it.
Claire Josephine Dawson. Lily’s best friend, CJ.
He couldn’t breathe for a second. His hand, still on the bar, had gone numb. Every nerve in his body fired at once—recognition, shock, and something that felt uncomfortably like panic.
He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. Not since Lily’s funeral. Not since she’d looked at him with those guilt-stricken blue eyes and whispered ‘I’m sorry’ over and over until he’d had to walk away before he broke down in front of everyone.
She’d been fourteen. Skinny, with a broken arm in a cast, a concussion, and tears that wouldn’t stop. Just a kid who’d tried to save his sister and failed.
Now she was an FBI agent.
Jesus Christ.
“You know her.” Not a question. A statement.
Garrett forced himself to swallow. Forced his voice to work. “What about her?”
