“We’ve passed off four of our cases and are close to finishing three more,” Aiden said. “My entire team is due a vacation, so if we get everything wrapped up, I’ll give the gang a week off, although at the moment, they’re full on trying to help us track down Jareth Davey. They don’t like that he burned us any more than I do, and we’re hitting it hard tomorrow even though it’s Saturday.”
I cocked my head, noting his eyes looked tired. Aiden never looked tired. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m clearing my schedule so I can hunthim,” Aiden said evenly. “If I’d have known he was stalking you all these years, I would’ve done so before.”
Yeah, I had often wished Aiden would’ve kept in touch after leaving town, but my moron shrink at the time had told him to leave me alone, and he’d had to move away anyway. “How do we hunt him?” I asked, never having hunted a human before.
His lips twitched. “Wedon’t.”
I pushed off the appliances, landing on my feet to face him. The thing is, I understand Aiden. He hadn’t had much in his life, not many people he trusted, and when he found somebody, he was all in while he was in. I’d seen it with his team, and I’d experienced it first-hand. That didn’t mean he saw orange blossoms and a priest in our future, but it did mean he’d take whatever control he could and fight any threat. It’s who he was and what he did.
I also knew myself. Pretty much. Jareth Davey had tried to hunt me most of my life, and so far, I hadn’t found a way to turn the tables. Through the years the local authorities had tried to find him, my family had tried to find him, and nobody had succeeded. Also, we couldn’t prove he was the one sending the cards to me, so even if we’d found him, there wasn’t much we could have done.
Within the law, anyway.
Now I had a chance to find the bastard with Aiden. Aiden was the best at what he did, and if anybody could hunt down Jareth, it was Aiden Devlin.
Finally.
“I’m going to help,” I said.
“No,” he said, not unexpectedly.
Aiden was an old-fashioned guy who was also used to jumping into the line of fire before anybody else. It’s why he led a specialty ATF team that would follow him into the bowels of hell. He cared about me, and he’d try to protect me, even to the point of infuriating me and leaving me out.
I walked toward him, noting the darkening of his eyes.
Yeah, I could argue with him. I could threaten, beg, or plead to be part of the hunt. Instead, I placed both my hands on his chest, looked up at those unreal blue eyes, and gave him the truth. “Ineedto be a part of this.”
He blinked. Just once, but it was enough. “My team is treating this as an op, and you’re terrible at obeying orders.” He wasn’t wrong. I opened my mouth and he shook his head. “We are not using you as bait.”
Yeah, that was what I had been planning to say. “Okay. You’re in charge of the op.” Although, I was bait, whether or not he liked that fact. Jareth Davey was invested in me for some reason, and that hadn’t changed in fourteen years. But I didn’t need to put a label on it. “I feel like he’s been in charge for so much of my life as I waited for those stupid cards twice a year, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t find him and fight him,” I said in a rush. “I don’t like feeling helpless.” If I could help take the control away from Jareth Davey, I needed to do so.
Aiden breathed out. “Okay. That’s fair.” He slid his arms around my waist. “Since my team is clearing all other cases to concentrate on the new campaign starting Monday morning, you can be a member of the team.”
The new campaign was finally stopping Jareth Davey. If he’d committed that murder, we’d prove it and put him away forever.
Yeah, I adored Aiden. Putting me on his team went against every instinct in his body, but he was doing it because I needed to be there. Oh, he’d still jump in front of any bullets, but I was pretty quick there, too. I didn’t mind being able to cover his back while he hunted.
I wasn’t going to lose Aiden to Jareth Davey. “He’s after you, too,” I said softly.
“No. He’s after me only as a way to get to you,” Aiden said. “Don’t forget that.”
I stepped in and snuggled into his broad chest. Christmas was coming, our talk was coming, and right now, I just wanted to feel him. It seemed like our lives were on hold until we locked down Jareth, and I was tired of it. Finally, there was a path to ending his reign of harassing me from afar. Or maybe closer if he’d been the one to kill Crackle. “Considering Jareth followed and burned you in Portland, he’s making his move,” I murmured.
Aiden stiffened. “Definitely.”
Okay. We were on the same page.
I leaned back to look into his face, keeping my hands on his warm body. “I haven’t seen your new office yet.”
“We can’t move in until late next week.” His hands flexed across my lower back. “We’ll work either out of my cabin or here this weekend. I assume you’ll be here?”
“I’m going to the mall early tomorrow afternoon where all the Kringles will be,” I said, running through my case in my mind. “Bud is working and will be on my six, so I’ll be safe. I just want to see them all interact and maybe question them with each other around. I’m missing something but can’t figure out what it is.”
Aiden’s eyebrow rose. “Bud’s working on a Saturday?”
“Yeah, but he’s off Sunday, so I’ll be here all day and can help your team if you need anything.” Not that I was involved with their cases or even knew what their cases were about, but I was a heck of an organizer when it came to file folders. I also made a mean cup of coffee. “We also have the family barbecue that night, and it’d be nice to see how Violet is fitting in with Aunt Yara.”
