“Be right back, guys,” I said to the kids as I climbed out of the jungle gym and pulled my phone from my pocket. To my shock, it wasn’t Bray calling butUnknown.
Without even waiting for the kids to respond, I strode away from the playground and hid behind a tree to answer the call.
“Thereyou are. What the hell, Wallace? You snatch me out of the middle of a job in New York and send me across the country tothis? I know you were born without a sense of humor, but is this some kind of joke? You’ve got me out here playing nanny with the Real Housewives of Del Rio and Agent Paw Patrol trying to micromanage me. I swear to God, if I have to change one dirty diaper, I’m—”
The call dropped with a telltaleboop boop.
“Wallace? Hello?” I frowned at my screen. “Damn it.”
A sharp whistle caught my attention. I looked up to see Bray waving at me from over by the bathrooms. I glanced at the kids to see they had returned to the picnic blanket for snacks. I gave Melanie a wave and gestured toward the bathrooms. She nodded back.
“What are you doing?” I whispered at Bray as I took in the sight of him. Up close, the T-shirt looked even better. I saw the vague outline of toned muscles beneath it, and those biceps were on partial display. I also saw my angry scowl reflected in his aviators, and I gave him an ounce of credit that at least he didn’thave SPECIAL AGENT branded across the front of his hat.
“I’m blending in, like you said.”
“Yes, I see that. But you’re stillhere.What happened to backing off and letting me handle this? And what the hell are you thinking being a dude in a hat and sunglassesalonein a park full of kids?”
“I—” His face paled and he pulled off the shades. His gray eyes were sharp in the morning light. “You’re right, I totally see that now. But I really need to tell you something.”
“Then tell me, Agent Bray, before someone calls the cops, and we find ourselves in a very complicated situation.”
“Wallace is dead.”
And just like that, the world as I knew it stopped spinning.
“What?”
“I found out this morning. He was found …”
His voice turned into the white noise of a TV with no signal. I didn’t hear anything else he said.
My whole adult life, I had never known a world without Wallace instructing me what to do next. He was the only real relationship I had, the only person who really knew me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
The disbelief suddenly sent me hurtling back to earth like an asteroid as a thought struck me.
“Wait.” I cut off Bray. “That’s impossible. He called me a minute ago.”
Bray stopped talking and gaped at me. “He—he called you?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. When I finally was able to track down the information this morning, I found out he died two days ago. I have a guy on the inside who was able to confirm. There’s no way he just called you.”
A chill hit me like the sunny day turned to a blizzard. “Two days ago?” My mind scrambled to piece together a timeline as Bray nodded.
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I knew you’d want to know.”
The earth seemed to crumble beneath my feet. Two days ago lined up with the night I had left New York. That phone call. Was I the last person he spoke to? An uncomfortable warmth pushed its way up into my eyes and blurred my vision.
“How did he die?”
Bray searched my face, looking pained and like he didn’t want to answer.
“Bray, how did he die?”
“They’re saying heart attack.”
I pictured the man I knew to be in good health. It wouldn’t register. A heart attack? None of it made sense.
