“Are we gonna find out how this all happened?” Gable asks. Ella is cuddled into his side, her smile small. This trip has reminded me just how much they love each other. Gable may tease her and complain, but he’s also totally and utterly obsessed with my daughter, and she’s the same with him. They complement each other perfectly, her messiness and his perfections, his scowls and her easy grins.
“He seduced me,” Lina says.
Gable snorts. “Guy has never seduced a person in his life. Unless you count frowns and grunts as seduction.”
“That’s pretty much how you got me,” Ella reminds him, and he playfully pinches her side.
“I resent that comment. I also got you a Christmas tree.”
“True.” She grins up at him.
I smile. “Lina needed a place to stay. It went from there.”
“Well …” Gable takes a swig of his beer. “It’s almost like falling for a killer isn’t the worst thing in the world. Who’d have thought it?”
I glare at him. “Thank you for that.”
“Ex-killer,” Lina says. “I’m retired.”
Ella scoffs. “You literally killed a woman last night.”
“Okay, starting now!” Lina says and leans forward to snuggle into me. “I promised your dad I wouldn’t, so I won’t.” She smiles at me, and I can’t help kissing her. She climbs into my lap, cuddling into me.
Ella grimaces. “Can you not sit in my dad’s lap?”
“Consider yourself lucky that I’m not sitting on his face.”
Ella gets up. “Okay, that’s more than I ever needed to hear.”
“I second that.” Gable hops up and follows her. “Don’t have sex on the furniture. I want my deposit back.”
Lina and I spend a while just looking out across the lake, listening to the gentle lapping of the water against the patio. She pulls the blanket tighter over us, and I take the time just to hold her.
“There’s already an investigation into Sawyer,” I say quietly, and Lina sits up to look at me. “A friend in the bureau is going to send me what he knows. They’ve been looking into the Sinclairs for years, so it’ll be a lot of info to go through.”
“I’ve got time,” she says quickly. “We can do it together.”
I nod. “We will. And anything you have?—”
“I still have the recording, and I’m sure Alistair could get some stuff together, too.”
“It has to be obtained legally, Lina,” I say. “Otherwise, it’s useless.”
She chews her lip. “Okay, I’ll see what he says when we get home.”
“Why don’t we fly out and see him this weekend?”
“What about Ella and the kids?”
I tuck her hair behind her ear. “I was thinking of organizing a babysitter for the weekend for them, anyway. Ella and Gable can have a few days to themselves; we can fly out to New York and get things moving. The sooner the better.”
She exhales, relief filling her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I’m retiring anyway, so I’ll see plenty of everyone. A few days won’t hurt.”
She kisses me, straddling my lap and draping her arms around my neck.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”
