"I'm close."
"Me too. Come with me."
She does.
Clenches around me like a fist and breaks apart under me and I follow her over with my teeth in the meat of her shoulder to keep from making the sound I want to make.
We lie there. Breathing. My weight half on her, half on my elbow so I don't crush her ribs. Her hand strokes slow up and down the back of my neck.
"Hawk."
"Mm."
"That was worth the couch."
I laugh into her hair.
First real laugh in about four years.
6
DELILAH
Thursday morning the raid goes down at dawn.
Parker calls from the road at 6:12 a.m. The feds hit the site forty minutes ago. Six arrests. Two trucks seized. The prefab structure on the west edge had enough evidence inside to keep prosecutors busy for a year. The parent LLC is being unspooled in three states. The contractor who came up that ridge looking for me is in custody at a field office in Reno.
It's over.
I sit at Hawk's kitchen table in his Henley with my ankle flat on the floor for the first time in a week and I listen to a sheriff tell me I'm safe.
I don't feel what I thought I'd feel.
I feel hollow.
Because if I'm safe, I'm leaving.
Hawk is at the counter pouring coffee like nothing in his body has changed. His jaw has the set it gets when he's not going to say the thing he's thinking. I've learned his jaw. I've learned a lot of things about him in eight days.
Parker's still on the line. "AG's office wants you in Reno by end of day. They've got a safe house. Sworn statement tomorrow. Grand jury in three weeks. After that you're a free woman, Ms. Reyes."
"Understood."
"I'll have a deputy up there by noon to drive you down."
"Thank you, Sheriff."
I set the phone on the table.
Hawk slides a mug in front of me. Doesn't sit.
"You want breakfast."
"Not really."
"Eat anyway."
He turns back to the stove. Cracks two eggs. Doesn't look at me.
