Curious eyes watched me as people filtered on and off the train at each stop. I couldn’t blame them. I stood out like a sore thumb on a good day.
After weeks of being called a kidnapper and having the fake mugshot the bureau used for my cover with Valentine plastered all over the news, I’d had the cops called on me at least fifteen times.
The gun holstered to my belt was enough to shut most of them up. I tuned out the whispers.
All it truly made me wonder was if Amelia had to do the same. If she was being stared at when she went to the grocery store. If people asked if she wasthat girlwhile she was getting coffee.
I had to play my cards carefully. I was on a short leash with the FBI. If I went anywhere near Amelia immediately after being cleared, they’d use that leash to strangle me.
I’d expected a restraining order from her.
Hell—a restraining order would’ve seemed like a love letter.
Then again, Judah Greear was even harder to find than Jude Graham.
For months, Cole had done me a solid and had a constant rotation of his associates keeping tabs on Amelia and Joel.
Frankly, it was an easy job for them.
Joel was constantly being escorted around by the FBI as they prepared for the Valentine trial. And Amelia? She never left home.
Not once.
It pissed me off when Cole reported that Jake Hastings had been by a few times in the last week to bring her food. At least he’d never stayed more than an hour.
I’d gotten a buddy of mine to hack into the Alcott University server to see if she was still going to teach this year and let out a sigh of relief when the updates were that she had changed her in-person courses to be mostly online. She’d only have to physically be there for a few hours each week.
But part of it made my gut sink.
Was the change to teaching online purely out of convenience, or was it because she was struggling?
I knew the answer.
I glanced at my watch as I shuffled off the train at New Haven-Union with the college crowd. I’d grab the bus to Amelia’s apartment, then pick it up again to get back on the train to Newark that left at nine.
I didn’t even know why I’d bothered coming up here. I’d marked the date on my calendar of when I thought the bureau wouldn’t give a shit if I made contact with her and had been counting down the days like a kid waiting for Christmas.
Just because I had been cleared during the internal investigation didn’t mean there wouldn’t be repercussions for going rogue. The FBI didn’t take kindly to people thinking independently.
The streetlights around Alcott University began to flicker as I jogged off the bus and headed down the sidewalk.
Amelia’s apartment was within walking distance of the bus stop. I dropped my head and slumped as I walked—the way I used to when I was undercover.
Passersby stared as I strode by, their eyes going from my head to my belt to my gun. The damn thing felt like it weighed a cool half-ton. I had grown accustomed to not wearing it undercover. I forgot how people stared when they saw me carrying, whether I was on duty or off.
I straightened and walked tall.
It was strange to unlearn all those habits after being Jude the criminal rather than Judah the agent.
I woke up each morning in a panic, startled to open my eyes at my new place in Newark rather than my cover’s apartmentin Atlantic City. That never happened when I was with Amelia, even when we were at the safe house in the mountains.
When I was with her, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I missed Cordelia. I even missed the constant cigarette smoke that lingered between her door and mine. Relationships like that were the collateral of clandestine life. I’d never see her again.
Dim light glowed from Amelia’s unit as I slipped into her apartment complex. The lamp by the couch was on, if I had to guess.
I jogged up the stairs, even though every logical atom in me screamed to turn around and leave.
