“You’d think an investigator would be more aware of her surroundings.” An oil-slick feeling shot through him at the lowblow. He had every reason to voice the words, but there had come a point in the past year when Callen wasn’t sure who he was anymore. What kind of man he wanted to be. It wasn’t this one. Exhausted, angry, perpetually unfriendly to everyone but the people he cared about. Lauren’s disappearance had turned his world upside down, but nobody had warned him how grief changed even the smallest details in his life, more specifically his personality.
Maeve notched her chin higher, and he prepared for the tongue-lashing he deserved. More. He deserved her hatred, her dismissal. He deserved her violence and whatever she deigned to throw his way, and he was ready for it. She cocked her head to one side. “Do you need a snack?”
That…he hadn’t expected. The tension drained from his shoulders. “Excuse me?”
“You used to get hypoglycemic after working out and turn all ragey. I’m betting you forgot to bring a snack after trekking all the way out here. It would explain a lot.” Driving one hand into her jacket pocket, she produced a purple and clear package and offered it to him. “I brought almonds.”
“You brought me a snack.” What the hell was happening? Was this some kind of nightmare he couldn’t wake up from? Because there was no way in hell Maeve—the woman he’d dumped and vilified for wrecking his sister’s case—had thought about his low blood sugar in the middle of an investigation.
“No. Assessing crime scenes can span hours depending on the parties involved, the location, what equipment needs to be brought in. I broughtmea snack. You just seem to need it more than I do.” She tossed it at him, the package colliding with his sternum, before finishing the descent to the main trail. “Hope it helps.”
Callen caught the package before it hit the ground. Almonds. He couldn’t help but watch her approach the three hikersguarded by Ranger Jordan as though she had all the time in the world. Like someone’s bones hadn’t been left and displayed for entertainment a mere fifty feet up the trail. Long brown hair had been pulled back, accentuating the perfect curve of her jawline and slender neck. The laugh lines angled from the middle of her nose to the corners of her mouth had seemed deeper, and he couldn’t help but wonder who had done that. Who had made her smile when he was still trying to recover from the bomb that had shattered his family? She’d kept herself in shape, lean muscle flexing beneath her tight jeans, and it took more effort than it should have to tear his attention away.
His heartbeat throbbed at both temples, blood draining from his upper body as if gravity had suddenly shifted. He wouldn’t give Maeve the satisfaction of predicting his blood sugar had gotten too low. At the same time, without some calories, he’d pass out in the middle of a crime scene. Damn it. He’d expected her to fillet him where he stood. Wanted it. Maybe then he would have a reason to explode, to lessen the fire churning in his gut day in and day out, but she hadn’t given him any artillery to work with. She’d kept her professionalism while he could barely hold on to his sanity.
But Lauren hadn’t been her sister. She hadn’t grown up looking out for her, making sure she ate enough, got to bed on time when their parents worked late or read to her when the monsters crept from the shadows. Maeve hadn’t been the one to bandage Lauren’s skinned knees when she was learning to ride a bike or hug her if a friend had hurt her feelings. She hadn’t been there when some guy broke his sister’s heart for the first time in middle school or stood up for her when Lauren’s Goth phase took over.
The truth was, he and Maeve might’ve lost the same person, but Callen’s grief was a living thing. Evolving, growing more chaotic the harder he tried to ignore it. And Maeve… Shecouldn’t miss Lauren as much as he did because she just didn’t know Lauren as much as he did.
Callen ripped the top of the package open and dumped a handful of nuts into his palm. It’d take a few minutes to pull himself out of dangerous territory. Luckily, he’d—well, Maeve—had caught it just in time. Normally, he’d retreat to his car, where he’d stashed a handful of snacks or pop a piece of candy, but he’d had to hike thirty minutes from the trailhead to get here. Moving down the trail, back the way he’d come, he filled his mouth in one go as Maeve spoke to the hikers who’d found the body.
There wasn’t anything left for him to do here. He’d done his job securing a perimeter around the remains, Simpson had gotten his statement, and his low blood sugar was on the rise. The law enforcement division, and apparently the FBI, would take it from there, and he’d go back to his miserable life trying to come up with some other angle he could work in Lauren’s disappearance.
“If you remember anything else, or if you find you need to talk to someone about what you’ve seen today, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I know a great trauma therapist in the area.” Great. Maeve was wrapping up with the hikers just as he’d started maneuvering around them. She inadvertently stepped into his path, forcing him to pull up short as the hikers continued their venture along the trail. “Sorry. Seems I can’t stay out of your way. Go ahead.” She motioned him ahead.
The muscles in his jaw ached under the pressure of his back teeth as her scent penetrated his defenses all over again. Was she purposefully putting herself in his path? Trying to get him to hear her out for the hundredth time? It hadn’t worked before. It wouldn’t work now. Enough of this. “What are you doing here, Maeve?”
“Here, here?” She pointed to the ground, then searched up and down the trail. “I’m headed back to my car at the trailhead. This is the right way, isn’t it?”
Callen allowed himself a deeper inhale to calm his racing pulse but only managed to torture himself with a fresh hit of her perfume. Of all the days for the constant wind cutting through the canyons to die down, it had to be today. “I mean what are you doing in Zion?”
“You already know the answer to that, Ranger Russell.” His official title felt wrong coming out of her mouth after so many years together—intimate years of vacations, sleepless nights between the sheets and planning for their future—but Maeve sure as hell knew how to weaponize it. She was trying for distance between them, a way to keep him at arm’s length, and he’d let her, despite the physical vise squeezing him from the inside. “I was called in to consult on reports of skeletal remains. These remains. I’m here to do my job.”
Callen swallowed the urge to point out what a stellar job she’d done with Lauren’s investigation, but he’d already used up his asshole tokens for the day. Now he was just tired. Of the constant anger, of not getting anywhere close to answers, of hating her when he was still in the habit of seeking her out. How many times had he reached for his phone to send her a text in the past year? How many times had he almost tapped her contact information to hear her voice—even her automated message—when the pressure of keeping his family from falling apart got to be too much? Too many to count. But she’d gotten them into this mess. She’d done this to them. He had to remember that. “News didn’t hit headquarters until an hour and a half ago. It takes longer than that to drive from Vegas to Zion, which means you were already in the area.”
“All right.” Maeve ducked her chin. Anyone who didn’t know her would take that as a sign of backing down, but Callen hadknown this woman since she was seventeen years old, when Lauren had dragged her home one day after school. She’d practically moved into his house, coming over every day, having sleepovers with his sister. Once Maeve Perry had walked into his life, he hadn’t wanted to get rid of her, and he had the distinct feeling she was doing it all over again. “You’re right. I was already in the area, but not for the reason you think.”
“And what do I think?” Problem was, as well as he knew Maeve, she knew him just as well. That was what happened when you fell in love with your sister’s best friend. “Because I remember telling you I never wanted to see or talk to you again, yet here you are.”
“Wow. It must be exhausting being the center of the universe.” Maeve stepped in close, crooking her finger to lower his ear toward her. Her exhale skirted the outer shell of his ear, triggering a rush of goose bumps across his shoulders as she pressed the front of her body and every curve he’d memorized a long time ago against his arm. “I’m not here for you.”
That dangerous closed-lipped smile he’d learned meant trouble spread across her face as she backed up a step, and Callen straightened. Hell. She’d known exactly how to get a reaction out of him. Not by attacking with a metaphorical hammer as he had, but with a slim knife meant to slowly let him bleed out. “I’m here for a missing woman connected to one of my past cases. Her name is Iliana Meyer. She hasn’t been seen in the three days since her car was found abandoned near the Virgin River, all her belongings still inside, including her phone. Sound familiar?”
Callen couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Turning to face his ex-fiancée, he nearly lost himself to the spiral of messy thoughts threatening to drag him into that dark headspace he’d never quite clawed himself free of. For the first time in a year, he had a potential lead. “A second victim?”
She headed down the trail, her jacket lifting to reveal she wasn’t wearing her sidearm. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”
Chapter Four
She shouldn’t have told him.
Shouldn’t have given him that glimpse of hope. It was the same flare she’d gotten when she’d heard about the circumstances around Iliana’s disappearance and had drawn her back to Zion. What were the chances two women had vanished from their vehicles without a trace—leaving everything behind—within the span of a year?
That kind of hope was infectious. It took over lives and forced people to do drastic things. Callen and his family had already been through so much, but the constant barbs directed at her had finally hit the soft spot beneath her armor. She’d told him the truth. She wasn’t here for him, but Maeve couldn’t take any more of his hatred either. Not when her body physically ached from being near him. That brush against his arm had triggered a craving she’d barely overcome through willpower alone, and now the ranger refused to leave her side as she commandeered Ranger Simpson’s office back at headquarters. He didn’t need it. The law enforcement division head would be busy collaborating with the medical examiner for the next couple of hours, and he’d offered his help in any way. That included use of his office.
“Tell me everything.” Callen’s proximity messed with her head as she dropped her overnight bag beside the too-small faux-wood desk. He took the seat across from her, that low simmer of anxiety interlocking his fingers, then releasing them. Over and over. It was a tell he didn’t allow very many people to see, especially in his work as a former private security operativewho’d protected a wide range of clients, but it seemed like he was on the verge of unraveling right in front of her. “Did this missing woman know Lauren?”
“Not that I know of.” Bringing him into her case would be a mistake, but leaving him out—when all this could bring them one step closer to bringing his sister home—grated against everything she was as an investigator.
