Page 166 of Reckless

She holds my eyes for a beat, taking that in, and then she closes the laptop and sets it on the nightstand without another word. I cross the room and sit beside her, and she doesn’t wait for an invitation before she leans into my shoulder, her entire body finally letting go of whatever she’s been holding onto since I walked out the door tonight. I put my arm around her and pull her in closer, feeling the tension drain out of her by degrees.

We don’t say anything for a while.

We don’t have to.

Sage threads her fingers through mine where my hand rests against her hip, then I turn my hand over, lacing our fingers together properly, my thumb brushing once across her knuckles before I settle it there.

There are things I should tell her.

Things she’s earned the right to hear.

But every time I think about putting them into words, they feel smaller. Less honest than this. So, I tighten my grip instead.

She answers with a small squeeze of her own, and it’s enough. It says everything either of us needs it to.

Tomorrow, Calloway sits across a table from men he has no idea how to read.

Tomorrow, twenty years of what he’s done to families who never had a voice loud enough to stop him finally gets put in front of him in a room he can’t buy his way out of.

Tonight, though, I have her.

I press my mouth to the top of her head and feel her exhale against my chest.

And for the next hour, that’s the only thing either of us lets ourselves think about.

Chapter Thirty-Two

GHOST

The Next Day

The warehouse is quiet when we roll in.

That’s usually a good sign.

But I still don’t trust it.

I make a slow lap around the outside before heading in, checking doors, windows, anything that looks even slightly out of place. Inside isn’t much different. An empty floor, silent offices, shrink-wrapped pallets stacked shoulder high, forklifts parked near the loading dock, more than enough places for somebody to disappear if they wanted to.

I take the stairs anyway out of habit.

By the time I reach the catwalk overlooking the warehouse, the tension that’s been riding the base of my skull since I got here has started to ease. From up here I can see the entire floor. The meeting space sits exactly where we planned it, surrounded by stacks of wrapped pallets and idle forklifts, the concrete stretching away into shadows where the overhead lights don’t quite reach. Nothing moves or catches my attention long enough to make me stop.

I rest one hand against the railing and let my eyes travel over the room one last time, more out of habit than expectation.

But something itches at the base of my skull. The kind of feeling I’ve learned never to argue with, so I keep looking exactly where I am. The fastest way to tell somebody you’ve spotted them is to look straight at them.

My eyes wander instead, over cracked concrete, rusting steel, and forgotten machinery.

Then I catch it.

A pinpoint flash, gone in the same heartbeat.

Then sunlight on glass.

It’s a fucking camera lens.

The bastard buried himself deep enough inside the pallet stacks that I can’t make out anything except the edge of the glass.