Page 45 of Hunted in the Silence

Cole’s gaze slid to her mouth, and she felt more than saw his body lean closer, and then his mouth opened, as if he had something important to say. Did he want to kiss her as much as she wanted him to kiss her? Was he about to ask—

Her phone rang.

Brynn blinked and the moment was gone. Cole returned his stare to the outside, and she extracted her phone from her pocket.

The number on the screen was one she didn’t recognize, a Maryland area code, and for a confused moment she nearly let it go. Then something clicked.

She answered.

“Brynn Holt?” The voice was warm and slightly amused. “This is Harper Kane. I’ve been hearing about you for a couple weeks and I thought it was time I called.”

Brynn blinked. Looked at Cole, who appeared to have been mildly caught off guard.

“Agent Kane,” she greeted, still unsure. Why was Silas’s wife calling her?

“Harper, please. I’m calling partly because my husband came home on Tuesday and spent an hour telling me about the profile he’d built on your Devlin case, and I had a few thoughts he hadn’t considered, and partly because—” There was a brief pause. “Cole has mentioned you enough times in enough different contexts over the past two weeks that I wanted to put a voice to the name.” Another pause. “I hope that’s not too forward.”

Brynn looked at Cole. He was looking at the street with the kind of intensity that told Brynn he knew what was going on and was pretending not to—badly.

“It’s not too forward,” Brynn said, keeping her eyes on Cole, monitoring his every reaction down to the smallest flicker of movement.

“Good.” Harper’s voice shifted, the warmth remaining but something sharper underneath it now. “First, my husband filled me in, so I want to extend congratulations on a successful operation. Now, tell me about the woman you found in the building this morning. Silas mentioned her last night, and I haven’t been able to get her off my mind since.”

Brynn turned slightly away from Cole, and the conversation that followed was the most useful exchange she’d had about the psychology of Devlin’s operation since the first night she’d sat across a conference table from Cole and laid it out for the first time.

Harper asked questions that Brynn had been mulling over herself, and she offered a couple possible angles that Brynn hadn’t considered about understanding the unknown woman’s role that reframed things for Brynn.

Nearly twenty minutes. She lost track of Cole entirely for almost twenty minutes.

When she turned back, he was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching her with the expression she’d seen him direct at her before and still couldn’t entirely understand. She wasn’t trying to now. She just let it wash over her, rather than try to manage it as she’d been doing.

“Harper wants to talk to you too,” Brynn said, holding the phone out.

Cole stared at it with pinched brows. “She called you.”

“She called me to ask about the case and to tell me you’ve mentioned me in enough different contexts over the past two weeks that she wanted to put a voice to the name.” Brynn held his gaze. “Her words.”

Cole’s cheeks reddened slightly as he pushed off the doorframe and took the phone. Their fingers grazed and that same familiar tingle of awareness shot through her again. His expression, the most unguarded she’d seen it, told her he’d felt it too, which was its own kind of answer to questions she hadn’t let herself ask yet.

He put the phone to his ear and turned away. “Harper.” His tone suggested Harper Kane was about to enjoy herself at his expense and both of them knew it.

Brynn hid her amusement and looked out at the street. At the building behind them, empty now, the last of the evidence technicians moving through it. At the gravel still holding tire tracks from the emergency vehicles. At the crisp November morning unfolding around them, business as usual, while their operation wrapped up without anyone the wiser.

Devlin was still out there though.

The case wasn’t done.

But four girls were safe and a network was in custody and somewhere across town families were getting the best news of their lives.

Brynn stood there and let herself feel the weight of those sweeping ramifications of a job well done completely.

Cole finished the call and handed her phone back. Whatever Harper had said to him had shifted his mood. He looked at Brynn with a deliberate attention she knew better than almost anything now.

“She liked you,” he said.

“I liked her,” Brynn said simply.

A beat passed, the low bellow of a ship horn sounding nearby. Heavy equipment coming to life at the loading docks.