“Never,” he promises. “I’m sorry you heard me say that to Adam. I was angry. I was—”
“Hurt,” I supply, cupping his jaw. “I’m sorry again.”
He covers my hands with his. “It’s done. You don’t need to keep saying that. Subject over and moving on. What you said about how we deal with all of this was true. These are not normal circumstances and we navigate them best together. I hate I left you alone.”
His cellphone rings in his pants on the floor. “Damn it,” he groans. “Could there be a worse time? You’d better get dressed.” He lifts me and helps me off the counter before reaching for his pants.
He answers with, “Yeah, Blake.” He listens a moment and punches the speaker button, before he sets his cell on the counter, already reaching for his pants as he says, “Blake has a message for you, Ana. Blake, she’s on the line.”
“Ana, Jake’s daughter, Olivia, left you a message on your voicemail. I’m going to play it for you.”
My eyes meet Luke’s, surprise and a question shared between us. “I’m listening,” I respond, a knot balling in my belly, dread over what I’m about to hear, what I might learn about Kurt, the only man I really knew as a father. I mean, I loved my real dad, but I was so young when he had his accident, almost as young when my mother had her heart attack.
A moment later, Olivia’s voice fills the air. “Ana,” she murmurs, a raspy note to her voice followed by a sniffle and sob. “I’m sorry. I’m struggling to hold it together and even think. I should have talked to you when you were at the house but I just wasn’t mentally present. Dad told me that the secrets he was forced to keep from you about killed him. He said that nothing is as it seems. I don’t know what that means. He wouldn’t tell me. He said that was for my own good, just like it was for your own good, but it doesn’t seem to me right now that the secrets were good for any of us. I wish there was more I could tell you but there isn’t. Just—well, I hope you hear this. Please stay safe.” She disconnects.
A vise closes on my throat and I’m swimming through the darkness of my mind, seeking light, seeking the truth that remains elusive.
“That’s it,” Blake says. “I’ll give you some time to process that unless you have anything for me now?”
“Not yet,” I reply. “I do need a minute.”
“You got it,” Blake confirms, “but sunrise is about an hour away, fifty-four minutes to be exact. I suggest you both start thinking about getting out of that house. The rest of the team is gathering in the kitchen.”
He disconnects. I rotate to face Luke fully, and I say what I feel in my own gut now. “Everything really wasn’t as it seemed, was it? You were right. This ties back to Kurt, but I refused to believe he was running a side gig with Kasey. That makes no sense to me. None. Zero. There’s a bigger picture here.” I try to step around him.
He catches my arm, his jaw flexing, his eyes sharp. “Ana?”
“I’m not mad at you. You got real with me and you know I respect that. I just need to think. I need to put real clothes on and do something. Together. We need to do something.”
“You know the truth is not going to be gentle, right?”
I think of those early morning drills Kurt put me through and I say, “No. No, it’s not. Because I’m done with all the games, in every possible way. Whoever killed Jake killed Kurt. I’d bet my life on it. And we’re going to make them pay.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ana
What was once bloody is now Tide fresh.
It’s always amazed me how easily blood and death can be forgotten, how easily it can become just a part of the day of a member of law enforcement. But as I pull my freshly washed clothes back on, I am not immune to the fact they were recently covered in Darius’s blood. Or to the fact that there were things going on around me that I missed.
“How good of an agent am I that I missed what was right beneath my nose?”
Luke laces his boots and stands up. “You were not around Kurt or Kasey on a daily basis, baby. Don’t do that to yourself.”
“I was with Darius often. There’s no excuse for me not figuring out he was dirty. Had I figured out there were problems, Jake might be alive. Kurt might be alive.”
Savage pokes his head in the door. “Boogie on down the stairs, you two. We need to dance party it on out of here.” He disappears.
Luke’s hands settle on my shoulders. “Had I not left, maybe I would have seen the trouble with Darius.”