“I saw a ring on her finger.”
“She’s engaged to a lawyer back in Colorado. He’s a good guy, he comes out to visit when he can but not as often as Hazel does. I’m sure you’ll meet him eventually.”
“So why doesn’t Winter live with her mom?” I shake my head. “Not to be sexist, I’m just use to the mom having custody of the kids when the parents have split up.”
“We’re all here,” he says easily and something about that makes my chest warm and it also makes me like Hazel even more because she’s giving her daughter that without a fight. “Things might change when Winter gets a little older but right now she likes living with her dad and having her uncles close. Plus, she’s in a great school here.”
“She’s a lucky girl to have so many people who love her.”
“She saved us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her coming into this world gave all of us something outside of work and Arya to focus on.”
He looks over at me as he comes to a stop at a red light, and there is something there that I have never seen before, and I wish I could read his mind to know exactly what it is that he’s thinking because I’m honestly too afraid to ask.
“Hazel works for the FBI and you said Miles and her worked together…” I let my sentence trail and he squeezes my fingers.
“You’re smart, Mouse, anyone ever told you that?”
“I just listen.”
“Both Miles and Tucker work for the FBI,” he says and my stomach drops. “I won’t go into why they’re here, but no one can know who they really work for.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know you won’t,” he says softly.
My throat itches because him trusting me with that information is huge.
“You should probably send your dad another message, and let him know what’s going on.”
“I will, and I’ll call my brother and fill him in just in case he somehow gets a hold of Dad before I do.”
“Your brother?”
“I have three, only one of them isn’t on the trip with our parents.”
“Sisters?”
“Two of those, one of them is my twin, and the one not on the trip with our parents is also in Colorado.”
“Jesus, we need to talk more,” he mumbles.
I laugh. “We talk all the time, there’s just been a lot of stuff going on.”
“Tonight, you’ll tell me everything.”
“Only if you do the same.”
“You’ve met my family baby.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what you actually do for a job or who all those people are in the frames in your living room.”
“What people?” he asks as he pulls into the parking lot for the bank.
“The frames in your living room, I haven’t met any of those people,” I say, and he tosses his head back and laughs.
“The decorator who styled my place put those there, I don’t have a fucking clue who those people are.”
“Oh.” I bite my bottom lip and he reaches over grasping me behind the neck then pulls me over until we are face to face.
“I’ll tell you about my job tonight. It’s not exciting,” he says but something tells me he’s lying.
“Okay.” I agree then he leans in to kiss me and I kiss him back. When he lets me go, I grab my purse and start to reach for the door handle, but stop and look at him when he grabs my wrist.
“Call me if you need to leave early and I’ll be here as soon as I can to pick you up.”
“I’ll call.” I promise before I open the car door and hop out. When I reach the door to the bank, I glance back over my shoulder where he’s still parked watching me and lift my hand. It would be easy to go and get back in his jeep, but I know if I do that, I won’t have a chance to dig into Carly’s information and try to find out what happened to her myself.
_______________
WITH MY FOOT tapping nervously on the floor under my desk I look through the glass that surrounds my office and gives me a full view of the lobby then back at my computer.
This morning when I arrived, I found Katy in her office and told her what I could about Carly, but left out the information Miles gave me, not wanting to jeopardize the case in any way. As I knew she would be, she was visibly shaken and stunned and so was everyone else when we sat the entire bank staff down at our morning meeting and told them the news.
I had known that Carly made some friends working here but I had no idea how close she had gotten to her co-workers, and it was hard seeing the same pain I’ve been feeling reflected back at me. No one could understand how someone could do that to her or why, and I wished more than anything I could reassure them somehow that the person responsible would be caught.