CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
The fire had burned down to embers by the time everyone else went to sleep.

I sat in one of the chairs by the fireplace, staring into the orange glow and trying not to think about all the ways tomorrow could go wrong. My mother was asleep in one of the loft bunks, finally getting the rest she desperately needed. Maddie had crashed at the kitchen table, her head pillowed on her arms beside her laptop.

Jim had taken the other chair by the fire, but he'd been snoring softly for the past hour.

Only Hank was still awake, standing by the window that faced the trail we'd hiked to reach this place. Always watching. Always ready.

"You should get some sleep," I said quietly.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"Old habits."

I stared at his face in the dim light from the dying fire. The strong line of his jaw, the way his shoulders held tension even when he was trying to relax.

"How old?"

He glanced at me, then back at the dark forest outside. "What do you mean?"

"How long have you been living like this? Always watching, always ready to run or fight?"

He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he moved away from the window and sat down in the chair Jim had vacated.

"Five years," he said. "Since I came to Windemere Bay."

"And before that?"

"Before that, I was someone else."

The fire popped, sending sparks up the chimney. 

"What kind of someone else?"

"The kind you wouldn't want to know."

"Try me."

He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "I wasn't always a fishing guide, Elise."

"I figured that much out."

"I used to work for people who solved problems with violence. People who made other people disappear when they became inconvenient."

I should have been scared. Should have gotten up and walked away from this man who'd just admitted to being some kind of criminal.

Instead, I found myself leaning forward too.

"What changed?"

"I got tired of being the kind of person who hurt innocent people for money."

"So you left."

"I ran. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Running means you never really face what you were. You just hide from it and hope it doesn't catch up."

I thought about my own running. From Los Angeles, from my failed career, from the memory of Tommy Reyes and all the other cases I'd botched because I was too drunk to think straight.

"I ran too," I said. "To Windemere Bay. I thought I could hide from my mistakes and drink myself to death quietly."

"What changed your mind?"

"Finding Sadie's body. Realizing that some things are worth sobering up for."

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw something shift in his expression.

"Elise—"

"I know it's crazy. I know you've got secrets you haven't told me, probably secrets that would scare me if I knew them. But I also know you've been keeping me safe when you could have just walked away."

"Maybe I should have walked away."

"But you didn't."

"No. I didn't."

The fire crackled between us, and outside I could hear wind moving through the pine trees. Normal sounds from a normal world that felt very far away from this moment.

"The people you used to work for," I said. "They're the ones Vincent is connected to, aren't they?"

Hank's jaw tightened. "Yeah."

"And tomorrow, when we go back to town, there's a chance you'll have to face them."

"More than a chance."

"What happens then?"

"I don't know. I've been running from that question for five years."

I reached across the space between our chairs and took his hand. His fingers were warm and callused, scarred across the knuckles.

"You don't have to face it alone," I said.

"You don't understand what you're offering."

"Then explain it to me."

He was quiet for a long moment, staring down at our joined hands.

"The people I used to work for don't let you retire," he said finally. "They don't let you walk away and start a new life. If they find out I'm alive, if they find out I've been interfering with their operations..."

"They'll kill you."

"They'll kill everyone I care about. And they'll make me watch."

"Then we don't let them find out."

"How?"

"By being smarter than them. By using their own methods against them."

He looked up at me, and I saw surprise in his dark eyes. "You sound like you've thought about this."

"I have. All evening, while everyone else was sleeping. We can't keep running, Hank. Eventually Vincent's going to find us, or we're going to run out of places to hide."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I suggest we stop playing defense and start playing offense."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we gather evidence about Vincent's current operation. Document what he's doing now, not what he did fifty years ago. Build a case that can't be dismissed or covered up."

"And how exactly do we do that?"

I smiled, feeling more sure of myself than I had since this whole nightmare began.

"We use the fact that he's looking for you. We let him find you, but on our terms, in a situation we control."

"That's insane."

"That's strategy."

"That's suicide."

"Maybe. But it's also our only chance to stop him from hurting anyone else."

Hank was quiet for a long time, thinking it through. I could see him weighing risks and possibilities, calculating odds I couldn't even imagine.

"It could work," he said finally. "If we're very careful, if we have backup plans for our backup plans."

"Can you do it? Face your past like that?"

"For you?" He squeezed my hand. "For the chance to stop Vincent from trafficking more girls? Yeah, I can do it."

"Even knowing what it might cost you?"

"Especially knowing what it might cost me."

I didn't understand what he meant by that, but something in his voice told me it was important.

"Hank?"

"Yeah?"

"Tomorrow, when we go back to town, when we start playing offense instead of defense..."

"Yeah?"

"I want you to know that whatever happens, I'm glad I found you. I'm glad you were there when I needed someone."

He lifted our joined hands and pressed a soft kiss to my knuckles. The gesture was so gentle, so tender, that it made my eyes water.

"I'm glad too," he said quietly. "Even if it gets us both killed."

"Especially if it gets us both killed."

He laughed, short and soft. "You're crazy."

"I'm motivated."

"What's the difference?"

"Crazy people don't have anything to fight for. I do."

"What?"

I looked into his eyes, seeing warmth and humor and something deeper that made my heart race.