Before she could talk herself into calling Atlanta back and pressing the panic button.
…
SHE JUST LIED. DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT YOU BEING THERE, read Rick Dawson’s text to Cole on his satellite cell. YOU BETTER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
Cole had thoroughly cased the outside of the mansion, finding no signs of forced entry or suspicious activity, then jogged to his cabin to pack the equipment he’d need. He’d been on the phone with Dawson, insisting that his presence in the Victorian would not only shelter Shaw better against possible threat, but would also spark more of her memories. Dawson had broken away to take Shaw’s call, muttering that the task force’s tolerance for her lack of progress was slipping precariously close to nonexistent.
But Cole would remain on assignment, Dawson had decided, as long as Cole kept dodging her questions about his background and the reasons he was helping her. And on the condition that he produce something promising by his next check-in.
Cole was on record as not liking how the Bureau and the Marshals Service were mishandling Shaw’s case. Now he’d just inserted himself into her recovery process and committed to moving it along at a faster clip—offering to do the task force’s dirty work for them. It was an irony Dawson had enjoyed pointing out. Cole’s history with their suspect was an asset he’d just agreed to turn to the government’s advantage.
And he had the reputation for mercilessly doing just that, whenever the job required it. Whomever the job involved. His effectiveness on cover assignments and zero-failure rate were unparalleled. Cole didn’t do over-involved. Ever. Dawson was accepting at face value that he wouldn’t over-empathize with a former lover’s dire circumstances. For now, only Cole knew better. He’d already stepped over a line with Shaw that he hadn’t with any other suspect.
This was going to get personal.
Hell, it already had.
But he would turn the recklessness of his actions tonight to his advantage. Somehow, he’d get both Shaw and the Justice Department what they needed. Everyone would win. All Cole had to do was stow the personal crap that had bubbled up when he’d held Shaw in the kitchen. For her sake as well as this assignment’s, he’d focus on his job, and only his job, going forward.
He rang the doorbell again, checking his watch. He had twenty-four hours to compile better evidence. Dawson had said indictments were pending from Justice. If Shaw didn’t remember more, soon, her next destination was a formal interrogation where the best officers in Homeland Security would apply increasingly aggressive techniques, either forcing her mind to spill the secrets it was keeping or, if things went south, lock them away forever.
The front porch lights flared on. The curtain shielding the door’s stained glass insets was pulled aside. Shaw’s pale, beautiful features were revealed.
“It’s okay,” he said, making himself believe what he was saying so she would.
The curtain fell back. The deadbolt released, and she opened up to him, a portable phone in her hand.
“Who are you talking to at the butt crack of dawn?” he asked, something anyone in his right mind would question.
Her gaze tracked past him to the fringes of sunlight softening the dark sky to a slate gray. Then she was studying him again, more carefully than before.
“I called the power company.” She stared at the phone, as if she’d just realized she was still carrying it, lying with a nonchalance a teenage Shaw wouldn’t have been capable of. “I wanted to check on power fluctuations in the area. I still think the lights went out earlier.”
Okay, then.
She’d grown up to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. Before that, she’d found the grit to survive the gauntlet that had been her family’s home life. That inner strength was something she could easily use to forge an emotional distance between them that would make his job impossible. Like lying through her teeth.
“And?” he asked, wondering how far she’d take her ruse.
“And what?” She returned his stare impassively.
“You called to reassure yourself that you can trust what you’re seeing and feeling and thinking, more than you trust your fears and your memories. What did he say?”
“Who?” She stepped back, leaving Cole room to slip by, which he took full advantage of.
“The man you spoke to at the power company.” He shut the door and reset the deadbolt with a click that echoed through the shadowy foyer.
Shaw flinched, her lower lip trapped between her teeth, which, perversely, made him want to kiss her in the same spot. She shrugged her shoulders, a simulated gesture of defeat, and brushed past him.