She’d been prepared for there being something more from their past that he needed to get off his chest. She’d have forgiven him for anything, after how easily he’d accepted her apology for her mistakes.
Anything but this.
He was an agent for the same government that had banished her out there, evidently knowing all along she was in danger and willing to use her to lure out her stalker. Cole, the man she’d been pining to fight beside and then spend the rest of her life with, had been using her from the start—a man who’d said he’d accepted his own part in giving up on them as a teenager, and who’d promised never to let go again.
That man hadn’t really existed at all.
No wonder her subconscious had plopped him in the middle of her latest dream, where he’d prodded and manipulated her into risking her life to get him the information he wanted about her attacker. And then there was his odd concern about fingerprints, and his repeated insistence that he needed to look around the house—meanwhile he hadn’t been able to hunt too carefully or he’d have tipped off his unsub. Her thoughts shifted to the bulging duffel bag he’d brought back from his place, full of whatever equipment he’d thought he’d needed. And then there was his cryptic questions about her supposed phone call that morning to the electric company, and how he’d relentlessly controlled their conversations since… While, like a nitwit, she’d been so cautious up till now not to tell him about her Marshals Service contact.
The fragments of her friendly neighbor’s not-quite-right behavior, his effortless empathy for her situation, and why it had been so hard to believe any of it, now made perfect, horrible sense.
She motioned to the device. “I found that hidden behind the crown molding in the guest bedroom.”
Her statement came out as emotionless as his voice had in the parlor, where he’d first lied to her. She felt another part of her forgotten self click into place. The cold, professional core that kept her going when business was at its toughest.
“When Inspector Dawson’s forensics team arrives to analyze your evidence,” she said as he kept staring, “my guess is these things are everywhere. Someone besides your team has been listening to or watching my every move.”
Cole studied the electronic gizmo. “Listening to,” he said with what sounded like relief. “This is an audio device.”
He pocketed it and stepped closer, stalling when she pointed an imperious finger at him and backed away.
“Yes, my job was to watch you,” he admitted, his even tone making a mockery of the heated promises he’d given her before he’d left the bedroom. “You’re—”
“A suspect? I heard. And you’ll deal with me. You’ll make me understand how important it is to remember my attacker, before Dawson charges me with whatever crimes you think are happening at my company.”
“Dawson’s Marshals Service. He can’t charge you. That’s the FBI’s job. And I don’t think someone’s selling classified Cassidy research to unsavory foreign nationals. I know he is.”
“And that makes you what, exactly?”
The Marshals Service. The FBI. Treason? How much trouble was she in?
“I’m the point person for a multiagency task force,” Cole said.
“Marshal Marinos?” It didn’t fit.
“Special agent. I’m FBI. Though Dawson did deputize me before I came up here, so technically for the time being I’m also a Special Deputy Marshal. I’ve been mostly a floater since I came out of the Academy.”
“The academy?”
“FBI Academy. My job on this case was to secure and monitor your perimeter.”
“To protect me?” That was something, anyway. Not enough to keep her heart from shrinking just a little more with each revelation that calmly tumbled from his mouth. But at least somewhere along the way, he’d started to think about her as something more than a national security threat. Had any of what they’d shared actually been real to him?
“To keep you from leaving,” he corrected, dousing her faint hopes that her situation wasn’t as bad as it appeared. “As far as the task force was concerned, that was my top priority. But I accepted the assignment because I didn’t believe you were capable of what they suspected. Then when you ran into the woods the other night—”
“You had your opportunity to prove to your superiors just how smart you are?”
“I couldn’t let you hurt yourself, and I couldn’t be sure you were safe until I got you back inside. I had no intention of staying, of—”