“She scares him. And he damn well should be scared of her.”
“I don’t disagree,” Beck said. “But unless we stop him first, he will come sooner or later. Because yes, it eats at him. The three women he’s killed since Morgan survived? They’re substitutes, and a substitute never satisfies like the real thing.”
“Then you’d better find him first.”
Beck sat back, picked up her glass, set it down again. “If he’d waited one more day in South Carolina. We’d just walked into the agency he used for the rental. If we’d walked in a few hours earlier. But we didn’t, and he didn’t.”
“It’s hard for me.” Morgan stroked Howl’s head. “It’s hard for both of you.”
“It’s the job,” Beck began, then both her and Morrison’s phones beeped. “Excuse me.” She rose, stepped away.
“Is that your dog?” Morrison asked Morgan.
“No. He’s Miles’s dog.”
“More or less,” Miles muttered.
“It wouldn’t hurt to get a dog. A dog’s a good deterrent. You could—”
“We’ve got a break,” Beck interrupted. “He checked into a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. Local LEOs responding now. We’ve got to go. We’ll be in touch.”
Morgan stood to walk them out, but they were already rushing away. “Good luck,” she called out. “Maybe this time,” she said to Miles.
“Maybe. You’re okay.”
“You think?”
“No panic attack.”
“There’s that. I want to tell you, it meant a lot, what you said.”
“I said a lot of things.”
“That I’m not going to let him take my life away again, that he should be afraid of me. You stood up for me. It matters that I know I’ll stand up for myself, that you believe I can and will, and you’d still stand up for me. It matters.”
He said nothing for a moment, just watched her as she sat, the dog stretched out under her chair.
“Morrison had a good point. You should keep the dog with you. I don’t know if he’s much of a guard dog, but he’d make noise.”
“And give up that fancy doghouse?”
“I’m pretty sure he’d sleep out in the rain if you’d give him a pat on the head.”
Smiling, she gave Howl a rub with her foot. “You’re his home, and his roots. I know what it’s like to be uprooted, so no. But thanks. Those agents? This isn’t just a job for them. They want to stop him, and it’s not for a government paycheck.”
She paused, drank some of her lemonade. “I think I did dent his shield, the way they said. If what happened to me, and what didn’t, shakes him enough to help them find him, stop him … I’ll be good with that. More than. And I hope he knows that despite everything he took from me, I have a good life here, with more than I knew I wanted. I hope that shakes him, too.”
“I’m just going to get this over with.”
He surprised her by reaching out to take her hand. He rarely made gestures of casual affection or intimacy.
“Am I going to like it?”
“That’s not the point. I’m attracted to you. That’s obvious or we wouldn’t be here. I like being with you, and not just for the sex. For some strange reason I like the way you make a fountain out of a frog.”
“You helped.”
“I was just the muscle, and don’t interrupt. I’d enjoy watching you work behind the stick even if it wasn’t for us. It’s like a freaking ballet. I like your body, and I appreciate it has a good brain to go along with it. But all that aside, as they’re really just different aspects of attraction, I admire the hell out of you.”
Her earlier surprise shot straight up to stunned. “Oh, well. Wow.”
“Don’t interrupt,” he said again. “I don’t know how I’d have handled what you’ve had to. If I’d lost what you lost, and the way you lost it. If I’d had to face losing someone close to me, family, the way you did. Because that’s what Nina was to you. She was family. I sure as hell hope I never have to find out if I have that kind of courage.
“You can talk now.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m speechless.”
“That’d be a first.”
Howl stirred, muttered, then pushed out from under the chair.
“I think your ladies are home.”
Before he could draw his hand away, she tightened her grip, then reached out to take his other. “You’ve just turned a really hard knock around. I’ll think of more to say later, but right now, you turned it around.”