Page 150 of Mission Shift

I turned the phone over in my hand. “What happened to my old one?”

“Bottom of the gulf,” he said. “Don’t worry—I scraped your data, transferred everything over. You didn’t have anything incriminating, just some pictures, texts, and…an unfortunate number of memes.”

Daria snorted. “Let me guess. Bad dad jokes and worse puns?”

I grinned. “They’re classics.”

Nik moved back to his computers.

Daria tapped the folder. “We need to memorize this.”

“Then get to work,” Nik said over his shoulder. “You’ve got until tomorrow morning before we dock. You’d better nail down your story and sound like a real married couple, or we’ll all be fucked.”

Chapter forty-one

Daria and I took the folder, a pad of paper, and some pens, then moved upstairs to the wheelhouse lounge. Nik needed space to work, and this gave us a quieter spot with a view. Daria curled up on the circular sofa, spreading the folder across her lap like a textbook. I sat beside her, rubbing the back of her neck.

She read from one of the documents. “Your name’s Braxton Wyatt Thorin. You’re thirty-six, born in Tacoma. A paramedic, you work for a busy trauma center and volunteer with humanitarian aid groups. Both parents deceased.”

I smirked. “Well, that’s easy.”

She looked up over her shoulder. “You’re married to Dasha Sophia Thorin. I’m thirty-one, born in L.A., and a certified professional photographer specializing in landscapes. Mother deceased, father estranged.”

“I can remember that.”

“Okay, so now we’ve got to come up with a story as to how we met,” Daria said, drumming her fingertips over her lips. “Ooo, I’ve got it.”

She spent forever scribbling away on the pad of paper, so I got up to stretch my legs and walked around the room, killing time and waiting patiently.

“Done,” she proclaimed. “So pay attention.”

I returned to sit next to her on the sofa. “Let’s hear it. This ought to be good.”

“We met on Second Beach near La Push. It wasn’t anything dramatic—just one of those weird moments that changes everything.”

She smiled brightly.

“You had been camping with your younger brother, Conan, right?” she asked.

“Yes, we call him Conan, but his name is actually Constantine.”

“Good to know. So anyway, the two of you were there with a few friends. You had hiked in the day before, set up near the tree line, and were planning to stay through the weekend. I was on a solo photo trip, chasing light along the coast. I’d climbed up onto one of the big driftwood trees to get a better angle of the sea stacks—stupid, in hindsight, since the wood was slick from the spray. I slipped and twisted my ankle badly enough that I couldn’t put any weight on it.

“I didn’t even have time to feel embarrassed before this tall guy in a hoodie and hiking boots came jogging over from the trail. Turns out he was a paramedic from Tacoma—off duty, obviously, but still totally ready to go full EMT on the beach. He checked my ankle, stabilized it, helped me back to the trailhead, and made sure I got back to my car without wiping out again. He even carried my gear and put it in the trunk.

“I teased him for going into hero mode, and he gave me this deadpan look and said,‘You climbed up on a giant log and came crashing down with five grand in camera equipment around your neck, screaming bloody murder. It was the least I could do.’

“Then he asked me if I wanted to meet for coffee the next morning at a cafe in Forks. I told him no.” Daria looked at me and laughed.

I frowned. “So I offered to buy the mysterious photographer a coffee, and she said no?”

“Repeatedly,” Daria added.

I chuckled. “But eventually, you caved.”

She raised a brow. “Pity date. He told me he needed to follow up on the ankle injury as a part of his job. I laughed at his audacity and agreed to meet him for coffee. When we met, he gave me grief for ordering tea. I gave him grief for wearing flip-flops in forty-degree weather. It just…spiraled from there.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of detail. How do you know about that beach?” I asked.

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