Page 33 of Pursuit of Her

Eve's eyes widened slightly. "Dead man's switch."

"For you as much as for justice. If they realize how much you know, you become a target. The evidence release ensures they can't simply eliminate both of us and continue operating."

A police siren wailed in the distance, drawing closer. Reagan's internal clock counted down their remaining moments. She leaned forward, pressing her lips to Eve's in a kiss that carried the weight of a decade's absence and the uncertainty of whatever future awaited them.

"Be careful," Eve whispered against her mouth. "Martinez reports directly to Brooks."

"I've survived worse." Reagan stepped back, moving to the balcony door. "What will you tell them?"

Eve's smile was grim. "That I was following a lead. Working late. Nothing unusual for Captain Morgan."

Reagan nodded, satisfied with the cover story's plausibility. She unlocked the balcony door, the night air rushing in cool against her skin, carrying the scent of rain and distant ocean.

"Would you have said yes?"

Reagan turned around, her expression softened briefly. "You know I would have."

The admission carried both healing and fresh pain. Reagan nodded once, committing Eve's face to memory—this new version, shaped by a decade of absence and determination, different from the one she'd carried in her heart all these years but no less beloved.

Then survival instinct reclaimed her. Reagan slipped through the door and into the night, descending the service ladder as sirens converged on the building below. Within moments, she had disappeared into Phoenix Ridge's rain-slicked streets.

But for the first time in ten years, she carried more than her mission with her into the darkness. She carried the certainty that what she and Eve had built hadn't died that night in the harbor. It had merely waited, dormant but alive, for their paths to cross again.

And whether their next meeting came as allies or adversaries in this war against corruption, Reagan knew with cold certainty that it would come soon. The endgame was approaching—for her mission and for whatever remained between them after tonight.

7

EVE

Morning light sliced through the blinds, painting harsh stripes across Eve's bedroom ceiling. She hadn't slept. How could she, with Reagan's scent still clinging to her body and the echo of Martinez's interrogation ringing in her ears?

Three a.m. questioning in her own living room. Martinez's eyes cataloging every detail, searching for evidence of Reagan's presence while two uniformed officers stood awkwardly by the door. The careful fiction Eve had maintained—working late, following leads on the Davenport case, nothing unusual for Captain Morgan—had held, but barely.

Eve rolled to her side, wincing as stiff muscles protested. Her body carried the memory of Reagan's fucking, phantom sensations that made her skin burn even as her mind calculated risks and contingencies. The clock read 6:17 a.m. In less than two hours, she needed to be at Phoenix Ridge National Bank when it opened, the safety deposit box key burning a hole in her pocket.

The sound of her shower running had masked their conversation last night, but Eve wasn't naive enough to believe her apartment remained unsurveilled. Commissioner Brooks wouldn't have sent Martinez without backup measures. Which meant every movement Eve made today would be watched, analyzed, and reported.

With mechanical precision born of years of discipline, Eve rose and dressed in her captain's uniform—armor against the day ahead. No personal items left visible. Nothing to betray the hurricane that had swept through her carefully constructed life. She holstered her service weapon, the familiar weight a reminder of divided loyalties.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Foster:Commissioner called emergency meeting. 8:30 a.m. Mandatory attendance. Watch your back.

Eve's jaw tightened. The timing couldn't be coincidental. Brooks was making her move, attempting to keep Eve occupied while the bank opened at 9 a.m. The safety deposit box would have to wait.

She moved to her dining table where the evidence lay meticulously reorganized after Martinez's departure. The old photograph of Reagan from their academy days stared back at her, an accusation and reminder woven into a single image.

"I would have said yes too," Eve whispered to the empty apartment, her fingers brushing the velvet box in her desk drawer one last time before closing it firmly.

The choice she'd been circling for days had crystallized in the aftermath of Reagan's visit. Eve could no longer serve a system corrupted at its highest levels. She could no longer wear the badge that represented justice while knowing that justice had been perverted to protect the powerful.

But neither could she follow Reagan's path of lethal vigilantism.

There had to be another way to exact justice without more bloodshed. A third path that would bring down the Phoenix Network while keeping Reagan from crossing the final names off her list.

Arthur Pembroke would die tonight if Eve didn't intercept Reagan first.

Eve gathered her badge and car keys, mentally mapping the day ahead. Emergency meeting with Brooks, create an excuse to leave, and bank visit to retrieve Reagan's final evidence. Then locate Sophia Gresham, the confidential informant who had remained loyal to Reagan for a decade.

Her phone rang—Commissioner Brooks herself, not bothering with Martinez as intermediary anymore.

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