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“Can we not talk about Callie dying?” Gabriel asked.
Charley frowned. “I agree. I get what you’re saying, but maybe we could be a little more hypothetical?”
Mantis looked down at Charley. He grimaced, no doubt replaying the conversation but with her in Callie’s place. Leaning down, he kissed Charley before shooting Gabriel an apologetic look. “Sorry, brother.”
Gabriel slid an arm around her waist and kissed her temple before nodding to Mantis.
After that, they dropped all talk of the case, and the room filled with stories and laughter and games of pool and so much food. The loaded, anticipatory looks Gabriel sent her over the hours the only reminder that this was their first night as husband and wife.
When she bent over the pool table to take a shot—a winning shot, she hoped—Gabriel ambled over, the casualness of his walk not fooling her one bit. She held his gaze over the table as the stick slid forward. The sound it made when it struck the cueball told her the shot was good. She kept her eyes on Gabriel as the ball rolled across the table and gently tapped the eight ball, sending it into the corner pocket. When Marley, her teammate, let out a whoop, she straightened.
Gabriel circled the table. Stopping in front of her, he closed his hands around her waist, pulling her against him. “You ready to head home, wife?” he asked. He kept his voice low, but judging by the chuckles around her, his brothers knew exactly what he said.
She held out her stick and someone, maybe North, took it from her hand. “Yes, please, husband,” she replied. Gabriel smiled when that last word left her mouth. She started to respond with one of her own, but he lowered his head and kissed her.
The whoops and hollers that escorted them as they left made her laugh. And while joy filled her body—as did anticipation—she didn’t miss the concern in Mantis’s eyes when he waved his goodbye.
42
“Congratulations,” Leo said when Callie walked into HICC the next day. Alone. She’d had the night and early morning with Gabriel. Time to shut the world out and simply be with each other. But when the sun rose, life rose again with it.
“Thanks,” she said, a wry smile tugging at her lips. She and Gabriel had done a one-eighty in their relationship, and it was almost embarrassing how little everyone seemed to question it. Not even Daphne, whom she’d called that morning.
Her sister had squealed like a thirteen-year-old girl, then let loose a string of swear words long enough that even Gabriel blushed. By the time they ended the call, the entire town probably knew how Daphne felt about them eloping. Her people had also booked her a flight to Mystery Lake in February, the soonest she could make it due to prior engagements. She’d tried to blow off those engagements and arrive within the next few days, but Callie had told her to wait. She wanted to focus on the case, bring Liza’s killer to justice, then take time away with Gabriel to relax and unwind. A novel concept for her to consider, let alone crave, but for the first time in her life, she did.
She wanted to sit on a beach and drink cold beer or maybe lounge on the deck of one of those overwater huts in the South Pacific. She wanted to hear about Gabriel’s life in the twenty years they’d been apart. She alreadyknewhim in the same way heknewher. But she wanted the details, the mundane things like his favorite color and whether he watched true crime shows.
And she wanted to learn those things without the specter of a killer hanging over them.
“Any chance I can get set up in a conference room?” she asked as Leo handed over a stack of files.
“Of course. And everything in those printouts is on our secure drive, so you have it electronically as well.”
She followed him up two flights of stairs to the top floor of the building. From the outside, the headquarters looked like little more than a glorified shed—a massive shed, but a shed, nonetheless. The casual observer would never see the eighteen inches of reinforced materials behind the metal siding, securing the structure against attacks. And inside, well,shedwas the last word she’d use. Everything, from the windows to the chairs to the coffee to the equipment, was top-of-the-line. Not masquerading as a home, as some office environments tried to do—no, this was clearly a workplace, but a workplace intended to make life easier for employees when, sometimes, the work they did would be anything but.
“Will this be okay?” Leo asked, opening a door to a large rectangular room, easily twice the size of the one they’d used before heading to Utah. It had a massive screen anchoring one of the short walls while the long wall opposite the door was nearly a wall of windows—probably bulletproof and reflective from the outside, but she didn’t ask.
She smiled. “This is perfect.”
“You want me to stay and go over the updates?” Leo offered.
“Is it all in the secure drive?” He nodded. “Then I’m good,” she said, already visualizing the information.
“Your final background check cleared while you were in Utah, so you now have access to all the databases HICC does. If you need help finding anything, holler.”
Excitement vibrated through her body, making her feel…giddy? She’d never been giddy before in her life, but it felt the way her books described it, a flutter vibrating through her body. She had autonomy, was surrounded by the best of the best in the field, had access toeverythingto make her job easier, and she had Gabriel.
She fought the urge to quash her own happiness, to not let herself feel it. Everyone else at HICC seemed to have it all—purposeful work with good people, healthy private lives (although not so private, she was learning), and balance. Why couldn’t she have it, too?
She decided then and there that she could. Not onlycouldshe have it—after all, it was staring her in the face—but she was going to grab hold of it with all her might.
Old habits died hard, though, and she accepted that she’d probably be looking over her shoulder for a while, waiting for someone to criticize or tell her she wasn’t good enough. But she wouldn’t focus on it, or anticipate that, as she’d done in the past. And she’d give herself grace when it happened.
“I will,” she said to Leo, stepping into the room. Setting her computer bag on a chair and the files on the table, she turned and looked at her colleague.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked with a nod to her cheek, then her hands.
“I’m good. These don’t hurt at all,” she said, brushing the tiny marks on her face. “And my sister had some special vitamin E thing delivered to the house this morning to help prevent anyscarring. The hands are more annoying than painful, thanks to the bandages.”
