Page 123 of Beyond Protection
Ma reached out to squeeze my hand. "We're ending this tomorrow. You hear me?"
"I hear you."
She left. Marcus followed, coordinating on his phone.
Michael lingered. "Sweep team's en route. Until they clear the house, assume everything's compromised." He turned toward Eamon. "Watch him."
"Not planning on doing anything else."
As Michael left, only Eamon and I and the lingering perfume remained.
"Come on," he said. "You're not sleeping here tonight."
"Where—"
"Downstairs. Where there are people." He held out his hand.
I took it.
At the door, I looked back. It was the same room, but now it was contaminated.
I followed Eamon downstairs.
The Christmas tree still blinked. Red. Green. Counting down.
Twenty-four hours until the raid.
Four days until December eighteenth.
And somewhere in Concrete, Vanessa Kensington was waiting.
The sweep team found nothing.
By 10 PM, Clairmont's team had left. Radios murmured from the dining room. Footsteps creaked overhead—Matthew checking windows while Miles walked the outside perimeter.
No one slept.
I sat on the living room couch. My coffee had gone cold.
Rain hammered the windows. Seattle winter rain, sideways and relentless.
Eamon sat beside me. He'd been there two hours, silent except for radio checks.
"I keep smelling her perfume," I said quietly. "Even down here. Chemical-sweet. Wrong."
"Olfactory memory. Your brain's trying to keep you alert. It'll fade. Eventually."
"How long?"
"Depends. Could be you walk into a store next year and someone's wearing it and it hits you all over again."
I smirked. "That's encouraging."
"You asked."
"Tomorrow night," I said. "What happens if she's not at the cabin?"
"Then we keep looking."
