Grant should have known that rushing into marriage was a bad idea. They were both dedicated to their work, making it their number one priority. Their work had sometimes split them up for long periods of time, though they’d always come back together with more passion than before.
Until Avery had signed up to infiltrate a dangerous organization. Yes, their jobs could be very dangerous, but that particular assignment had promised to be worse than any other that had come before it.
Grant had nearly lost his mind at the thought of Avery walking right into an organization that would just as soon shoot her as give her a chance to talk her way out of a tight situation. To Grant, it had been almost a certain death sentence. One slip-up and she’d end up in a body bag, or worse, buried so deep in the woods, she’d never be found.
The current situation had his heart racing. The killer seemed to be after Avery and/or Bree, teasing them with lookalikes until he saw fit to go after the originals.
A hand touched his arm, pulling him back to the interior of the car and the woman he’d never stopped loving, even as he’d signed the divorce papers to set her free.
“Stop it,” she said softly.
Had she read his mind? He shot her a frown. “Stop what?”
“I know that look,” she said with a crooked smile. “Stop worrying about me.”
“Easier said than done.” His jaw hardened. “The victims look like you and Bree. It has to mean something.”
“It means we have to find the killer before he hurts anyone else,” she said. “Until I showed up, everyone thought Bree was me. I tend to think the killer is targeting me, not Bree. I need to contact my counterparts from my last mission to see who got away when we nailed the syndicate. Who would be motivated to find the people who put the key players away?” She frowned. “I wish I had my phone with all the numbers I’d stored. I’ll have to go old-school and look up the names and push through the bureaucracy to get to their numbers. It’s not like I can find them in a phone directory.”
Grant’s lip curled. “Why not? They have a phone directory at the bureau.”
“The numbers I really need are for my contacts outside the bureau. My informants.”
“Give the names and general locations to Swede. He might be able to find them through the dark web.”
“I need to meet this Swede. He could be useful to my work.”
Grant nodded. “He’s our go-to for the entire Brotherhood Protectors organization.”
“A handy man to have around,” she said.
“You’ll have to start collecting those numbers again. I’ve already entered my number in your contacts list on your new cell phone.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Although you didn’t have to. It’s funny that it was the one number I remembered when I woke up from the coma. Thanks again for coming to my rescue.”
“I’m glad I was the one you thought of first,” he said and reached for her hand. “We might be divorced, but you can still count on me.”
“And you can count on me.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
“I thought about you a lot over the past two years,” Grant said.
“I can’t say the same,” Avery admitted. “After our divorce, I had to force my past out of my mind to immerse myself in my undercover persona. To do that, I had to push my past into a dark corner and leave it tucked there until the job was done. I didn’t want someone to torture information out of me and use the people I cared most about against me.”
When she’d said she hadn’t thought about him, it cut Grant to the core. That she’d done it to protect people she cared about gave him hope that she still had feelings for him.
Grant pulled into the parking lot at the hotel and parked in the pull-through at the entrance. They entered together and approached the reception desk.
The clerk looked up from his cell phone. “Hi,” he said and set the phone aside. “How can I help you?”
Avery smiled at the clerk. “We need two rooms for tonight.”
“Will you be checking out tomorrow?” the young man asked.
Avery’s brow wrinkled. “We’d like to book the rooms for at least a week.”
His focus on the computer terminal, the clerk’s brow knitted for a moment and then cleared. “You’re in luck. You’ll get the last two rooms, at least for tonight. Both have king-sized beds. We had a pipeline construction crew move in late this evening. They’ll be here for several weeks. Plus, a bus load of volleyball players arrived before dark.” He looked up and grinned. “I have just the two rooms left on the third floor.”
“Are they close to each other?” Grant asked.
