“I hate it here.”
Oh, well, welcome to that shitty club. Ethan wasn’t exactly thrilled he’d run back here. There was no doubt he should have sat his ass in DC waiting for Gene to find him.
Because this was his fault, he reassured him.
“Don’t worry. We’re going home,” he stated. “When we get home, you can hate it there because Javier Hughes is waiting for us.”
Gene hadn’t been expecting that. It caught him off guard, and he actually laughed.
“Great. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. When I said I liked spicy and hot, I meant my takeout—or man.”
Indeed.
And what a frying pan that was.
At least they were in it together. Ethan just kept reminding himself of that.
When the laptop chimed, both men looked over. Something had popped up in one of Ethan’s searches.
“Who?” Gene asked, reluctantly letting him go. Still, he needed space between them. The last thing he wanted was his man digging in his pocket or leaning against that ring box.
“It’s the last run on one of the interviews we did. Tristan Hevin,” Ethan offered.
Gene was curious.
“Tell me about Tristan,” he said.
Ethan shared what he’d found on him, too.
“Well, he’s clean, and his social media is filled with pictures of him, and Ivey.”
Blackhawk pulled them all up.
In them, they saw happy people.
They were dancing at a club, they were having dinner, and they were smiling like loons.
Ethan saw the next picture.
“Oh, and it looks like I was wrong. He’s definitely gay, and he’s in a relationship with a man. So, that shoots down my‘he’s faking it’theory. One of the pictures has him in bed with a sleeping man as he refers to him as‘the love of his life’.”
Gene sighed.
“Well, so much for it being a gay man out to get revenge on women.”
Yeah, that was not likely it.
Still, Gene didn’t exclude him from his suspect list, simply because if something caught Ethan’s attention, that was likely important.
He’d keep it in the back of his mind.
“Keep working on him. Something might pop.”
He would.
“I also had something bothering me.”
Gene wanted to shower, but he’d never walk away from a talking Ethan—especially when he was talking work.
