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5
Kate leanedback into the hot water with a sigh and let her body sink into the tub until she was submerged up to her chin. She’d replayed her conversation with Joanne and Priya all the way home from work, trying to ease her worry about the future. Griff had been asleep when she got home, something that had required three chapters of Charlotte’s Web according to Declan, and Kate had climbed with relief into the bath, determined to quiet the endless turning of hermind.
They would find Neil. They would find Beth. Somehow it would all work out, like it alwaysdid.
She’d repeated it in her mind until she almost believedit.
The door to the bathroom cracked open and Declan poked his head in. “Can I come in? I come bearingwine.”
“You should have said that last part first,” Katesaid.
He smiled and entered the bathroom holding two glasses half full of ruby liquid. He cut a path through the steam on his way in, handed Kate one of the glasses, and sat on the chair next to the clawfoottub.
He looked as good at the end of the day as he had when she’d left the house for work that morning, his well-worn jeans hugging his muscular thighs just enough to leave a little to the imagination. A shadow had emerged on his cheeks through the course of the day, a rakish version of the clean-cut man who’d pressed against her in the kitchen thatmorning.
Heat bloomed between herthighs.
“Want to join me?” Kateasked.
His smile was wolfish. “Do you have to ask?” His expression grew serious. “I have something to tell you firstthough.”
Dread coiled in her stomach. In all the time she’d been home, all the time she and Declan had spent together since, good news had never followed thosewords.
“Somethingwrong?”
He shook his head. “The opposite actually. At least, I thinkso.”
She used her feet to push further above the waterline, oblivious to the fact that the water and bubbles sluiced off her breasts. She’d been self-conscious about her body when she and Declan had first been intimate, worried that her post-baby body wouldn’t measure up to Declan’s memories of her in college, back when it had been lean and tight, absent the stretch marks that marked her with the silvery stripes of motherhood. But he’d more than proven his desire for her in the months they’d been back together. “Did you findhim?”
“Maybe. Clay thinks so,” hesaid.
“Where?”
“Iceland.”
She didn’t try to hide her surprise. In the months since Beth and Neil had gone missing, Kate had imagined them in all kinds of places: beaches and mountains and big cities, most of them without extradition treaties. But she’d never once imagined them in a place as remote as Iceland. “Really?”
He nodded. “But it’s not a sure thing. One of the contacts they’ve been watching has set off some alarm bells. That’sall.”
She studied him. If what he said was true, it was the first break they’d had in months. So why did it feel like he was hedging? “Why does it seem like you’re downplayingthis?”
“I’m not downplaying it. I just want to be honest, set your expectations,” he said. “I’ll know more once I getthere.”
She stood, water running off her naked body as anger coursed through her veins. “Now I getit.”
He blinked, staring up at her as she tried to grab a towel from the stack on the shelf. She couldn’t quite reach from inside the tub so he stood, plucking a towel from the stack and opening it for her. “What?”
She yanked it from his hand and tucked it around her body as she spoke. “You don’t want me togo.”
He sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you to go. It just doesn’t make sense for you togo.”
She stepped out of the tub and glared at him as she passed. “The man who killed my father is in Iceland. My sister might be there. In what universe does it not make sense for me togo?”
She marched into the bedroom, felt him on herheels.
“Kate… it’s going to be a long trip. We have to follow the lead, stake out the house where we think Neil is holed up. If there’s enough evidence to indicate that he’s there, we have to go in. Do you know what thatmeans?”
“I’m not stupid.” She pulled open one of the dresser drawers and slipped on a pair of sensible white underwear, vaguely aware that she was beingirrational.
