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“But we’re a team! We’ve taken down killers we never could have stopped alone.”
Paige shook her head. “That doesn’t work if we can’tworktogether properly. If we can’t be in the same room because you’re so worried about what you feel when you look at me, then how are we meant to go on catching criminals together?”
“Andyoudon’t feel anything?” Christopher countered.
“Of course,I feel something,” Paige shot back. “But you’ve made it clear that nothing can happen between us, and frankly, Christopher, the last couple of days you’ve treated me like I don’t even count.”
“I—”
Paige cut him off before he could answer. “I don’t want to hear it. Maybe earlier it would have helped, but now, my mind’s made up. I’m going to walk the boardwalk to try to make sure the killer isn’t snatching anyone. If you get any leads, give me a call.”
Paige turned away then. It was the only way that she could stop him from seeing the tears in her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It hurt Paige, walking away from Christopher like that. It hurt that she’d finally made real what she’d only been thinking about: that she would be putting in for a transfer, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.
It hurt, and even though she was meant to be hunting for a murderer, it was hard to look past that pain. How was she meant to concentrate on finding answers when she could barely think past the thoughts of how difficult things were with Christopher?
Presumably, this was just one more reason why partners shouldn’t have relationships with one another. It got in the way. It made it hard for them to keep their heads clear long enough for them to do their actual jobs.
Paige needed to straighten out her thoughts and right then, she could only think of one way to do that. Taking out her phone, she put in a call to Professor Thornton, her former PhD supervisor and mentor, the man who had given her so much good advice over the course of the last few cases.
He answered quickly, in spite of it getting later in the evening. Paige could picture him there in his study at home, working on his next paper for a conference or perhaps his next book on the nature of the criminal mind.
“Paige, it’s good to hear from you, how are you doing?” he asked, in his usual avuncular tone. He’d gone from being just a mentor to a close friend. When she was in DC, Paige often went around to his house for dinner or just to catch up.
“Not so great,” Paige said.
“Trouble with a case?”
Paige had called him before when she’d been stuck on an investigation, wanting to get his insights into the psyche of the criminals she was chasing.
“No . . . I don’t know. Yes, but not just that. I . . . I kissed Agent Marriott.”
“Ah.”
Paige caught the note of worry in Professor Thornton’s voice. “When did this happen?” he asked.
“On our last case, and now . . . now it seems that we can’t be in the same room without arguing or things being awkward,” Paige said. That fact hurt just to relate. “I thought that we’d finally both realized what was there between us and things would be great.”
“But it’s made things complicated,” Professor Thornton guessed. He sounded as if it were all obvious to him as if he knew exactly what was going on in Paige’s head. Maybe he did, because he definitely knew her well enough after her years as his grad student.
“Very. I just told him . . . I told him that I’m going to put in for a transfer as soon as this case is done.”
Professor Thornton went quiet on the other end of the line. “There are circumstances in which that might be a good thing.”
“You think I’m doing the right thing?” Paige asked.
“That would depend on your reasons. If all you’re doing is running away, then maybe not. But if you feel as though you’ve outgrown the situation here, or if you’ve realized that things are never going to go the way you want, that’s different.”
Theyweren’tgoing to go the way Paige wanted. Christopher seemed to be making that clear.
“I have to ask a question though, Paige. I thought part of your insistence on joining the BAU was to try to be involved in the hunt for the individual who murdered your father. Wouldn’t a transfer make that more difficult?”
Paige felt as though she was back in a tutorial, having the holes in her thesis picked apart to make it stronger. Professor Thornton had a point. The hunt for the Exsanguination Killer was what mattered.
“I think I’ve already gotten everything I’m going to get,” Paige said. “My boss is keeping me away from the investigation, but I got some information from Adam Riker.”
