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Two buildings down, he cut through an empty side street.
Better this way, getting away from the scene. He didn’t need to run into Clare—not if he could help it. She would be back at the bank and he could do his job. Arrest the bad guys.
Dakota got on and gave him the street name. “Can’t see where they landed, but they were about twenty feet off the ground there.”
“I’m in pursuit,” Liam said. Then he updated the street name, one that ran perpendicular to the one Gage was driving down.
“I’m with the sarge.” That was Blake.
“Mast and I will call McCauley, then head your way.” Jasper wanted to watch Dakota’s back, that was fine by Gage.
He would trust his brother to take care of Dakota and handle whatever happened. The team operated that way, and had since the beginning, because they were friends first. Only now that Gage was in charge it seemed like an uphill battle to try to get them to see him as their boss rather than just their teammate.
“Copy that.” Gage spotted Liam and Blake running. He pulled over ahead of them.
A mangled car on the side of the road had been shoved aside partially onto the curb. Liam slowed to a jog, then stopped beside it. Gage jumped out the SWAT van. Liam rounded the car to the passenger side and bent. “Doesn’t look like anyone is inside.”
“What happened?” Gage stopped beside Blake.
“White box van. No plates.” Blake pushed out a breath, then another. Sweat dripped down his forehead. “They zip lined down right beside it, jumped in, and took off within seconds. Hit this car on the way out. Took off.”
“Which way?” Gage could get dispatch to check traffic cameras. Put a BOLO out. They also needed evidence technicians to pull paint transfer from the mangled vehicle to see what they could find out about the brand used on the escape van.
Blake took another breath, finally catching it to try to slow his heart rate. His gaze snagged on something behind Gage, but he said nothing. “Fenton, going toward Bannock.”
“I’ll call it in.” Gage peeled back Velcro from his thigh pocket on his cargos and tugged out his cell phone, already turning away.
She stood right behind him.
Dakota’s voice came over the radio. “The woman from the roof had the same idea as us.”
Gage pressed his lips together.Now you tell me.
She was slightly out of breath. A little pink in the cheeks. A woman, where the person he’d known years ago had been a girl. She stood before him now a beautiful woman who was a stranger.
Her eyes flared. “Gage.”
Blake spun to her.
Gage didn’t need him getting into this. “Clare.” He cleared his throat and fought back all the emotion that rose up to choke him alive. “Good to see you.”
He stepped past her and made his phone call.
There was work to do.
EIGHT
Clare kept still. He walked away, past her. Dismissing her completely, as though they didn’t have more history than Niagara Falls running over their pasts. Their lives would forever be tangled together, whether he liked it or not.
Even if he seemed to want to remain in denial.
Clare glanced over her shoulder, biting her lip between her teeth. Nearly twenty years, and she knew now that connection had never gone anywhere. Gage Deluca held a piece of her. Always had, always would.
No matter that he tore her heart out the first time he walked away. He clearly thought nothing of it—or didn’t care at all.
Clare sucked in a long breath through her nose that was supposed to calm her. She shifted her weight and winced. After running in these heels all the way down the block, she wasn’t looking forward to walking back to the bank to retrieve her things.
Not to mention up and down the stairs.
