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She was so not moving into the bunker.
“No.” Hale glanced back Van’s way. “I don’t recognize her. Do you?”
Van had been quiet the last few hours. After he was sure Hale was okay, he’d pulled back into himself. It was almost like she could see his defenses coming firmly into place. “No, but I told the deputy that earlier today.”
Yep. Those walls were up again.
“Deputy?” Hale’s eyes rolled.
“She’s at work,” Van argued. “What am I supposed to call her?”
Hale looked her way. “Baby, I don’t know who this is. I would say I’ve never seen her before, but we both know I don’t notice things the way I should. If she wasn’t a project I was working on or a woman I was actively chasing, she could have sat beside me on the bus every day for a year and I wouldn’t have a clue who she was.”
“Hopefully we’ll know something tomorrow,” Nate said, stepping back. “I talked to Van’s brother, and he’s going to work on it. His company is the best in the business. If she’s got any kind of a footprint, they’ll find it. And Leal, you held it together spectacularly today. Good job. I would have lost my shit if that had been Callie.”
“She’s a woman,” Gemma answered. “She doesn’t get to lose her shit. One show of temper and suddenly you’re the queen bitch of the world.”
“You pulled out that woman’s hair,” Nate said with a snort.
Gemma shrugged. “She deserved it, and honestly it wasn’t great hair to start with. I’m merely pointing out that Elisa’s been a woman in a man’s world for a long time.”
“I’m afraid fifteen years of military service drilled that into me.” She looked Hale’s way. “But I was freaking out on the inside. A whole lot of my world was in that car.”
Her dad had been picked up by Cassidy half an hour before. He’d stayed around to give a statement and make sure Hale was all right and didn’t need alien technology to save him. He’d assured her there were some good aliens, and he had contacts.
She loved her dad. She kept waiting for that feeling to pass, for him to do something that annoyed her, but there was a weird joy that seemed to surround her dad and stepmom. They viewed the world in a way she’d never considered before.
“I was also surprised Mel was so calm,” Nate said, looking at her. “Good job there, too.”
Hale reached for her hand. “I knew what was going on in your head, baby. I didn’t think you were being cold.” He brought her fingers to his lips. “You were holding it together, and I appreciate that since Van acted like we were in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.”
“You were very still. Like you were dead.” Van stood, his eyes narrowed as he pointed Hale’s way. “I was trying to restart your heart. Next time I’ll let you die.”
Hale moved in and put a hand behind Van’s neck, his expression going earnest. “No, you won’t, brother. Thank you for trying.”
He pulled Van into a manly hug that involved him giving Van’s back a slap, but there was a precious intimacy to the embrace, one she hadn’t seen between the two of them before.
Van stepped back after a moment. “Try not to almost die again. It’s getting obnoxious.” He seemed far more centered when he sat back down. “Now let’s talk about this. I know my brother will probably have a name and dossier on this woman in a couple of hours, but I want to know who the man is.”
“The man? The one she talked to?” Hale asked.
She slid the printout his way. “This was the man she met in the lobby. We think she might have been working for him.”
“I watched the cam footage.” Nate sat back. “I agree. I would say he sent her in to get that information and she held it back because she wanted payment. One of them trashed the cabin that address sent them to. I would bet it wasn’t the woman.”
Hale was carefully studying the photo. “He looks familiar. What kind of hat is he wearing? It doesn’t look like a sports team hat. Can we get a close-up? It looks like there’s a pattern on the hat.”
Elisa looked over Hale’s shoulder. He was right. At first glance the hat looked like a plain black hat, but when she studied it there were lighter lines that formed a pattern.
“It doesn’t look like any sports team I know,” Nate conceded. “But then people at the lodge wear some crazy stuff. You know when you stare at it the right way, it looks almost like a bunch of Fs. Is there a sports team with a bunch of Fs?”
Gemma held out a hand. “Let me look at it.” Nate handed it to her, and she shook her head. “It’s not a sports team. It’s designer. That’s the Fendi logo. That damn hat probably cost five hundred dollars. This guy is an idiot. He’s trying to go unnoticed but he’s wearing a designer hat? The only reason it didn’t stand out like a sore thumb was the fact that the camera feed is black and white.”
