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Cooper Fucking Springs.
Dante knew his way around the internet. He was very good at finding people who didn’t want to be found. Truth be told, Dear wasn’t even hiding from Dante. He was just out of reach. Which sucked because Dante had enjoyed his company.
He’d been pissed off and disappointed when he’d found out Dear had left town and without so much as a goodbye. But seeing as he was still UC at the time, there hadn’t been much Dante could do about it. Certainly not after the fact. Maybe it had been his fault; it wasn’t as if Dante was an easy man to get a hold of. But why Cooper Springs?
Turning in his chair, Hatch leaned down to grab a folder off the top of a seemingly random pile.
“Where’s Daniella?” Dante had expected to find her stashed in an interview room or waiting for him in Hatch’s office.
Looking up from the file, Hatch frowned.
“She’s in protection, where you’ll be joining her as soon as possible.”
Hadn’t they been through this already?
“No.”
“No?” Hatch raised a dark eyebrow.
“What about the word is confusing? Two letters, one syllable.No.”
Hatch’s nostrils flared as he did his best—Dante assumed anyway—to keep his temper in check.
“What the hell are you going to do, Dante? Campos is merciless. Simone didn’t have a chance. It wasn’t pretty.”
That was below the belt. Dante stepped close enough to the desk so he could slightly lean over it. “Murder is rarely pretty, asshole.” He didn’t need a visual for what he suspected his sister had gone through.
Leaning back, Hatch lifted a hand in apology. “Sorry, that was unwarranted.”
“I’ll keep Daniella safe until the trial,” Dante growled. “I won’t let her down.”
Hatch tapped the paperwork he held. “The new trial date hasn’t been set yet, as I am sure you’re aware. And whoever he paid is in the wind at the moment. How are you going to keep her safe from an enemy you can’t identify?”
Why the fuck was Hatch arguing with him? They’d worked together for years; he should know better.
“You said that Daniella saw them. Has she seen a sketch artist yet? Where is she?” He looked around as if his niece was going to appear out of nowhere.
“Morrison and Walters have her safe. We were waiting for you to come in.”
“What? And then you were going to send us to fucking Wisconsin or someplace?”
Hatch gave a head waggle. “Maybe notWisconsin, but somewhere safer than Portland.”
“No. Fuck, no.” Dante had seen enough families—or what remained of them—whisked away from everything they knew. WITSEC was hard. Impossible even, unless the people involved were diligent and did their best to completely erase their former lives. Wisconsin or Kentucky or wherever Hatch had in mind, he and Daniella would be fish out of water.
Dante pressed his lips together and once again crossed his arms over his chest as they eyed each other. The office was quiet, the only sounds coming from the outside: cars driving by, horns honking. With a sigh, Hatch picked up his phone and punched in a set of numbers. At least he knew Dante well enough not to argue further.
While listening to Hatch speak to whoever was on the other end, an idea started unfolding in Dante’s head. It involved a dark and rainy region of the Washington Coast and a silver fox of a man who liked to read cozy mysteries and drink tea.
Surely Cooper Fucking Springs would offer them the anonymity he and Daniella needed, as well as a way tonotbe sent away from everything they were both familiar with.
And a certain sexy ex-U.S. Marshal was the town’s newest chief of police. Not that Dante was going to assume anything—or even alert Dear to their presence. Initially, Dante needed to focus on making sure Daniella stayed alive. And he needed to help her mourn. Maybe, when the dust had settled and everything was sorted out, he’d give André a call.
Hatch set the handset back down. “Alright, Dani is on her way. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Dante didn’t have an answer for that. He didn’t know what he was doing. He’d never had kids. Dani was the only kid he knew.
“We’ll sort it out.”
