Virginia was standing on the Kellys' back deck, holding her phone, waiting for his reply to her latest text. A warm breeze coming off the ocean ruffled her hair and she closed her eyes, enjoying the gentle caress on her face.

She had transferred Janine to the school nearby, getting a court order to seal the records, just in case. Janine had adjusted well, meeting new friends and adopting Bill and Carol as another set of grandparents, much to their delight. Bill, especially, seemed to adore having the chance to play granddad. It was sad to reflect on how Bill's and Carol's chance for grandparenthood had ended with the death of their only child.

Virginia spent most of her time volunteering at the school and helping Carol with the cleaning and cooking. The Kellys had loaned her their station wagon, giving her some freedom to venture out from the house. She was a regular visitor to the neighboring town, enjoying the local fare at its colorful street markets that were peaceful for now with the summer rush of tourists still a few months away.

It had taken her one week to turn on her phone again. She started out simple, sending a short note to him, saying she was feeling better and Janine was doing well. He replied right away, telling her he loved her. That was all she had given that day.

Each day after that, they had exchanged a little more. Before long, she was spending an hour each night texting him back and forth. They did not talk about past events or their respective jobs. She did not call him, and he followed her lead. And although she was a firm believer in old fashioned communication, there was some sense of excitement in the non-sensory contact as she sat waiting for his responses like a teenager with a crush.

Four weeks had passed since the day of her arrival. She had thoroughly enjoyed the relaxation, but she missed her home, her brother, the gym, the station with all of its chaos, and most of all, the man who occupied nearly all of her thoughts.

She wanted to go home.

A week ago she had packed her bags, planning to leave. It had been his idea for her to stay longer. Something big was going down and he was worried about her safety. She had agreed, knowing her return would be a distraction, not wanting to put him in further danger. She remembered his statement about having help but couldn't shake the sense of dread, wondering if he was the one in jeopardy.

She really wanted to go home.

Frustration drew her from her thoughts, triggering her eyes to open. Movement in her peripheral vision provided a momentary diversion: Janine and Jack's dad were walking along the beach, returning from a late afternoon stroll. Two sets of footprints trailed behind them, little dots of dark paint on a massive sand-colored canvas.

Carol walked up. "Here is your tea, hon."

"Thank you," Virginia said, taking the steaming mug from Carol's outstretched hand while stuffing the phone into her pocket.

Carol studied her for a moment. "You know, I think you are glowing. I'm glad to see your time here has helped."

Virginia blushed. "It has. I'm so grateful to you and Bill, considering . . ." She glanced over at the two explorers to check on how close they were, not wanting Janine to hear the conversation. "I'm pregnant," she all but whispered, staring down at her cup.

As the silence stretched, Virginia peeked up through her lashes to find Carol smiling.

"I had a feeling," she said. "You might be able to fool men with all that baggy clothing, but you can't fool a woman."

"I should have told you when I arrived, but I wasn't sure how you would take it. I didn't want to upset you."

Carol reached over and lifted Virginia's chin, forcing their eyes to meet, the elder's full of knowledge and sincerity. "We know how you felt about Jack. His death was tragic, but we didn't expect you to give up everything to find his killer. You are young, Virginia. You need to live your life, be happy."

Virginia nodded, so grateful to have them for support. "I do need to go back soon—to tell the father."

"Do you love him?" Carol asked before shaking her head and adding, "Sorry, that's none of my—"

"Yes. . . It took me a long time to admit. It isn't a normal relationship."

"Well . . . who's to say what's normal nowadays."

"He's Mark Spinelli."

Carol's eyes widened. "Oh," she said on an exhale.

"You can see how that would complicate things."

Carol looked somewhat flabbergasted. But being the sweet woman she was, she was already coming up with ideas to help. "You could always quit your job, eliminate some of the conflict."

Virginia took a deep breath and blew it out of her mouth, watching the waves below her break with force against the mounds of sand. The beach had stood the test of time, refusing to give up and disappear under such a thrashing. Just like our relationship, she thought.

She looked at Carol and answered honestly, "I had thought about that, but my job is such a big part of me. I'm afraid I might just cease to exist, or blame him for the purposelessness."

Carol nodded. "You remind me so much of Jack. It's no wonder you two made a great team." Her gaze slid downward. "I wish it was Jack's," she said with maternal possessiveness. "Is that awful of me?"

Virginia's eyes searched Carol's face, seeing the pain. She stepped closer, reaching out and grasping the woman's hand. "Jack was a great man," she said, giving the fingers a gentle squeeze, hoping to pass some strength into Carol, realizing for the first time how much Jack's death had aged his mother.

They stood silent, hand in hand, watching the sun reflecting over the water, each immersed in their own memories of Jack. As much as she wanted to help Carol, however, Virginia could not ease her hurt by agreeing with her. She would never diminish the precious connection to Mark by saying it should be someone else's, regardless of how much or how little he wanted to be involved.

Carol pulled herself out of her thoughts and went into the house just as Bill and Janine appeared at the top of the steps and stopped to brush the sand from their feet.

"Everything okay?" Bill asked, watching Carol close the patio door. Being married as long as they had been, he was fluent in his wife's body language.

"We were talking about Jack."

"Oh." His face fell, but Janine soon distracted him as children often do, so he didn't have a chance to see Carol smile through the glass, or the way she clasped her hands and pulled them into her chest. She looked like a women on a mission-something to do with onesies, bassinets, and tiny shoes no doubt.

Once this baby is born, I'm going to be visiting more often, Virginia realized.

She retrieved her phone to see Mark's text waiting. Her mood brightened, but it was short lived, flattened by the racing pulse that came with reading his typed words:

GUS HAS FOUND YOU. GET OUT OF THERE.

)l(

"What are you doing?"

Bruce jumped, biting down on the penlight hanging out of his mouth so hard he thought he might have cracked a tooth. He knew it was her without looking. Even so, he yanked the thing out of his mouth and shined it in her direction.

Claire was at the doorway of the storage room, arms crossed at her chest. Her hair was down as if she had been getting ready for bed. It was longer than he had imagined, almost down to her waist, the blonde waves falling in a soft veil around her shoulders.

He couldn't stop staring.

She brought her hand up to shield her eyes from the beam, bringing him to his senses. "Oh, sorry," he mumbled, shifting the light toward her feet.

"Well?" she demanded.

"I needed to . . ." he started, grappling for an excuse. The time of night registered through the shock. He brought the light back up to her face and all that golden softness. "What are you doing here?" he said, hearing the accusation in his own voice.

"The major general called. He has a sore back and can't sleep, so he asked me to bring him—" She stepped inside the room, her finger pointing at his chest. "I asked you first! Get that light out of my face!"

She was too loud. He stepped in close, hoping to convince her that whispering would be a better alternative. A noise in the main office preceded the lights being switched on, throwing a rectangle of illumination through Morris's office door. Bruce moved without thinking, clamping a hand over Claire's mouth and backing her up against the wall. He shoved the penlight in his pocket and yanked the door beside them closed to the point where he knew it would creak. When Morris entered his office and turned on the overheads, a sliver of white cut through the otherwise dark storage room. Bruce could only pray that Morris wouldn't look over and notice the two inch gap between the door and its frame.

Claire pulled at his forearm, her protests muffled by his hand.

He leaned in, his mouth almost touching her ear. "Shhh," he whispered. "Trust me. He's the one you shouldn't trust."

She stilled and blinked up at him.

Music came on. Bruce and Claire both twisted their heads to the source. Morris was playing with the CD player, searching for a song he liked, eventually settling on a slow, melodic one. He bent down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out his bottle of cognac and two glasses.

"Doesn't look like he has a sore back to me," Bruce scoffed.

Claire made a soft grunting noise that he took as distaste. He just wasn't sure if it was aimed at Morris, or him.

Morris checked his watch and picked up the phone on his desk. Seconds later the pager in Claire's pant pocket started vibrating.

"Shit," Bruce whispered.

Pushing his hips into hers, he used his body to stifle the low hum that could be heard, wrapping his other arm around her waist to hold her tight.

Clearly, she didn't like the intimate contact. She pushed at him with her hands, her shoulders, her hips, a shifting fireball of pissed-off woman.

"You keep rubbing up against me like that, sweetheart, and it's going to be more than just my hand on that mouth," he quietly teased.

She stilled again, her eyes cracking wide, her chest heaving to the point that he thought she might hyperventilate.

Jesus, he thought. Is the suggestion really that disgusting? He was about to tell her he was just kidding in the hopes of calming her down when her lids slowly lowered, her eyes locking onto his mouth . . .

Well, whadda ya know.

Morris was forgotten. It was just her and him, bodies pressed together in the shadows, soft music floating around them. "Doc," he breathed, "you shouldn't look at me like that." Now he was the one close to hyperventilating. Not that that was going to stop him. She wanted to be kissed and he was the perfect man for the job.

He dropped his hand from her mouth, driving it into all that blonde silkiness he was dying to touch. Gradually, he lowered his head, having every intention of doing exactly what he'd promised. She gave off all the right signals: lips parted, hands slid up his chest, lids grew heavy—

An explosion rang out in the distance, rattling the walls around them. They both stiffened and straightened, Bruce's eyes shifting to the crack of the door to get Morris's reaction.

"Goddamn it!" Morris flicked off the music and rushed out of his office.

At the sound of the outer office door closing, Claire pushed her weight into Bruce's chest, knocking him off balance and into the bookcase. It scraped along the floor with the impact.

"Don't touch me," she hissed. Whirling away from him, she yanked open the door, flooding the storage room with light. With heavy steps, she marched up to Morris's desk and slammed a small bottle of pills onto its surface before throwing another angry look in Bruce's direction and leaving.

Bruce needed to get out of there. He couldn't be sure of Claire's loyalty—she could very well be heading straight for Morris. Plus, that explosion could have been the good guys blowing something up, but it might have been something else entirely. And if any casualties were involved, the medical team would be real busy, real soon.

He turned to realign the bookcase. Expecting the thing to be heavy, he almost knocked himself in the face with it when it shifted without effort. What the—?

Fake. The books were fake cardboard cutouts, the kind used in model homes. He hadn't noticed them in the dark. He hadn't noticed all the scratches on the floor either. Man, the thing must get moved around a lot to cause—

He grabbed for his penlight, giving the bookcase another shove to shine the beam down the backside of all that bogus literature. Holy shit. A closet sat behind it. No door, just an open six-by-six storage space with barely enough room to turn around in, crammed as it was with a desk, another computer, and storage boxes.

Bruce smiled as he pulled its cover back in place. You are going down, Morris.

After backtracking his way through the offices, the coast was clear when he poked his head out into the hall. He shut the door behind him as quietly as he could, then jogged his way down the corridor and headed straight for the clinic.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Sorry about the long chapter, but there was a lot going on.

What do you think Virginia should do about Mark's warning?

It got a little steamy in that storage room for a moment, didn't it? Do you think Claire will blow Bruce's cover?

Dedicated to @sanahana1984 , my rock, for always being there, providing encouragement with every update, and for keeping me posted with your schedule when you can't. Now, that's a dedicated reader❤️