The emotional girl inside her retreated, allowing the intelligence-trained woman to take over.
An hour later her analytical mind and quick fingers had supplied a face, a name, and a trail that led her back to a part of Fionn’s life he’d kept a closely guarded secret from everyone but Mark Alvarez and Deacon Walsh. A secret she shouldn’t know and had prayed would never rear its ugly head—but it had.
She knew it and the shadow knew it, but Fionn didn’t. And now she had a decision to make: keep herself safe, or protect the one woman Fionn had always loved?
Chapter Two
The paper was thin, but the stack was thick. Too many pages telling him he’d failed again. The only satisfaction available was to ball up the report in his big hands, crushing and crushing and crushing until finally he had a missile he could aim. A hard whip of his arm sent the ball whizzing across the room.
Its wimpy impact on the opposite wall pretty much summed up his past two months.
“The latest lead didn’t pan out?”
Fionn jerked toward his office door. Deacon shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him. Getting soft, Irish?
He’d love to tell his inner bastard to shove those doubts up his tight arse, but the truth of the statement was leaning against his doorjamb, waiting for a response.
“The latest lead didn’t actually lead us to a fecking thing.” And he was running out of new ones. Lyse Sheppard had become a ghost, slipping through his fingers at every turn.
Deac grunted a response to that as he entered the office. His best friend looked good. Healthy, rested, happy. Having his new girlfriend—or fiancée; Fionn had heard that bit of news this morning—seemed to more than agree with him.
“How’s the wee one doing?” he asked, hoping to deflect any further questions about the trail that ran colder than a Guinness in the Arctic.
“Fine.” His daughter always made Deacon smile, but this time the man’s smile didn’t quite dispel the worry in his eyes. Worry Fionn knew had nothing to do with his best friend’s family and everything to do with him. “She missed you at the Halloween party.”
He’d been drowning himself and his anger in whisky, if he was remembering correctly. He’d been so wrecked, most of the night was still a blur. Sydney would’ve been a much sweeter companion. “Mm. And I was missing her as well.”
“How was vacation?”
Fionn shot his friend a sour look. It hadn’t been a vacation; it had been forced leave. Hence the whisky. He’d become obsessed with the Sheppard case, Alvarez said. Wasn’t thinking correctly. Needed to get his mind off work.
When was his boss—and everyone else around him—going to accept that they couldn’t rest, couldn’t be safe until Sheppard was brought to justice? Deacon kept pointing out that no one had been truly hurt. Fionn’s concussion didn’t count, he said, because he’d already had one, so what was a little harder bump on the head?
His friend didn’t get it; none of them did.
Sheppard hadn’t killed a person. She’d killed their trust. One of their own had put them in danger. That, he would never be forgiving.
But he pulled out his trademark grin as expected. “Full of plenty o’ sleep and plenty o’ women. Just the way I like it.”
Deacon crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the edge of Fionn’s desk. “Liar.”
About the sleep? Sure. About the women? He never lied about women.
“I think there’s a brunette with a very willing mouth that would argue with you,” Fionn countered. The release she’d given him last night had been as meaningless as every other one he’d had since Sheppard disappeared, but that wasn’t the point.
Meaningless? That’s what that fantasy was, imagining it was Sheppard kneeling between your knees, taking you for a ride, instead of the hot, willing woman in front of you? That was as far from meaningless as your sorry arse could get.
“Then why don’t you look rested?” Deacon eyed him a moment. “If you’re relaxed right now, I’d hate to see what tense looks like. Might break a tooth.”
Instinctively Fionn loosened his jaw, eased the tightness around his eyes and mouth.
Deacon watched, his gaze knowing.
Fionn wasn’t even fooling himself; where his team lead was concerned, he didn’t stand a chance. A heavy sigh escaped as he dug his fingers against his closed eyes. “What are you wanting from me, Deacon?”
“It’s not what I want.”
“Well it sure as feck isn’t about what I’m wanting!”
Deacon ignored the flash of temper. “That’s exactly what you should be asking yourself.”
I’m wanting Lyse Sheppard’s scrawny neck between my brawny hands. “You know the answer to that, Deac.”
“Fionn, look…” Deacon took his turn sighing. “When are you going to accept that Lyse is long gone?”
Never. “Everyone is traceable; it’s just a matter of looking in the right place.”
“And maybe the right place to look isn’t out in the big wide world.” Deacon aimed a finger at Fionn’s chest. “Maybe what you need to be looking at is why you can’t let go.”
“Because I’m not after being an idiot, maybe?”
Deacon shook his head, eyes weary. “When it comes to that girl, you’ve always been an idiot.”
Fionn barely tamped down on the urge to gut punch his friend. Deacon knew it, too, because amusement flickered briefly in his eyes before going serious.
“She was in love with you.”
“No, she wasn’t.” She’d been too young for that, too naive. At least he’d thought so. A little hero worship, maybe, but not—
“She loved you. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can heal from what happened.”
He wasn’t after healing; he was after making her pay.
Deacon clapped him hard on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Apparently his friend had had his say. As Fionn watched him leave, frustration rode him even harder.
She was in love with you.
He was needing out
