“Like I said, you don’t have to thank me.” She dropped that mesmerizing gaze to the counter, sweeping the spread of flour into the sink set into the island with one hand, and swiped beneath her nose with the other. Touching her face had always been a nervous habit. “All part of the job.”
“Is that what this is for you, Ana? Just another job? Because this case is definitely a lot more personal to me.” Benning maneuvered around the counter, his bare chest nearly pressed against the exposed skin of her arm. He set his hand over hers on the granite, her quick gasp searing through him. Her warmth penetrated past skin and muscle, deep into his bones. “After what you told me about the Samantha Perry case, I realize now how hard it must’ve been for you to come back here, and you’re standing there as if none of it affects you. But is that how you really feel?”
He wanted—no, needed—to know. Was this going to play out exactly as it had between them the last time? Had he made a mistake requesting her to work this case?
Her mouth parted. “I...”
Skimming his fingers along the back of her hand, he trailed a path up her arm to her jaw, and all of his thoughts burned away. There was only the two of them. The softness of her flawless skin and hardness in her invisible guard. After everything that’d happened, after everything they’d already been through in the short span of time she’d walked back into his life, he’d struggled to keep the uncertainty, the rage, the fear, at bay so he could stay strong for Olivia. To prove that he could protect her from any threat, be the father she and her brother deserved. But Ana...stripped him of all of that. With her, Benning felt raw, exposed, bare. She was real. She was here. Not a memory—a fantasy—anymore, and it took everything inside him to pull himself away from her. “You had some cookie dough on your chin.”
She’d left because she believed her emotions clouded her judgment on the Samantha Perry case, and he wasn’t about to complicate anything else between them. Not when it was his son’s life at risk this time. Ana turned her gaze up to his, a small tremor crossing her shoulders, and an invisible anchor settled inside his chest in the dark, watery landscape of this case. No matter what happened, Ana would bring his son home alive. He had to believe that. He had to believe in her. Otherwise, he’d have nothing left. “Thanks.”
A soft trill broke the silence spreading between them, but she didn’t move.
“I think your phone is ringing.” He cleared his throat, trying to drown the surge of awareness burning through him, and stepped away. It was for the best. Because anything that happened between them would only take away from their focus on finding his son, and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
Ana pulled her phone from her back pocket, running one hand through her hair, but only ended up streaking more flour into the soft strands. Tapping her cell’s screen, she answered the call and pressed Speaker. “What do you have for me, JC?”
The agent she’d called from the car. The muscles down Benning’s spine contracted as every sense he owned homed in on the voice on the other end of the line. Had the team dispatched to the crime scene at his house found something that could tell them where Owen was being held? He hiked his T-shirt over his head and shoved his arms through.
“Sevierville PD is still working the scene, but I can tell you right now, it’s not looking good,” JC said. Tension replaced the rush of sudden desire throughout Benning’s body. What the hell did that mean? Static cut through the line, but given the cabin’s proximity to the Smokeys, it was a miracle they’d received the call at all. They were two hours out of town, with nothing and no one around but trees, the mountains and wildlife.
Three distinct lines deepened between Ana’s dark eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”
“We searched the property and found the old outdoor fireplace a few hundred feet from the house you’d told us about. Kinda hard to miss seeing as how the entire thing was on fire. Bad news is, that skull you sent the photo of with the gunshot wound wasn’t inside,” JC said.
“How is that possible?” Benning didn’t understand. “No one knew that’s where I hid it.”
“That’s not all,” JC said. “We might not have the skull you wanted, but the coroner did pull an entire set of bones from the fireplace once we got the fire under control, and, Ana, the remains... It’s going to be nearly impossible to identify them now.”
THE BASTARD HAD used an accelerant.
The odor of gasoline burned Agent JC Cantrell’s nostrils, even with his nose and mouth buried in the crease of his elbow. Crime scene techs and the coroner carefully removed the charred remains one by one from the brick fireplace hidden back on Benning Reeves’s property as he disconnected his call with Ramirez.
Hell, the only reason they’d found the fireplace had been because the whole damn thing had been on fire, which meant their UNSUB—unidentified suspect—hadn’t just taken Benning Reeves’s kids last night, he’d also come back to clean up his own mess. Assuming it was the same perp behind both crimes. Black smoke still lingered in the air and irritated his eyes. It was a miracle the flames hadn’t started a
