I let Emily see none of this. As far as she was concerned, I was a quiet agent now, unchanging in my emotion and my goals. I might as well have been the Terminator to her.
When we parked, I told Emily to stay close to me, as close as a couple holding hands would. Little windows. I walked through the lobby of the hospital purposefully but not hurriedly like I had at the hotel; drawing attention meant slowing me down, and perhaps also alerting Sean if he was observing nearby.
Fortunately, we got to Kelly’s room without issue. She looked almost bored in her room, flipping through channels on her television. The lack of concern on her face made me confident nothing had happened with Charlotte in the time since I’d left. Losing Kelly would be awful. Losing Charlotte…
“Hey!”
The dark thoughts vanished to the side as the two best friends embraced tightly. For just a brief moment, they weren’t two girls trying to survive the nightmare that was Sean. They were just two best friends who hadn’t seen each other in a few years, catching up over how their lives were.
I stood at the entrance to the doorway, watching the hall and looking for Sean or anyone else of suspicion. But I couldn’t help but let my ears drift back as I heard Kelly and Emily talking about their former lives in Miami, their luxurious homes, their next vacation. It made me realize that I knew very little about Kelly.
I only knew her as someone fearful of Sean and half-hating, half-caring for me. I didn’t know what she was like on a boring Tuesday afternoon in March. I didn’t know what she was like on a relaxing Sunday in September. The little things that added up to make a whole person, they were things I didn’t know. How the fuck could you have known them?
A part of me felt a small tinge of envy. I hated to admit it, because I certainly never saw myself as someone prone to ridiculous emotions like envy, but, fuck, hearing those two talk, I barely knew the mother of my child. I certainly didn’t know her as well as Emily did. Maybe I did need to be a bit closer in her life.
And if you do that, you’ll put her right back in harm’s way. Charlotte and her got lucky this round. What happens when Sean comes back, pissed off that he didn’t do the job before? What happens when you don’t have that gut feeling, and you find her dead because you couldn’t stay away otherwise?
The feeling was dreadful for its truthfulness. It wasn’t so much a fear as a reality that so long as I had my line of work, Kelly and Charlotte would be at risk. Small wonder that Scott got out of the line-of-duty work when he found Kaylie and was now trying to pawn everything off. Rule 2—no family or friends—wasn’t just for the agents, but for the people they would put around them.
Fuck. I hated seeing that Scott had a point in everything he did.
I turned around to see a quiet moment with Emily and Kelly. She’d hated my guts at first, and perhaps a bit justifiably so, but…
I couldn’t spend time thinking about the past or what could be. I had a job to kill Sean Price. I wouldn’t do that staying in this hotel doorway. I had to get out into the streets of Breckenridge, do some investigating, lay some traps, and finish him.
I had to leave Kelly.
I walked over to her. A gentle smile formed on her face, the kind that suggested she felt completely at ease with me. With all love to Kelly, I hated seeing that smile. I didn’t need to feel any worse about what I was about to do here than anything else.
“I have to go,” I said. “I need to hunt down Sean.”
“Now?” Kelly said, not really keeping quiet. “It’s well after dark. He’s not going to do anything with the three of us in here.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, unfortunately knowing I was right. “I need to put distance between us so I can get him. There are police nearby that I’ll make sure stand watch at the door. Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise.”
“Liam—”
I shook my head.
“I promise I’ll see you again.”
But I couldn’t promise that I’d be with her again. She just didn’t need to know that for now.
“I’ll call you both when this is done,” I said, taking a step back so I could address both Kelly and Emily. “Make sure the police understand you both need to be guarded around the clock from Sean. And do whatever you can to help convince them that he’s the one that needs to be hunted down. The more people that are looking for him, the better.”
At least I could sound confident and certain. Because actually, I felt like everything was coming crashing down. Just when I’d found a girl I could at least try and open myself up to, I remembered why I could not.
I had an outlet to take that anger out on. And as my phone rang and I looked down to grab it, I saw it was Burke, probably calling with his plane’s internet.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Liam,” Kelly said softly, but I turned and ignored her. “Liam!”
Hearing her yell only made it worse. But I could no longer let myself feel any emotions for her. Mission first,
