“Did you call Ian?”
“I will once we’ve got something to tell him.” He needed some proof. He needed this to not be a dead end. He couldn’t go back to his brother with nothing in hand.
And deep in the back of his head, he knew another truth. He wanted to be the hero here. He wanted Ian to see that he could run things, do good work, be more than a big body that took the bullets for the smarter people.
“So you think there’ll be something in the internal records.” She turned back to him, squirming a bit as she resettled.
Naturally that made his dick jump, but there was no more time for sex. “I hope so. If not, I’ll reassess and think about going in at night and checking the place out myself.”
“With Ezra or Hutch backing you up,” she insisted.
He had to admit Fain had been helpful and not too much of a dick. “If it comes to that. I’d rather figure out if they’ve got internal security cameras Hutch can bust into. If we can get into their feed, we can see everything. It’s the second thing I need you to do. Look for cameras. Note where they are. I need to know if you see anything out of the ordinary. Even if it’s simply something you feel is wrong, I want to know about it. You’ve got good instincts.”
“I would make a good operative. Admit it. You think I would be an excellent spy.”
He didn’t even like to think of a world where Mia ran the ops. “I think you’re a brilliant reporter and you should stick to that.”
The world would be a much safer place. His ball of chaos could burn a place down when she got started.
Her pretty face turned serious. “I will stick to reporting, but I do have one instinct I think you should follow. I am good at some things.”
He was willing to listen. He wasn’t sure there was time to change the op. It was a hurried affair as it was, but he wanted to hear her out. “Hit me.”
“Tell Erin.”
Case shifted, easing her off his lap. This was one place he wouldn’t allow her to sway him. “No. I’ve told you why we’re keeping it from her. Big Tag is worried she’ll go commando.”
“She won’t. She’s got a child now.”
“You don’t know her the way we do.” Though he agreed that Erin had calmed over the last year, he couldn’t be absolutely sure. She’d been so fierce and angry when they’d met. He hadn’t seen what Theo had in her. He’d seen a kind of mean ex-soldier with a chip on her shoulder. Theo had seen something else. He’d seen the woman underneath all that armor. “Erin can be single-minded, but it’s more than just her running off and trying to find Theo on her own. Have you thought about the fact that she’s finally settled? You honestly think I should reopen that wound?”
She walked calmly to the mirror and smoothed down her dress. “I think you’re wrong about the wound being healed. She might have found a way to live with it, but it won’t ever heal. She’ll die with that wound gaping and open because she loved him. It’s funny what can bring it all back, the loss and ache. Sometimes you think it’s fine and you’ve almost forgotten them and then I’ll smell banana bread or hear the sound of keys clacking and I’m six years old again.”
“Are you talking about your parents?” He stepped up behind her, looking at her through the mirror. She’d begun her sentence as a universal, but it had ended personally. He knew she’d lost them at a young age, but not the hows and whys. He’d been too stubborn to learn more about the woman he couldn’t get out of his head.
She nodded, a sheen of tears making her eyes bright. “I don’t remember them the way my brothers do, but I still feel it. It comes in flashes when I least expect it. I’ll hear a sound that reminds me of my mother and I’ll feel the loss. My father was a programmer. I can hear the sound of keys clacking in just the right way and I’ll see him in front of his computer, the green light from the screen on his face at night. He would look up and smile and stop what he was doing. I’ll smell the hot cocoa he would make me when I couldn’t sleep. The pain of loss like that never truly ends. It just hides and I don’t think it will do that in Erin’s case.”
“It certainly won’t if we shove it in her face.”
“It’s hers, Case. That’s the mistake you’re making. You think you’re being the white knight, saving the girl from pain, but you’re taking something from her. This is a part of their story. Whether you get Theo back or not, this is hers because he was hers. The pain is hers too. You’re taking her ability to pray for him, to know what he’s going through.”