He gave her a look.
“You know I’m right. And I’m glad. I love my scary FBI brother. But you have to know it’s not going to translate here.” She motioned between the two of them. “I need to act normal, do normal things, if I ever want to feel normal. And I do, Nick. I’ve been doing more hiding than living. Stephen makes me forget.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. That you’ll forget. That you’ll get hurt.” His phone buzzed and he checked the screen. “Shit. I have to go.”
“That’s fine. I have an appointment to get ready for.”
He stood. “Don’t see him anymore, Hannah. Don’t give me one more thing to worry about.”
“Make things right with Mia. Don’t give me one more thing to feel guilty about.”
He showed no sign he meant to comply. Neither did she.
Chapter 26
Stephen finished up another day with more than work on his mind. He’d checked in with Hannah last night, a phone call, a text. But it wasn’t enough and he meant to change that. Immediately. He just had one person to see first.
He packed away his laptop, stuck in a few files. “I’m heading out.”
“Out?” his admin repeated. “Are you ill?”
“I’m fine, Dee. I have a meeting.”
“Oh.” Dee’s shocked expression faded to understanding. “A business meeting. Then I’ll see you Monday.”
“See you Monday.” He smiled as he passed and didn’t correct her. It wasn’t business, it was more important than that.
He spent the short drive to the Norfolk FBI office thinking about just how important it was. And convincing himself he was doing the right thing.
After passing through several security measures and waiting while Hannah’s brother verified his visit, he was allowed through. Stephen paused at the door with a frosted glass window. Very seventies. But he was in the right place, the brass label read SA Walker.
His knock was answered with a terse “Come in.” Stephen opened the door and got a good look at Hannah’s brother before he bothered to look up. Head down, eyes on one of the many papers scattered across his desk amid mugs, soda cans, and a balled-up Taco Bell wrapper. He looked intense and irritated. He was about to get more so. He closed the door with a click behind him.
“McKinney. As if my day couldn’t get any worse.”
“Good to see you too, Walker.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“I want to talk to you about Hannah.”
Nick picked up a mug, started to take a sip, then thought better of it. “Try again. Because that’s the last thing I’m talking about with you. Other than to go over all the various ways I can keep you away from her.”
Stephen held his ground. “You can try. I’ve got something to say and I’ll say it. But before I get to that…” He walked farther into the room but didn’t sit. This was difficult. As difficult as anything he’d ever done. “She told me some of it. I want to hear all of it. Need to hear all of it.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“No. You don’t. But I care about your sister.”
A multitude of expressions passed over the agent’s face. Possibly debating the merits of having him bodily removed and dumped in a ravine. But something won out, and he raked his hands over his face like he was rubbing away a bad memory.
“How did you find her?” Stephen prompted when Nick didn’t answer right away.
“Maybe you should know,” Nick said. “Maybe that’s exactly what you need,” he added almost to himself. “How did we finally find her? After forty-two days and seventeen hours? A neighbor smelled something, reported it. All that time…” He shook his head. “All that time she’d been just twenty miles from my house.
“The smell ended up being his own mother. He’d killed her at some point and…God, I felt like I’d been looking for her forever. A lifetime. It was a lifetime. Following every lead. Threatening every suspect.”
Stephen stood at the window now. Looking out but not seeing. His stomach already revolting, knowing Hannah had barely touched on the horror.
“And then we found her. The nightmare ended, only to start a new one. I can still see it, still smell it. The odor was…All I could think going into that basement was, she’s dead. And then I saw her and I was sure of it. So tiny, like a broken doll. Almost unrecognizable. He’d used a bat. A knife. Cuts, slices. Some healing, others festering. Both legs were broken in multiple places, same as her arms. Three were compound. Hands broken. Ribs. A punctured lung. If we hadn’t found her when we did…” Nick’s voice broke. “She was so cold.”
Stephen felt the acid filling his mouth, but he would hear all of it.
“Lips busted, eyes swollen shut. A crude IV line we later learned he’d used to keep her alive. And awake. When I think about what she went through…Hey. Sit down. You’re whiter than death.”