“Chase, damn it, I want my life back. My job. My apartment. My friends.” I want you, a traitorous voice added, but Lily dared not vocalize it.
“I know. I want those things for you, too. God knows you deserve them.” He smiled, but it was brittle and maybe a little sad. “This is one of those times when we don’t get what we want.”
“What if they catch the men responsible?”
“Then you get your old life back.” He shrugged. “Things go back to the way they were.”
That was what Lily had told herself she wanted throughout the entire ordeal. All she wanted was her old life back: her job at the hospital; her comfortable little apartment; a life where everything was neat and orderly and safe.
Then why did she feel as if her heart were being forcibly ripped from her body?
“What about you?” she asked after a moment.
He gave her a halfhearted smile. “I go back to doing what I do best.”
“And what is that?”
“Keeping the bad guys away.” One side of his mouth lifted into a smile that didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “Driving the limo.”
Lily wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessarily what he might be best at, but she didn’t. Sad as it was, neither of them would ever know what kind of husband and father he would be. The thought broke her heart.
“All right,” Chase interjected into her thoughts, “let’s pack up and get out of here.”
As Lily stepped into her clothes, she told herself things were better this way. It was the clean break she’d been looking for all along.
But the rationalization didn’t explain why she felt as if the world as she knew it had just come to an end.
Chapter Eleven
Chase made the call while Lily dressed in the bathroom. The cell phone was dead, but since they were about to leave, he took a chance and dialed Ben Parker’s number from the cottage’s phone. He needed to know if Ben had been in contact with Shane or if he’d gotten any information on Liam Shea’s sons.
Ben answered on the first ring.
“This isn’t a secure line,” Chase announced without preamble. “What did you find on Shea?”
“We’re still digging,” Ben replied, “but so far we know that after the court-martial his wife, Margaret, divorced him and changed her name to Sullivan, her maiden name. Two of his sons, Colin and Aidan, moved to Washington State after their father went to prison. The third son is Finn. We don’t know where he lives yet.”
Chase wished for a laptop so Ben could send him photos. He had, after all, gotten a good look at the man who’d ambushed him back at Hancock Tower. In his gut he knew it was one of Liam’s sons. If he could match the face to a photo, they might get the confirmation they were looking for.
Ben continued. “I pulled up federal records, and it looks like his sons kept in very close contact with Liam the entire time he was in prison. Lots of visits.”
“Where’s Liam now?”
“We sent an agent out there, but…Chase, he’s nowhere to be found. Neither are the sons.”
“I’ll bet the farm they’re behind this, Ben. Probably taking orders from their father.”
“How do you know that?”
Chase reminded him of the foiled hostage rescue mission a decade earlier. “Liam was dishonorably discharged and court-martialed for disobeying a direct order. But he swore he was innocent. He swore one of the other men involved in the rescue mission framed him.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. But Shea vowed revenge and he was dead serious about it.”
“That kind of hatred would explain the lengths he went to in planning simultaneous ambushes. Maybe he’s even responsible for the blackout.”
“And Davis’s kidnapping. He was involved in the failed rescue mission, too.”
“I wasn’t privy to all the details. That gives me more to work with. Now that I have more information to go on, let me do some more digging and see what I can come up with.” Ben paused. “Are you still heading to Shane’s?”
“Lily and I are en route now.”
“Be careful, man.”
Chase disconnected to find Lily standing just a few feet away, watching him. “Who was that?” she asked.
“Ben Parker. He’s checking into my theory that Liam Shea is behind this.”
“Can Ben arrest him?”
Chase approached her but stopped with two feet to spare. He didn’t want to get too close. For the first time in his life, he didn’t trust his judgment or his willpower.
Images of every intimacy they’d shared flashed in his mind’s eye. Lily lying beneath him, her head thrown back in ecstasy, her hair spread out on the pillow like yards of red silk. He could still remember the way she breathed. The way she’d tasted. The heady scent of her skin filling his senses. The way her flesh had molded beneath his hands.
The urge to touch her was powerful, but Chase resisted. He couldn’t risk making another mistake and drawing this out. One time was going to have to be enough.
“The less you’re involved in this, the better off you’ll be,” he said.