Page 10 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

“Good night, Zeke.”

“Night, Brooke,” he returned. But he didn’t move to walk away.

So she closed the door carefully in his face. Because she wasnotgoing down that old road ever again.

If she knew even in her head it sounded like she was protesting way too much, she ignored it.

Zeke took the dog out for one last bathroom run once he was sure Brooke was settled in her room. He didn’t worry that she’d run—that wasn’t Brooke. What he did worry about was... everything else.

Someone being after her.

Her being in his house looking the same as she had four years ago when he’d realized he’d needed to purposefully end things before he accidentally hurt her was...

Well, it messed with his head was what it did. Because he didn’t like people in his space. Didn’t even like Walker and Mary coming over with their baby. Or Carlyle and Cash coming over with Izzy, Cash’s thirteen-year-old. Or, the worst,allof them coming over and acting like a big happy family.

It felt too much like some old dream of a future he’d never really believed in. Functional relationships and people who were good parents to their kids. Family. Walker and Carlyle had somehow found themselves those sitcom happy endings—not without some pain and danger along the way—but they’d gotten it all the same.

Zeke didn’t really know what was worse. Thinking he didn’t get to have it, or thinking he was lucky to be part of it regardless of his romantic status.

But he did know what was worse inthismoment. Brooke in his house, and the feeling she was what had always been missing. Her smile and blue eyes and floral scent.

Whenthatwas ridiculous. Maybe he’d loved her way back then, not that he’d have ever admitted it to himself or to her in the moment. Sure, maybe looking back now, he could admit it.

But he’d loved his plans, his revenge, his danger more.

And now you don’t have any of those things.

Yeah, it didn’t do to think about that at all. He should think about her case. Her safety.

It seemed whoever was behind those bones didn’t like anyone snooping around in them. That meantanyonecould be following her. Her sending things off to a lab in Cheyenne had left a lot of things open for leaks, for coming back to hurt her.

She needed her own lab. She couldn’t trust the bureaucracy of government officials. Hell, that was the whole reason North Star existed.

Hadexisted. He didn’t know how many years it would take him to accept that they were really done. Retired. He’d had enough of his own personal danger since then not to dwell much on it.

Until the past few months.

Now he had a new purpose. Because maybe Brooke Campbell couldn’t ever mean anything to him, but he wasn’t about to let anything happen to her.

He watched the dog frolic in the yard under a moonlit sky. After a while, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He dialed an old number.

“Zeke, if you’re calling to drag me into another dangerous mission, count me out. We’ve got a new foster kid, and Shay somehow corralled me into keepingchickens.”

Zeke smiled in spite of himself here alone in the dark. “Nothing dangerous. Nothing that requires your time,” he said to his old boss. It was hard to imagine the tough and certain Granger MacMillan, once the head of North Star—the secretive group that had eradicated the Sons of the Badlands gang from everywhere they’d had power—cavorting with chickens and a bunch of foster kids out on his ranch in Montana, with his equally tough and perhaps even scarier wife.

But that’s what the end of North Star had given Granger and Shay. Love and family. Just like Zeke’s siblings had found.

He didn’t like to dwell on it.

“Well, I know you didn’t call to have a heart-to-heart,” Granger replied.

Zeke snorted. “No. Just a question. What would I need to set up a makeshift forensic lab on my property?”

Granger was quiet for a minute before making a contemplative noise. “I can send you some things. Might take a few days, but I’ve still got all the old connections.”

“That’d be great. Thanks.”

“Say hi to Brooke for me,” Granger said then laughed. Far too hard. Far too long.

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