Page 58 of Catching Fire

“Kalan. My father is dead.”

He froze. Even after her death glare, he’d not expected that. He’d been ready for a rift between the two of them. Or maybe her father wasn't in France anymore; maybe he was off, traveling the world, teaching Special Forces how to be even more special. At least that's what Kalan imagined, given the way Seline always talked about him.

“When?” he asked, like an idiot who wasn't paying attention.

“When I was seventeen.”

Oh hell.he thought. How had he missed all the signs?

Her hands finally stilled, though they still held the gun parts lovingly. She looked over his shoulder, into the distance. Her eyes glazed because Seline was somewhere else, somewhere his stupid questions had sent her. “He didn't see me win state in volleyball my senior year. He even missed my high school graduation. He did encourage me to take science classes and suggested I would like it in college. He was right. I did.”

The man had missed every step of the way. All of Seline’s big achievements had been made without her mother or her father. Kalan felt his shoulders sag, his back lost some of its rigidity, and his brain turned from what he’d thought was a brilliant last card to feeling like he’d played the biggest Joker of all.

“I’m sorry,” he uttered the pointless words. He watched as her expression changed and realized his condolences had bounced right off with no effect at all.

Still, he felt like crap for not knowing, for acting as though he were brilliant when he was mortally stupid. He scrambled for another card to play.How could he keep her safe?“Do you have other family there?”

“No,” she said. “Sometimes I spend Christmas with a friend in Idaho. She's a cousin of a sort. But my mother and father were both only children. My grandparents have passed. My only ties to France are my memories and the fact that I was born a citizen there.”

What did he do now?

Where could she go to be safe? It wasn’t here. And it wasn’t somewhere alone where Sanders could get to her.

Seline had already kicked him out. She didn't have family to return to. Sanders was stringing them all along, playing his sick game with their lives. But mostly, he was hurting Seline. He’d managed to destroy what she built with several well-placed sweeps of his hand.

And Kalan couldn’t think of anywhere to send her where she’d be safe and cared for. His apartment wasn’t far enough away. He didn’t care that it wasn’t big enough for two people, but she would. She would care because she’d lovingly crafted this place to be hers, but she’d never intended it to be a prison.

“Don't worry,” she told him, which made him worry a lot.

Her next words made him worry even more. “I have a plan.”

When she started to tell him, it wasn't at all what he'd expected.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Dr. Morales,” Seline leaned forward and put one hand softly onto the desk, as though making a case. The fact was she'd been making a case since the moment she arrived. “The FBI believes Sanders has left the area.”

Okay, that part wasn't quite true. The Bureau believed hecould haveleft the area, so it wasn't an outright lie, only a slight fudge. “He hasn't contacted me or had any interaction with me—” She didn't saythat I know of,“—in over a month.”

The way Dr. Morales was looking at her let Seline know that the department chair was seriously considering her bid andmon dieushe needed this. Though she would never forgive herself if she led Sanders back to the school, to her students, or to a fellow professor, the fact was that none of it seemed like any interest of his. And it did seem as though he was gone.

When he’d been taunting her, he’d done something every several days. He'd bumped into her somewhere and she'd find out later that the person that she'd spoken to had actually been Sanders. Even the guy at the restroom at the club had been Sanders, she'd realized later. Of course, she told Watson and Decker about it and they’d filed that information away, but it didn’t solve anything.

For a whole month now there had been no one who even could have been him. And Seline had scrutinized every man between the ages of twenty and sixty that she encountered. She had been quite confident none were the BRK. One man's eyes had been a bright, bright green, so Seline had gotten close enough to be sure he wasn't wearing contacts. Another had a nose far too small; he couldn't possibly have been Sanders. While Sanders could fake a larger nose, he couldn't fake a smaller one.

She’d gotten no notes. The FBI had found no new bodies and no missing persons had matched Sanders’ type. Seline was growing more and more confident that the Bureau was right.

“I'm ready to return to the lab and to teaching,” she said. As though any of this was about what she was ready for … but she pushed. “You've been paying for a substitute.”

She didn’t mention Dr. Wexler by name, not wanting to give the university any reason to feed Wexler into Seline’s position. That part sucked, because she truly liked Wexler. The woman was brilliant and deserved a good position, too, but Wexler was two years behind Seline in line. And Seline had worked too hard to put herself on this tenure track to give it up for something that wasn't even her own fault.

“You make a compelling case,” Dr. Morales conceded, her fingers interlaced on the desk.

Seline braced for the hit of,but I just can't do it.

Morales smiled. “I'm inclined to go ahead but, given the severity of what we're dealing with, I do want to take several days to consider all options.”

Seline nodded. She understood it was the right thing for Dr. Morales to do. The problem was she'd never had a very good poker face.

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