Page 358 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

How much time would she spend here? Maybe she’d be out in the field. On undercover operations. Who knew what this position would bring up? She was the only one out here, miles from the closest field office. An outpost.

Exiled.

Given where they’d sent her, she couldn’t help assuming this was a demotion. There weren’t many dangerous deviants to profile out here. Maybe that was a good thing. After whathappened with William Benning, she needed a break from that field of study. Get back to her roots. Catch some bad guys.

Maybe she would buy a leather jacket.

Except that she was here to solve a case—to solve multiple from the sound of it.

Her phone vibrated across the top of the desk.Unknown number.

She dismissed the call on her watch and didn’t even cross to it. That stuff wasn’t going to creep into her life here. Whoever it was, they could go away as far as she was concerned.

The next call came almost immediately.

She nearly dismissed it before looking, assuming it was the same guy. Instead, the nameZimmermanflashed on her watch face. She went to the phone but didn’t pick it up. On the screen flashed a picture of the two of them she’d never taken off.

Worst move you can make, baby girl, taking up with a superior.

As if Russ knew anything about it. He’d hated every guy she’d ever dated. Except Jake.

Addie went back to her task with a sigh. She hung the photo from her bedroom on the office wall. Her, getting her badge. Russ beside her. Both of them smiling.

She would have to get her own place if this assignment stretched into months. The longer she stayed at his house, the more entrenched she’d get into life there. Forty years from now, she’d realize she’d become Russ and never left.

Addie loved the scratchy old guy, but that wasn’t the future she envisioned for herself. The dream didn’t include being alone at a satellite office. Local LEOs her only backup, right where she had faced her worst fears.

Still, she was a big girl. She could make the most of it.

“Looks good.”

Addie spun around and nearly dropped the hammer. “Hank?” She spied the badge on his belt. “You’re adetective?”

He laughed. “Don’t sound so surprised.” He opened his arms, and she went in for a shorter hug that was a lot more perfunctory than Jake’s.

Hank had been a good friend, mostly during their shallow high school days when they thought the world revolved around how they looked. Now? He was a handsome man but with an edge of something else. Not that classic bad boy. Something dangerous, though. Undefined. The kind of guy who might intrigue the profiler in her if she hadn’t sworn off relationships for a while. She didn’t need a repeat of the Zimmerman thing.

She needed to change the image that came up when he called.

“It’s good to see you, Ads.”

She stepped back from the hug. “You, too.”

“Now you’re a hotshot FBI agent.” He grinned. “So it’s not just me with a shield.”

“Mine is a badge.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shoved her shoulder playfully.

“Any idea what cases the PD is handing over?” She waved at her empty desk. “I don’t think I’ve worked a day in my life as an agent without having a stack of case files. The first day on my first assignment, they handed me cases before I even sat down.”

“I’ve got fourteen opens on my desk.”

She winced. “I’ll swing by if you want a second set of eyes.”

Something flickered in his expression, and she realized she’d stepped out of bounds. He didn’t want help.

“Then again,” she said, “I’m probably about to get handed a box of files any second now and realize this free time is just an illusion.”

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