Page 42 of Dying to Meet You

By the time we join Matt, Harrison, Bristow, and Caleb, we’re all cried out. Matt says, “They’ve followed up with the registered owners of the vehicles. A neighbor heading to work, an Amazon delivery driver, a teenager driving to the high school, and the last one…The one that could give us something is a blacked-out SUV. It’s a Starlit rental vehicle out of New York City.”

“Like an unmarked FBI squad?” Keir asks, fidgeting next to me. “My vehicle is part of the Starlit rental fleet and fits that description.”

“It wasn’t yours,” Bristow says.

“Huh. Matt, do you think this is Camp Caroll all over again?” Harrison asks carefully. “If that vehicle is involved, and it’s an FBI vehicle, they’re not playing it safe. They want you to know…”

Hutton has never trusted the FBI. I only trust the two agents I love, and this doesn’t help.

Matt is in a top-ranking position. How could the FBI play any part in this? He’d never put our kids in harm's way. Not willingly.

I try to keep up with the conversation, but I’m watching the muted television screen on the kitchen counter as an advertisement for a movie Weston wants to see comes on. My chest hurts as I’m flooded with the urge to scream at the top of my lungs.This is not okay! Stop this! He’s a baby!

Bristow starts telling us how we should conduct ourselves in the coming hours, days…however long this plays out for. He reminds us we have eyes on us, and the enemy is clocking our movements somehow. We don’t want to incite more problems. We need to prioritize our safety. I take it he wants us to hide with our tails between our legs.

As a child, I became an expert in complacency, pleasing and invisible as a means of survival.

I left that part of me behind long ago. Each of them should know that by now.

“I appreciate your advice, but when it comes to my children, there is no limit to what I will do to keep them safe.”

I will not shrivel up and stay quiet.

I will go kicking and screaming to find Wes.

To hunt down the people responsible for this nightmare.

“Anyone know where Hutton went?” Matt asks.

To Blaine’s credit, he’s kept his mouth closed to this point, only now talking back to Matt, Harrison and Bristow. “Thanks for the moving lecture.” He gets up while squeezing my shoulder. “You’ll have to forgive me for not giving one fuck what any of you have to say right now. Do your fucking jobs and bring Weston home to us. As for Hutton…He doesn’t need your permission to look for our son.” He flips them off with both middle fingers as he walks out of the room to join my grandparents and the kids.

I don’t want us to fight with each other.

Knowing Blaine, he’s lashing out because he’s feeling helpless, but he’s going to push Matt away. We have to stick together.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alot to unpack here

Keir

Matt’ssignalinthekitchen hasn’t helped my frame of mind.

Two taps to the wrist-code sixty-seven.

When I was training for the FBI, Matt and I would have long conversations about trusting our guts and relying on one another to have each other’s backs. We developed an inside code known only to us. In the event we’re working a case, and it’s determined it’s been compromised-whether it’s law enforcement agents, or other government officials who have proven dirty or untrustworthy- we’d give the signal.

Until now it’s never been needed.

The number dialing him had been his ex-wife, who still works at the bureau with Internal Affairs. She called on one of the cell phones Hutton made untraceable, telling him the Jets are projected to win, and it should be a nice game with a temp of sixty-seven. His response indicated he’d let family know-family being me. She delivered the message in code in case one of them is being monitored to let us know the New York field office is compromised.

There is agency involvement with the Realists and what is happening to our family right now. The added insult is I can’t let on we know a thing.

Matt and I are unable to tell our family.

I’m surprised when Matt lets on that a blacked-out SUV was seen on camera with a plate tracing back to Starlit Fleet. But Bristow and Harrison know that, too. If pointing out my unmarked squad matches that description also gives Eden, Blaine, or Caleb any clue about FBI involvement-then good. Keeping this from them is going to be miserable.

It gives me a margin of relief that Weston will not be harmed. If it’s a choice between leverage for the FBI and a child sex trafficker or psychopath bent on spilling Lassiter or Bradford blood, I’ll take the FBI.

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