Page 63 of The Wild Charge

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Eden knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she didn’t try to go to bed early, despite the physical exhaustion dragging at her. She made herbal tea and sat up in her office, in front of her computer monitors, refreshing her email in case Ratchet had made a breakthrough and forwarded along fresh intel. She’d never missed her old government job quite like she did now, stuck using message boards and a hacker’s shady contacts. With outlaws, she’d found that the intel was usually a goldmine – if it could be found, that was.

When she heard a motorcycle engine in her driveway, she sat up so fast she nearly spilled her tea. She checked the time on her monitor, heart lurching into a gallop: 10:40. It wasn’t that unusual for him to come by this late, but after earlier, after his total lack of reaction, and her storming off…

For one awful moment, she thought she might be sick.

Then there was the click of a key turning in her back door, and booted footfalls in her kitchen – made loud intentionally, because Fox moved quiet as a cat most of the time.

She gripped the edge of her desk hard, willed her stomach into submission, and held still, vibrating, barely breathing, as his footsteps moved down the hall and finally stopped in the open doorway of the office.

Her mind went straight to books, to movies. To the big man returned home with ayou should be resting, let’s get you to bed. Something asinine and soothing, talking down to her. She’d never handled coddling well, and she could blame her mother and her upbringing for that, sure, but it didn’t change the fact that she hated it.

That was one of the reasons she and Charlie had always rubbed along so well together.

She could hear the creak and shift of leather – his cut – as he propped a shoulder in the doorjamb. “Any luck?” he asked, offhand, as if it was any other night.

Eden took her next breath – and found that it was deeper. That her lungs could expand a little further. “No,” she said, less shakily than she might have. “Ratchet’s still trying to run down those companies, so I’ve been researching our marks.”

She heard him move forward into the room, tension flicking through her as he sat in the chair beside hers, where Axelle had spent most of the evening. A glimpse from the corner of her eye proved that he’d settled with his elbows hooked casually over the chair arms, eyes forward on the screen. In the glow of the computer, he looked a little blurred at the edges, a little softer and less blank, like he got when he’d been drinking.

She debated saying something about it, and then didn’t, focusing on the website she had pulled up instead. Deep breath, reroute.

“New Way Home?” Fox asked.

“Yes, it’s Dennis and Paula Kelly’s non-profit.”

“The one in Chicago for troubled teens?”

“Mmhm.” She scrolled back to the top of the page, where a photo of the grounds – a pretty, tree-shaded lawn surrounded by an iron fence and an old, four-story brick building with a sprawling back patio – headed a page that detailed the organization’s offerings. “They do all sorts of after-school programs for ages ten and up. Everything from tutoring, to swim lessons, to archery, to movie nights.” She scrolled past photos of the lounges, and kitchens; the tutoring rooms, indoor pool, and basement bowling alley.

Fox whistled. “Look’s like a kid’s paradise.”

“Yeah.” More photos: smiling children of varying ages in the pool, on the patio, on the lawn, with books spread out before them at long library tables. “A safe place for someone with an ugly home life to spend their afternoons. Some of the older teens even earn a little money helping the younger ones with their homework.”

She waited, wondering if he would spot what she had.

“Wait, who’s this?” His finger hovered over the screen. “He’s in almost every picture.”

She smirked to herself. “That’s Dennis Kelly.” She hit the bottom of the page, and then clicked on the site’s other tabs, one after the next.

“Damn,” Fox murmured. “Every picture he’s in, he’s got his arm around a teenage girl.”

“The wife, too,” she said, pointing her out.

“Shit, you’re right.”

“Could be nothing. I mean: would an innocent think twice about hugging their charges? If you’re not doing anything untoward, why try to regulate your behavior?”

“True,” he said. She could hear the unspokenbut. Waiting for her to expand, trusting that she wasn’t pointing out frivolities.

Because he trusted her competence, her reasoning skills. Because even if she’d left him once upon a time because she didn’t trust his emotional investment, and because she thought getting tangled with an outlaw was the fastest way to wind up in hot water at work, she’d never felt like he doubted her abilities.

Her eyes started to burn. She blinked hard, and swapped to a new tab. “I did some Googling. If you mine deep enough, you can find anything about anyone. The prime minister likes to dress up like a parrot and have his bum spanked, if you believe the page ten Yahoo question and answer results.”

He snorted.

“But I found several things of interest.”

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