Page 42 of Philly
“I have. I haven’t forgotten, but I’ve moved on.” He paused; that didn’t sound the way he meant. “Notmoved onin the sense of forgetting about her, but let it go. I wouldn’t have the life I have today if she hadn’t severed the ties between us. I’m not going so far as to say I’m grateful, but I appreciate the decision she made was a shitty one to have to make. Lose your best friend but protect him from the nightmare her father and the police would rain down or keep the friendship, ruinbothour lives, and eventually lose me anyway.”
“Definition of a rock and a hard place.”
A message alert slid onto his computer screen, drawing his attention.
“What is it?” Mantis asked, his eerie situational awareness kicking in.
“Rian’s reached out.”
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing we can use right now, but he’s sending something to the Falcons’ PO box. Presumably, he doesn’t want it to go out electronically.”
“But he felt comfortable sending you an email?”
“It’s encoded. Sort of. He thanked me for checking in on him and says in honor of his mom’s birthday, he’s sending us an additional donation for the work the club does.”
“Is it his mom’s birthday?”
“I assume it’s close enough. Rian wouldn’t make that kind of mistake.”
“Fair. Think it will be useful?”
“One can but hope,” he said. “It’s been two and a half years since we moved Laura somewhere safe. He’s been collecting evidence against his father since then. If it were anything earth-shattering, he would have acted on it already, though, so I doubt it’s a game changer. That said, maybe, in conjunction with all the stuff Leo and Callie are collecting, it will help.”
“One can but hope,” Mantis repeated. “When are you seeing her again?”
“No way you’re not betting on this now,” he said
Mantis chuckled. “Charlotte just texted and laid down the odds. Callie mentioned your run to Leo who told Joey who told Charlotte.” As Philly anticipated. He should be annoyed, but the bets were in good fun and a not-so-small part of him liked that his family—his real family—was extending to include the Warwicks, whom he respected the hell out of.
His own phone dinged with a text, and he read the message. “Right now, as it turns out,” he answered. “She finished going through the data dump and wants me to come over and walk through it with her.”
“Nice, I think this bet might win me a salted caramel torte,” he said, as if Charley wouldn’t make one if asked. The woman loved to bake. And cook. And hike and rock climb and whitewater raft. She and Mantis were perfect together.
“Keep me posted,” Mantis said. Philly agreed, then ended the call. He sent a quick text to Callie telling her he’d leave in tenminutes. As soon as he wrapped up his last order reconciliation, he tugged on his coat and hat and headed out.
It took longer to reach HICC than normal, as the weekenders were flooding into town. They hadn’t had any snow yet, so the crowds were more navigating-a-grocery-store-on-a-Sunday-afternoon big and not inching-his-way-through-a-concert-crowd huge. But if the predicted storm hit in a few days, next weekend would be a mess. Maybe he’d hole up in his house and watch the snow fall from his picture windows. Callie slid into that image in his head, but rather than think too hard about it—whether it would or should happen—he turned his attention to the coming conversation. She hadn’t said anything in her text about what she’d found, but he had a pretty good idea that she’d discovered a few more transactions that Rian couldn’t have made from his office computer.
When Charley and Joey’s brother Ethan escorted him into the building, he spotted Callie, Leo, and Eli, one of the HICC operatives, in the kitchen. Leaning against the counters, they all had coffee mugs in hand. Eli’s gaze flickered to him, held, then went back to Callie as he laughed at something she said while Leo grinned.
“Oh, you’re here,” she said, catching sight of him. And damn if the way her eyes lit up when they met his didn’t make him feel ten feet tall. Suck it, Eli.
“Hey, Eli, Leo,” Philly said with a nod to the two men. Eli’s eyes bounced between him and Callie, then back again. The man gave him a single sharp nod. He should pretend he didn’t recognize that Eli had silently ceded Callie to him, but, dipping his chin in response, he didn’t. Not that she was something to be handed over, but the thought of her being wooed by another man sat about as easily on his shoulders as a porcupine scarf.
“Ready?” Callie asked. She’d changed into one of her suits, probably the only person in the building wearing one, but it hada casual blazer, and she’d rolled up the sleeves. The deep orange silk lining a beautiful color against the smooth, dark skin of her forearms.
He nodded, and she led him to her new office, a decent-sized space with a large window looking out onto the forest behind the main building.
“Nice,” he said. It would be beautiful in the winter when snow covered all the trees. She wouldn’t be here, though. If she stuck to her plan, she’d be back in the DC office, working out of the HICC headquarters. He didn’t kid himself about that plan being set in stone. The owners, Stella and Hunter, and the Warwicks were all about family. If they were happy with Callie’s work—which he didn’t doubt for a second they would be—and she wanted to stay in Mystery Lake, they’d make it happen.
His stomach tightened—should he even be considering that possibility? Probably not. They had too much water under the bridge to jump from where they were in the reconciliation process to something more. Something that would have her upending her life to stay. But the possibility…
“You okay?” Callie asked, taking a seat at the table rather than her desk.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, all good,” he replied, sitting beside her. “Let me guess, you found a few more transactions that Rian couldn’t have made?”
She made a face, but it ended in a smile. “Nice summary of my four days of soul-sucking work,” she said with a chuckle. “And yes, I did. Which you knew I would. But I do have a surprise.” Her eyes danced with excitement in a way he hadn’t seen before. He’d worked with her on two cases when she’d been at the Bureau—Juliana’s and Lina’s. Both had been successful, and for all intents and purposes, feathers in her cap. But he’d never seen her eyes lit with anticipation the way they were now.
