Page 19 of Avenging Jessie
The burner email wasn’t connected to the Agency. It was part of an underground network he’d built himself over the years to locate missing persons. It tracked girls who’d gone missing from foster care systems, shelters, hospitals—girls no one seemed to remember.
Spence’s hands hovered over the keyboard before opening the message. His heart did the thing it always did when he thought maybe—just maybe—this time…
The message was short. A series of letters and numbers:Vic609-bellcov-97firewatch.
Not a phone number. Not an address. Nothing immediately recognizable. It might be a coded file path. Or an old username. Or a place—Bellcov? Firewatch?
He conducted a quick search, but neither name yielded anything significant. He copied the message into a separate doc, encrypted it, and sent a flag to one of his offline drives. It would have to wait.
Just like it always did.
Because right now, his ‘missing’ person wasn’t a stranger from an online thread. She was the woman in the next room, with a bruised face and a heart she’d padlocked shut. A woman he could touch, but never reach.
The shower cut off. A second later, so did Spence’s ability to think clearly.
He shoved the burner account out of view and closed the laptop’s lid. The message would keep. For now.
Footsteps padded down the short hall. He grabbed his coffee and schooled his face like he hadn’t just been obsessing over encrypted ghosts from his past—or Jessie.
She appeared, her hair damp and messy, a loose T-shirt skimming her hips, black leggings clinging to curves that did nothing to help him remain professional. A towel hung around her neck, and she was barefoot, her injured ankle clearly still tender as she walked.
His chest constricted.
She looked…better. Still bruised, but awake, alert, alive. Which should’ve settled something inside him.
It didn’t.
“Smells like heaven in here,” she said, fluffing her hair with the towel.
He covered the hitch in his breath with a smirk. “I figured coffee and carbs might distract you from throwing more pottery at my head.”
Jessie let out a short laugh. “No promises.”
She slid into the chair across from him, and for a moment, it almost felt normal. Two agents on a break. Coffee. Pastries. Shared silence.
But the way she devoured the cheese Danish was anything but normal.
He tried not to stare, but her lips were pink from the heat of the shower, and her eyes still held shadows from the night before. She looked like something from one of his better dreams—and he didn’t have many of those.
His own croissant sat untouched.
“You’re not eating,” she said around a bite.
“I’m watching you annihilate a poor, defenseless pastry.”
Her eyes narrowed. “This poor, defenseless pastry is the only reason I haven’t strangled you yet.”
He bit back a smile, but the sharp ache behind it lingered. “What did I do this time?”
She heaved a heavy sigh, sipped her coffee. “Nothing. You’re being nice. Human. I just haven’t had…”
“Normal, human interactions much lately?”
She pointed a finger at him and nodded. “Bingo. Bitch is my default setting these days. I’ll… I’ll do better.”
The smile broke free. Something in his chest loosened. He picked up the croissant and enjoyed its buttery taste. So many things he wanted to say, but he knew this was a good moment to keep those comments to himself.
The silence between them thickened, charged, but not hostile.
