Operation Reunion. Justine Davis

tense, he wasn’t angry. She could read his mood almost as well as her own, sometimes better, and he wasn’t angry. Because he’d given up? Had he let all the anger go when he’d walked away?

      “I checked them out,” he said abruptly. “From what I could find, they seem to be who they say they are.”

      Kayla went still. If he no longer cared at all, surely he wouldn’t have bothered, right? She didn’t ask, mainly because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. She didn’t know why he was here, and she didn’t want to ask that either. Instead, she explained what Hayley had told her about the founding of Foxworth.

      “So Quinn was a victim,” Dane said.

      She heard the musing note in his voice and understood; it was hard to picture today’s strong, tough Quinn as any kind of victim.

      “He was only ten,” Kayla said. “And Hayley’s father was a police officer who was killed when she was twelve.”

      He drew back slightly. “Is that why you trusted them both so quickly? You felt connected because of all that?”

      “I didn’t know all that then. But I knew they understood.”

      “And I don’t.”

      “I didn’t say that. I’ve never said that.”

      “But I’m lucky, right?” He was starting to sound confrontational. “I’m not a member of the club. I’m the only one here not damaged by tragedy.”

      She winced at the oblique reference to her counseling group. She’d called it Collateral Damage because that’s what they were. Just as wounded as the actual victims, yet still up and walking around. She’d thought of Walking Wounded, but that didn’t make the point she so strongly believed in—that the perpetrators didn’t care who else they hurt. In war, it was an expected part of the grim business. But for civilians, it was the ugliest of side effects.

      “Believe me, it’s a club you don’t want any part of.” She took in a quick breath. “Besides, I always thought you’d been damaged by mine. Because you loved me.”

      As quickly as that, his demeanor changed. He let out a long, compressed breath.

      “All right,” he said. “If these people are as good as they say, maybe they can do something.”

      Her heart leaped in her chest, and hope sparked to renewed life.

      “Dane!”

      He reached across the table and took her hands in his. The touch, the contact, made joy well up inside her, as if some vital part of her had been restored.

      “Listen to me, Kayla. I’m willing to give them a chance. Everything I’ve found indicates they are really good at what they do.”

      “Yes,” she answered, tightening her fingers around his, feeling an elemental fear that if she didn’t hang on, he would somehow vanish again. “Yes, I think they are. Maybe even the best. Hayley showed me some of their case records. No names, but—”

      “Then if they can’t find Chad, it’s likely nobody can.”

      She saw suddenly where he was going. And knew his next words would require a decision from her. A difficult one. But nothing could be more difficult than his absence from her life the past two weeks.

      “Yes,” she finally said.

      “Then if they can’t, if this comes to nothing, will you quit making this the sole purpose of your life?”

      She drew in a deep breath. she’d had a brief taste of life without him, and it had been immediately clear that it was worse, much worse, than life without knowing how and where Chad was. And she knew Dane, knew she’d pushed him to the edge, and that he was here now at all was a testament to the power of what they’d built together from the day he’d climbed up that tree to sit beside her. He’d understood her even then, that what she’d wanted, needed, wasn’t someone to come along and rescue her, but someone to help her figure out how to rescue herself.

      She knew what she would be promising if she said yes.

      “I won’t ever stop wondering, or worrying,” she said, wanting it to be perfectly clear.

      “I wouldn’t expect you to. I just want to know that you won’t obsess over it anymore, that you’ll take back your own life. Our life, together.”

      He didn’t say, “Or it’s over,” but the words hung in the air between them as clearly as if he had.

      “Will you give them a real chance and enough time?”

      “I’ll give them a full, honest chance, if you’ll agree to accept whatever they find.”

      Still feeling torn, she nevertheless gave the only answer she felt possible.

      “All right,” she said.

      Dane let out an audible breath. And then he was on his feet, pulling her up and into his arms. Kayla nearly wept at the rightness of it. She clung to him, trembling at how close she’d come to losing this, losing him, forever.

      She didn’t know how long had passed before she heard a slight jingle from the doorway. She looked up and saw Cutter trotting into the room, tail up and waving slightly. The dog came to a stop before them and sat down. He looked at them both, with an expression Kayla would have sworn was satisfaction.

      Quinn and Hayley followed the dog into the room.

      “Why Cutter?” Kayla asked.

      “He came with the name,” Hayley said, reaching to scratch the dog’s ear. “He turned up on my doorstep with only that tag. I tried but never could find out where he’d come from.”

      The dog tilted his head way back to look at Hayley without changing position, looking so comical as he did it that Kayla couldn’t help but laugh. She heard Dane chuckle beside her and savored the sound of it; she’d missed his easy laugh, not just in the past two weeks but, she had to admit, for much longer. She’d caused that, she realized regretfully.

      “I spent some time with a friend of mine this afternoon,” Quinn said in a back-to-business tone as Hayley gestured everyone back into the chairs around the table. “Sam works for the local sheriff’s office.”

      Kayla sank down into the chair Dane held for her, feeling suddenly wobbly. This all seemed to be happening quickly now that it had begun. She’d only met them this morning, yet Quinn was already on the move.

      “The sheriff’s office? But the Redwood Cove police handled the case.”

      “Yes, but the sheriff’s office did most of the forensics. Redwood Cove doesn’t have its own lab.”

      “Oh. Yes.”

      “Sam was able to pull up the reports for me, at least the basics. The locals trust this guy. He can get answers that others can’t because of that.”

      “Meaning distraught, crazy family members?” Kayla knew she sounded bitter but couldn’t help it.

      “They never thought you were crazy. And if you were distraught, they knew you had good reason.”

      She sighed. “To be fair, they never said so. In fact, except for a couple who got sharp about it, told me they had their suspect and to give up, they were unfailingly kind. Even though I knew they hated to see me coming.”

      “Cops get that way when they can’t help any more than they already have.”

      “But they could have. They could have looked for other suspects, they—”

      She stopped herself before the whole, long, painfully familiar spiel unwound.

      “You know what the evidence was,” Quinn said gently. “It’s pretty conclusive that Chad was in that room either during or shortly after the murders.”

      “The bloody fingerprint,” Dane said.