Page 53 of Critical Strike
“They like you. I could tell.”
“That is a massive compliment.” She winked with a smile. “I liked them, too. A lot. They didn’t have to be so nice to me, so welcoming. Here I am, a random person they’d never met before, walking into their special cabin.”
“Love is what they do. It’s who they are.”
“I see a lot of them in you.” He snickered a little and she continued, “No, I do. You’re the same person you always were, don’t get me wrong—you’re still kind and brave. But you’re not as afraid to show it now as you used to be when we were kids.”
“You bring it out in me, too, Kitten. It’s not all my parents. It’s you.” He stood, pulling her to her feet and wrapping her in one of his all-encompassing hugs. “It’s always been you.”
She hadn’t made a ton of good decisions in her life, and she knew it.
And while she regretted dragging Luke into the insanity, she couldn’t help but think that walking into his office was one of the best decisions she’d ever made.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” she admitted in a soft, shaky whisper, wrapped up tight in his arms.
“Me too, Kitten,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Me, too.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Let me get this straight.”
Vance Ballard leaned forward, his hands folded atop his desk. Could the pair of useless idiots standing before him see how tightly he’d clenched his fingers? His joints ached, yet the discomfort kept him sharp, focused.
And as long as his hands were folded, he couldn’t reach for the paperweight sitting on one corner of the desk and throw it at them.
Brooks and Masters did what they could to conceal their growing discomfort. He gave them at least a bit of credit for delivering yet more bad news to his face. Surely even a pair of idiots had to know how their update would be received.
He spoke slowly, with care. “A nothing. A nobody with no family, no friends and hardly any past has managed to elude you.Again.”
Brooks cleared his throat. “Sir, there’s nothing any of us can come up with to explain it. We’re missing something.”
“So are those detectives,” Masters blurted it out, bringing to mind a child tattling on their sibling. “They’ve been following those Patterson guys around; they questioned the one she went to but they didn’t find anything to connect her to them.”
More discomfort, this time resulting from Ballard gritting his teeth to hold back a string of bitter profanity. “And we’re certain she doesn’t have a bank account or credit card we haven’t discovered?”
“If she had anything, we would know. No one can get past our monitoring,” Brooks insisted in a far steadier voice than that of his partner.
Ballard knew this was true, though the truth of it only infuriated him further. She couldn’t access her money. She had nowhere to run. Yet she’d run and continued to elude capture.
How was she doing it? He could’ve turned the office upside down, but that wouldn’t have brought Claire Wallace to him. How could she get past him?No one got past him.
“The library fire... We know she had help.” He looked at his men, who were increasingly useless. “She couldn’t have pulled that off on her own. And Hopkins was clear on there being a man with her.” There had been thick smoke at the time, and Hopkins had sustained a head injury moments after seeing the man, but no amount of questioning could shake his certainty.
Claire had the help of a man that night.
“Hopkins didn’t see the man,” Masters mumbled. “Or, rather, he doesn’t remember what he looked like. The smoke was too thick and his memory’s hazy. But there was—”
“I know. There was definitely a man. Don’t tell me what I already know.” A lot of good it did them, knowing about the presence of someone who surely had to exist. No way would Claire be able to manage that escape on her own. The presence of another person came as no surprise.
There was a ticking noise in the back of his mind, the sound of precious seconds slipping away. Was she enjoying this? That useless, pathetic—
After slowly releasing a deep breath, Ballard asked, “And reports from the detectives confirm she wasn’t with that Patterson man after they questioned him?”
“He went to the office, stayed there all day, ran a couple of errands.” Masters looked to Brooks, who offered a slight nod in agreement.
“They missed something...they must have. The police are not looking in the right places.” Ballard clenched his fists beneath the desk, out of sight. He barely flinched when discomfort slid into pain. It kept him focused. Kept displeasure from turning into fury.
“We’ll keep looking,” Brooks offered, though there was uncertainty in his voice. He doubted the usefulness of this course of action because he wasn’t a complete moron.