Page 12 of One Last Stand
“Shep—”
He stopped on his way to the locker room. Met her eyes. “I’ll always be ten feet underwater, dragging her frozen, broken body out of her car. Always be the guy who knows that the last thing she knew was terror. So no, I’m not in a better place. I’m—” He took a breath.Stuck. He was stuck. “Just . . . unless you have an update from the Anchorage PD, just leave it, Flynn.”
She sighed, shook her head. “No update.”
“Perfect.”
“Moose said you two have history. Do you know her parents? Do they know?”
He ran a hand across his mouth. “I don’t know. I met them, a long time ago. They live overseas—I’m not sure where. I did call my father—thought he might be able to find them—but my call went to voice mail.” Of course. “They travel a lot, so . . .”
In fact, he hadn’t talked to his parents since before London’s death. Not that they connected a lot, with them on the road. But still . . . sometimes he wondered if he might be an afterthought.
No, not sometimes. Always.
“I’ll try and track them down,” he said now to Flynn. “But without confirmation, I’m not sure what to tell them.”
Flynn gave him a frown, a hue of sadness in her eyes. “Are you still holding out hope . . .”
He drew in a breath. Then, “No. No hope.” He brushed past her, into the locker room.
Pulling off his boots and jeans, he put on shorts. Okay, maybe he’d been a little cold. Because it did help to have someone—orsomething—to take his mind off . . .
Aw, and now he was back on the deck, his feet freezing, his heartbeat pounding as he stared out into the darkness. Because for a moment there, last night, when the light flickered on, he’d thought—wildly hoped—that maybe . . . no, really, he knew it couldn’t be—but maybe London might be standing on his deck. Alive. With a crazy story. He didn’t care what it was—he’d pull her into his arms and bypass all the just-friends nonsense and kiss her.
His slammed locker resounded through the room. His mood had evidently fouled when he emerged.
The HQ was empty, except for the dog—which he should probably name—so Axel and Flynn had most likely gone to look at a house.
Shep headed to the back, where Moose, their boss and founder, had built a weight room. He turned on the television and found it still on the National Geographic channel, so someone had been watching reruns of the crazy survival show they’d filmed six months ago. For some reason, the rookie training of Oaken Fox as he’d joined the Air One Rescue team had hit a chord with fans, and the channel had already rerun their full six episodes twice.
An episode ofLocked Up Abroadcame on now, and while he picked up the jump rope and warmed up with a hundred hits, he watched the story of a woman who’d smuggled drugs into Italy, gotten arrested, and been imprisoned for five years.
Yeah, that sounded unfun.
He finished his kettlebell routine just as the show finished. Then he cooled down with more jumping rope.
He found the dog lying near the door, its head on its paws, watching as he turned off the television. “I’ll bet you didn’t like getting locked up either, huh?”
The dog got up, followed him down the hallway, then climbed onto the leather sofa as Shep headed into the locker room.
Moose would love that.
Shep showered and changed clothes, Moose on his mind. He should probably tell him . . .
Maybe Axel could buy his townhome. Then Shep could get in his Tahoe and head back to Montana and start his entire life over again.
Maybe he had crawled out of the dark place today, into the bleak, gray, barren plain ahead.
Moose sat on the sofa, his hand on the dog’s head, when Shep emerged from the locker room.
“Oh, uh, sorry, boss.”
“This your dog?”
“No. Yes. . . . I don’t know. He showed up on my deck last night.”
“Nice dog. Calming.” Moose stood up. “Listen. Tillie’s coming back into town tomorrow, so I need to talk to you about something.”