Look at her calling him on all his bullshit. He was both proud and horrified that she knew him so well, that he’d let her know him so well. “It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about you. You’re the one I’d be putting at risk and I won’t do it.”
She sat up on the bed. “You’re talking like you’re still Special Ops. But Joe, you’re home now. You’re no longer in that line of work.”
“No, but what I do now can be even worse,” he said, “because my guard’s down. Something can still happen—”
“I’m not a helpless fourteen-year-old girl,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to get drawn into something bad because of your lifestyle.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Joe, you can’t keep the people in your life safe from everything,” she said.
“Maybe not, but I can sure as hell try.”
She stared at him for a long minute and he knew a whole new level of terror when her eyes got suspiciously shiny, before she wrapped herself up in the sheet and went into her bathroom to shut the door.
The click of the lock sent a message loud and clear.
He told himself he was glad. It’d had to be done. He should be relieved that she finally fully understood him and where he was coming from.
But relief was just about the opposite of how he felt as he headed into whatever tonight’s work emergency was.
Chapter 26
#ElementaryMyDearWatson
Half an hour later Joe found himself hanging off a roof with his team, posing as window washers fifteen flights off the ground.
Apparently window washing at night was a real thing. They’d needed the cover because they were in stealth surveillance mode for a criminal investigation involving a million-dollar embezzlement suit. And as was the case about 90 percent of the time on a stakeout, things were annoyingly quiet.
So quiet that he was thinking too hard about, what else . . . Kylie. He just kept seeing the look on her face when he’d spelled out how he wasn’t going there with her. And where was all the work action to take his mind off the things he’d said? Because right about now he’d have preferred being flung twenty-five feet in the air through drywall again over thinking this hard. When his phone vibrated with an incoming text, he jumped on the distraction.
Dad: I’m going to watch another episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Joe: It’s the middle of the night. And wtf, you keep watching without me.
Dad: Do you want to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer or not?
Joe: Well yeah, but wait for me. I’m still working.
Dad: Buffy The Vampire Slayer doesn’t wait for nobody.
Joe: Say Buffy The Vampire Slayer one more time.
Dad: Buffy The Vampire Slayer one more time.
Joe gave up and slid his phone away. A gust of wind came along and knocked their platform into the side of the building.
Lucas closed his eyes and moaned like he was dying. Heights didn’t bother Joe any but they drove Superman insane. Joe had once seen him jump into a raging river to catch a bad guy without blinking an eye, so he was amused. The guy was so invincible it was fun to see any weakness from him.
“Hey, Lucas,” Reyes said, also amused. “Look.”
Lucas opened his eyes and Reyes jumped up and down a few times. The platform swayed.
And Lucas gripped the railing with white knuckles and swore the air blue.
“You kiss your mama with that mouth?” Max asked.
“Shut it,” Archer said.
And everyone shut it.
But Lucas remained green.
“Hey,” Max stage-whispered to Joe. “Heard you’re with the woodworker chick.”
Reyes snorted and when everyone looked at him he shrugged. “He said ‘woodworker.’”
Joe rolled his eyes. “How old are you, twelve?”
“What?” he asked innocently. “She works on wood. That’s all I meant. You’re the one who took it there, man. She working on your wood, Joe?”
“Reyes is about to go flying without a parachute,” Joe said to Archer. “You good with that?”
“Yes,” Archer said.
“Hey,” Reyes said but backed very carefully out of Joe’s reach, putting his hands up in surrender. “Just saying. You two are looking pretty cozy.”
“Your point?” Joe asked coolly.
Reyes laughed. “You should lock her down soon as possible, man. Any woman who can put up with your bad attitude is worth keeping. Plus, she’s smoking hot.”
“It’s supposed to be about more than just her body,” Max said. “Rory says it’s about personality.”
“True,” Reyes said. “They have like ten of those, so you can always just choose one.”
“Our perp’s entering the building so look alive,” Archer said. “If you boys are ready to shut the fuck up and work, that is.”
Five minutes later, their guy walked into his office talking on the phone, where he implicated himself all over the place. He never even gave the “window washers” a second look and they got the whole conversation recorded.
“That’s all we need,” Archer said. “We’ve got enough for the DA to take the case forward. You’re all off for the night.”
Joe knew he couldn’t go back to Kylie’s, not after pushing her away, so he instead he went and watched Buffy with his dad before checking out the last apprentice on their list. Phillip Wilde out of San Jose worked as a master carpenter, making furniture on the side. But as Joe suspected, it was yet another dead end. Phillip had quit a year ago and, according to a neighbor who came out in his bathrobe and was willing to chat, now lived in the Florida Keys, making beach chairs for tourists.
He waited until the next day after work to tell Kylie. He was standing outside Reclaimed Woods in the courtyard when she exited. She looked surprised to see him and regret slashed through him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Wanted to talk to you.”
“Thought that wasn’t our thing, talking.”
Yeah, he deserved that.
She sighed. “Never mind me. What’s wrong?”
That she could read him so easily was no longer a surprise. Although he had no idea how she could when no one else ever seemed able to, but he was getting tired of worrying about that. “The list of apprentices is a dead end,” he said. “We need to talk about a new angle.”
“But we still have one more to check on,” she said. “Phillip, out in San Jose.”
“I checked into it. Phillip moved to Florida last year.”
She crossed her arms. “So now you’ve cut me out of the investigation as neatly as you cut me out of your life? We had a deal, Joe.”
“I didn’t cut you out of anything. I was trying to save us some time.”
“Okay,” she said, smile gone and maybe steam coming out of her ears. “Well, let me save you some more of your precious time. I’m going in another direction on this investigation. You’re fired.”
He caught her before she could walk away. “Oh no,” he said. “It’s not going to be that easy. You’re stuck with me.”
“I gave you the mirror for Molly. We’re square.” Yanking free, she started walking across the courtyard, her eyes on her phone.
“Hell no we’re not square,” he said, following her. “We’re not done here until you’re safe.”