Page 89 of Crowe
Chance came back inside a few minutes later. The front door closed. He looked at me with the assessing, direct gaze of a man who had something to say and had been waiting for the right moment to say it.
“She offered us more than Corvane’s records,” he said. “She has information on three other men connected to the same network. Names, accounts, routes.” He put his hands in his pockets. “And she killed a man we can prove had purchased another human being and was actively threatening that person.” He held my gaze. “What Corvane did to you, what he was going to do tonight, what she walked away from to bring us evidence, legally, all of that matters.” He paused. “We’re offering her immunity in exchange for her full cooperation and testimony.”
The kitchen was quiet.
“She’ll be okay?” I asked.
“She’ll have the full resources of the federal government helping her build a new life,” he said. “Her and the baby both.” He looked at me for a moment with something on his face that was less federal agent and more just a person. “You giving her that card at the Gala set all of this in motion. This network has been a priority case for three years, and because of tonight, because of her, we have a real shot at dismantling it.” He shook his head slightly. “Not bad for a florist.”
I looked at him. “Right,” I said with a laugh.
“Well, if you ever want a career change—”
“He’ll let me know.” Jackson appeared at my shoulder, and without a word, I leaned back against him and felt his arm come around me.
Chance chuckled and shook his head. “I hear you, Crowe. I hear you.”
Chapter twenty-nine
Noah
We stopped at my Houston apartment because it was late, and the drive back to Vesper made no sense, and because the apartment was still there, but the threat was gone.
I hadn’t been back since the day Jackson had walked into the wedding venue, and everything changed. The apartment was exactly as I’d left it. The furniture I’d never properly arranged. The boxes I’d never fully unpacked. The blankness of a space that had been inhabited but never quite lived in.
I went over to the window and looked out, the way I used to when I needed a reminder that I was somewhere no one knew me, and I was safe. But tonight, all I could think about was that it was finally over.
Not completely. I knew that. There would be statements to give, testimony to prepare, and the slow work of Chance Kelly’s case moving through the machinery of the federal justice system. There would be more therapy. There would be mornings when I woke up still doing the inventory out of habit, still reaching for the lamp, before I remembered I didn’t have to. Times when I did have to, even if only for my peace of mind.
But the thing that had been coming for me was gone.
Corvane was gone. His network was being dismantled, Imogen was safe, and the documents were in Chance Kelly’s hands. It was really over.
Jackson came to stand beside me. “Must be nice to be home,” he said.
I looked at the apartment. At the bare counter. I thought about the first night I’d spent there, sitting on the floor with my back against the wall because I hadn’t had the energy to unpack, and because I wasn’t sure yet if this place was safe.
At an apartment in a city I’d chosen because it was big enough to get lost in, where I’d learned that getting lost also meant feeling invisible. The one thing Jackson Crowe never allowed me to feel.
“This isn’t my home,” I said.
Jackson looked at me.
“It gave me what I needed,” I said. “Room to breathe. Anonymity. A place to feel safe while I figured out what came next, but it was always temporary. I think I knew that the whole time. I just didn’t know what I was waiting for.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Do you know now?”
I looked at him, at the dark eyes and the still face and the man who’d driven to Houston for me and would’ve followed me anywhere.
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
He crossed the room and stood in front of me, looking at me. “Come to the camp,” he said. “Come home with me. We’ll build something out there that belongs to both of us.”
I thought about the farmhouse kitchen in the early morning. The east light through the windows. The treeline and the cedar smell. The early morning silence that felt like peace instead of loneliness, but mostly I thought about what it meant to build a life with this man.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that.”
He put his hand on the side of my face, and I leaned into it, and that was that. The decision was made. The next thing chosen.
