Page 156 of Flint’s Strike

I blink, and I’m sitting on my couch with a glass of water in my hands. I don’t remember leaving the office. Just Parker’s voice. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

She’s sitting next to me, the heat of her comforting against my right side. She doesn’t ask me anything. Doesn’t try to fill the silence. That’s the only reason I work up the energy to say anything at all.

“He knew. Kurt knew.” My throat’s dry, and I take a sip of water. “Six years we’ve worked together, and he’s known the whole time.” I turn to her, and the pain in her eyes mirrors mine. “I tried calling him. Texting. I just need to know…why.”

Parker’s hand closes over mine. “I can find him. Or…Nate can find him.”

I stare down at our fingers. At the tiny scars left behind when she escaped that fucking cult. At my calluses. At the way her hand fits perfectly in mine.

Of course, she can find him. That’s what she does. Finds people. Answers. Fixes the broken things all around her.

“How?”

“We have enough evidence to bring him in. Nate can get a warrant. Put out the BOLO with APD. It won’t fix anything. It won’t bring Zack back. But…you could get answers.”

I nod. She needs to do something. This…I need this too.

She pulls out her phone, sends a quick text, and then turns it face down next to her.

“Okay. He’ll take care of it.”

Another sip of water, and I set the glass on the coffee table. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s distant, weak and rough. “I’ve spent the past seven years telling myself I should have known the building was coming down. That if I’d moved faster, warned Zack sooner, he’d have gotten out. But that wall… The egress was too narrow. And the beams. They were always going to come down. There’s no version of that day where he lived.”

“That’s not nothing, Eliot.” Parker keeps her voice low, barely above a whisper. She rests her hand on my right knee. One of the only parts of me that doesn’t ache every fucking day.

“He was still there because of me.”

She doesn’t tell me I’m wrong. Whether that’s because she knows it wouldn’t help or she knows I’m right…it doesn’t matter. She’s here. And that matters.

We sit in silence long enough the sun goes down outside the window. Parker doesn’t move to turn on the light. She just stays. One hand on my thigh, the other arm around my shoulders.

When it’s too dark to see much of anything, she stands, pulling me up with her, and leads me into the bedroom.

We don’t speak as we take off our clothes. And when we’re lying in bed, my arm around her waist and my nose buried in her soft hair, she links our fingers and gives my hand a single, gentle squeeze.

Zack was there because of me. That’ll never change. The memories will haunt me forever regardless of who was ultimately to blame. But how do I bury the guilt I’ve carried? How do I let go of a weight that’s defined the past seven years of my life without losing who I’ve become because of it. I want to be the man Parker sees when she wakes up in the morning, but I’m not even sure who I am without who I’ve been.

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He had me meet him on a bridge out past Bee Cave at sunrise. No cameras there, and no reason for anyone to remember a couple of cars parked for twenty minutes on a Wednesday morning.

We’d met there once before. That first time, I hadn’t known what it would cost me. I do now.

He was already leaning against the rail when I pulled up. No suit this time. Jeans and a t-shirt. Sunglasses. A man out for a morning walk.

He knew Eliot had accessed the Kensington file. I never figured out how he knew, but he knew.

He asked why Eliot would care so much about one fire from seven years ago. So, I told him. I told him Eliot had been in that fire. That he’d been burned over almost forty percent of his body. That one of his fellow firefighters had died that day.

The senator was quiet for a time. If his man hadn’t been standing three feet away, I would have run. I should have tried.

I was supposed to remove those seven properties from the list. But parts of the spreadsheet were locked with a password. I couldn’t crack it.

I didn’t tell the senator I hadn’t tried very hard.

He went on and on about the trouble the two Rangers were causing him. He was going to have to shut down Apex. Start over in another city. But when he ran for the U.S. Senate that would be easy.

Then his phone rang.