“Vengeance,” he whispered, scarcely loud enough to be heard.
Pleasure flashed through her at how well Eric—fucking, fucking Eric—understood her. Had always seemed to understand her. “Vengeance for those who cannot take it on their own. I fight for those who’ve been abandoned by society’s rules. I don’t see myself changing.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.” When Eric’s head turned, it was to pin her with his gaze, blazing and ferocious. “Because the work you do, the cases you take—they matter. It’s pro bono work of the highest caliber.”
“Oh.” The contraction had come out of nowhere, startling the sound out of her. “Another one,” she hissed out between clenched teeth. “If you’re—oh, man—keeping track.”
“I am,” he assured her, lifting their joined hands to rest against her stomach, sliding them up and down in a slow caress. “You do what you need to, Alace. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s good.” She rocked her head back and immediately decided that wasn’t a good position, dropping her chin to her chest instead. “I’d hunt you down if you tried to leave.” The sentence was broken into phrases by her breathing, but it got the reaction she’d aimed for as Eric chuckled at her.
The tablet buzzed and Alace shook her head, silently telling Eric not to answer it.
He did anyway, and his first words to Owen showed how he’d chosen to interpret her actions. “Give Alace a minute, Owen. She might be in the early stages of labor and is having a contraction.”
“Oh, wow.” Owen’s voice held a tone of awe. “Holy cow. Is she okay?”
“Yeah, the doctor said the baby’s ready any time, so we’re waiting things out to see if these will keep going or peter out.” Calm and reasonable, Eric structured his response in a way that also reassured Alace, reminding her that this was all normal and expected. Just like the doctor had said. “How’s young Kelly?”
“You saw that, huh?”
Alace breathed through the tail end of the contraction as she listened to their conversation.
“He’s better already. Fever’s coming down, and the food stabilized him more than I expected. The last time he woke, he was back to asking about his—how much did you hear, Eric?”
“Everything. It’s all good, Owen. I understand the kind of case you guys are facing with this one. He asked about his sister?” Alace lifted her head in time to see Owen’s nod. “Who do you have to care for him while you look for her?”
“I don’t know. That’s part of what I wanted to talk to Alace about.”
“If you lived closer, you could bring him here to me.” Alace’s tightened grip on Eric’s hand had him looking at her. “Is it over?”
“Yeah.” She reached out to take the tablet as she blew out what the books had called a cleansing breath. “Not as intense as the last one, so possibly they’re tapering off. False alarm.”
“Natural order of things is all. Our time will come when they don’t fade.” Eric bumped her shoulder. “I’ll go get a cold bottle of water while you chat with Owen.” He slipped out of bed, careful movements barely jostling her as she sat propped against the headboard. “Back in a few minutes. Text me if you have another contraction and I’m not back yet.”
She watched Eric walk from the room before giving Owen her attention. “Hi.”
“He’s good for you. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but damn, woman, he’s a truly good guy.” Owen gave her his crooked smile, the one she always sensed cut closest to the core of who he was. “Keep him.”
“I intend to.” She shook her head. “Tell me about the hike, and how everything happened, and what we need to do now.”
“Damn, Alace. Bask in the moment a little, why doncha?” His smile changed, evening out, muscles around his eyes relaxing and flattening his expression. This was “work” Owen, and she appreciated his willingness to drop into their productive mode so easily. “I was on my way back out. I hadn’t told anyone other than you where I was headed, and the timeframe I gave you was longer by a few days than what I wound up taking. There’s no way anyone could have known when or where I’d be at any given time. I know what you’re thinking, and it’s nothing I haven’t already gone over in my head a thousand times. Why me, why there, why this kid? Am I right?”
“Yeah.” She breathed out the word. “Something doesn’t add up, Owen. It’s like you were targeted for this. A baited trap.”
“Maybe fate targeted me.” He lifted his chin. “We’ve seen it happen in bad ways before. Innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we’ve never questioned that scenario. It only makes sense that the opposite would be true sometimes.” Alace was shaking her head before he finished speaking, and he held up a hand to stave off her ready argument. “No one knew I was there. Have I hiked the Barrens before? Yes, but never from that trail. It’s a big geographic feature, and I’ve covered about a tenth of it, always coming from a different angle. That trail isn’t the closest to my house. It’s unremarkable in any way, other than it leads to a lake I wanted to see. Only if they’d tracked my car would they know, and I’ve got a sweeper mat I park on in the garage. My car was clean when I got home, exactly as it was when I’d left. If I’d decided to eat breakfast on the road home instead of in the forest, Kelly wouldn’t have found me. He found me, Alace. If it were a setup, if I were doing this as a setup, I’d have the target do the finding. There’s an innate trust in one’s own actions, so having the target discover the bait provides greater chances of simple acceptance. He wandered up to me. He had to have been lying there when I made camp, and I just didn’t go that direction to dig my cathole, you know? I went the other way. These are not manufactured accidents. These are true coincidences. I’m not going off gut here but off my years of training and human study.” He made a face as he pulled in a hard breath. “Fuckin’ fate, really? That’s all I kept thinking. That and ‘don’t be an idiot, don’t let yourself be duped, be real, Owen.’ I am being real, Alace. This kid, Kelly, he needs us in a way I haven’t seen since—” Owen interrupted himself and angled his gaze away from the camera for a second before looking back, resolve sitting heavily on his features. “In a long, long time. He needs us, me. If there’s no us on this mission, then I get it. You’ve got shit goin’ on. But you should understand that I’m not backing off.”
A contraction picked that moment to take hold, and Alace stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Gimme a minute.”
His eyes widened comically. “Are you having another labor pain thing? Already? That doesn’t look like it’s going away. What’s the time? Eric said to text him. I can do that. You—” He fluttered his fingers at the camera. “—do whatever it is you’re doing.” Eric’s phone dinged, and she glanced over to see it resting on the nightstand on his side of the bed. It dinged again. “Should I call your landline? His phone’s there in the room, right?” She shook her head, unable to answer him. “Okay. I’ll just wait here with you. You doin’ okay? Want me to count or something?”