Jon was right. And the absolute certainty that he was right was what pulled her toward the phone. Scrolling through her call list, she found the number, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her heart thudded crazily. What was she doing? This wasn’t her. This was the act of someone desperate. It wasn’t something she’d ever dreamed she’d do in a million years.
The call connected, and she waited through the gatekeeper. Her pulse pounded. What would she say? What if he refused to talk to her or blew her off?
He picked up. At the sound of his voice, she found her cojones.
“Hello, Senator Kirby. This is Andrea Finch.”
chapter thirty-two
ANDREA RAN AT DUSK. The air was damp and warm, and she could taste the first hints of summer as she curved south from the lake and set a course for home. Traffic hummed around her. The evening mist became a sprinkle and then a soft drizzle that soaked through her T-shirt as her feet pounded the pavement. The rain cooled her skin, and she imagined it rinsing away all of the ugliness and pointless yearning, all of the regrets that had covered her like a layer of road dust for the past three weeks.
She neared her building and turned on a last burst of speed. She ran hard, sucking air until her lungs burned and her muscles throbbed. She reached her sidewalk and pulled up short as she saw the solitary man standing in the halo of a streetlight, gazing out over the parking lot.
A sharp pain pierced her heart. Never in her life had she seen anyone look so alone. She felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch him.
She approached, and he glanced her way.
“Hey,” she said.
“Where’s your Jeep?”
“In the shop. I drove my tires bald.” She stopped beside him and tried to get her breathing back to normal.
Three weeks since she’d seen him. Twenty-one days. Plenty of time for one or both of them to get past the stubbornness.
Nerves fluttered in her stomach as he stared down at her. His suit jacket was wet with rain, and he’d loosened the tie around his neck. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a glint in them that reminded her of how he’d looked at the height of the case. He seemed edgy and sleep-deprived, and she felt a twinge of satisfaction that she wasn’t the only one.
“You look like hell,” she said.
He sighed heavily and glanced out at the cars again. “It’s been a rough week.”
He turned back to look at her, and she waited. Was he here for work or personal reasons?
“We arrested Mark Driscoll today.”
“I heard.” She ignored the ripple of disappointment.
“Just north of Seattle. He was trying to slip across the border. Our lab technicians think he’s a match for the UNSUB in the bank-surveillance tapes, so looks like he was Hardin’s front man. The charges against him are stacking up.”
“You came here to tell me that?”
“No.” He gazed down at her. “Will you have dinner with me?”
Her heart gave a kick. She searched his face for clues, but this was one of those times she couldn’t read his expression. “I need to shower first.”
“Don’t.” He touched her arm, and she felt it to the tips of her toes. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll go to the Pig.”
“At least let me put on a dry shirt.”
He stayed at the base of the stairs while she dashed up to her apartment. She stripped off her sodden clothes and took a superquick shower. She threw on a tank top and jeans, refusing to analyze what she was doing as she stuffed some money into her pocket and headed out the door. She joined him on the sidewalk, and they walked toward the food trailers.
Friday-night traffic buzzed around them, and the rain-slicked streets were a kaleidoscope of colors. An awkward silence settled between them.
“There’s something I need to get off my chest.”
She looked at him.
“That day at the Capitol.” He stopped and gazed down at her, and the look in his eyes put her on the defensive. He tucked his hands into his pockets. “After we found the truck.”
“Yeah?”
“All around us, everyone was evacuating, and I kept looking at you, and I wanted to drag you to the other side of a barricade.” He paused. “And it was making me crazy because I knew you wouldn’t go.”
“You wouldn’t go, either.”
“Yeah, but it hit me all of a sudden, like a lightning bolt.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I had this realization, standing beside that truck bomb. I can’t make you do a goddamn thing.”
She stared up at him. “That was the lightning bolt?”
“Yes.” He sighed heavily. “When I left you at my house that morning, I was driving away, and I was thinking about the arrest and what I had to do, but part of me was thinking about you. I knew you’d be mad. I even knew you’d be hurt, but still, I kept driving because I told myself I could fix it later. I’d say I was sorry, you’d forgive me, and that would be it.”
Frustration swelled inside her, and she felt the sting of betrayal all over again. “So that’s what you had to get off your chest?”
“No.” His eyes looked impatient now. “The idea of not touching you again, not talking to you anymore—” He picked up her hand. “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to walk away from you.”
Her throat closed. Tears burned her eyes, and she laughed. “God, North. I never thought you were a romantic.”
“I’m not.” He lifted her hand and gently kissed her palm. “I just know what I want.”
The determination in his eyes was her undoing. Her heart squeezed, and she looked out at the traffic as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “I took your advice,” she said. “I called in a favor and got a new hearing last week. I got my job back.”
He gazed down at her, and she could see that this wasn’t news. He’d been checking up on her. “I’m not surprised. You helped thwart the assassination of a senator. And anyway, you’re a good cop.” He squeezed her hand. “I knew they’d take you back.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
They started walking down the street toward the food court. Emotions swirled inside her.
“I’ve thought a lot about what you said. About how I was running away.” She cleared her throat. “I realized it’s kind of a habit of mine.” She cut a glance at him. “I’ve never had anyone fight me on it before.”
He stopped walking. She read the look in his eyes, and her heart beat faster. He pulled her into the shadows beside a tree and dragged her against him, and she felt the heady rush of all the things she’d been craving for a long, long time. She hadn’t realized she needed someone. Someone she could push. Someone who wasn’t afraid to push back.
She slid her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He smelled good, he felt good, and the wool of his suit rasped against her bare arms. He slid his hands under her shirt, and his fingers were warm.
“I missed you.”
The three little words brought a burst of joy. All her life, no man had ever said them to her. There were other words, too, but these were a start.
She pulled him down to kiss her.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to say thanks to the many people who contributed to this book by sharing their expertise, including Luke Causey, Jeffrey Simon, Jessica Dawson, Erik Vasys, Tom Adair, and Kathy Bennett. Any mistakes are all mine.
I am grateful to the hardworking team at Simon & Schuster, including Abby Zidle, Michele Martin, Jean Anne Rose, Jae Song, Marla Daniels, and the many dedicated sales reps. Thanks, especially, to Louise Burke for her unwavering support over the years. Also, thanks to Kevan Lyon for her friendship and professional guidance.
And a heartfelt thank-you to my readers, who make it all possible.
LAURA GRIFFIN is a New York Times bestselling author who started her career in journalism before venturing into the world of suspense fiction. The author of twelve novels, she has won numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America RITA Awar
ds in 2012 for Scorched and in 2010 for Whisper of Warning. She lives in Austin, Texas. Find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LauraGriffinAuthor or visit www.lauragriffin.com.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Laura-Griffin
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ALSO BY LAURA GRIFFIN
Exposed
Scorched
Twisted
Snapped
Unforgivable
Unspeakable
Untraceable
Whisper of Warning
Thread of Fear
One Wrong Step
One Last Breath
AND
“Unstoppable” in Deadly Promises
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Laura Griffin
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Gallery Books hardcover edition April 2014
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Jacket design by Jae Song
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Griffin, Laura.
Far gone / Laura Griffin.—First Gallery Books hardcover edition.
pages cm
1. Women detectives—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 5. Serial murders—Fiction. 6. Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.R54838F38 2014
813'.6—dc23
2013033910
ISBN 978-1-4516-8934-1
ISBN 978-1-4516-8937-2 (ebook)
Contents
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Acknowledgments
About Laura Griffin
Far Gone Page 30
