Jade sounded tired. In the four years I’d worked with her, Jade had never sounded tired.

I didn’t get personal with my coworkers. It was a rule I had. Personal relationships at work only muddied the waters when someone needed to be reprimanded or promoted. Which was why I often turned down invitations to go golfing and drinking with Kent and the other partners.

All I knew about my lavender-haired assistant was she had a boyfriend with more artificial than natural holes in his head. I didn’t question Jade’s attraction to facial piercings. Her personal life was none of my business. But that didn’t mean I could ignore when something was different about her.

People don’t usually change who they are overnight. When that happens, it’s usually a change that was forced upon them. Like how Laurel and I changed after our son was killed. As much as I wanted to keep my relationship with Jade strictly professional, I couldn’t help but worry that someone or something may have forced this change in her.

“Jade, are you all right? You sound a bit tired,” I said as I took a seat in the aqua-green velour armchair in my hotel room in Boise.

She was silent for a moment, probably taken aback by this question. “Um… yeah. I didn’t get much sleep. I’ll grab a cup of coffee in the café and I’ll be fine.”

I contemplated letting this line of questioning go, but something had shifted inside me. I no longer felt like the man who cared about nothing but revenge. I felt like a single point of connection in a web of existence, inexorably linked to everyone and everything I’d tried to push away. The people in my life no longer felt like distant shadows existing in the periphery.

“Jade, you know more about me than anyone else in that office. If there’s something wrong with you, you know I can handle the news.”

She sniffed. “My grandma died last night,” she replied in a small voice, very different from the confident, assertive Jade I was accustomed to. “She raised me.”

“Jade, take some time off. As long as you need. I’ll make sure HR knows it’s paid leave.”

“But your messages. I haven’t given you—”

“Don’t worry about that. Just gather your things and go be with your family. I’ll have someone else handle the messages,” I insisted, though inside I worried that there was no one else in the office I trusted to forward my voicemails. With the exception of Jade, my thirst for revenge these past two years had alienated me from almost everyone in the office.

The Local was a tapas bar in downtown Boise with a fairly quiet ambiance. According to Sean, we were here for the killer tacos and the privacy provided by a mostly empty dining patio on a Thursday evening. The patio was surrounded by a waist-high wooden fence, which was topped with chest-high planter boxes overflowing with lush pink and white flowers. Laurel would know what kind of flowers they were.

As the waitress brought out our first round of beers, my burner phone vibrated in the breast pocket of my sport coat. Sliding it out, I saw a text message from an unknown number. But as soon as I read the words, I knew the identity of the sender.

I stared at the words on the screen for a moment, taking them into consideration before I shot back a hasty reply.

I was about to slide the phone back into my pocket when I decided to shoot off one more text.

I turned the phone off before I slid it into the inner pocket of my coat.

Sean cocked one of his thick silver eyebrows. “Is that your spy?”

I shook my head. “Not a spy. Just someone who cares about Laurel and wants the best for her.”

He nodded as he brought the pint of beer to his lips and took a sip, then smacked his lips. “Just be careful you don’t fall into the habit of thinking you need to watch over your wife like she’s a piece of property. You can’t put alarm systems on people, my friend.”

I took a sip of my lager as I allowed Sean’s words to seep into my consciousness. It was hard to distinguish between knowing I owned Laurel’s heart and feeling as if I owned her body. When I was inside her, when she was begging me to make her come, it was easy to feel ownership. But maybe it wasn’t Laurel’s heart and body I owned. What if it was only the moment I possessed?

This meant my work would never be done. Every day of the rest of our lives, I would have to earn each moment with Laurel, as she would have to earn each moment with me.

“Don’t end up like me,” Sean continued. “So I had a sit-down with Ava Robinson, and—”

“How?”

He smiled at my interruption. “How what?”

“How the fuck do I not end up like you?”

He chuckled at my blunt delivery. “Simple,” he replied, looking me straight in the eye. “Never let her forget that you’re better together.”

My meeting with Sean proved productive. Every meeting I had with him got me one step closer to finding the bastard who took my son from me. But there was one thing Sean couldn’t do without me. One thing I didn’t know I needed to do until now.

I slid a manila envelope across the table and Sean eyed it warily. “Forget your meeting with Robinson. That’s what you’re looking for.”

He glared at me. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s the adoption decree, but don’t ask me how I got it,” I said, remembering how I’d hacked into the Multnomah County adoption records database last night. I was in and out of their system in less than an hour, and I was one hundred percent certain no one would ever know I was there, but I couldn’t tell him that without incriminating him.

Sean shook his head as he folded the envelope and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat. “You better know what the hell you’re doing, kid, because if this thing goes sour, I’m looking out for myself. I may be an ex-cop, but I still play by the same rules.”

I took a sip of beer and looked him in the eye. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”