Ben rose to leave the room and came back with another cup of coffee for his sister. Sean leaned forward and spoke low enough that only Katie could hear. “We n-need to interrogate her.”
“Not now,” she whispered. Ben settled a blanket over Melissa’s shoulders.
“She c-could be dangerous.”
She didn’t look dangerous. She’d begun to shake.
“Is your sister going to be okay?” she asked Ben, softly.
He nodded.
“Is she … Do you think we need to bring in the police?”
“No police,” Judah said.
“Look, Judah,” Sean said. “I think you need to c-consider—”
“No police,” he repeated. “Even if you call them, I won’t press charges.”
“She could be dangerous,” Sean insisted.
Ben shook his head. “She’s not dangerous. I give you my word.”
Katie bumped Sean’s shoulder with her own, and his arm came up and around her the way she’d wanted it to. She leaned in, breathing the familiar smell of leather and soap and Sean. “We should go.”
Judah clasped his hands between his knees and stared at Ben and Melissa as if they held the keys to everything he’d ever wanted.
Maybe they did. There was a lot of history between the three of them, a lot of pain, but now there was hope, too.
“You can handle this on your own,” she told him.
He glanced at her. “Yeah,” he said, steady and certain. “I can.”
“They need to be alone,” Katie told Sean. She took his hands and urged him to standing, and even though his expression remained troubled, he followed her lead. They gathered their jackets and slipped out of the house into the cold morning without goodbyes.
Sean jogged down the driveway to talk to the Palmerston agent who was getting out of the car.
Case closed, Katie thought as she pulled the door shut on her career as a field agent.
It hadn’t suited her, and that was fine. She would eventually find some way to spend her days that didn’t require her to cram herself into a persona that didn’t fit. The last few weeks had given her faith in herself, the reinvention she’d been looking for, though not at all in the way she’d expected to find it.
Her breath made a cloud in front of her face, and when she reached Sean’s elbow and he gave her a questioning look, she made a half-hearted effort to smile.
“Back to the hotel?” he asked.
“I guess so.”
Back to the hotel. And then back to Camelot.
They walked down the deserted street, passing one quaint house after another. The sun was up now, the sky clear and cold and blue. Ice crunched under her boots.
Katie held Sean’s hand and wondered how long it would be before he stopped running and went home to San Jose. Would she date the beginning of the end of their relationship from this moment?
She didn’t know. But she didn’t want it to be over.
Chapter Thirty-nine
They left Pella as quickly as they’d arrived.