Catch up on the previous chapters here
Part Three: Ripples
Kent looked at Adam. “That’s bad, right? If she doesn’t know who he is?”
“It’s not surprising,” Adam corrected almost archly. “We tracked down and showed you so many people back then, and none of them rang a bell.”
Nell pointed at the picture. “Are you comparing this guy to all those people?”
“I’m sure they are.” He held out his hand to take the phone back. “In Michigan. They’ll keep me updated.”
She looked down at that nondescript face one more time before handing it over. “Is this ridiculously annoying because you can’t do anything except wait?”
His smile didn’t show any teeth. “I can’t say it’s my favorite part of the job, but I also don’t really want this one to get exciting.”
Kent put his arm around her shoulders, not even going for the intermediary back of the couch. “Exactly how much warning do you think you’d get before that happened?”
“I flat-out don’t think it’s going to happen,” he said with the air of a teacher correcting a pupil. “This guy lays back and plays the long game. He’s not a pouncer. If he were, he would’ve pounced already.”
Nell shook her head. “We went right from the apartment to the police station and then the safe house. He didn’t have time to pounce.”
“He had all year to pounce.”
“He pounced plenty,” Kent protested, so at least she didn’t have to. “Not on her, but in a spiral that kept getting closer to her.”
Adam gestured at the book. “I know this feels like an attack, and I know it seems sudden, but it’s not. This is a long game. You’ve known he was out there all this time, and he’s in exactly the same place he’s always been: away from you.”
“Yeah, we’ll still feel better when you’ve got a name and an address to go with that face,” Kent shot back.
“Don’t look at me,” Nell protested. “I agree with him.”
“From my professional point of view—”
“The professional point of view is that she was never the target,” Kent interrupted. “You know this. Any other person would’ve just been released and then you would’ve been half a step behind when he pounced.”
Adam flopped the manila folder shut. “It’s not procedure to keep this up this long, either. In case you thought maybe you’re not getting enough special treatment.”
“It’s not about being special,” Nell cut in. “It’s about being scared. Okay? Because we’ve actually seen what this guy can do, and it’s not …” She shook her head, more to tell Kent to quit trying to stop her than at Adam. “It’s not me. He doesn’t want to hurt me. He wants to protect me, so what do you think he’s going to feel about Kent? Or about you?”
“Nell …”
She waited.
Adam shook his head. “It’s not about me.”
“It kind of is, if he thinks you’re keeping me away from him.”
“Nell …” This time he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t have to worry about me. You don’t have to worry about Kent. And you don’t have to worry about this guy, whatever his real name is, because they’ll track him down, but he’s got no way of tracking you down. The only person who actually knows where you are is me. Kalamazoo just knows they’re talking to Iowa. It’s a big state, and there’s no way to track your current name, or even your age. You’re just as safe here today as you’ve always been.”
She couldn’t argue with that without impugning his manhood, or maybe his agent-hood, even though Nell didn’t feel all that safe. Or maybe she’d simply never felt that safe, because yeah, he had always been out there. Since coming back after dinner, stumbling into the apartment kissing Kent, already kicking out of her shoes and pushing his jacket off his shoulders … yeah. Every room she’d entered since then, she turned on the lights immediately and swept her eyes around it. It, and maybe any other rooms connected to it, just in case.
That was the last time Kent made out with her in a hallway. The last time she’d had to fumble for a key because she was too busy kissing him. O’Connell, whoever he was, had taken a whole lot more than just her friends’ lives.
Kent’s right hand closed on hers and squeezed it gently. “Until you tell us you have him, and he’s not getting away, we’re not really going to feel safe. We’re barely used to this new normal.”
Adam sighed as he got to his feet. “I’ll keep you updated with everything I know, like always. And … seriously. You’re fine. You’re safe. We’re on top of this.” Then he waved for them to stay put, since he could see himself out.
Nell took a deep breath and collapsed against Kent as she let it out, purposefully not trying to look up at him. “I don’t think I realized how scared I’ve been this whole time.”
He added his second arm and just held on.
“You tell yourself it’s fine, because it has to be—there’s no alternative—but then …”
Kent squeezed her tighter. “I wish I could just make it better.”
She closed her eyes, drawing her legs up and tucking herself more closely against him. “I love you, too.”
He took a breath, but she waited out his hesitation, so he said it: “Dad didn’t think it would last this long.”
“I didn’t think they did the whole new identity thing if it was just going to be short-term.”
“He leaned on all those favors hard. He told me … before we left, he told me he thought the guy was going to unravel without you, so I’d be back in time for school.”
“Did …?” But maybe he didn’t want to answer that question.
“Did I ever tell him?” Kent guessed. “Yeah. It was easier in a letter.” He’d been planning on talking to his parents in person that summer, trying to explain the situation in a way two people who had picked one vocation and relentlessly pursued it could understand, but then Heidi was killed, they were whisked away, and Kent’s dad actually specifically said he wasn’t calling in any favors.
Maybe he thought the room was bugged, or the other agents would believe him, but there was still his tone. It wasn’t like he’d winked or anything. He’d just heard the update at the conclusion of her final interview, nodded, and pulled out his phone.
Nell didn’t want to think about where their lives would’ve gone if Kent’s dad hadn’t done that. It wasn’t witness protection—they were too minor and the situation not nearly dire enough, from a paperwork standpoint, to justify the cost—but … favors. He’d amassed favors, and Nell didn’t think he’d ever actually planned on calling any of them in, but he did it for his son.
She didn’t know how much Kent had talked about her, or what he’d told his parents, but the fact that his dad jumped on it like that made it pretty clear Kent had been demonstrably serious about her. She was the one he was going to marry, and they’d already weathered her study abroad and then most of her senior year, so even grumpy curmudgeons who didn’t believe in love, like Gran, had to admit there was something there.
Kent hadn’t bought her a ring yet or anything. He told her, later, that he hadn’t even started looking for one because she deserved to graduate as its own separate thing, worthy of celebration in and of itself, before he took the focus away. That ended up probably being a good thing, because imagine finding the perfect ring and it was one-of-a-kind or totally out of the price point for the people you turned into over the summer. Nell didn’t mind the plain gold bands, but she thought Kent always felt slightly cheated out of the engagement ring part of the process.
He kissed her hair. “What do you need right now?”
“God, I can’t just keep asking you to distract me from real-life problems.”
Kent laughed and reached up to catch her chin so he could kiss her on the mouth. “Isn’t that the entire reason I’m here with you? Sexy distractions?”
“I think you’re getting confused with the reason you’re here with me.”
“Hmm.” He pulled her onto his lap so she was straddling him and seemed to absently kiss her neck. “Either way, I get laid.”
“Presumptuous.”
He chuckled, keeping his lips against her neck because he knew it would make her shiver. “That’s a big word.”
“Kent …”
“Yes, light of my life?”
Nell sighed and took his face in her hands so she could kiss him properly.
Rebecca Frost 
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