CHAPTER TWO

Ella clenched harder on the wheel as she swung into Mia"s driveway, the mansion rising up like a middle finger to subtlety. Ostentatious columns and overcompensating square footage – the place stuck out like a pig at a bar mitzvah among the few modest lakeside homes that she'd passed along the way.

A quick scan revealed Mia's vintage Mustang with its cherry-red paint job, but no sign of Martin's four-wheel dad-mobile.

Ella killed the engine, relief and apprehension playing tug-o-war in her chest. At least Mia was flying solo. For now.

She levered herself out of the car and made her way to Mia's front door. She hated how each step toward the door felt like wading through wet cement. Dread and déjà vu clinging like a cheap perfume. How many times had she knocked on this same slab of overpriced mahogany, coffees in one hand and case files in the other? Too many to count.

But there would be no wisecracking or caffeine overloads this time. Just a tension you could bend steel around.

Ella hesitated, fist poised to knock on the glass – the first of two barriers between her and her partner. The hell was she even gonna say? No idea, but she'd always had a thing for improvisation.

She rapped once, twice.

Silence. Then the crackle of the intercom.

‘Who is it?'

Ella rolled her eyes. ‘You know damn well who it is, Mia. I"m standing right in front of your fancy-ass camera.'

A beat. Two.

‘The hell do you want, Ella?'

Ouch. Full name, no inflection. This was about to be as painful as a root canal without anesthetic.

Ella leaned in, one hand braced on the doorframe. ‘To talk. Clear the air. Make sure you"re still breathing and not bobbing face-down in that lake behind me.'

‘I"m fine.'

"Right. So fine, you"ve been ghosting me for days." Ella pinched the bridge of her nose, suddenly weary down to the marrow. "Just open up, please. Five minutes. That"s all I"m asking."

The line went dead and for a heart-stopping few seconds, Ella thought Mia had pulled the plug. But then the front door swung open, revealing her erstwhile partner on the other side of the glass. Mia looked like ten miles of bad road: rough skin, dark circles, deeper frown lines. But she was alive and whole, and for that, Ella could"ve wept.

‘Five minutes,' Mia said flatly.

Ella opened her mouth, ready to launch into the spiel she"d been rehearsing the whole drive over – but the words evaporated as she took in the glass door still firmly shut between them.

‘Seriously? You"re gonna make me grovel through glass?'

Mia just crossed her arms. Take it or leave it, the posture said. And Ella was in no position to be picky.

‘Alright. Fine.' She scrubbed a hand over her face, suddenly feeling like she'd aged twenty years since she pulled up. ‘I"m sorry, Mia. For...all of it. I was out of line, jumping to conclusions like that. I should have come to you first or considered that you knew Martin better than I ever could. I screwed up.'

Mia"s jaw twitched, but she said nothing. Ella soldiered on.

‘It"s just – it fit. The deaths, the timing, the things I'd seen. It wasn"t just a shot in the dark. But I know how it sounded. How it looked. I accused your boyfriend of being a murderer.'

Mia flinched like she"d been slapped. ‘Accused?' The word dripped venom, sizzled where it landed. ‘Pretty sure you did more than accuse, Dark.'

The comment hit like a punch to the gut. Fair, but it stung all the same.

‘I know, I know. And I"m sorry. More sorry than I can say. But Mia...I"m begging you. Just tell me I"m crazy. Tell me there"s nothing to it, that Martin"s not guilty.'

Mia"s silence stretched like taffy. Ella watched her partner"s face, looking for a tell. A twitch, a flicker. Anything to betray the thoughts churning behind that stony mask. But Mia had a hell of a poker face. Always had. It"s what made her such a damn good agent – and such an infuriating friend.

Friend. Is that what they'd still be, after all this? After the accusations, the radio silence? She wasn"t so sure. And yet – something niggled at the base of her skull. A persistent itch she couldn"t quite scratch. Because for all Mia"s stony silence, for all her righteous fury, there was something else lurking in those bloodshot eyes. Something that looked a hell of a lot like fear.

The realization hit Ella like a bat to the skull.

She straightened up and rested her palms on the glass.

‘You found him, didn't you?'

A muscle jumped in Mia"s jaw. For a second, Ella thought she"d crack. Spill the secret festering between them. But then those shutters slammed down, and Mia"s eyes went flat. Dead.

‘I think you should go,' Mia said. Four words, toneless. A verbal kick to the teeth.

Ella's stomach plummeted. She backed away from the glass, all the while trying to read beyond Mia's mask of whatever the hell she was trying to portray.

Ella asked, ‘Martin. When you looked at him, what did you see?'

But there was nothing. Just the cold, hard wall Ella had been flinging herself against for days. She searched that impassive expression, looking for a crack, just as Mia herself had taught her to do. Desperately seeking a glimmer of the wisecracking, ball-busting broad she"d trusted with her life. With her darkest secrets.

But there was only a stranger staring back. A woman carved from ice.

Ella"s throat closed. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. She blinked them back with practiced ease.

‘Okay,' she said. She stepped back, hands curling into fists. Forced herself to meet that flat, flinty gaze. ‘I'll go. Please be careful.'

Mia"s stare drilled into Ella like a jackhammer. The seconds ticked by. What was probably five seconds felt like an eternity. Her gut churned, firing up questions Ella didn't want to answer. Had she just torched more than a partnership? A friendship forged in the fires of shared blood, sweat, and tears?

Mia was mere months from hanging up her holster. From trading in her Glock for a pi?a coladas and sandy beaches. An easy life, hard-earned. And Ella had just kicked that sandcastle all to hell.

Maybe she should"ve kept her trap shut. Let sleeping dogs lie, let the chips fall. But then, that had never been her style. Not when lives were on the line. Not when Mia"s life was on the line.

The door slammed shut like a coffin lid, and Ella stood there, vision blurring as tears threatened to stage a coup. She blinked them back and choked down the glass in her throat.

This might be it. This could be the last she ever saw of Mia Ripley, the woman who'd taught her how to read the creases of a person's forehead, how to slip into an empty house without breaking protocol, how to uncover a person's life story from their thumb. The woman who'd plucked her from behind a desk and given her a job that teenaged Ella would never have believed was possible. Mia had been more than a mentor, more than a partner. She"d been the big sister Ella never had, the voice of reason in a world gone mad. They"d seen each other through hell and back, stitched up each other"s wounds, and chased away each other"s demons with cheap whiskey and cheaper humor. Mia had been there for Ella when no one else was, had believed in her when she couldn"t believe in herself. Had dragged her out of more metaphorical gutters than she could count.

And now, with a few ill-chosen words, Ella might have torched it all. Reduced a bond forged in blood and bullets to ashes in the wind.

Ella turned around and stumbled back to her car, legs heavy as lead. She slid behind the wheel and fished her phone from her pocket with numb fingers. The screen blurred and danced, but she managed to tap out a message.

Need to talk. You around?

She hit send before she could second-guess herself. Luca"s response pinged back instantly, as if he"d been waiting for her SOS.

Yes, please. Going out of my mind here.

Ella cranked the engine and peeled away. The sprawling estate receded in her rearview, and all Ella could do was ask herself the questions that still scurried around her head. Was Mia going to be okay? Did she know something that Ella didn't? And was Martin still out there?

There was a hurt in her chest that no amount of distance could ease. Their connection had crossed a line, and Ella wasn't sure if they could ever uncross it.