Dead in the Water
Page 20
Nick hustled around the table, filing out behind Madeline. “Hey, are you going to be all right on this one?” he asked in a low voice, coming up beside her. “I know it hits close to home.”
She’d been with BAU for five years and Nick for four. They’d worked together on several close-call cases. Nick was privy to a little more about her past and what drove her than some of the others on the team.
He used to know better than to ask her such a question.
Ever since he started dating Aubrey Flood, an ER doctor he reconnected with two months ago while trying to stop a copycat killer, he caught a severe case of feelings and started lowering his walls around everyone.
It was equal parts inviting and invasive.
Straightening her posture as she quickened her pace, Madeline pulled on a tight smile. “When have you ever known me not to be all right?” No matter how challenging, scary or gruesome things got, she didn’t simply muster through. She stayed at the top of her game, always, and never let anything, personal or otherwise, stand in the way of her doing her job.
He ran a hand through his dirty blond hair. “What we do is tough. It takes everything we have until there isn’t much left at times, but we rise to meet the demands. That doesn’t mean we aren’t human. It’s natural if a case gets to us sometimes.”
Madeline appreciated the well-meaning concern, no matter how unnecessary. “I should be asking how you’re doing now that you’re finally in a serious relationship.”
“Better than I’ve been in a long time since falling for Aubrey.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips, but whenever he mentioned her name his eyes lit up in an unmistakable way. “I highly recommend monogamy. You should give it a try.”
She shrugged as she entered her office.
Who had time for love, much less an opportunity to find it? Nick’s situation was an outlier. Then there was Liam and Lorelai Parker, the administrative assistant to Director Branson. A slow-burn office romance that was about to be sealed with marital vows didn’t count either.
She slipped on her navy blue windbreaker that had FBI printed across the back.
Nick grabbed his jacket from across the hall. “But I’m guessing your earlier deflection means I struck a nerve.”
More like an old wound that healed a little bit each time she rescued a child, but she didn’t confirm or deny his astute assessment.
“And for the record,” Nick continued, “you never answered my question.”
“I’m fine.” She’d joined the FBI with the goal of becoming a kidnapping expert. Sure, whenever they got a case like this, it burned Madeline’s gut that another innocent child had been snatched, but this was what she lived for: a chance to save a young life and spare a family an agonizing loss.
She was going to do absolutely everything in her power to bring Emma Rhodes home alive and well. No matter the personal cost.
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9780369709189
Dead in the Water
Copyright © 2021 by Janice Kay Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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