Page 15 of Cruel Kiss

"Mom," he calls back, and his voice isn't scared, it'simpressed, which somehow makes it worse and better all at once. "It's a lady. She's got a badge. Like a real one. It's actually really cool."

Ronan goes white.

I've seen this man be a lot of things. Calm. Cold. Amused. Dangerous. I watched him shoot a man on my stairs without his hand so much as shaking.

I have never once seen him look like this.

He looks at me, and there's a whole sentence in his eyes that he doesn't say out loud in front of my son.

"I've got it," I tell him in a hoarse rasp. "Take the kids in the kitchen. Watch the pancakes."

He hesitates. He wants to control. But we both know that the optics of him being here, now, like this, with whoever is waiting for us… It is just less suspicious if I put on the stay-at-home-SuperMom mask and hope this person goes away easily.

Resigned, he puts a hand on Hayden's shoulder and steers him back toward the smell of breakfast. "This way, chief. I need your help to flip your sister's pancake. I don't think I'm strong enough to turn that thing over without your muscles getting involved." It's so gentle, easy, like nothing's wrong at all. The speed with which he changes personalities scares me sometimes.

"But I wanna talk to the?—"

"Come on, my man," Ronan says, forcing himself back into the Pancake Man voice. "I know you don't wanna hear Bella throw a fit if we burn one of Minnie's ears off."

Hayden keeps mumbling protests, bewitched by the new arrival's badge, whatever that means, but he lets himself be led away.

Just like that, the hall is empty except for me and the open doorway.

I take slow, nervous steps down it like I'm walking a pirate's plank.

Then I turn a corner and see what I'm facing.

There's a woman standing on my stoop. Stern and serious, dark hair pulled back tight. A gray blazer that means business, sensible shoes, and a small leather wallet held open in her hand with a badge in it and a photo ID that says a lot of things in official-looking print.

Among those things are three undeniable letters.

FBI.

"Mrs. Bradshaw?" she says.

"It's Meadows," I say automatically. "Bradshaw was my married name."

"Right." Her tight face draws even tighter. She closes the wallet and tucks it into her jacket. "Well, Ms. Meadows, it's about time we crossed paths. There are some things that you and I need to discuss."

5

CALI

I stand in my doorway holding the frame for dear life, because I'm pretty sure it's the only thing keeping me upright.

"Okay," I say in a voice that is somehow so calm, cool, and collected that I feel like I've been possessed by the ghost of Clint Eastwood. "Discuss what?"

The woman doesn't answer right away. She looks past me down the hall, toward the kitchen, where I can hear Isabella laughing about something and Hayden saying "no, you have to flip it FAST" in his most authoritative voice. I can smell the pancakes. Butter and batter, warm and sweet, the best smell in the world.

She drags her eyes back to me. "You've got kids?"

I get the feeling that she already knows the answer. "Yes. Two."

"That's good. That matters." She tucks a hand in her pocket. "Is there somewhere we can talk privately?"

"Here's fine." I don't step back, don't invite her in, don't offer her coffee. She's not getting coffee, definitely not the good stuffI gave Ronan this morning. That is reserved for people who've earned it, and I don't yet know what this woman has earned.

"Fair enough." She reaches into her jacket, and I flinch before I can stop myself, but all she pulls out is a business card. She holds it out for me to take. "Special Agent Gia Mercer. FBI. You can call the field office and confirm. I'd want you to, if I were you."