Page 79 of Flint’s Strike

If you change your mind, I’m here. Always.

She signs off with a flurry of emojis. Two hearts, a hug, and what I think is supposed to be a martini glass.

I’m not ready to go back to the conference room yet. Especially if Eliot is still there. So I pick up the phone and do what I do best.

My job.

Eliot

The door to the conference room clicks shut, and Nate picks up an orange pen bright enough to belong next to the neon yarn Marlene encouraged me to buy.

“I like you, Flint. You know your shit, take the time to deliver reports in person, and you’re pretty quick on the uptake.”

I’d thank him, but his tone is somewhere south of lethal, and I brace my hands on the back of one of the chairs, digging my fingers into the rough fabric.

“You want to tell me why my partner walked in fifteen minutes late this morning, without her coffee, wrecked, and you show up three hours later wearing that same wreckage?”

For fuck’s sake. He’s giving me the “dad” talk. I stare him down, though he’s at least two inches taller than I am.

“If she wanted you to know, she’d have told you.”

He inclines his head, makes a soft sound, and exchanges the pen for another—neon green this time.

“Conventionally, this is about the time I’d be getting in your face to say, ‘If you hurt her again, I’ll make you disappear.’ But there isn’t a damn thing about me that’s conventional. And Parker doesn’t need me to fight her battles for her.”

He leans a hip against the wall, staring at the whiteboard for a beat before returning his gaze to me. “Parker owns four guns I know about and probably one I don’t. Finding bodies and listening to murderers recount their crimes in detail is literally her job. If you hurt her again, you won’t have to worry about me. She’ll be the one to kill you. But she’ll rope me in to help dismember the body, dig half a dozen graves all over west Texas, and bury the pieces under endangered native plants. So…fix whatever it is you broke, and do it quick. Because my hands have never been softer, and the last thing I want to do is start gardening again.”

Nate spreads his fingers in front of him, examining his nails and cuticles like he’s a fucking hand model.

“We on the same page, Flint?” he asks.

How the hell am I supposed to answer that? If I had any idea how to fix things with Parker, I would.

In the end, I give him the only answer I can. “Yup.”

Nate studies me, seems to decide I’m being honest, and tosses my thumb drive back to me. “We’ll relay this info to APD. Unless you have anything else to take care of here…?”

“Tell Parker—” I swallow the rest of that sentence, shake my head, and back toward the door. “I gotta go brief my boss and check on the lab reports. Anything else breaks, you’ll hear from me.”

“Flint?” Nate calls a half second before I cross the threshold. “Unless Parker says otherwise, next time, send an email.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Parker

Austin doesn’t believe in summer evenings. It’s all one brutal day until night takes over. The sun’s glare cuts through the windshield as I pull into Isabel’s driveway.

I can’t see a damn thing until I’m practically on the porch. Belle barks from inside the house, excited yips as she spins in circles through the front window.

Grace opens the door before I can knock, one hand on Belle’s collar.

“We were starting to get worried,” she says with a frown. “You’re never late.”

“Traffic.” I hold up the store-bought cheesecake as evidence. “And the H-E-B was packed.”

Grace stares at the plastic clamshell container, her brows pinched together.

Shit.