Page 146 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

Jules forced her eyes open and contemplated the pad before lifting a hand in a helpless gesture. “I think so. I can’t picture his eyes to make sure. All I have are my notes.” She coughed again,less ferociously this time. Dante reached for the glass, but she shook her head.

“Okay. No worries. We’re making progress.” He flipped the pad to study it. Still too little to identify the guy, but they were definitely getting closer to solving the puzzle. One piece at a time. “This is great, Jules. Amazing, actually.” And almost unfathomable, given what she had to be going through at the time. She truly was one of the strongest and most courageous people he knew. And he’d blown any chance they might have had with his ill-thought-out plan for their first date.Focus, de Marco. All you need to do right now is keep her safe.Turning the pad around, he rested it on his knees and scrutinized it.

The question was, if the latest piece had nearly cost Jules her life, what price would she have to pay to get the next one?

After providinghim with those additional details, Jules had fallen asleep again. Several of her co-workers, including her captain, had filtered in and out. They stood next to the bed, speaking in hushed voices and touching her knee or arm to let her know they were there, that they were thinking of her. Dante got that. Whenever a colleague of his was injured in the line of duty, he and his fellow officers would do the same, deeply aware that at any moment, during any given shift, they could end up being the ones in a hospital bed. Or a morgue.

Before leaving, they would shoot Dante, who had moved to a chair in the far corner to be out of the way, a generally approving look. Likely because he still wore his uniform and appeared to be there to watch out for her. Which he was.

Twice he had slipped from the room when she had visitors to find the public bathrooms or grab a coffee or snack from thecafeteria. Each time the urge to get back, make sure no one was getting close to her who shouldn’t be, gripped him, and he was never gone for more than five or ten minutes.

When visiting hours ended and dark shadows crept across the room, he returned to the chair next to her bed and switched on the light above her to its lowest setting, giving the room a soft glow.

Around ten, a doctor came in to examine her. Dante waited in the hall, his back to the wall, drumming his thighs with both hands the way Jules had done in the hospital elevator when they were trying to get to her mother.

After the woman in pale blue scrubs, stethoscope hanging around her neck, exited the room, nodded at him, and headed to the next patient, Dante returned to Jules’ side. She sat up in bed, holding a cup of water. A little color had returned to her cheeks, and she looked more alert than she had since he’d arrived. When her gaze landed on him, she leaned sideways to set the cup on the table. “You’re still here.”

Dante tried to gauge her tone. Relief? Annoyance? Given their interactions to date, probably both. At least she sounded a bit better, less hoarse, and her voice was stronger than it had been earlier. “I am.”

“I can’t get rid of you, can I?” She pressed a fist to her mouth as she coughed lightly.

“I mean, if you order me out of the room, I’ll go.”

“Not far though, right? Like when I ordered you out of my house and you parked at the curb.”

Dante huffed a laugh. “Not far, no.”

“The doctor said my oxygen saturation levels look good. He thinks I’ll be able to leave tomorrow.” She shot him a look. “I’m planning to go to a hotel.”

“Actually,” Dante dragged the green faux-leather chair closer to the bed and lowered himself onto it, “I have another plan in mind.”

She pursed her lips. “Is that right?”

“Yeah.” Dante tugged his work phone from his shirt pocket and powered it down before doing the same with his personal phone. Given how tech-savvy their perp had shown himself to be, no sense taking any chances he was somehow listening in. He nodded at the burner phone on the tray next to her water. “Mind if I turn that off?”

She waved a hand toward it. “Go ahead. I admit I’m intrigued about thisplanof yours.”

He grinned as he shut off her phone and returned it to the table. “All right, here it is. Since we can’t seem to get ahead of this guy, I truly believe our best bet is to disappear for a bit, until he can be brought in.”

Jules raised her eyebrows. “Disappear? Where?”

He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “My parents have a place in Kananaskis County, a couple of hours from here. They use it as a cottage, so no one is there right now. We can lay low for a few days, give the PD a chance to bring in our perp.”

She gestured to his uniform. “Don’t you have to work?”

“Actually, since you’re a valuable witness and your life is clearly being threatened, my boss has authorized me to provide security to you for the next few days. So, this is my work.”

He watched those emotions playing across her face again. Was there any chance she trusted him enough to go away with him for a few days? To hedge his bet, he added, “I promise you’ll be going into protective custody with Officer de Marco and notFrat Boy, as you are so fond of calling him.”

Her lips twitched slightly at that. Even so, she didn’t speak for another minute or two, which felt a lot like the stretch of time a defendant had to wait for the jury to return with its verdict.

Finally, she blew out a breath. “All right, Officer de Marco. You’ve caught me in a moment of weakness. I’ll go with you. Just for a few days, though. If your colleagues haven’t captured this guy within the week, I’m coming back and resuming my life. Understood?” The long speech must have irritated her throat, as a fit of coughing gripped her until she took another sip of water.

Relief coursed through him. Even if she didn’t fully trust him, at least she trusted him more than she trusted the killer not to come after her again. Dante would take it. “Understood.”

Now all he had to do was prepare himself for the fact that when Jules returned home in a week and resumed her life, it would very likely be one that did not include him.

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