No militia hitmen or dirty cops from my old precinct. No friends or neighbors who’d heard I was in town. No U.S. Marshals coming to tell me there was another windowless van seat with my name on it.

  I exhaled, tucked the pistol back into its holster, and turned the deadbolt. When I opened the door, Seth watched me from the other side, his expression still closed off, but less hostile now.

  He was in uniform, his police cruiser parked beside my car in front of the room, and he watched me with unreadable eyes. “Can we talk?”

  I wasn’t so sure I was capable of speaking, but I nodded and stood aside. He glanced around as if to make sure no one saw him. Then he stepped into the room, and I shut the door behind us.

  For long seconds, we stood there. Looking at each other. Then not. Looking at each other again. Focused on anything but each other.

  From his body language alone, Seth was still wary of me. He studied me like I was both a complete stranger and someone who’d hurt him. Probably because I was both. He didn’t sit. Neither did I. In the narrow strip of ugly carpet between the hard queen bed and the dresser, we faced each other. He folded his arms, and for the life of me, I couldn’t decide how to read that. Defensive and closed off, yes, but it had also been kind of a habit of mine when I’d still been a uniformed officer. It was something to do with my hands that didn’t mean inadvertently resting them on or near a weapon and making the other person nervous. Folded arms weren’t exactly a warm and welcoming posture, but they were a step up from casually resting a hand on a taser or my pistol or next to a can of pepper spray.

  His expression didn’t offer up much either. Seth had been on duty and in uniform the first few times I’d met him, and he’d always been the epitome of the good, friendly cop. He was gentle and sweet, much quicker to smile than to scowl, and he’d won me over so fast I’d broken my own lifelong rule against dating cops. That rule had been cultivated by years of working alongside cops who were rotten to the core, even if they managed to put on a “good cop” façade that was about as deep and convincing as the oak veneer peeling off this motel room’s dresser.

  Seth wasn’t one of those cops. He was the rare good apple who hadn’t been made bad by an entire barrel of rotten ones. I was used to seeing him smiling even when he was in uniform, and I was used to believing him when he did.

  He wasn’t smiling now, and it was a solid minute before he finally broke the silent standoff. Shifting his weight, he tightened his arms across his chest. When his gaze landed on the holster on my hip, and his jaw tightened. He flicked his eyes back up to meet mine, and his features were hard as he slipped into cop mode. “You have a permit for that?”

  “Indiana has CCW reciprocity with Idaho.” Not that I was concealing the weapon, but I played along; he was probably trying to find some kind of equilibrium in this situation. Some kind of control. I wasn’t surprised he was falling back on being a cop. Keeping my voice calm, I inclined my head. “Do you need to see my permit?”

  From the way his jaw worked, I thought he might actually ask to see it. All he said was, “So… you really are from Indiana.”

  “I am.” I’d told him as much last night, but he was probably still trying to absorb everything. Maybe even catch me in another lie. Hard to say.

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. “You told me you’d never been east of the Mississippi.” Sighing, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Part of your cover story?” Before I could answer that, he said, “I guess now I get why my mom always thought you sounded like you’re from the Midwest.”

  “Yeah.” I shifted my weight, trying to subtly shake off some of this nervous energy. Then I decided to offer up another card: “My witness inspector said it made placing me a lot easier. Since I have a relatively neutral accent, all things considered, I won’t stand out in most places. Not unless I went to Alabama or something.”

  The ghost of a laugh passed across his face. “Yeah. You might’ve stood out there.”

  Our eyes locked again, and what little humor there was… wasn’t anymore.

  I swallowed. “Okay. You wanted to talk.” I showed my palms. “Let’s talk.”

  He stared at the nasty floor between us for a good twenty, thirty seconds. Finally, he spoke, his voice uncharacteristically shaky: “Look, everything you told me last night—I believe you. I do.” He looked at me. “But I don’t know you. What… What do you even want?”

  I moistened my parched lips. That was a complicated question. I didn’t dare tell him the whole truth—that I wanted us to pick up where we’d left off—because that would probably chase him right out the door. Instead, I gave him an honest but incomplete answer: “You deserved to know.”

  “Okay, but…” Seth rolled his shoulders, revealing the stiffness that had gathered there. A pang of sadness and longing hit me along with all the memories of rubbing his shoulders after he’d had a rough shift. I wished so badly that I could do that now, and my own shoulders barely held under the guilt of being the reason he was this stressed out. He reached up to rub the back of his neck, then let his hand fall onto his police belt with a smack. “What happens next?”

  I swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  His expression wasn’t nearly as unreadable as it had been earlier. The hurt was raw, right there at the surface so I couldn’t miss it, and I thought his eyes were this close to welling up.

  “Tell me what you want,” he demanded. “Because I don’t buy that you came all the way here just tell me and then”—he flailed a hand toward the door—“ride off into the goddamned sunset like everything’s okay.”

  Oh, hell. Maybe keeping the whole truth myself hadn’t been a good idea after all.

  “Okay. Well.” I rolled my own shoulders, which had been painfully tense for months now. “The God’s honest truth…” I hesitated, running a hand through my hair. “The truth is that I love you, Seth. Yeah, I may look different now, and I have a different name, but the man you knew—that’s still me. And I still love you.” I took a deep breath and made myself face him even as hurt and anger played out in his expression. “Maybe it’s selfish, but it’s not just that I’m in love with you. Being with you was the only time I ever felt like me. The rest of this identity—it’s like constantly wearing shoes that don’t fit. With you, I didn’t feel like Andrew or Brandon. I just felt like me. And I miss that.”

  Expression pained, he avoided my gaze for a long moment. “Except I don’t know who you are. The person I knew didn’t really exist.”

  “I did exist. I do exist. I just have a different name.”

  “And a completely different history, and…” He threw up his hands. “I know how witsec works, okay? They erase everything.”

  “Yeah, they do. And yeah, I’ll have to fill you in on my past. But you got to know me once before. All I’m asking is for you to get to know me again, and see for yourself that even with the details changing, I’m still the man you knew.” I paused, then decided to lay down all my cards: “I don’t blame you if you can’t do this because you don’t know me.” Voice wavering, I added, “I don’t even know me.”

  Seth studied me, chewing his bottom lip.

  I wanted so badly to beg him to give me a chance, or to hear me out some more, or… something. I didn’t want to overwhelm him with information. I didn’t want to withhold important things, either. Where were the lines? How much was too much? When was it not enough? This wasn’t something I’d ever had to navigate before, and the “how to talk to your boyfriend after your witsec cover is blown” section at the bookstore was woefully limited.

  He exhaled hard. “I have questions. A lot of them.”

  I was afraid to ask if he was just satisfying his curiosity, or if he was actually considering reconnecting with me. Either way, I owed him any answers he wanted. “Okay.”

  “For starters…” Leaning against the motel’s shitty dresser, he studied me again, eyes slightly narrowed the way they did whenever he was trying to read me. “The vast majority of people in witness protection are criminals who’ve turned state’s evidence. It’s something like ninety percent, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Closer to ninety-five, from what the marshals told me.”

  “Right. So…” He inclined his head and raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m not one of them. I was targeted by a right-wing white supremacist militia group. They not only had a shitload of cops on their payroll to protect them, there were a lot of cops who were members of the militia itself.”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  “Yeah. And I took them on.” I showed my palms and looked him right in the eyes. “I swear to you, I am not a criminal. I was not turning state’s evidence. I didn’t kill anyone.” I paused. “I… Okay, I didn’t murder anyone. When my partner and I were pinned down, I took out two of the guys trying to kill us, but—”

  “So that was self-defense. I get it.”

  “Yeah.” I swallowed. “Bottom line, I wasn’t in the program because I was a criminal turning on my organization. There were just a lot of people who were very motivated to keep me from testifying, and a lot of them were cops.”

  Seth gulped, nodding slowly. “Okay. Okay, good.” I wondered how worried he’d actually been about that. If he was just covering all his bases, or if he’d legitimately thought I might’ve been a criminal. I supposed either way was reasonable. Statistics being what they were, I’d have guessed “criminal” right off the bat, too.

  He shifted again, his police belt creaking softly with the motion. Avoiding my gaze, he worked his jaw.

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” I whispered. “About me. About why I was in witness protection.” I spread my palms. “I’m an open book now. I wasn’t lying because I was running around on you or because I wanted to hide anything from you.” My voice nearly cracked as I added, “I’d have told you everything if I could have.”

  He still said nothing.

  Maybe I needed to offer up another card. Give him something.

  Before I could say another word, though, the radio on Seth’s belt crackled to life. A call. An officer needed close by to deal with a domestic dispute.

  Seth’s eyes flicked toward me. Then he pressed the button and told the dispatcher to show him responding.

  My heart sank.

  No, no, no. Don’t leave. Not yet.

  With a sigh, he turned toward the door, but he didn’t move. “I, um… I have to go.”

  “I know.” I took a breath. “Can we talk again, though? After your shift? Something?”

  “We…” His eyes flicked to my bag, which was still sitting on the bed. “You’re getting ready to leave, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I’m only in Idaho to see you. If you’re done with me, I have no reason to stay.”

  Seth flinched. I cringed inwardly; I hadn’t meant to sound manipulative or passive aggressive. It really was the truth—as attached as I’d become to this place, the only thing I had left in Coeur d’Alene that warranted a cross-country drive was him. If we were done, then why would I hang around?

  Before I could clarify what I had and hadn’t meant, Seth pinned me with a look. “I think we need to talk more. Just… Stay another night, okay? I’ll come by after shift.”

  I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but the words gave me a rush of optimism I hadn’t had in months. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

  Then he was gone. I understood—when a call came in, he had to go. Been there, done that.

  But he’d be back. He wanted me to stay. That had to mean something, right?

  As the silence set in, though, my optimism cooled. Seth wasn’t happy to see me. He wanted answers, yes. And he deserved them. But he wasn’t interested in rekindling our relationship. This was about closure for him, not reconciliation for us. When he was satisfied he had the truth, he’d dismiss me just like he had last night.

  This was over. Our relationship was over. I was one of Seth’s ex-boyfriends, and the best I could hope for was that he would remember me somewhat more fondly than he did some of the jerks who’d come before.

  I sat on the edge of the hard bed and sighed into the stillness.

  I’d gone into witness protection because that group of white supremacists had wanted me to pay with my life.

  These days, even though I was still alive, I wondered sometimes if they’d succeeded.

  Chapter 5

  Seth

  The call was a straightforward one—a dispute over street parking in a residential area. Sometimes I thought half my job was gently educating homeowners who thought they could dictate who was and was not allowed to park on the street in front of their property. Honestly, that was fine. The mundane, petty shit was a hell of a lot less stressful or dangerous than felony stops and dead bodies. Fortunately, neither of those things were all that common here.

  It was an especially good thing today. I’d just barely had the mental capacity to understand and mediate situation, not to mention the one I encountered on the next call: a dispute between a pair of neighbors who were incensed over… a bird.

  “I realize it was on your property,” I’d carefully explained to the angry homeowner. “But it’s a wild animal. Your neighbor has no more control over it than you do.”

  “But she feeds them!” the angry man shouted. “She encourages them to come into the neighborhood, and then they eat my plants and shit all over my patio! It’s disgraceful!”

  In the end, I’d convinced the man I could not actually ticket his neighbor for putting up bird feeders, and he grudgingly accepted that neither he nor his neighbor could control where wild birds went.

  The streets of Coeur d’Alene are not for the faint of heart.

  My amusement over my own thought faded as I drove away from the call. Yeah, this town was pretty quiet compared to other places. And on some level, I supposed it didn’t surprise me that the U.S. Marshals were stashing witness protection folks out here. They were probably everywhere.

  It was just hard to fathom that the man I’d loved for three years had been…

  Well, he hadn’t been a lie. He’d been a real person. Just… everything I knew about him was a lie. Wasn’t it?

  Where were the lines between his persona and reality? What didn’t I know about him? Or what did I “know” that was actually a lie? God, that was an overwhelming thought.

  Okay. Maybe I needed to start with the big stuff. Who he was, where he’d been, and how he’d wound up in my town and my life. And as surreal as it was, I was almost certain I remembered the incident and the trial he’d been involved in. A few of the details he’d given me this morning had rung some bells in my mind, and I knew I’d seen headlines and heard other officers talking about a cop-infested white supremacist group getting broken up in Indiana. It had to be the same one.

  The whole thing had been big news all over the country. Maybe even worldwide. Law enforcement circles were especially fixated on it because that blue code of silence ran deep; didn’t matter how corrupt or criminal a cop was, it was far worse for another cop to rat him out.

  I remembered being disgusted when I’d heard some of my coworkers hinting that the two detectives who’d died—one murder, one suicide—had had it coming after turning on and testifying against their fellow cops. I’d kept a lot of my colleagues at arm’s length (or more) ever since. In fact, I’d been seriously rethinking my career since the most recent verdicts dropped, but I couldn’t even process any of that right now.

  Because at no time did it ever occur to me that one of the “dead” detectives was apparently the man I’d been dating the last three years. He had to be, right? That was how the U.S. Marshals disappeared people into witsec: fake their deaths, “bury” them, and then secret them away to an undisclosed location under a new name.

  Maybe I needed to do some digging and get some answers. Especially since I wasn’t so sure my head was in the game today. Because… damn. Now that I thought about it, I’d done some dumb shit on those calls, all because my mind had been anywhere but there. There’d been another person inside one of the houses, and I hadn’t asked them to come out under the pretense of giving a statement (but really so I could have eyes on them and any potential weapons). I hadn’t casually called for another officer to come by as backup. That would’ve been ostensibly to speed things along by having two of us taking down statements and smoothing down hackles. It wouldn’t have been at all because the owner of the vehicle in the disputed parking space had a number of stickers on the rear window indicating a love of weapons and a deep-seated desire to be a patriotic vigilante.

  I pressed my elbow under the window and rubbed my neck. Fuck. I was out of it. All through my career, I’d been praised for my instincts and intuition, but both were fully MIA today. I had no business on patrol like this. That was asking to, at best, overlook something important at a scene. At worst, it was asking to get someone killed—myself included.

  As much as I hated letting my personal life interfere with my job, I was as human as the next cop. For the sake of public safety as well as officer safety, the fact was there were times I had to swallow my pride and admit I wasn’t in a frame of mind to be a good cop.

  Not that I would admit it out loud. In the name of getting caught up on some phantom paperwork, I returned to the precinct. The desk sergeant shrugged it off; as long as I kept my radio on and responded if someone called for backup, he didn’t care if I stayed off the street for a while.

  The bullpen was mostly empty, fortunately, since almost everyone was either out on patrol or taking an early lunch. I grabbed a cup of coffee I didn’t need just so I’d look like a normal cop doing normal work, and I sat down at my desk. I pulled up a search engine and, despite the unease creeping up my spine, I started typing his name and rank. I’d barely written half his last name when the drop bar offered suggestions:

  Detective Brandon Gaines murder

  Detective Brandon Gaines Valecroft militia

  Detective Brandon Gaines Brotherhood of Indiana testimony