Mack swept the room anyway. Windows, exits, sight lines. He checked the lock on the corridor door. Satisfied, he positioned himself against the wall near the window—close enough to reach Alyssa in two strides, far enough not to crowd her. His weapon stayed holstered but accessible.
Claire returned with a first aid kit—a proper one, not the field version—and spent three minutes cleaning and redressing his arm while Alyssa introduced herself to the agents. She shook their hands, set her sketchbook on the table, and pulled out a chair, her gaze constantly darting to him.
He gave her a nod. I'm here. You're not alone.
She turned to the agents. "Where would you like me to start?"
CHAPTER TEN
The safehouse smelled like starch and chemicals. It made sense, given that it was above a dry cleaners, but Alyssa hadn't expected the scent to seep so thoroughly through the floorboards. Every breath carried a faint whiff of pressing fluid and cotton, a bizarrely domestic smell for a place designed to hide people from killers.
The apartment itself was small and functional—a living area, a kitchen, a single bedroom, a bathroom with a shower stall barely big enough to turn around in.
The furniture was government-issue—serviceable, bland, chosen by someone who'd never considered whether a person hiding for their life might want something pleasant to look at.
The windows had blackout curtains. The door had three locks and a deadbolt. A camera in the hallway was fed to a monitor in the living room, showing a grainy image of the stairwell. Two agents guarded the stairwell, while others posed as dry cleaner employees, keeping an eye on the street and alley.
Temporarily home sweet home.
Alyssa set her sketchbook on the kitchen counter and looked around. Mack was already moving through the space, checking windows, testing locks, and mapping exits. She watched him run his fingers along the window frame, check the fire escape access, inspect the bathroom's ventilation.
"How's the arm?" she asked.
"Fine."
"Mack."
He glanced at her, his tight shoulders falling slightly with exasperation. "Better than it was. Claire did a good job with the dressing."
Claire had cleaned and wrapped it with brisk efficiency. Alyssa had watched, struck by the way Claire handled him—professional, no-nonsense, the touch of someone who'd patched up operatives before and didn't have patience for their protests. Mack had submitted to the treatment with the same reluctant tolerance he'd shown when Alyssa had bandaged him in the SUV.
Two women, same stubborn man.
She pulled her hair from the ponytail and ran her fingers through it. Evening shadows were creeping in fast. Had it really only been twenty-four hours since the party? Twenty-four hours since Jenna was still alive?
The past day felt like it belonged to someone else's life. The woman who'd stood in Rob Thorne's ballroom sketching guests had been replaced by a woman who slept in borrowed clothes, bandaged bullet wounds, and gave federal testimony against her own brother.
The debrief—she didn't want to think about it, but her brain wouldn't stop replaying it. The recording device on the conference table, its red light steady and unblinking. Agent Rojas from the DEA, calm and methodical, asking her to walk through the party one more time. Special Agent Hendricks, taking notes on one side, Claire doing the same on the other.
And Mack. Against the wall by the window. His eyes on her the whole time, steady, anchoring, protective.
She'd opened the sketchbook and turned to Blake's portrait. Slid it across the table. "This is my brother," she'd said. "Blake Bennett. He was in the study at Rob Thorne's party, seated to the right of Mateo Vega."
The words had come out flat, factual, professional. The way Mack had instructed her. Stay with the facts. Don't speculate. If you don't know, say so.
She hadn't cried, hadn't hesitated. She'd given them everything—the faces, the room layout, the phone call, the six months of suspicion she'd ignored.
She'd answered every question, repeated details when asked, clarified timeline points, and identified the men in her sketches with the precision of someone who remembered every face she'd ever studied. Her brain worked that way, taking snapshots of faces to reproduce in her sketchbook.
When it was over, Agent Rojas had looked at her sketches for a long moment and said, "These are exceptional work, Ms. Bennett."
She'd nodded and thanked her. Hadn't told her that the exceptional work had cost her everything.
Now she was here. Above a dry cleaners that was a front for the DEA, in an apartment with blackout curtains and government furniture.
With the man she'd almost told she loved in the front seat of a shot-up SUV.
She wondered what Agent Rojas had thought when she'd slid that sketch of Blake across the table. Whether she'd seen the way Alyssa’s hand trembled before she steadied it. Whether she'd understood what it cost to say “This is my brother” in that flat, professional voice, as if the words were evidence rather than a eulogy for a relationship she'd spent her whole life trying to save.