PROLOGUE
FIVE YEARS AGO…
Noah Chase stood at the floor-to-ceiling window with two fingers of Casamigos and watched the last of the light die over the water. October on Whidbey Island had a kind of darkness different from Seattle's. It faded slowly, as if the sky were making up its mind on which direction it wanted to go, but it always chose night.
He'd bought this house for the view. Had said he would, the first time he'd stood on the ferry and looked out at the island and thought, someday. Twelve years of someday, and he now had the window and the show and the bottle of tequila he was working through because the thing sitting in his jacket pocket had made this the worst night of the best time of his life.
He took a sip of his beverage and stared at a boat as it floated by. Puget Sound protected secrets much like he did—deeply, coldly, and without apology.
He heard her car pull into the driveway—Ziggy drove a ten-year-old Audi she refused to replace because it had never once broken down on her, but the damn thing was so loud he could hear her coming a mile away.
Three minutes later, her heels hit the hardwood, and the door swung shut behind her with the confidence of a womanwho hadn't knocked in years. Professionally, she was the best damn thing that had ever happened to him.
And in the last two months, she’d been good for him personally. But he wasn’t good for her. He wasn’t good for anyone—a truth he needed to remind himself of.
“I can’t believe you haven't unpacked anything while I was gone.” Her voice bounced off bare walls. “You moved in last weekend.”
He didn't turn around. “I’ll get there eventually.” Living in a home that he’d bought with his own money had been a pipe dream when he’d been a teenager. It wasn’t just because of where he'd come from. Or that he’d ended up being raised by his aunt and uncle on the East Coast, where they’d had very little, and he never felt like he fit in. He just never believed he deserved the house, the life, or sometimes even the job. He still didn’t.
"The boxes are a cry for help—not to mention a fire hazard."
He heard her set something down on the coffee table. Probably the leather folder she carried everywhere, the one with her initials embossed in the corner that her older brother had bought her when she’d been promoted to producer. "Also, your living room currently has the energy of a man in witness protection, which—okay, fair, you spend more time either at the office, or on the road chasing down a story. But still, you could do more than set up a TV, a sofa, and a place for frozen dinners.”
He couldn’t help it, he smiled. Ziggy had a way with words. She always had. It’s one of the things that had drawn him to her both on the job and off. He’d cared for her for as long as he could remember. Longer than he’d allowed himself to let her into his personal life. Into his bed, doing something he swore he’d never do—mixing work with pleasure.
“I’ve got news,” she said with excitement radiating off her vocal cords. Ziggy's passion was evident in everything shetouched. He admired that about her, but tonight, it tore him apart.
“We need to talk about?—”
“This is about the Salazar story.” Her heels crossed the floor. He tracked her reflection in the glass—Ziggy in motion was a spectacular thing. She swept across the room with style and grace, even when she was all jazzed up, like tonight.
When he didn’t turn to face her, greeting her with the same enthusiasm he usually had when they were working on an explosive story, she stopped somewhere behind his left shoulder. “Can you turn around and look at me?”
He took a large gulp of courage instead. “I need to discuss something?—”
“We need to move on the Salazar story. Time is pushing in on us.” She moved around him, planting herself between him and the window, forcing eye contact. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold outside, her blonde hair still in the knot she wore at the station, one piece falling loose as it always did by the end of the day. Her eyes had that glow—the one she got when she'd found something—a thread, a crack, an angle nobody else had seen.
He knew that look. He loved that look. Tonight, he hated it. “It’s not the kind of story that can carry the show. And it’s not the story I want to lead with for the launch of my new show.”
“You’ve been avoiding this story, and I don’t understand why. It’s a great way to launchUnfiltered with Noah Chase.”
He’d done more than avoid it. He hadn’t even chased a single lead, mostly because he didn’t have to. He could blow the story wide open if he wanted to.
“We have better stories, and I want to work the launch around them.”
“Come on. The world goes wild over true crime. This is the kind of piece that would give you killer ratings the first week out of the gate.” She cocked her head. “Besides, I’ve got a real lead.Angel Salazar—the son—after his mother died, he went east. He was raised by his mother’s cousin and her husband in South Carolina. I’ve got an?—”
“We’re killing the story.”
That wasn’t too hard to find out. More than one reporter had found his aunt, Kristian Sevoir, and her husband, Canon Colter. It had never gone further than that. His secret was safe.
She blinked. "What? We can’t do that. The network isn’t going to let us. They want it. They’re more hot for it than I am.”
He finished his drink, turned and set his glass on the coffee table. During those few seconds, he made a decision he’d been contemplating ever since he’d been handed the story. Ever since everyone at the station, and those involved with launchingUnfiltered with Noah Chasethree months from now, thought interviewing a serial killer and his son would be a great news piece. If it were anyone other than Matias Salazar and his kid, Angel, Noah might think that was true. “I know how to bury it, and you’re going to help me do it.”
“Excuse me?” She glared at him with those sharp eyes that could make him agree to almost anything. “Why would I do that?”
“Because as a friend, I’m begging you.”