He nodded. “Did you lose other people, too?”
Remembering the conversation they had both been privy to between Natasha and Liam, Della suspected he meant a boyfriend. “Yeah. I had someone.”
“Were you close?”
“I thought we were. I was wrong.”
“He hurt you?” he asked, and his eyes grew a tad brighter with obvious anger.
“Yeah.” She turned her drink in her hands, tracing a drop of condensation down the glass, finding the courage to ask the same question. “What about you?”
“I was only fourteen.” He paused as if that was the answer, then he added. “But yeah, there was someone.”
“Did you love her?” Della asked.
“Young love,” Chase said. “She was a friend of my sister. I’d had a crush on her for a long time. She’d finally stopped looking at me like the younger brother.”
“Do you ever go see her? I mean, I know she thinks you’re dead, but have you ever just watched her from afar to see how she’s doing?”
“No.” He cut his eyes down at his own glass. “She died.”
“How?” Della asked, her chest feeling full.
“She was on the plane with us when it went down.”
Della’s heart really crunched with pain then. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. But I saw her, sort of.”
Della picked up her straw and stirred the ice around. “You mean as a ghost?”
He made a face. “I guess that’s what you would call her. I was in pretty bad shape from the crash, and I was sort of there … with them. Or halfway there, if you know what I mean?”
She nodded. “I do. The same thing happened to me when I was … being Reborn.”
“I’m glad you decided not to stay there,” Chase said.
“You, too,” Della admitted.
He smiled. “You know, I think she knew about you.”
Della made a face. “Your girlfriend? How could she have known about me?”
“She said they could peek into the future and that I’d meet someone who was a real challenge.”
“That doesn’t mean it was me,” Della insisted.
He chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who is more of a challenge.”
She lifted her third finger up off her glass just a bit.
He saw it and laughed. “I had fun today.”
She bit down on her lip. “I’m paying you back for the ticket. Who knew they could charge four hundred dollars?”
“Yeah, but I was going fifty miles over the speed limit.”
Della frowned. “I was going fifty miles over the speed limit.”
“And you enjoyed every second of it,” he said. “I’d pay twice that much to see you having fun again.”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to pay it. I’m getting some compensation for working this case and I’ll reimburse you.”
“See, you’re a challenge,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of money, Della.”
“And you’re just a rich pain in the ass,” she said, but she couldn’t help but smile at him. Damn if her partner wasn’t coming off as more of a prince than a toad right now.
* * *
That night, Della laid in bed with the Smurfette doll sitting on the bedside table staring at her.
Why did the stupid thing mean something?
Because he’d bought it for her. Because he’d been embarrassed and still bought it for her. Because it was apparent that he’d been thinking about her when he saw it.
She recalled Holiday’s words of warning. Just be careful.
She would, she told herself.
Before she let any of this get carried away she wanted …
What did she want?
The answer came to her. She wanted to know for sure that she trusted Chase. Wanted to make sure that he wasn’t keeping more secrets.
While she was listing off wants, she grabbed her phone just to make sure she hadn’t missed a call from her mom.
No call.
She half-ass debated calling again, but then it just hurt too much.
If her mom didn’t care enough to call back, Della wasn’t calling her.
* * *
Thursday, right after classes, Della’s phone rang. Expecting it to be her mom, she hurried and caught the call without even looking at the number. It wasn’t her mom. Burnett again—needing to see her. She took off, and swore not to think about her mom again. The camp leader was waiting on his cabin’s front porch. Not a good sign.
She followed him into his back office because Holiday had someone in hers. He leaned against the desk and motioned for her to sit down in the chair. One glance around, and Della knew Holiday had done a room makeover—a crystal paperweight sat on the desk, along with more colorful pictures of Hannah, Burnett’s little pride and joy. In the corner of the room hung a plant, a live plant. The room no longer looked so stark.
Or it didn’t until Della noted Burnett’s expression.
Something was wrong.
“What is it?” Della asked.
“We tried to run down Damian Bond in California. He’s not staying where he told the girlfriend he was, and he was let go from his stunt job two days ago. But I checked, and so far, he’s still scheduled to fly back on Friday afternoon. So I was thinking, why don’t you take tonight off, stay here, and get some rest.”
“It’s because I slept late yesterday, isn’t it? I was fine today.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “Well, maybe a little bit. You’ve been going nonstop. I know you were out running last night until almost two. You can’t keep pushing yourself like this. I know, I’m an agent. You need to calm down, breathe.”
Della held her temper in check. “I’m fine. I don’t need that much sleep anymore. You should know that, too. And I’m still breathing. Can’t you hear me?” She inhaled.
He frowned. “I can see it in your eyes. This case is all you think about. You have to learn to let go. It can eat you up inside if you don’t learn to set it aside.”
“I’ll let go and relax when we find Natasha and Liam. You told me yourself, they don’t have much time.”
He exhaled in frustration and Della sensed that he knew something more. What was he not telling her? “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, she wanted to scream, but she forced herself to stay seated and ask again in a calm voice. Hey … if he wanted her calm to work on the case, she’d give him calm … even if it killed her.