Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(87)

“I don’t know,” Kylie said, filling the silence Kellan just now recognized as having gone on for half a minute with a nervous laugh. “I guess that sounds a little new-agey and weird. You probably think I’m crazy.”

“No.” He shook his head and let out the unvarnished truth. “I don’t think you’re crazy at all. In fact, I know exactly how you feel.”

Because dangerous or not, he wanted to move forward with Isabella Moreno.





23





Isabella took the steps to the Thirty-Third precinct two at a time, her arms overloaded with case files and her chest chock-full of determination. Okay, so it was a little early by intelligence standards. After all, big and bad tended to favor the middle of the night over eight o’clock on a Monday morning. But she still had a metric ton of case details to catch up on from the day and a half she’d missed, an update to grab from the crime scene techs who were processing her apartment, security footage to review, reports from the fire marshal to check on, and damn, she needed to find a cup of—

“Chamomile?” Hollister asked, lifting a to-go cup with a tea tag dangling over the edge from the blotter on his desk.

Isabella blinked past all the whoa bouncing around in her chest. “What are you doing here?” she asked, hearing the sheer gracelessness of the question only after it had crossed her lips.

But her partner just broke into a knowing grin. “Good morning to you, too.” He crossed the otherwise empty office space, trading the cup of tea for half the files in her grasp.

“Sorry. And thanks.” Her cheeks prickled with the full force of her chagrin, and yeah, time for take two. “I guess what I meant was, you’re here awfully early all things considered.” He’d been at her apartment until ten last night, talking to her landlord and helping Maxwell and Hale canvas the building.

A fact which didn’t seem to faze him in the least. “Eh.” He lifted a shoulder and let it fall beneath his holster and gray Henley shirt. “Sleep is overrated. You okay?”

The stare that accompanied the question said Hollister wasn’t asking as a pleasantry. “Yeah,” Isabella said, making sure her return expression backed up the sentiment. “Eager to nail this guy, but otherwise I’m fine.”

One corner of Hollister’s mouth lifted. “Good to see your short time off hasn’t affected that bulletproof work ethic of yours.”

Ah, busted. Still, a girl had to save face. “I’m behind the rest of you guys by a day and a half, so I wanted to catch up. Especially since the Feds are letting us take lead.”

“Letting us? Please.” Hollister huffed out a sound that was half laughter, all sarcasm. “Sinclair all but told Peterson that if he didn’t let intelligence break this case, he’d never get a willing assist from anyone in this precinct again.”

Isabella’s lips fell open in shock. “He did?”

“Yeah,” Hollister said, as if she’d just asked for clarification that two plus two did indeed equal four. “You said you were sure, so Sinclair went to bat for you. Plus, this guy broke into your apartment, Moreno. We take care of our own.”

She lowered the stack of file folders from her hip to her desktop, letting his words sink in. Hollister had always been a solid partner, one she’d been proud to work with. Just because she’d always thought so didn’t mean he knew so, and Sinclair was right. Her unit had to know she trusted them.

“Listen,” she said, waiting for him to look up from the desk across from hers before she continued. “I know I’m not really a share-all kind of person, but this job is important to me. This team is important to me.”

Hollister’s brows lifted in what had to be surprise, although he had a better poker face than most people when he decided to trot it out. “The team is important to me too.”

“I’m probably not the easiest partner to work with,” Isabella continued, and at that, he let go of a soft laugh.

“You’re a little bit of a puzzle,” he agreed. “But you’re not a bad person. And you’re definitely a good cop. I figure you’ve got your reasons for liking the outskirts.”

The thought of Marisol, of the one damned phone call that had kicked so many horrible, irreversible things into motion, punched through her gut. “Yeah.”

Hollister sat back in his desk chair, and even though she was certain he hadn’t missed a thing—her poker face wasn’t nearly as high-quality as his, and the guy was a fucking detective, for God’s sake—he also didn’t push. “If it makes you feel any better, we all have things we don’t advertise. You ever feel like talking about yours, I’m not a bad listener. I don’t just have your back on the job, you know?”

“Thanks. I…” Isabella paused for a breath. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” Hollister cleared his throat, tapping the stack of case files on the desk in front of him. “So I take it the rest of your night was quiet after you left your apartment?”

Isabella nodded, taking a long sip of tea as she kicked back into work mode. “Yup.”

For as trashed as her apartment had been, Kellan’s had remained untouched. At this point, she’d take whatever silver linings she could get.

“Good,” Hollister said. “I took a trip out to North Point to check on Carmen after I left your place last night. I know she never worked for DuPree, but since she’s the one who gave up the intel on Danny Marcus, I figured a knock and talk couldn’t hurt.”