The Grave Between Us by Tal Bauer
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cole drummedhis fingers against the steering wheel as he pulled off the interstate and turned up the county road that led to his and Noah’s neighborhood. They’d bought west of West Des Moines, someplace that felt quiet and out of the way but that was still close enough to Katie’s school and their office. The house was new, the neighborhood still mostly construction sites beyond a few built-up streets. Behind their house was farmland and a nature preserve. He’d loved the quiet, the peace of the place.
Now he wanted to drop an iron fortress around their home, dig a moat, erect a stone wall and portcullis. Drag Noah and Katie inside and lock the gates, barricade every door and window. Keep his family safe.
Powerlessness echoed inside of him. He’d cried in that Omaha conference room until something inside him had come undone, and then he’d leaped to his feet and bellowed at Michael like he’d never done before—not to Michael, not to anyone. He cursed Michael and the BAU and the FBI, told him to go fuck himself, that he wasn’t going to use Noah as bait. That this wasn’t how they were going to run the investigation, and he was done with Michael and his bullshit. That he was going back to Noah, and Michael couldn’t stop him.
Michael calmed him down eventually, and he got Cole down to his car and shoved a Xanax in his hand. They didn’t speak on the drive back to Des Moines, and when they pulled into the hotel’s parking lot, Michael asked him if he was sure.
“I’m going back to Noah,” he’d said. “Don’t try to stop me. Do whatever you need to do to catch Ian, but I’m not leaving Noah alone and unaware of how you’re using him. If Ian wants Noah, he’s going to have to go through me. I’ll die before Ian puts his hands on Noah again.”
Michael had sighed, but he’d nodded and passed Cole a set of keys. “Here. Take one of the cars your office gave me. I don’t even know where your car is right now.”
As Cole climbed into the Pontiac parked next to Michael’s SUV, Michael called after him, “I am trying to help you, Cole. And Noah. I know you haven’t always agreed with my methods over the years. But when you fight monsters, sometimes you have to make certain choices.”
“Maybe you do,” Cole growled. “But I’m not sacrificing the people I love. That’s not a choice I will make. I’m not lying to Noah, either.”
He wanted to call Noah as soon as he was alone. Wanted to tell him to come home, that he’d be waiting for him, that they were going to do this together. Fight Ian together, fight for their future together. Tell Noah he’d been right, and Cole was wrong, and forever meant forever. Hell, he couldn’t even manage twenty-four hours apart.
But his cell phone was dead, and the Pontiac didn’t have a car charger. He made the drive in silence, listening to the tires hum on the highway and his own thoughts echo, memories of Noah’s shattered, brokenhearted voice begging him to stay playing in his mind.
He’d call Noah from home. Then he’d clean the place up. Scrub the walls, the floors, the cabinets. Clean Katie’s room and their bedroom. Shove the mattress out the window, break the bed frame into firewood. He and Noah could blow up an air mattress, sleep on the floor until they got a new bed. Something that hadn’t been touched by darkness. Something that was theirs alone.
He turned right and pulled up to the last stop sign before their neighborhood. There was a creek on the right, burbling past a little stone bridge. Sometimes deer would be at the water’s edge, making their way out of the thick trees, the basswood and aspen and oak. There’d been two does there the day he and Noah came to look at houses, and Noah had fallen in love with the neighborhood immediately. Cole smiled, remembering Noah in the seat beside him. Buying a place in both their names, putting ink on forever. “Noah,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry—”
Glass shattered on his left. Cole twisted, jerked. Arms reached through the broken window, grabbing his face, slamming him forward. His vision went white as his forehead smashed against the steering wheel once, twice, a third time. Hands around his throat, squeezing, choking off his breath. He grasped at the thick forearms, the muscled wrists that seized him. He tried to look sideways, tried to see, but a fist slammed into his head and the world went black.
