TWENTY-SIX YEARS EARLIER – GRIFFIN
The crowd up at the viewpoint on Quince Mountain is surprisingly large as I help Leif out of the car.
“So many people,” Leif says, wrapping his little fingers around my hand. In his other, he’s got his plastic binoculars—his favorite toy that lately has eclipsed the rocket ship he carries around with him like a security blanket.
I scan the crowd, more out of an ingrained habit of checking my surroundings in every situation than actually looking for the person we’re here to meet.
I’m here to meet. It feels all wrong having Leif with me, but I remind myself the risk factor is as low as taking my boy to the grocery store back home in Ohio. Lower, maybe, since I don’t work here in my hometown. We’re home for the holidays, and this is all the work I’m doing.
I promised Sasha, and I promised Leif, too.
“Yeah, buddy, it’s crowded. But we’re still going to get a good view, don’t worry.”
“Can I sit on your shoulders?”
I hesitate. “Did you go to the bathroom before we left?” We had a close call this summer when he drank too much lemonade at the beach and an accident nearly happened perilously close to my face.
Leif nods. “Yeah. Duh.”
I frown, leading Leif to the far side of the lot. There’s a path here that leads to a quieter side of the viewpoint, where I’m meeting my contact. “I’ll put you up on my shoulders when the show starts, okay? But first, where’d you learn that word?”
Leif shrugs. “Cap says it all the time.”
I sigh. I guess I can forgive my teenage nephew for expanding my four-year-old’s vocabulary when he’s pretty much the kid’s best friend whenever we’re in town. “You know he goes by Jack now, right?” Cap was a nickname my brother’s son picked up when he was Leif’s age.
“He changed his name?”
I scrub my face with my hand, chuckling. “It’s fine. He doesn’t mind it if you still call him Cap.” It’s too complicated to explain to a four-year-old.
“When are we going to see the meteors?”
Meteors, meanwhile, are perfectly comprehensible to this guy.
I swing Leif up onto my arm as we cut around a crowd of people with a telescope bigger than him. “Soon, I promise. It should start any minute.”
Guilt shifts through me as I look over the crowd once more. I want to dedicate my full attention to my boy, but this was my contact’s only opportunity to meet me, and I need the information he’s providing. I’m deeply fortunate to have a contact in the FBI at all—it’s a major advantage for a private protection firm like mine. If he shares what I think he will, it’s going to crack this particular case wide open. A case my partner Ford is falling apart over.
I just wish this meeting wasn’t crossing over with time with Leif. I already feel like shit every time I have to explain to my son why I can’t take him to the new Neil Armstrong exhibit at the museum in Cincinnati every other weekend. If it weren’t for my job, I’d happily make the four-hour round trip for him every other day.
“Kelly.” Hearing my name startles me, and I turn to see my contact sitting on the ledge of the wall surrounding the viewpoint.
That’s the thing—agonizing over my family is the only thing that can distract me from my surroundings. I choose to believe that’s a good thing, even though I know any distraction isn’t. Lives are on the line with what I do.
“Pritchard,” I say, setting Leif down and trying to give myself a little grace. It’s the holidays, after all.
We normally use code names when interacting with each other, but here, it doesn’t make sense. This is the town my contact lives in and where I grew up. I already spotted several people I know as I wove through the crowd with Leif, though I didn’t make my presence known.
It’s only when he stands up to shake my hand and I see a little girl peer around his leg that a wave of relief washes over me. Pritchard’s got Noelle with him, too. She’s sitting on the wall next to him and looks intently at us, her hands folded neatly in her lap as her dad sits back down.
“My wife’s over there with Noelle’s brother,” Pritchard says as I sit down on the ledge a couple of feet from him. “Noelle insisted on staying with me. She likes being behind the scenes more than being in the action.”
I’ve never met Pritchard’s family before, and I probably never will, save tonight, seeing Noelle for the first time. It’s better that way.
“How’s the house looking?” I ask. “Your wife’s pretty into Christmas, isn’t she?” I ask. We always start with a little catch up before getting to business. It’s why I like having Pritchard as an agency contact. I know him. I trust him. Hell, even though we live in different states, I consider him a friend, and I don’t really do friends outside my partner, Ford. Social stuff is my wife’s purview.
“‘Into Christmas’ is putting it mildly,” Pritchard says. “She’s obsessed. It’s her favorite time of year.” He surprises me again by smiling fondly as he talks about his wife and how his house is the most decorated on the block.
There’s a tug on my hand. I look down to see Leif looking over at Pritchard’s daughter, then up at me expectantly. “Dad!” he whispers.
I lean down to put my ear at his level.
“Can I show her my ’noclars?” Leif asks. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Leif’s very protective of his binoculars. Just like I’m sure he will be with the junior telescope Sasha and I’ve gotten for him for Christmas this year.
I glance over at my contact. “Okay with you if he talks to Noelle?”
I know Pritchard’s daughter’s name. I know his wife’s name, I know his boss’s name…I know a good amount about the man I get some of my best information from. Like my partner Ford always says, comprehensive research is a hazard of the job, even of friends. It’s a safety thing.
“Of course,” Pritchard says. “It’ll keep them occupied.”
He leans down to say something to his daughter, who hops off the wall and hesitates only a moment before coming over to Leif.
“My dad says you have something to show me,” she says to Leif. Her little voice is high, and her th’s are f’s, which is pretty sweet.
“Did you know Neil Armstrong is from Ohio?” Leif blurts out. I have to bite my cheek to keep myself from grinning, which is not a familiar state for me. He’s nervous.
“Who’s Neil Armstrong?” Her r’s are w’s, too, so it sounds like Armstwong.
Leif looks very proud to get to tell this girl who his hero is. While my four-year-old explains how Armstrong was a man from the place we live who went to the moon to Pritchard’s daughter, I sit down a few feet from Pritchard on the low wall.
“He’s convinced Armstrong’s being from Ohio means he’s destined to follow in his footsteps.”
Pritchard’s mouth turns up. “You never know. From what you’ve mentioned, he seems pretty serious about his future career.”
I can’t help the little press of pride in my chest at that. If anyone’s going to grow up and actually go to the moon, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Leif. Even at his very young age, he lives and breathes space and has big unanswerable questions about the universe. And once he sets his mind on something, he’s tenacious as hell. “I’m pretty sure I was barely potty trained at his age,” I say. I don’t know if that’s true, but nobody likes a parental braggart. Not that I can stop myself half the time.
We chat for a few minutes about family life as we always do, then, after a surreptitious glance around us, presumably to make sure the crowd is still mostly at the other end of the viewpoint, I ask him if he was able to get the information I asked for.
Pritchard nods tersely and reaches into his coat. He hands me a plain white envelope that’s thin, but I know will have what Ford and I are hoping for. Pritchard’s never let me down before.
“Tell Ford it’s not going to bring her home,” my contact says solemnly.
“It might. It’s better intel than we’ve gotten in a year.”
The case my partner Ford and I are working on has been the hardest since we started our agency together. And we’ve worked on some hard fucking cases, given that what we do primarily involves rescuing women and girls from dangerous and exploitative situations.
“Did you talk to him about…you know?”
“Of course. Ford knows better. But sometimes it’s impossible not making things personal, you know?”
Pritchard glances over at his daughter. “Yeah. I know.”
We watch the kids for a moment. I don’t know about Pritchard, but sometimes when I look at my son, I find myself almost violently sick with the pain of how things are in the world. My wife always tells me I can’t put him in bubble wrap and keep him in my sight at all times. I imagine Pritchard feels the same way.
“You wanna try?” Leif asks Noelle as we watch.
She smiles and nods, and to my shock, Leif hands his prized possession over to the little girl.
“He won’t even let me touch those,” I say, marveling at the way he’s taken to Pritchard’s daughter.
Noelle peers through the binoculars while Leif helps her with the focus.
Pritchard frowns.
I can’t help the low laugh that rolls out of me. “Bit early to be going all ‘don’t look at my daughter,’ don’t you think?”
He harrumphs, then lets his shoulders sag. “I blame you, you know. The shit you guys have to deal with—”
I nod, my jaw tightening. “Yeah. I know.” I don’t tell him I thank the stars on the regular Sasha and I had a son. Not that boys aren’t at risk, either. “The kids—that’s the reason we do what we do.”
“And I thank God you’re doing it,” Pritchard says. “It’s worth risking my job for.”
Prosecution, even, given the information he’s slipping me. Not that anyone would argue he’s not doing it for the right reasons.
Just then Noelle gasps, lowering the binoculars. “I saw a star!” she tells her father. Over her head, in the direction of the crowd, a bright light streaks through the night sky. Then another.
Leif looks as proud as if he made the meteor shower happen.
“Maybe you should give Leif back his binoculars,” Pritchard says.
“It’s okay,” Leif says. “I can see the sky.”
Only he’s not looking at the sky. He’s looking at Noelle.
“I think you’re the one who’s going to be in trouble,” Pritchard mutters to me.
I let out a huff that could be construed as a laugh.
Only Leif’s not like this with other kids. He’s got friends, but he’s a big thinker—a contemplative guy who tends to pick camping trips with me over playdates with friends. And he certainly doesn’t moon over girls. Not that I’d put that kind of lens on a kid this young, anyway.
But he’s clearly taken to this particular girl.
After a moment, Noelle asks him if he wants to look through the binoculars. I can tell he’s torn between taking them versus enjoying letting her use them.
I decide to play the dad card and take the binoculars from Noelle’s proffered hand. “Thank you, Noelle.” I hand them to my little space-obsessed guy, then swing him up onto my shoulders so he can get a better view.
Pritchard does the same, and the four of us watch the show for the next half an hour, chatting amiably as if I don’t have life-changing information in my pocket. The minute I get Leif into bed, I’m going to be on the phone to Ford, making plans for what could potentially be a very dangerous trip ahead of us.
Finally, we say our goodbyes, and Pritchard heads over to the crowd to be with the rest of his family.
We head to the car a few minutes later, on our way home, where Leif’s mom just texted to say she’s got hot cocoa ready for us on the stove. While she normally participates in our astronomy adventures, I insisted she stay home and take a bubble bath in the jacuzzi tub in our suite at my family’s hotel. “You’ll be able to see the shower from the bathtub,” I reminded her. It had taken a bit more convincing, but she’d finally relented.
I hadn’t told her about my business meeting. She’d have my neck if she knew I was still thinking about work. I knew I’d confess later anyway. I could never keep anything from the woman I loved.
It’s only as I’m buckling Leif up in his booster seat in the back of the truck that I realize he’s been unusually quiet following such an important celestial event.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He nods, but his face looks deeply concerned. He grips his binoculars to his chest. “Can I have a playdate with Noelle?”
I have to keep from smiling once again. “I’m sorry, my little space man. We live too far away to make that happen.”
Not to mention I can’t exactly be setting up playdates with my FBI contact.
Leif looks so stricken my chest squeezes.
I hold his hand. “We live in a whole other state.”
Leif looks at me like he doesn’t understand why that’s an issue. “Remember how long we drove to get here? I give him a squeeze, considering. I can’t tell him he’s probably never going to see her again. In fact, I’m going to have to make sure I don’t take Leif along to any more meetings with Pritchard. Not that we’ll have another one until the next time in town.
Instead I say, “Listen. Maybe if the stars align just right, you might see her again one day.”
Leif looks at me for a moment, then pinches his eyes shut. His little hands ball into fists.
“Hey, you okay? What are you doing?”
“I’m making a wish,” Leif says.
I know better than to ask him what it is. He’d tell me I’m not allowed to ask what he wished for. It doesn’t matter. It’s pretty clear what it is.
“Well, I hope you get your wish one day, Leif.”
“Me too,” Leif says. He looks yearningly at the crowd of people filing toward their cars. Then he smiles, and I know tonight will be filed into some back corner of her mind where these memories go. I know he won’t remember tonight, but I hope he might at least remember the feeling he had when he looked at the stars with that sweet girl.
“You ready for hot cocoa?” I ask my boy.
“Yeah!” he exclaims excitedly, and I’m pretty sure my heart has never felt more full.
I text my wife before turning on the truck. I think we made the best little guy in the universe.
She sends me back a series of hearts, and I smile, tucking my phone in my pocket. I married the best woman in the universe, too. As I turn on the truck and adjust the mirror, I look at that little guy in the mirror. Maybe, if we’re lucky, he’ll end up with one just like her.
Thank you so much for reading this exclusive Wish For Me bonus scene! Not ready to leave this world? A new romantic suspense series starts in 2024 with Ford’s story. Stay tuned to Claire’s newsletter to be the first to find out when it launches. In the meantime, you can read Griffin and Sasha’s story in Mess With Me, available now! Grab it here.