Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

or she would haveto consider her options. The more Sara thought about it, the closer she felt to the looming crossroads.
    She stopped thinking about it.
    Instead, she said, “Just promise me that whatever you’re doing, you’re being careful.”
    He nodded, but she would’ve felt better if he’d actually said the words. Will wasn’t the only detective in the relationship. The GBI was to the state of Georgia what the FBI was to the United States. Except in cases of drug trafficking or child abduction, the agency had to be specifically asked to work a case, and the local police departments didn’t tend to ask unless they were desperate.
    Any way Sara looked at it, whatever crime had caused Will to go undercover was too dicey for the locals to handle. Worse, being undercover meant that Will’s partner wasn’t there to back him up. He was completely alone, probably surrounded by men with violent histories and addictions.
    Will asked, “So, we’re all right?”
    Sara pressed her lips together, forcing back the words she really wanted to say. “Of course we’re all right.”
    “Good.” Will slumped back in his chair, his relief almost palpable. Not for the first time, Sara wondered how a man who’d spent his entire adult life solving puzzles could be so willfully obtuse in his private life.
    She asked, “How long will this take?”
    “Two, maybe three weeks.”
    She waited for more, but in the end, Will simply looked away. The gesture was artlessly executed, as if he was going through a checklist of casual movements. Blink. Scratch jaw. Feign interest in the notices on the wall.
    Sara turned to look at the posters that suddenly held his rapt attention. They were typical to a hospital: warnings about HIV and hepatitis C alongside a rudely defaced hygiene series featuring SpongeBob SquarePants.
    Sara turned back around. She’d never been good at passive-aggressive game play. “Can we at least acknowledge that there’s something else going on? Because I can feel it, Will. There’s something else to this and I think you’re keeping it from me because you don’t want me to worry.”
    To his credit, he didn’t offer false protests. “Would it make you feel better?”
    She nodded.
    “All right.”
    Sara chewed her bottom lip. She waited for more, then remembered she wanted to leave the hospital before she was old enough to retire. “That’s it?”
    He shrugged.
    She was too tired to keep pushing the boulder up the hill. “You are driving me absolutely crazy.”
    “In a good way?”
    She squeezed his hand. “Not exactly.”
    He laughed, though they both knew she wasn’t kidding. He asked, “Did you hear Homeland Security arrested SpongeBob at the airport?”
    “Will.”
    “I’m serious. They showed it on the news this morning.”
    Sara groaned. “Public indecency?”
    “That goes without saying, but the big charge was they caught him trying to take too many fluids onto the plane.”
    She shook her head. “That’s awful.”
    “He said he was framed.” Will paused for effect. “But it’s obvious nobody hung him out to dry.”
    Sara kept shaking her head. “How long did it take for you to come up with that?”
    Will leaned forward and kissed her—not an apologetic brush across the lips or a quick goodbye, but something longer, more meaningful.
    Briefly, Sara considered the fact that the entire emergency roomwas on the other side of the door, that anyone could walk in on them, but then Will deepened the kiss and none of that mattered. He was out of his chair, on his knees in front of her. He pressed closer, pushing her back against the chair. Sara started to feel lightheaded.
    “Jell-O cup!” a man screamed from the ER.
    Sara jumped. Will sat back on his heels. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    “Sorry,” she apologized, as if she could control the patients. Sara straightened Will’s collar, smoothed down his tie. She could feel his pulse pounding in the side of his neck. It matched her own beating heart. “The drunks are waking up.”
    “I like Jell-O, too.”
    “Will—”
    “I should probably get to work.” He stood up and brushed the grime off his pants. “Remember what I said, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” He grinned. “I mean, I’m leaving now, but I’m coming back. As soon as I can. Okay?”
    Her mind filled with things to tell him—that she wanted him to promise that he would stay out of harm’s way, that she needed him to assure her that