Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

hadn’t answered the question. Lena studied his face. The skin was unlined, fresh. She’d met Jared when he was twenty-one, and in the five and a half years since, he’d somehow started looking younger, like he was aging in reverse. Or maybe Lena was getting older more quickly. So much had changed since those early days. In the beginning, she could always tell what he was thinking. Of course, since then, she’d given him plenty of mortar to build up a wall around himself.
    He started unbuttoning his shirt. “I think I’m gonna go put those cabinets together.”
    She gave a startled laugh. “Really?” The kitchen had been torn apart for three months, mostly because Jared found a new reason every weekend to not work on it.
    He let his shirt drop to the floor. “At least Ikea will know I’m still the man of the house.”
    Now that it was out there, Lena didn’t know how to respond. “You know it’s not like that.” Even to her own ears, the excuse sounded weak. “It’s just not.”
    “Really?”
    Lena didn’t answer.
    “Right.” Jared’s cell phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, checked the number, and declined the call.
    “That your girlfriend?” Lena didn’t like the thinness in her tone. The joke wasn’t funny. They both knew that.
    He rummaged through the dirty-clothes basket and found his jeans, one of his T-shirts.
    “It’s almost midnight.” Lena looked at the bedside clock. “Past midnight.”
    “I’m not sleepy.” He dressed quickly, tucking his phone into his back pocket. “I’ll keep the noise down.”
    “You need your phone to put the cabinets together?”
    “The charge is low.”
    “Jared—”
    “It won’t take long to finish.” He smiled that fake smile again. “Least I can do, right?”
    Lena smiled back, holding up her glass in a toast.
    He didn’t leave. “You should get in the shower before you fall down.”
    She nodded, but couldn’t stop her eyes taking in the way the T-shirt clung to his chest, followed the definition of his abs. The vodka had given her a nice buzz. Her body was finally starting to relax. There was something about the way Jared was standing that brought old memories rushing back. Lena let her mind wander to a place she usually kept blocked off—the town where she’d lived before she moved with Jared to Macon, the city where she’d first learned how to be a cop.
    Back in Grant County, Jared’s father had taught Lena everything she knew about being a police officer. Well, almost everything. Lena had a feeling the tricks she’d learned after Chief Jeffrey Tolliver’s death would’ve pissed him the hell off. For all the times he crossed the line, Jeffrey sure came down hard on Lena whenever he caught her skipping near it.
    “Lee?” Jared asked. He had Jeffrey’s eyes, the same way of tilting his head to the side while he waited for her to answer him.
    Lena finished the drink, though her head was swimming. “I love you.”
    It was Jared’s turn to give a startled laugh.
    She asked, “Aren’t you going to say you love me back?”
    “Do you want me to?”
    Lena didn’t answer.
    He gave a resigned sigh as he walked over to her. She was dressed in nothing but her bra and underwear, but he kissed her on the forehead the same way he did with his sister. “Don’t fall asleep in the shower.”
    Lena watched him go. He’d been wearing the same dirty T-shirt a lot lately. There were spots of yellow paint on the back and shoulders from where he’d started remodeling the spare bedroom three weeks ago.
    Lena had told him not to paint the walls, to wait another few weeks—not because he had at least ten other projects in the house that needed to be finished first, but because it was bad luck.
    Jared never listened to her.
    Of course, she never listened to him, either.
    Lena took the vodka bottle with her into the bathroom. She put the empty glass on the back of the toilet and drank straight from the bottle, her head tilting back. Probably not wise considering the pain pills she’d taken as soon as she walked through the front door, but Lena wasn’t feeling particularly smart at the moment. She wanted the amnesia to come. She wanted the pills and the alcohol to erase everything from her mind—what had happened before the raid, during the raid, after. She wanted it all blanked out so that she could lie down and see darkness instead of that silent flickering movie that had haunted her for the last six days.
    She put