Mountain Investigation by Jessica Andersen

the decision, didn’t feel relief. He felt hollow. Determined. He might be off the task force, but he wasn’t off the case. Not by a long shot.
    He piled his things haphazardly into a box, leavingthe official stuff behind and taking only the few items he cared about. The first was a bifold frame containing a picture of his parents and him at his academy graduation a decade earlier on one side, opposite a more recent shot of his whole extended family, cousins and all, taken last Christmas. The latter photo brought a spear of the pain he suspected would always accompany thoughts of the holidays, but he hadn’t let that keep him away from family doings. Christmas was important to his parents, and therefore it was important to him. He’d gone to the annual get-together and pretended to enjoy himself, and had ducked the inevitable questions about his love life, reminding himself that his family members meant no harm. Even though most of them were cops or married to cops, they didn’t fully understand that he had things to take care of before he could move on.
    Thinking of those things, he set the bifold frame in the box and picked up a smaller photo of a laughing man grinning up at the camera, his arms wrapped around a flushed-faced woman who held a small baby.
    “Grayson,” SAC Johnson’s voice barked from the doorway, stanching the impending flood of memories and setting Gray’s teeth on edge.
    Gray didn’t even look over at his soon-to-be-ex boss, just placed the photo in the cardboard box and gestured to the pile of papers on his desk. “The letter of resignation’s right there. Go away.”
    “I want you to reconsider.”
    Of all the things Gray might’ve expected, that didn’t even make the list. Frowning, he turned toward Johnson.
    And saw Mariah standing behind him.
    She looked very different than she had the day before. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders in soft waves, and she wore a green turtleneck sweater, jeans and boots that made her look like a model out of an upscale outdoorsy catalog, simultaneously sexy and practical.
    Although he’d always before gravitated to fussy, feminine women, Gray felt something inside him go very still and hushed, the way it did just before he got the “go” signal on a major op, when his body was poised equally between fight and flight, his blood surging with adrenaline and survival instincts. This wasn’t an op or a fight, he knew, but he had a feeling that if he let it, his association with Mariah could become just as messy. So it was up to him not to let it go there.
    Straightening, he nodded to her. “Mariah.”
    “Gray,” she acknowledged, her expression giving away nothing. She pushed past Johnson, then hesitated just inside the office doorway. “I need to talk to you.” She threw a look over her shoulder and said pointedly, “Alone.”
    Johnson muttered something under his breath, but nodded. He shot Gray a warning look, one that said, “For crap’s sake, don’t screw this up,” then retreated, shutting the door at Mariah’s back.
    A tense, anticipatory silence filled the small room until Gray broke it by grabbing the box top off his desk and fitting it into place, sealing in the memories. “I expect Johnson told you that I don’t work here anymore.”
    “Yes. Right after I told him I’d let the FBI use me to set a trap for Lee, but only if you act as my bodyguard.”
    Gray had thought he was beyond surprise when it came to this case. Apparently, he was wrong. “Why me?”
    “Because you don’t play Johnson’s game.”
    That got his attention. “What game would that be?”
    She was still standing just inside the door, as though she might slip away at any moment. She didn’t leave, though, didn’t move a muscle. She just stood there, her eyes locked with his, as though she were trying to figure out how much to tell him, how much to trust him. After a short pause, she said, “The game where he does and says exactly the right thing, the