“About three years, maybe four.”

“And he’s originally from Alaska?”

Jim nodded. “Was a cop and in the reserves. Did several tours in Iraq. Wife divorced him while he was over there.”

“No shit. What a bitch.” Immediate sympathy flooded Alex. And he’d thought his wife was unsupportive.

“I don’t think Thomas was the same guy when he came back. He’d seen a lot of action and spent some time in hot situations. He and two others were held hostage for two weeks.”

“Shit.” Alex couldn’t think of anything else to say. Nothing was adequate.

“Yeah. He’s had a lot of treatment for PTSD.”

“I don’t think anyone fully gets over that,” Alex said quietly. He knew two agents who struggled daily with post-traumatic stress disorder. Some days were better than others.

“You notice his parka doesn’t have a hood?”

Alex nodded. Thomas wore a high, thick neck cover under his jacket, but Alex had always wondered how the guy could stand the cold, wet weather on the exposed areas below his cap.

“They had their heads covered with hoods nearly the entire time he was held captive. Even to eat they only lifted the hood enough to expose their mouths.” “Shit.”

Jim led the way down the hill, Alex trudging behind. Both men had slipped off their gloves and held their guns in a pocket out of the snow.

“He only started wearing caps about a year ago. He says he doesn’t truly get cold. Says he’s experienced the coldest a person can be and everything else is just annoying.”

“So this is nothing to him.”

“Yep.”

The men plodded through the snow. Jim was right. Alex kept hearing the soft, floaty thumps of clumps of snow falling out of the trees. Each time he’d turn his head in that direction, expecting to see Besand. His gun was out of his pocket now and his fingers were getting frozen. He transferred the gun from hand to hand, wiggling his fingers back into warmth.

“What’s going on with Brynn?” Jim sliced him with the surprise question, and Alex stumbled. He’d been so focused on Besand and Thomas he’d nearly forgotten his pleasant surprise upon waking that morning.

“Nothing.” Truth.

Jim stopped and turned to face him; his brows were together and the lines around his mouth creased deeper. He carefully pondered his next words. “She’s seeing someone. They live together.”

“I know that.”

“Leave her alone.”

“I haven’t touched her. What’s it to you?”

“She’s practically my wife’s little sister.”

“So you’re the overprotective big brother. Can’t she think for herself?”

“Yeah. But I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She admires you for some stupid reason and was beside herself with grief when we couldn’t find you yesterday.”

“She would’ve been like that for any of you.”

Jim nodded, then angrily shook his head. “No. It’s different. She doesn’t know who or what you are. Maybe I should say what you aren’t.”

“You mean I’m lying to her. You don’t think I deserve her sympathy.”

“Just don’t be twisting her sympathy around into something else.”

“I can’t make her do anything. She’s a big girl, Jim, and I think she’s got her head on pretty straight.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Jim clamped his mouth shut, and a guilty flush touched his cheeks. Alex’s eyebrows rose.

“What the hell does that mean? She’s as sharp a woman as I’ve ever met.”

Jim started to speak, paused, and started again. “She comes from a messed-up family situation. Her parents completely ignored her. They didn’t even protest when the state placed her in foster care due to neglect.”

“When she was sixteen, she was placed with my wife’s parents for foster care. These are good people. She’d been bounced from home to home before that. Me and Anna had been married about five years at that time, and Anna adored Brynn. Even though Anna no longer lived at home, Brynn was like the little sister Anna always wanted. I think Anna was easier for Brynn to bond with at first. It took her awhile to warm up to Anna’s parents.”

“That’s understandable. So her childhood pretty much sucked?”

Jim snorted. “What childhood? Brynn was the adult in her real family. Her mom was like a spoiled little kid, and both parents were alcoholics. Anna says Brynn told her she was packing her lunch and getting herself to school in the morning as far back as she can remember, because her mom was always still sleeping off her drunk. Brynn would ask the neighbors for bread to make sandwiches for her lunch or she’d ask if she could pick apples from their tree. Some weeks she lived off what she scavenged from the next-door neighbor’s garden. Do you think the neighbors knew that girl wasn’t getting fed?”

“No other relatives she could’ve gone to?” Alex asked slowly. He was feeling sick to his stomach. He’d lost his parents in his midtwenties, but before they’d died there’d been lots of happy times.

“None. No one wanted a thirteen-year-old. I don’t know if any of them tried to get to know her. They probably worried that she was a rebellious, out-of-control kid. But they were so wrong. She was the adult in that family. She paid the bills and went to the grocery store on her bike. They never bothered to take her to get her driver’s license. Her foster parents did that. They told me she was a perfect driver from day one.”