“Sorry we waylaid you like that earlier,” he begins. “Betancourt wanted to beat the bad weather moving in.”

“Sounds like an interesting case.” I cross to the counter and lift the lid off the Crock-Pot. I stir the stew, but my attention is riveted to the man standing a few feet away. “Does Bates know we’re living together?”

“No.” He comes up beside me and pours two glasses of wine. “If he’d known, I wouldn’t have been in that meeting today.”

“Thought that might be the case.” I give the pot another stir and replace the lid. “Is your not telling him by design?”

“Never came up.” He hands me a glass. “I didn’t think it would be an issue.”

“It is now,” I tell him.

He sips his wine, looks at me over the rim of the glass. “I guess that means you’re thinking about taking the assignment?”

“Considering it.”

Nodding, he sets down the glass, opens the cabinet and pulls out two bowls, sets them on the counter. “You ever do any undercover work?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I don’t have to tell you it can be dangerous.”

“I have no such illusions.”

Taking the glass of wine from my hands, he turns to me and wraps his fingers around my biceps. He doesn’t speak until I raise my gaze to his. “Kate, you’re an experienced cop. You’re good at what you do. I know that.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

He stares at me with such intensity that I feel stripped bare, as if he can see all the doubts, the fear, the knowledge of what we both know is coming next. “I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he says. “This is your decision, not mine. That doesn’t mean I’m going to shove my concerns aside, pat you on the back, and tell you to go for it. I’m sure as hell not going to congratulate you. I don’t want you to do it for a number of reasons, all of which I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I know it won’t be an easy assignment.”

“Easy is not the right word, Kate.”

“Tomasetti, I’m not some foolhardy rookie.”

“No one said you are.” He gives my arms a gentle squeeze. “But you’ll be on your own, in a rural area. A remote area. You’ll be isolated. No backup. You may not have a reliable mode of communication or transportation. And there’s no way for you to know what you might be walking into.”

“We’re talking about an Amish community, not some drug cartel.”

“We both know the kinds of things that can happen in an Amish community, though, don’t we?”

I ease away from him and pick up my wine. I sip, but I don’t taste. “Tomasetti, there are forty kids in that settlement. A dead fifteen-year-old girl—”

“And you’re the only one who can save them, right?” He shows his teeth in a poor imitation of a smile.

“This is not about ego.”

“Then let someone else handle it.”