If Ben found more clues that took him in some new direction, Connor gave up. The twists and turns exhausted him. The hour-long phone call with Hansen hadn’t helped. His big brother was pissed about Connor’s supposed vacation and all the danger. He’d flipped into overprotective mode and refused to stop lecturing until Connor took him off track by mentioning Maddie.

After only a little time on Whitaker, Hansen loved gossip as much as any resident.

Connor watched Maddie sip her coffee and decided Whitaker wasn’t so bad after all.

She caught him staring at her. “Are you okay?”

He’d lost the string of the conversation. Something about more evidence . . . or not. He couldn’t remember. “All I did was dive on Evan. I’m fine.”

Evan wasn’t. He’d survived the two shots, but he would be in the hospital for a long time. There was a fear of infections and secondary problems. Connor didn’t understand all of it, but he did get that Evan’s life would never be the same.

From the hospital he would go to a series of hearings and, Connor hoped, eventually prison. All signs pointed that way. He wasn’t denying what he did to Maddie. He wore it as a badge of honor. Even suggested his old office adopt his training program as standard procedure.

The general view, or at least the one Evan’s old boss was willing to share, was that Evan had some sort of break. He’d always been too focused on Maddie and had been disciplined for that. The last round landed him on administrative leave and that’s when his reality seemed to splinter.

He bragged about disciplining her and talked about teaching others his techniques. It scared the hell out of his bosses . . . and so did meeting Maddie. She made it clear she blamed them for not exercising oversight over Evan. Connor knew she was prepared to negotiate to get Evan specialized help for his break from reality, if he would take it.

Connor couldn’t be that generous. Maybe one day when he no longer closed his eyes and saw Evan pointing the gun at her head, but probably not. He stayed up most of last night thinking about that.

But since he couldn’t remember if he’d answered her question, he tried now. “I’m just tired.”

She set her mug on the coffee table. “Of?”

He needed more sleep to keep up with this conversation. “What does that mean?”

“You’re still running.”

He groaned inside. “Maddie, don’t.”

“Evan tried to kill you.”

“And you.” She kept jumping over that horrifying point but he couldn’t.