Janie Crouch - Untraceable

“So you feel ready to take on Bob Sinclair again?” As soon as Juliet uttered the words she wished she could take them back. She didn’t want to talk about Evan’s feelings regarding Sinclair any more than she would want to talk about hers if she was resuming the role of Lisa.

“Yeah, sure.” Evan shrugged. “Can’t miss an opportunity like this with someone like Vince Cady.”

“Good.” Juliet didn’t know what else to say.

“Look, Jules...” Evan took a step from the wall. “I just wanted you to know, make sure you know, that nobody, even Burgamy, expects you to resume Lisa Sinclair. Burgamy wanted to try, had to try just in case, but he didn’t really expect you to do it.”

Juliet appreciated the sentiment from Evan, although she wasn’t sure if he was correct.

“I know your brothers want to protect you, which is why they were so adamant in there this morning,” he continued. “They love you and don’t want anything bad to happen to you again.”

“Thanks, Evan.” Juliet was tentative, not sure what his point was.

“And, of course, I never...” Evan ran his hands through his hair, seeming to need a moment to gather himself. “I never want you to go through anything like that again.”

Anguish was evident in his face. Juliet hurt for him. Ironic, since he was hurting for her.

“Evan—”

“But I want you to know something, Jules,” he added. “Although I would never try to talk you into going undercover against your will, you are capable of much more than you give yourself credit for. You can be a good agent again, if you decide to be.”

He said it with so much conviction that, somewhere deep inside, Juliet wished it were true.

Thought maybe, just for a second, that it could be.

But then she thought of this morning, how she’d gotten another of those stupid emails and had let it completely derail her again. How she arrived every day at Omega Headquarters at 4:00 a.m. because she was too scared to stay in her own house alone. She thought of the overwhelming panic that occurred whenever someone, however innocently, touched her from behind. She thought of all the ways she had screwed up the last mission, and the price she had paid for it.

And she thought of Evan and how he would be the one to suffer, or worse, if she went back out in the field and couldn’t perform her duties.

Evan wanted to support her, and Juliet appreciated his kind words, but he didn’t know all the facts. No matter what he said, Juliet would never again be a good agent.

“I’m sorry I’m sending you out there alone, Evan. I know it’s a sucky thing to do.”

“No.” He shook his head. “This isn’t about me or Bob Sinclair or this case at all. I’ll be fine. The case will be fine. I just wanted you to know that I think—that I know—you can do it. When you’re ready.”

Chapter Four

Evan watched as Juliet shuffled some papers, made a flimsy excuse about needing to be somewhere, and all but fled out the door. She didn’t make eye contact with him the entire time. Of course, she didn’t have to, for him to know what she was thinking.

That there was no way she’d ever be a good agent again.

Evan walked out of Juliet’s now empty office and down the hall to his own desk. There was no point going after her to convince her of his opinion, even if he knew he was right. Juliet still wasn’t ready to hear or accept the truth—that she could still do this job if she’d just give herself a chance.

Not that Evan expected her to do it immediately. She wasn’t ready to take those first steps back into active fieldwork, and that was fine. She should take all the time she needed to recover from what had happened to her.

He sat at his desk, pushing away the thoughts attempting to crowd into his mind. Images of Juliet lying bleeding on a warehouse floor, feebly trying to fend Evan off before she realized it was him and not the man who had attacked her.

In the middle of an undercover buy, the leader of a rival group, who didn’t like that Bob and Lisa Sinclair were cutting in on his share of black-market profits, had forcefully taken Juliet in the middle of the night. Before Evan even knew what had happened, and could get to her, she had been horribly beaten and raped.

Every muscle in his body tensed. Even now, eighteen months later, Evan had a hard time just forming the words in his mind.

And that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? They all—Evan, the Branson brothers, even Juliet herself—just tiptoed around it. Nobody ever really talked about it. He knew Juliet saw a shrink every once in a while, and was glad she did, but she never talked to anyone else about what had happened. Even though things didn’t seem to be getting better for her, and maybe getting worse.

Evan sighed and leaned back in his chair. In order to make things easier for Juliet, they’d all agreed to her unspoken request not to talk about the attack. To give her time. But now, a year and a half later, they were doing the same thing: just agreeing and protecting and sheltering her. For example, supporting her in the choice to leave active field duty and embrace a desk job.

Honestly, that just made Evan mad, because he’d never known people less suited for a desk job than any member of the Branson family, Juliet included.

Juliet especially.

Evan had worked with her for years in the field and knew her instincts were unparalleled. She could read an undercover situation and formulate a plan—sometimes multiple plans—almost instantaneously. She could pinpoint the weakness of an organization or a person’s individual psyche with frightening speed and accuracy.

More than once while undercover with her, Evan had been thankful she was a good guy, on his team, rather than vice versa. To say she was wasted as an analyst/handler wasn’t exactly true; she was good at that, too. But she could be so much more.

Evan had no problem with Juliet taking the time she needed to heal from the physical and psychological wounds she had suffered last time she’d been undercover. As far as he was concerned she could take the rest of her life, if that’s what she needed, and never set foot in the field again. He would be the first one to back her up in that decision. To hold her hand. To do more if she’d let him.

But what Evan couldn’t stomach was that Juliet thought of herself as a failure as an undercover operative because of what had happened to her. That because she hadn’t been able to escape her attacker, she’d failed.

Evan had tried multiple times to tell her what he had written in his official report of the incident. Even under the worst of possible circumstances, Juliet hadn’t broken cover.

She’d saved multiple lives, his included, because of that. No one could’ve asked for more from her. Seasoned agents had broken under much less duress than Juliet had endured. But despite everything that happened to her even through the rape, Juliet hadn’t told anyone she was law enforcement.

She was the furthest thing from a failure as an agent as possible. Evan wished he could make her understand that.

But Juliet no longer trusted herself. No longer considered becoming reinstated even a possibility. Because she believed she was—and always would be—a failure as an agent.

Evan knew he walked a fine line. He didn’t want to push her for more than she was ready to take on, but knew that without some sort of push she might never move forward at all. Either way, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t ready right now, despite what he or anybody else said. Evan would just keep encouraging her, and hopefully, they’d find some way to ease her back in a few months from now.

Baby steps.

He needed to try to get Juliet to open up and talk about what was going on in her head, see if he could figure out a way to help her make some progress.