2006
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna. It was a grand name, Reese supposed, that the Basque separatists had given themselves. He and pretty much everyone in the world had shortened it to ETA. They were terrorists, and whatever their cause, they didn’t deserve a grand name.
The intelligence had been shaky. Four ETA members had taken a vacationing American businessman and his family captive, but the suits weren’t clear if it was an officially-planned attack or simply a group of guys going freelance in search of ready cash. It didn’t matter much to the team on the ground. They were just supposed to free the hostages.
But someone had tipped the terrorists off, and by the time Reese kicked the door open the hostages “ the man, his wife, an eight-year old boy and his six-year old sister “ were all dead. So were the terrorists. The house the family had rented was more than a hundred years old; the kitchen floor had warped gently, and the blood of the family pooled at the center of the tile.
There was a small stuffed dog at the edge of the pool. It had probably belonged to the little girl, and it had probably been the color of a golden retriever. It was red now. It had wicked up the family’s blood.
Dead children always got to Reese. He was aware that Stanton had kept him on the perimeter until the little bodies were covered, and for once he didn’t mind her patronizing protection. But the little stuffed dog was still there. And it sliced through his carefully-cultivated mental armor. It reminded him that they were not cases or assignments or clients or numbers. They were children. The day before they’d been splashing at the beach, afraid of jellyfish and slimy seaweed. Today they were dead.
The team did what they could and went back to their bunk. Reese paced for a while. Stanton told him to eat something, and he tried. But he couldn’t get the dog out of his head. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. He scrounged in the closet and found someone else’s old running shoes. He had shorts of his own.
“How far are we from the beach?” he asked.
Kara shrugged. “Twenty klicks or so.”
“Good. I’ll be back.”
She said something to his back. He didn’t hear the words, and he didn’t care. He hit the street and he started to run.
He didn’t warm up, didn’t stretch. He just ran. When his muscles began to cramp, he slowed down. When the few bites of food he’d taken came up, he vomited. But he didn’t stop. He ran.
No identification. No weapon. No phone. No socks, and he could feel the blisters start to form on his feet before he’d gone the first klick. No shirt. Nothing but the shorts and the shoes, his muscles and his lungs and his sweat and running.
After five klicks the endorphins kicked in and he was able to stop seeing the damn little dog in his mind.
Ten, and his lungs burned, his thighs screamed, and the sweat in his eyes all but blinded him. The blisters on his feet swelled and burst and rubbed. It hurt.
He ran.
He was visible and vulnerable, and he knew Stanton would be pissed off about both. He didn’t care. He needed to run, and to drive the little dog from his mind. And the children. He would not think about the children. The boy was only eight, the girl was six, and they had been held for ten hours before they were killed. He hoped they’d been killed first, that they hadn’t had to watch their parents die. He would never know. However it had gone down, they’d died in fear.
He felt the breeze before he saw the ocean. It tasted like salt. His right calf spasmed; he kept running. The cramp spread up to his thigh, and suddenly he was limping, but he didn’t stop. Uphill, faster, and the muscles gave up and relaxed back into the run. He crested the hill, took a very deep breath and ran down toward the ocean.
On the beach, he only slowed long enough to kick the sneakers off. He felt the blistered skin peel away with the shoes. The sand grated against his open wounds. He knew the salt water would hurt worse. He didn’t care.
Six and eight, and they had died screaming.
He ran into the surf until it reached his waist, then dove into the next wave. The water was cold enough to make his gasp when he came up. The salt burned his feet and his eyes. He put his head down and began to swim, hard, straight out from the shore.
Somewhere in the swim time became meaningless. And then everything else did. The pain of his small wounds disappeared. The children vanished, the dog, the pool of blood on the ancient floor. There was nothing. Only himself and the ocean. Only the waves and the water and him.
His legs cramped and relaxed, and he ignored them. His arm cramped, and then his shoulder. He kept swimming. And then his abs cramped and doubled him in half and he sank under the water.
It was peaceful and cool and dim. John let himself sink towards the bottom of the ocean. He was far from shore and it was probably a long way down. It didn’t matter. He would get there eventually. He relaxed, surrendered to the gentle caress of the water as it pulled him down. In a moment he would run out of air and have to take a deep breath. The salt water would fill his lungs, speed his journey to the sand below.
He would miss Jessica. But there was nothing else.
Jessica, he thought vaguely. And suddenly he could hear her laugh. He could smell the warmth of her skin, feel the tickle of her long hair across his chest.
He blew a little bubbling sigh, straightened, and kicked hard for the surface.
When he finally got there, he rolled onto his back and floated, arms outstretched. He looked at the sky. Felt the waves. Let the air gradually soothe his burning lungs.
It had taken no time to swim out to sea, but it took forever to swim back. His muscles continued to spasm, and he had to stop and float while the cramps worked themselves out. At least the tide was in his favor. He relaxed and let the water carry him. Eventually, he came to shore very close to where he’d entered the water.
He swam until he felt his knees bump sand. Then he stood up and walked out of the water.
Kara Stanton was leaning against the hood of her car. His borrowed shoes were on the sand beside her. She watched him approach without comment, then threw a towel at him. “Feel better?”
“A little.”
She shook her head. “Next time you’ve got a death wish, just let me know. I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Thanks.”
He got in the car and let her drive him back to work.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2012
Finch stopped his car in the valet zone in front of the hotel again. “Do you want me to keep you company for a while?” he offered. “We could go see a movie or something.”
Will Ingram looked at him from the passenger seat. He was half-asleep again. “I’d love to, Uncle Harold, but …”
“But you’re exhausted,” Harold finished for him, with some satisfaction. He’d managed to get enough carbs and calories in the boy that he ought to sleep for the next twelve hours. A couple of glasses of wine hadn’t hurt, either. “I understand completely.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Go to bed.”
The boy sighed. “I meant about Julie.”
“Ah. Well, the answer still applies. Go to bed. You can think about it in the morning.”
“Yeah. I guess I can.” Will leaned across and hugged him awkwardly. “Thanks for dinner.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it. Call me in the morning.”
“I will.”
The boy slid out of the car. Finch watched until he was safely inside. Then he found a parking spot down the block and walked back to the park.
John Reese had staked out a bench where he could watch the front of both hotels just by moving his head. Finch sat down next to him, with a reasonable stranger space between them. They did not make eye contact. “How’s our girl?” Finch asked.
“Asleep, from the sound of it,” Reese answered.
“Finally.”
“How’s our boy?”
Finch considered his words. “Will continues to be … conflicted.”
“Understandable.”
“I’m not sure I understand the psychology of this whole relationship,” Finch admitted. “I’ve read several books about the theory of transference, but theory and practice seem to be very different. Of course, this falls into the field of human interaction, so I am at a disadvantage from the start.”
Reese shook his head. “You’ve got to quit calling it that.” He glanced over at the other hotel. “I can’t tell you the specifics of this case. But I can give you an overview of how it’s supposed to work, from an operational standpoint.”
“That would be helpful.”
“State knew their subject was in imminent danger, and they knew he’d be resistant to any sort of open surveillance or protection. So they needed an operative who could get close and stay close to him. The easiest cover, in this case, was a romantic partner. They had a good profile on him, so everything she did and said could be tailored to keep his attention.” Finch frowned, so Reese went into more detail. “Everything she told him about her background was designed to make him like her. Whether she was an only child, whether her parents were living. The foods she liked or hated. The music. She knew countries he’d already traveled to, and she probably dropped in comments about how she’d always wanted to visit there, and then let him tell her all about it. Details like that build up a false sense of connection. As if they were always meant to be together.” He paused. “If she’d been with the Agency, she probably would have actually seduced him. Men his age are easy to lead around by their … hormones. But State tends to be a little more squeamish.”
“Decorous,” Harold countered gently. “Genteel. Will said he couldn’t get anywhere with her.”
“She let him get far enough, though, that when it hit the fan she could keep him tri-C’d “ close, calm, compliant.”
“Compliant.” Finch shook his head. That word alone would have sent the boy off into another raging tantrum.
“That’s the name of the game,” Reese said. “What’s going on with Will isn’t technically transference. He may actually be in love with Julie Mullins, as he knows her. Why wouldn’t he be? She’s the perfect woman for him “ by design.”
“But she doesn’t really exist,” Finch mused. “She’s a façade. A created character.”
“Exactly. And the danger now is that the imaginary woman he thinks he loves and the real woman who saved his life may get merged together in his mind. That can be a hard combination to let go of. Which is why, if she’s any good at her job, Essex will break this off cleanly.”
Finch glanced over his shoulder at the woman’s hotel. “And how does this work from her side of things?”
Reese considered. “It may help if you know it’s also called Florence Nightingale Syndrome. It’s similar to when nurses call in love with their patients. In the agent’s mind her subject is dependent on them; his life may be literally in her hands. And by design, he adores her. His survival is validation of the agent’s skill, of her career choice. Of what she’s spent her life doing.” He frowned. “When I was with the Agency, we were actively discouraged from becoming emotionally involved with subjects. Ideally they remained just objects. Goals. Numbers”and not in our better good sense of that word. We barely considered them to be human beings. Staying distant and objective was supposed to let us do the things we had to do.”
“Did it?” Finch asked.
“Yes,” Reese answered immediately. There was ice in his voice. “Yes.”
“But that’s not how the State Department operates.”
“It’s how they’re supposed to operate. Julie Essex is not typical. She ignores the rule, and they know it. I suppose they let her get away with it because she’s very good with the specific class of clients she works with.” He smirked a little. “The very rich are used to being genuinely adored.”
Finch raised one eyebrow, but didn’t take the bait. “You’re saying she has special dispensation to fall in love with her clients.”
“Looks that way.” He started to say something more, then stopped.
“What is it, John?” Finch asked quietly.
Reese hesitated, chose his words carefully. “The running and the swimming. One or the other, that’s a good work-out. Both in the same afternoon? That’s something else.”
“You said she was trying to sleep.”
“The times that I’ve done that …” Reese paused again. “It was when things went wrong, really wrong, and there was no way to fix it. When it was too late.” He nodded to himself. “When all I wanted to do is sleep, and I knew I couldn’t until I was so physically exhausted that I just dropped. When it was the only way to shut my brain down.”
“Is that what she was doing?”
“I’m sure of it. She was burning off a huge load of emotional energy. It’s the kind of behavior I would have expected from someone like her if … if the rescue had failed.”
“If Will had been killed.” The idea made Finch shiver in the warm night.
Reese looked at him. “He’s right there, Harold.” He gestured toward the hotel. “He’s safe and sound. He’s asleep. He’s fine.” He looked toward the other hotel. “But I honestly don’t know what’s setting off our girl.”
Finch felt his heart rate slow under Reese’s applied logic. He was so easily fearful where Nathan’s son was concerned. Losing him was simply unbearable to consider. For a moment, he let himself consider that Julie Essex might feel the same way. “Could she be actually in love with him?”
“She knows better. Even if she thinks she is, she’s smart enough to know she has to disengage. That’s why she cut him dead at the airport. She purposely alienated him, to make it easier for both of them. She knows how this works. And she hasn’t made any attempt to contact him.” He shook his head. “There’s something else going on, Finch. I don’t like not knowing what it is.”
“If she sees the mystery man in the picture as an actual threat to Will, it may be preventing her from a clean disengagement,” Finch mused.
“Maybe. She did seem very alarmed by him.”
“Or the issue with her parents.”
“Or something we haven’t seen yet,” Reese added. He looked over again. “Consider my customary complaint about your Machine’s lack of specificity inserted here.”
“Noted,” Finch agreed. He brought out his phone, scrolled through some files. “No FRS matches on the man in the cab,” he reported. “No surprise there.”
“And the girl?”
“I’m running the program with a less-than-perfect match percentage. So far I’m down to just over six thousand matches.”
“Well, that certainly narrows it down,” Reese said dryly.
“It’s less than the eight million we started with,” Finch answered. “I’ll continue to reduce it.” He stood up, but stayed by the bench, looking from one hotel to the other. If things had been different, Will and Julie could have been happily sharing a room and a bed. Instead they were apart, and both miserable. “How do you tell the difference?” he asked. “Between transference and real love?”
“Hindsight,” Reese answered immediately. “It’s like infatuation. If it’s still there in six months, it’s probably love. But short of that, there’s no way to tell.”
“Six months is a very long time to wait when you think you’re in love.”
“I suppose it is.”
Finch sighed. “I’ll call you when I have more information.”
“Good night, Finch.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Before Finch had even checked in from the library, Will Ingram’s phone rang. The young man answered on the second ring; evidently he hadn’t been asleep. “Hey,” another young man’s voice said, “you up for a game?”
“Ahhhhh … sure,” Ingram agreed. “Shoot me the address. I’ll have to hit the ATM.”
In the park, Reese groaned.
In her hotel room, Julie Essex was more vocal. “For the love of God, Will,” she said to herself “ and to Reese and Finch “ “can’t you stay out of trouble for one damn night?”
“Amen, sister,” Reese muttered.
He walked back to his car and waited.
Ingram left his hotel in a cab ten minutes later. Essex left hers three minutes after that.
Feeling very much like an unwelcome chaperone, Reese followed both of them.
____________________________________________________________________________
Reese stood at the edge of the window in the half-renovated apartment and glanced out. Across the courtyard, one floor down and one window over, a group of men was gathered around a table, playing poker. Will Ingram was among them. They had the window open, and the sounds and smoke of the gathering drifted through the night.
He shifted his gaze without moving. At the back of building, at right angles to where he stood, Julie Essex watched from another empty apartment. She was sitting on the floor, probably, with just her head over the window sill, and she was motionless. It had taken him a while to locate her.
“Mr. Reese?” Finch said quietly in his ear.
“I’m still here, Finch,” he answered.
“What’s she doing?”
“Just watching.” Reese shifted a little, rested his hip on the windowsill. He looked back toward the young doctor. The man across the table from him raked in a bit pot with both hands. “Ingram’s not very good at this.”
“I know.” The keyboard clicked quietly, reassuringly, in the background.
“Ah, Will,” Julie murmured to herself, “can’t you just throw money at the stock market like the rest of the rich boys?”
Reese nodded to himself. Julie hadn’t moved in the hour he’d been watching her, but she did talk to herself occasionally. She had no idea, of course, that both he and Finch were listening to her musings. Sometimes the invasion of someone’s privacy bothered him. Tonight, it might give them some valuable insight.
The game went on. There had been beer from the start, but now someone brought out a bottle of bourbon. All the players had a shot.
“Bourbon has never once made your game any better, Will,” Julie whispered.
He couldn’t hear her, of course, but Ingram waved off a second shot and went back to drinking his beer.
Reese glanced through his camera lens at the game. “He’s drawing to an inside straight,” he reported to Finch. “Good thing he’s got a trust fund.”
Finch grunted. “He’ll make it.”
“Ten bucks says he doesn’t.”
“You’re on.”
Reese raised his lens again “ just in time to see Ingram fill the straight. “How did you do that, Finch?”
The genius chuckled, but did not answer.
The boy bid the pot up effectively and won back everything he’d earlier.
“They’re cheating,” Reese said. “Letting him win a few so he’ll bet bigger.”
“Very possibly,” Finch said. “I know I would.”
“It’s good to know that about you, Finch.”
“You still owe me ten dollars.”
Reese grinned. He looked back to the girl’s window. She wasn’t there.
Before he could even curse, he heard the single footstep behind him. “Don’t move,” Julie said quietly.
Reese started to turn around. From her voice, he knew she was far enough away that he’d need a step, maybe two …
“Don’t,” she snapped.
He froze, then raised his hands slowly. “On your head,” she said. “Lock your fingers.” When his hands were up, she moved closer. Reese could tell by her footsteps that she was on her toes. She was anxious, she was almost certainly armed, and she was not comfortable with the gun in her hand. The situation had the potential to end very badly for one or both of them.
Cold steel on his wrist. She pulled his hand down with one hand, then the other. Took the camera lens. “Why do you have handcuffs?” he asked in a conversational tone.
“I’m a very kinky girl,” she answered briskly. She got his hands cuffed behind him, but she didn’t drop off her toes. She was cautious.
“The kind I won’t take home to mother?”
One of her hands roamed over him from behind. The other, Reese was sure, still held her weapon. He wasn’t sure where she’s gotten a gun, or the cuffs, but her handler had brought her a second bag of gear at the airport. She took his gun, his wallet, his phone. The knife off his ankle. And his own handcuffs. “Why do you have them?”
“Pretty much the same.”
Julie grasped the chain that linked his hands and tugged him gently backward. He complied, and she used his cuffs to chain him to the radiator. There was a moment of silence. He guessed she was looking through the wallet. “John Rooney, huh?” Julie said. She finally moved around in front of him, looked him over. “You’re not who I thought you were.”
“Sorry. You can unchain me now. No hard feelings.”
“Yeah. No.” She studied him for another moment. Then she said, “Ohhhh.”
“Someone’s been reading their BOLOs,” Reese said, for Finch’s benefit.
“I’m on my way,” Finch answered briskly.
“Just looking at the pretty pictures, actually,” she answered. “But I’m going to read them now, if you’ll excuse me a moment.” She leaned her hip on the edge of the table where she’d dropped his weapons and brought her phone out.
“Easily the most polite person that’s ever taken you captive,” Finch observed.
Reese grunted. She was nervous, chatty. Or else she was a born-and-trained diplomat and the chatter was the tool she used to assess the situation. Either way, he was willing to talk. It would give Finch time to reach him.
Although exactly what Finch would do when he got there was unclear.
Julie looked up at him. “Not Rooney. You’re the famous John Reese.” She glanced past him to check on Ingram. Then she went back to surfing on her phone. Reese waited quietly.
Finally she put the phone down. “Why does Mark Snow want you dead?”
Reese cocked his head. “It doesn’t say ‘dead or alive’?”
“It does, but I know he doesn’t mean it.”
“You know Mark?” John asked, surprised.
She hesitated. “Yeah.”
The quietness of her answer told him something new. “Biblically?” he guessed.
“Yeah.”
“You seem so much smarter than that.”
“Thank you. I am so much smarter than that. Now. At the time I was young and rich and spoiled and he was about twenty different flavors of unsuitable. He was irresistible.”
Reese scowled; of the many words he might have used to describe Snow, ‘irresistible’ was about the last. “I apologize,” he said sincerely.
“For what?”
“For Mark. For the Agency. For my entire gender.”
Julie actually smiled. “Thank you. But it wasn’t all bad. The sex was fantastic. The head games were a little … overwhelming.”
“That’s the point of seducing co-eds,” Reese told her. “They’re easily overwhelmed. And they’re too young to know how good the sex is. Or isn’t.”
“Mmmm. Pretty sure I was old enough to know.”
“And then you followed him into the trade.”
“No. That was another guy. Also unsuitable, but for entirely different reasons.” She shrugged. “You’re not answering the question. Why does he want you dead?”
“Because I left the Agency. I’m a loose end. And because he’s Mark.”
Evidently she knew Snow well enough to know that answer was true. “I’m sorry,” she said, “that looks really uncomfortable. Let me get you a chair.” She stood and pulled a chair over to him, slid it sideways so he could sit down. He sat; it took the strain off his elbows, and it made him somewhat less intimidating. Despite the hardware, the girl was suitably wary of him. “Better?” she asked.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Julie retreated to the table again. “Why are you following my boy?”
“Her boy?” Finch sputtered in his ear. “A better question would be …”
“A better question would be,” Reese said over him, “why are you following him?”
“It’s considered rude to answer a question with a question, you know.”
“And chaining someone you just met to a radiator isn’t rude? Why are you following him?”
“Because he’s still in danger,” Julie answered. “From people like you, apparently. And this guy.” She picked up her phone out and held it up in front of him. “Who’s this guy?”
It was the blurry picture from the car. “I don’t know.”
“Why’s he following Ingram?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s Mark Snow’s phone number?”
Reese smirked. “It’s probably on the BOLO. But you’re not going to turn me over to him.”
“Why not?”
“Because you know he’ll kill me. And you’re not that kind of girl.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Reese nodded his head toward the phone. “You’ve seen that guy a couple times. You’ve seen me once, tonight. How does that add up to Ingram being in danger?”
“I saw you outside his hotel, too. In the park.” Julie shrugged. “Lizard brain says he’s in trouble.”
“And you trust your lizard brain.”
“It caught you, didn’t it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “One more time. Why are you following him?”
Reese shifted his shoulders, got the cuffs to settle a little lower on his wrists. “I’m not following him. I’m following you.”
She thought about this. “Why?”
“Your life’s in danger.”
“That’s right there in the job description.”
“It might be work-related,” Reese agreed. “It might not be. But someone is planning to kill you.”
“How do you know that?”
“How did you know Will Ingram was in danger?”
She tsk’ed at him. “Rude. Again. We knew Ingram was in danger the minute his father’s will was read.” She looked out the window, watched the young man again. “Lovely man, Dr. Ingram. Smart, funny, good-hearted. Has all the self-preservation instincts of a gypsy moth at a lantern festival.”
“That’s very true,” Finch agreed in Reese’s ear.
“Just filled his second inside straight of the night and doesn’t realize the game is rigged.” She shook her head. “Why do you think I’m in danger?” she asked again.
Reese shrugged. “Lizard brain?”
“Bullshit.”
“I can’t tell you.”
She leaned back and studied him again. “I have, hmmm, two guns, two knives, a hammer,” she looked behind the table, picked up a power tool, “whatever this is, an extension cord, and an assortment of two-by-fours. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider that answer?”
“It’s a Skilsaw,” Reese told her.
“Thank you. And?”
“And you’re not that kind of girl.” Behind him, someone at the poker table said something about one last hand. He pushed his luck. “What does the lizard brain tell you about me?”
“That you’re dangerous as hell,” Julie answered immediately. “But also, that if Mark Snow wants you dead, I probably want you alive.” She sighed and looked at her phone again. “Of all these people that have wants and warrants out for you, which ones won’t kill you on sight?”
Reese considered. “NYPD. FBI. Maybe a couple others. But whoever you give me to, Snow will come and claim me.”
He knew she could hear the poker game ending, too. “Then what the hell am I going to do with you?”
“You could let me go,” Reese suggested.
“I’m very sure I don’t want you behind me.”
“I could go in front of you. Help you protect your boy.”
“If Mark Snow can’t catch or control you, I’m damn sure I can’t.”
“And yet,” Reese said slowly, “you have me handcuffed to a radiator.”
She raised one eyebrow at him. “You’re telling me you let me catch you.”
“I’m telling you I wasn’t willing to shoot you to stop you. That’s got to be good for something.”
“The whole Agency condescending thing. Does it just never wear off?”
Will Ingram managed to lose ever dime he’d brought with him in the last hand.
Reese grinned at her crookedly. “Your boy’s leaving, Julie. What’s your play?”
“I should probably just shoot you. It’d be quick. Way more merciful than Mark will be.”
“Mr. Reese …” Finch worried in his ear. “I’m still several minutes away.”
Reese shook his head. “You probably should. But you won’t.”
“Because I’m not that kind of girl, I know.” She looked over his shoulder and nodded thoughtfully. “You have a friend in town? Someone you trust with your life?”
“I do.” Reese craned his neck to see the poker table. The men were on their feet, gathering their chips, throwing away the empty beer bottles.
“Can you call him or her with your hands behind your back?”
“Yes.”
She dropped the handcuff keys onto the table, picked up his phone and moved to stand in front of him. Even then, Reese could see that she was considering her options. She kept her gun down to her side, but for the first time he thought that she might actually shoot him. It wasn’t her nature; he was right about that. But Will Ingram was there, not thirty feet away, and in her view he was vulnerable. People could do very uncharacteristic things of defense of the ones they loved.
The difference between love and counter-transference was, at the moment, completely insignificant to her.
“You keep saying I’m not that kind of girl,” Julie said quietly, “and you’re right. I’m not. But people can change.” Her voice remained soft, almost kind. “If you lay a hand on Will Ingram, you and I are going to find out exactly what kind of girl I can be. Am I clear?”
Reese didn’t generally react well to threats, but this one didn’t particularly anger him. It helped that she hadn’t raised the gun, or her voice. She probably couldn’t hurt him much and she knew it. But she would do whatever she could, and he would have to kill her to stop her. She wasn’t being malicious. She was simply servicing notice that she would kill “ or die “ to protect Will Ingram.
He could respect that.
“Clear,” he answered, without sarcasm.
Julie leaned past him and put his cell phone in his hand. She looked out the window again. “Damn it, Will, do not get in that car with that man.” She put her hand on Reese’s shoulder briefly. “Good luck,” she said with sincerity. Then she hurried out of the room.
When her footsteps had faded to silence, Reese called, “Finch?”
“Two minutes. Or less.”
“East building, third floor, apartment 306. Keep tracking the girl. I’ll need to catch up with her.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Reese?” Finch’s voice had the faintest lilt to it; he was teasing, but very gently. “She seems more than capable of taking care of herself.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Reese agreed grudgingly. “Maybe we should be promoting this romance. God knows Ingram needs someone to look out for him.”
There was a long pause. “Finch?” Reese prompted. “I was kidding.”
“I know,” Finch said from the doorway. He limped across to the table, got the keys, and moved to unlock the handcuffs. “But truth is often contained in jest.” He pulled the cuffs away and straightened. “He could do worse.”
Reese stood up, rubbed his wrists lightly, and re-armed himself. “Let’s try not to complicate things, Finch. We don’t know who’s after her yet.”
“True.” Finch started back toward the door.
“Still,” Reese mused as he followed him out, “I’ve always been partial to a girl with her own handcuffs.”
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