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She smiled. “I don’t blame you. I didn’t realize how conditioned I was to the cold weather until I was here my first year. All of a sudden, I realized it was December and I was sitting by my parents’ pool.”
“They doing okay?”
She nodded. “Since Dad retired, his health has improved, and Mom loves Hawaii.”
“That’s good. Kind of a dream to retire to Hawaii and just hang out.”
“You would never be able to do that,” Tamilya said.
Addie smiled. “Yeah. But neither could you.”
She wasn’t so sure of that. The drive to be the best TFH agent she could be rode on her back, but she didn’t want to do it forever. While she was proud of her work since she started at TFH, she didn’t want to do it until she died. On the other hand, Addie would probably be at work until the day she died.
“I’m going to grab myself a cup of coffee,” Addie said breaking into Tamilya’s thoughts.
She nodded but said nothing else.
“Do you want any?”
Tamilya blinked and looked up at her old boss. In all their time working together, Addie had never offered to get her anything.
“Uh, no thanks. Don’t need to add caffeine to the situation.”
She smiled and slipped from the room.
Tamilya leaned back in her chair, her foot tapping on the floor. She couldn’t stop fidgeting as anxiety rode her hard. She wasn’t just pissed at the moment. In fact, some of her anger had bled out of her. She wanted to be out there, wanted to take the bastard down, but Del had been right. She would have been a distraction to the other officers.
She stood and started to pace her office. There wasn’t much room, but there was enough for her to use it to think. It wasn’t just that she could be there to take down the bastard. Her team was there. She wanted to back them up, be by their sides.
She stopped pacing and closed her eyes. If anything happened to any of them, she would be so upset, but if anything happened to Marcus…
Opening her eyes, she pushed that thought aside. She didn’t want to even contemplate that. Just like a lot of other law enforcement, she was a tad bit superstitious. Thinking it could make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, it would be better to concentrate on the case.
With another Li associate gone, was he the one involved with the whole thing? Had he been working with the Russians four years ago? The countries were known to work together against the US every now and then. Their location and dictatorships made it easy to think they would want to do anything to Western democracies.
Her phone vibrated on her desk and she stepped closer to grab it, but Addie stopped her.
“Don’t,” she said.
Tamilya looked up and saw that Addie was holding a gun on her. That irritated Tamilya, but it was the pipe bomb she held in her other hand that turned Tamilya’s blood to ice.
ChapterNineteen
The smile curving Addie’s mouth held no humor. There was a satisfaction, but Tamilya couldn’t see a shred of a remnant of the woman she had known four years ago. The chill she’d felt in her bones, now seeped into her blood...even her soul. Was she ever the woman Tamilya thought she was?
“Your expression is priceless, really.” She let out a tinkle of a laugh that heightened Tamilya’s fear, but she would be damned if she would show it.
“Why?”
She shrugged and the smile turned smug. “Why not?”
Tamilya blinked. The tone was one she had never heard before. At least not coming from Addie. She had always been the perfect agent, the type they would talk about in their recruiting literature and videos. Now, bitterness dripped from every word, along with a sing song quality that left Tamilya’s stomach queasy.
How had she missed this side of Addie?
Addie sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you. Sit down.”
Tamilya hesitated, but Addie waved her gun.
