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The color on her cheeks heightened and her long lashes fluttered for a second. “No.”
“Very good.” Glotz placed his hands on the desk and pushed up from the chair, still mindful that his ass had been planted on a chair that cost more than he’d see in one year’s salary.
Finnegan stood up with much less grace and hunched over the desk. “Thanks for your cooperation, Mrs. Chadwick. If we need anything else, we’ll let you know.”
With the questioning over, Finnegan had reverted back to his gruff but civil self.
Mike hurried to the office door and swung it open. The tail end of Correll’s suit jacket disappeared around the corner of the foyer. Had he been listening at the keyhole?
“Gentlemen, if there’s nothing else, we’ll see you out. Claire and I need to take her son to the airport.”
A maid appeared on silent feet with the agents’ coats.
“Just don’t hop on any planes yourself, Mrs. Chadwick.” Finnegan hunched into his overcoat and saluted.
When the front door closed behind them, Claire sighed. “What they’re saying isn’t true.”
Mike shook his head as Correll came into view from the corner behind her.
“What the hell was that all about, Claire?”
“The FBI thinks they have the valet. It’s someone I was in contact with after Shane’s murder.” She flicked her fingers in the air. “It’s all garbage anyway. We need to get Lori and Ethan to the airport. Mitch and I will probably be out the rest of the day.”
“Be careful out there, Claire. Those two agents seemed pretty serious. I knew the time you spent looking into Shane’s death would come back to haunt you.”
She started up the stairs and glanced over her shoulder. “It’s not haunting me.”
Correll shrugged his shoulders and gave Mike a pitying look. “She’s your problem now.”
* * *
ONE HOUR AND one tear-filled goodbye later, Mike accelerated out of the airport with Claire sniffling beside him.
“He looked so grown-up with his little backpack.” She clutched his arm. “He didn’t look scared, did he?”
“I haven’t known your son that long, and I’m no expert on little kids, but I don’t think a smile from ear to ear and hopping from one foot to the other on the escalator signals fear for a five-year-old boy.”
She dabbed her eyes and then waved the tissue in the air. “I don’t want him to feel sad, exactly, but a little longer hug would’ve been nice.”
“It probably won’t hit him until he’s at his grandparents’ in the middle of the night and realizes he can’t run into your bed whenever he wants.”
Her hand returned to his arm. “I hope he’s not going to be scared.”
“You said he had lots of cousins out there for the holidays?”
“Yes, tons.”
“He’ll be fine. Everything’s always better when you have kids your own age around.”
“Did you?”
He fumbled for his sunglasses in the cup holder. “Only child here. I almost had a younger sibling once, but my mother lost the baby after a particularly bad beating at the hands of my father. She never tried again.”
Claire pressed a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Mike. Did your mother ever leave your father?”
“Not until the day she died in a car accident—his fault. He was driving drunk and they were fighting. He crossed the median and wrapped his car around a lamppost. The wrong person died in that accident.”
“H-how old were you when that happened?”
“Seventeen.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “I almost killed the bastard, but my basketball coach got to me first. My dad went to prison, and I lived the rest of my senior year of high school at Coach’s house and enlisted in the marines the day I graduated.”
The gentle pressure of her hand on his thigh brought him back to the present. “I’m sorry. That sure as hell falls into the too-much-information category.”
She didn’t answer except to give his leg a gentle squeeze.
Why had he spilled his guts like that? If he didn’t watch it, he’d be blabbing about his worry that witnessing all that violence as a child had ruined him for any kind of relationship. She was already worried about her own mental health; she didn’t need to start worrying about his.
