“You’re here early.”
I look up to find Josie crossing the lobby toward me, coffee tumbler in one hand, tablet tucked under her arm.She’s dressed with her usual precise ease—dark wide-leg trousers, a fitted cream blouse, hair down and straight today instead of twisted up.
She pulls out the chair across from me and sits, setting her tumbler down and glancing at the spread of notes between us.“Where’s Cole?”
“Out,” I say, and I hear the edge in my voice before I can smooth it.
Josie hears it too.“Doing what?”
“Another job,” I say.“He and Reid left about an hour ago.”I keep my eyes on the page in front of me.“A client situation in Bellevue.Malik briefed them at seven.”
A beat of silence.“Ah,” Josie says knowingly, her eyes slanted with just a touch of sympathy.
“I’m fine,” I say, which is what you say when you’re not.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I’m pissy,” I correct, sitting back in my chair and pushing the notebook aside.“I’m pissy because I’m stuck here like a prisoner and I know I’m being unreasonable about it so I’m trying to just put my head down and work through it.”
Josie wraps both hands around her tumbler and regards me with the calm, assessing expression of a woman who has spent her career reading situations accurately.“You’re not being unreasonable,” she says.“You’ve been inside this building for four days.”
“Five,” I correct.
“Five days,” she amends.“And you watched Cole and Reid walk out the door this morning to go do fieldwork while you stayed here.”
“While I’mstuckhere,” I clarify.“Like a very comfortable, very well-secured houseplant.”
The corner of Josie’s mouth twitches.“I’ve never heard anyone describe themselves as a houseplant before.”
“First time for everything.”
She studies me for a moment.“It won’t be forever, Tessa.”
“I know,” I say with a frustrated sigh because logically, I do know.“It’s just—” I stop, tapping my fingertip on the open notebook.“I’ve been chasing this story for weeks.I’ve run toward danger, lost a source, witnessed a murder, had men break into my home, and through all of it I kept moving.I kept working.”I look at her, holding out my hands helplessly.“Sitting still feels like losing.”
Josie nods slowly, a soft smile of genuine acknowledgment.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” she says.
I sit back further, crossing my arms.“How do you stand it?Being at a desk all day?”I glance toward her glass-walled office.“I’m always moving.Talking to people.Running down leads in person.The idea of spending most of my working hours in front of a computer would make me absolutely insane.”
Josie laughs, eyes twinkling with amusement.“Oh, dear Tessa… I am not a desk jockey,” she says, with the mild emphasis of someone who has made this clarification before and doesn’t particularly mind doing so again.“I’m a fully operational agent.I go on missions, run field assessments and I’ve done extractions.”She lifts an eyebrow.“I just also happen to be exceptionally good at what I do behind a screen, which means that’s where Malik puts me when there’s a choice.”
I blink.“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t,” she says easily.“Most people assume and it’s fine.”She takes a sip of her coffee.“Intelligence is my specialty, not my limitation.And in fact,” she says with a sheepish smile, “I’m going out tomorrow to do some work with Cole down at the docks.”She then winces at the reminder that I’ll be stuck here like a houseplant.“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say with an exaggerated wave of indifference.“I’ll just sit here and shrivel up from boredom.”
Josie snickers.“That’s dramatic.”
“How did you end up in intelligence specifically?”I’m genuinely curious rather than just filling silence.Josie is the kind of person who makes you want to understand how they got where they are.
Her expression brightens and she crosses her arms on the table.“I was born into it, honestly.My dad was in intelligence in the marines.He’s a general now.”A small private smile crosses her face.“Growing up, dinner table conversation was… educational.”
“I imagine.”
