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I shook my head as the team laughed. “I think I’m good, but I appreciate your concern.”
TJ joined us. Jensen, having collected and secured all of our personal electronics, followed him and closed the secure door. Jensen sat beside Li while TJ stood next to the screen at the front of the room. TJ opened his mouth to speak.
The SCIF cipher lock clicked. The door opened and Doc stood in the doorway wearing a pair of painted on jeans, high-heeled black boots, and a cream-colored blouse. Her glorious red hair floated around her face, where the nasty bruise on her temple had faded to a bluish-green hue. She looked like an avenging angel or a conquering warrior, and I was ready to subjugate myself to her, body and soul.
So much for keeping my raging hard-on under control. I’d never had such wholly unprofessional thoughts in a professional setting before. I shifted in my seat and thanked the universe for the cover of the conference table.
“No,” TJ told her.
“What does that mean?” Red asked. I gave up trying to think of her by any other name.
“It means Sloane said three days—”
She held up her phone, face out, to show a digital timer counting down minutes and seconds. “I set this on Sunday, the moment he announced that ridiculous requirement. It’s Wednesday. If you want, I can wait another”—she turned the phone to read the numbers—“one hour, sixteen minutes and twenty-three seconds before you include me, but then you’ll just have to repeat yourself.”
The entire team sat in silence, looking back and forth between the two of them. The immutable force versus the immovable object. TJ blinked, literally. Then he nodded to Jensen to collect her phone and lock it up with the rest of our devices in the wall safe outside the door. The force of nature that was Samantha Bond blew into the room and settled into the seat at the end of the table, in the same position she’d taken during our Sunday meeting. Just a few feet away from me. Close enough for me to bump her knee and lay my hand on top of hers. Neither of which I did because we were professionals. And because we were no longer lovers.
Red glanced around the table, then met my gaze. I couldn’t look away from her. She parted her lips and I hoped to God she would lean forward and kiss me in the most unprofessional way in front of all these witnesses.
“You going to eat all of that?” she asked.
I blinked, not quite registering her words. “What?” I’m sure I dazzled her with my brilliance.
She nodded toward the rest of the team. “I didn’t get the memo about this meeting, so I didn’t know we were supposed to bring our breakfasts.”
“Oh,” I responded. Yeah, I was just a scintillating conversationalist. While I slid the bowl of oatmeal toward her, my heart pounded from the thrill that she’d asked me, and not anyone else, to share my meal with her. Sure, no one else had brought two plates with them, but I preferred to think of her request as one of intimacy, not practicality.
She shook her head, then pointed to the plate of spicy eggs. I arched a questioning eyebrow, but slid the plate over to her.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ve been dying for something that doesn’t taste like cardboard for days.”
“If it’s all right with you two, I’d like to get back to the meeting,” TJ said.
I didn’t mind his annoyed tone. It was fun to feel like Red and I were a team of two again, even it was only for the purpose of getting in trouble. TJ tapped on the laptop in front of him and a briefing slide popped up on the wall screen. With monumental effort, I tore my gaze away from Red and focused my attention on her boss’s presentation.
“About fifteen minutes ago, I got the news we’ve been waiting for,” TJ continued. “Our mystery man showed up at the coffee shop this morning, following the pattern of Wednesday and Friday meetings with O’Dell. Since O’Dell wasn’t there, we expect our mystery man to show up at their lunch spot at 1300 hours looking for him again.”
“But we don’t move today,” Penn said. “We need more time to pull in HEAT backup, so the plan is to bring him in Friday.”
“Wait,” Red interrupted. “Since no one has kept me in the loop, can you give me the Cliffs Notes about what’s happening?”
Despite our improved relationship as TJ and I had worked together over the past few days, I couldn’t read him well enough to know whether the curt nod he gave Red conveyed annoyance or agreement, but she seemed unfazed, so I guessed the latter.
“On Sunday morning, Chicago PD sent surveillance video from various businesses near the Grand Plaza, covering the ten days O’Dell was registered there as a guest,” TJ said.
“That was fast,” she said. “What made them so cooperative?”
“Prescott has some friends in high places,” TJ said. “He called in a favor.”
“Really.” She looked at me.
I had only known her a bit longer than I had TJ, but our time together had been much more intimate and I’d spent those hours watching her closely. I could read her face. She was a little annoyed and a lot hurt. Before I could ask why or defend myself against whatever terrible thoughts she was thinking of me, Jensen jumped in.
“Alder and I set some parameters and let the computers do the first round of video observation,” he said.
“It took the program until early Monday evening to compile all the footage of O’Dell into a four-hour montage,” Alder said.
“Then logistics and tactical took over,” Penn said.
