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“Morning,” Aaron said.
“Good morning, Agent Pritchard. Get any sleep last night?”
“A little. You?”
“I woke myself snoring a couple of times.”
“I didn’t take you for a joker, McCaffrey. Nothing to report?”
“No, it’s been quiet here, although Ms. Davis did come out and offer me a coffee, which doesn’t often happen. I take it you’re here to escort her from the premises?”
“I am. You can consider yourself clocked off.”
Aaron waited for the agent to leave before knocking on the door.
“Yes? McCaffrey?” Sydney called out. “Change your mind about the coffee?” She opened the door. “Oh, Aaron. Hi.”
“Hi. Can I come in?”
She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt and stepped back. “I was about to have a coffee. You want one?”
“No thanks.” He stepped awkwardly into the room. He’d handled plenty of witnesses, criminals, and sources in a number of different scenarios, but he’d never been so awkward. “You sleep well last night?”
“Not really. I kept a knife under my pillow and got up to check on every bump I heard. Even with McCaffrey out there, it didn’t help. I had terrible images running through my head of him being murdered.”
“Sounds unpleasant.”
“Yeah. He coughed at three thirty and I thought someone was choking him. I stood at the door with the knife, waiting for a sign that everything was safe. Finally, he cleared his throat, and I went back to bed. I shouldn’t be so jumpy after everything I’ve been through in my life. I should be able to handle this better.”
“I’ve learned something about that over the years. Every time I think I’ve seen it all and I’m prepared for anything, I get thrown a curveball and I have to find a new way to handle it. You knew what to expect with your dad. You don’t know what to expect with these guys.” He shifted on his feet several times before sitting down at a small table.
“Great. New trauma to learn to live with,” she said, pulling a mug from the dishwasher. “The story of my life.”
“I think you’re more resilient than you give yourself credit for. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and you’re already handling it better than most would.”
He watched her in the open kitchen while she made her coffee. Her movements were stiff and her eyes focused too hard on the mug she gripped tightly in her hand.
He wanted to take that hand and pull her to sit beside him to talk about what had happened. But that wasn’t his job this morning. He couldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt simply because he knew her when she was a child. That wasn’t how he dealt with these types of scenarios, and if he treated her differently from anyone else, he’d be doing her a disservice.
He squeezed his fist in his lap and prepared himself for what he had to do next.
“Syd?”
“Yeah?” She’d finished making her coffee but stayed in the kitchen while she took a sip.
“When are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”
Her body jerked. “What do you mean?”
“When we arrived at the lab yesterday, you said you didn’t need protection.”
“I didn’t think I did.”
“And yet, there are people after you. Why?”
“I — I guess they saw the newspaper article.”
“Syd, come on.”
