“It’s at least your fifth.”
“Chief, come on. You’re not spending your time keeping track of how much coffee I’m drinking, are you?”
“It’s too damn much. You’re going to be in the middle of a takedown one of these days and have to pee. That happened with my first partner—”
“It’s not going to happen to me.”
He sniffed, making a face. “How old is that stuff?”
“I don’t know. I finished off the pot.” She was notorious for drinking coffee any way she could get it, but she preferred it black, hot and fresh. “I’m not that fussy. The only kind of coffee I won’t drink is flavored. Hazelnut, vanilla.” She gave a mock shudder. “Raspberry.”
“My wife loves hazelnut. She says it’s like having a milkshake.”
“When I want a milkshake, I’ll have a milkshake.”
“You ever get tested for ADHD?” he asked. “Attention deficit hyperactive disorder.”
She creaked back in her chair. “No, Mike. I’ve never been tested.”
“My youngest is ADHD. Smart as a whip, funny as hell. She’s on the go all the time. I can’t keep up with her. I don’t know if it’s true, but I read somewhere that coffee doesn’t affect people with ADHD the same way it does other people. Supposedly it calms them instead of winds them up.”
“Do I look calm?”
He grinned at her. “Imagine if you didn’t have all that caffeine in you. You’d be shooting up the place.”
Fortunately, he left it at that and retreated to his office without launching into a lecture on post-traumatic stress disorder. Better, Juliet thought, to have Rivera watching her for signs of ADHD than PTSD. After two high-stress and highly publicized events this past year—both, not coincidentally, involving a certain Special Forces officer—Rivera had earmarked her as a prime candidate for PTSD. All she had to do was mention a nightmare, and he was on her. PTSD was a serious concern, and a certain amount of vigilance was called for, given what she’d been through the past five months, starting in May with the Central Park sniper-style shooting of Rob Dunnemore, a fellow deputy with whom Juliet had had a brief, romantic relationship, and Nate Winter, a senior deputy and her mentor. Rob was seriously injured, Nate back on his feet that same day. The shooting was the first inclination the USMS had of the very complicated plot to extort a presidential pardon on behalf of Nicholas Janssen. Rivera insisted it alone was reason for Juliet to be on alert of PTSD symptoms, never mind the rest of what had transpired that week. She still had the scars from a killer road rash she’d received after Janssen’s goons had grabbed her and she’d leaped out of their moving car. Then it was on to Tennessee and meeting Ethan over the bodies of the same two goons, distracting their killer—crazy Conroy Fontaine—before he could shoot Ethan, too. Fontaine had proceeded to drag her to a dark, dank cave, tie her up, gag her and leave her there with the snakes.
If she’d had to, Juliet would have hurled herself into the river below the cave to escape. Even bound and gagged, she’d have managed to swim. But Ethan had found her and convinced himself he’d saved her life. Conroy Fontaine was dying of a snakebite by the time he was taken into custody. Meanwhile, Ethan took off to find Nick Janssen, who’d placed the order to have Ethan’s wife murdered the previous fall.
More grounds, in Rivera’s view, for him to watch Juliet for PTSD.
Then came August and the assassin. Juliet had reminded her boss more than once that she’d never been in serious danger, but he’d just give her a skeptical look. After Ethan had chased Janssen over the summer, putting pressure on him, a Diplomatic Security agent—Maggie Spencer—got a tip that led to Janssen’s arrest. Even in a Dutch prison, he was dangerous. His hired assassin started working her way down a list of targets he’d given her—with a few of her own thrown in. Maggie Spencer and Rob Dunnemore finally caught up with her in a pretty village on the Hudson River. But Ethan—and Juliet—had been on the scene.
Rivera had warned her that Ethan was a prime candidate for PTSD himself. No doubt. How many people could tolerate the stresses he’d endured? Combat, black ops, the grief and guilt of his wife’s murder—and that was all before Juliet had met him in May. But, as she’d reminded Rivera—and herself—as a Special Forces officer, Ethan was uniquely trained, and perhaps naturally mentally and physically suited to endure extreme stress.
Juliet pulled herself out of her thoughts and took a swallow of coffee, but it had gone cold.