5
Logan Finch watched from the couch as Rebecca Irvine tied his daughter’s hair in a French plait. He liked watching Ellie and Irvine together, was happy that they were getting on better now.
Irvine saw him watching and made a face. He smiled at her, stood and went to the kitchen.
Irvine’s three-year-old son, Connor, was sitting on the floor tracing shapes in the orange juice he had spilled. He saw Logan and lifted his arms up, laughing.
‘Let’s get you ready for nursery, buddy,’ Logan said, lifting him off the floor and skidding in the juice puddle.
Domesticity.
‘Time to make a move, everybody,’ Logan shouted as he went from the kitchen into the hall of his flat.
Irvine came out of the living room and grabbed Connor from him.
‘You in a hurry?’ she asked.
‘Kind of. Alex called and he needs me to look into something this morning. Sounded urgent.’
‘Want me to drop the kids off?’
‘Would you? That would be great.’
Irvine smiled. He was transparent.
‘All you had to do was ask.’
‘But it’s more fun when you think that it’s all your own idea, right?’
‘Oh, sure.’
Logan leaned in past the flailing arms of her son and kissed her. Irvine’s hand slid up his back and on to his neck as their lips opened on one another.
‘I had fun this weekend,’ he told her.
‘Me too. Let’s do it again sometime.’
He kissed her again before going to his bedroom to grab a jacket, stopping by the bed and putting a hand on the mattress. Feeling the last heat from their bodies lingering there and remembering …
‘Logan …’
Ellie stood in the door with a knowing smile. He didn’t mind that she sometimes still called him by his name instead of Dad. She had only come into his life three years ago – after the murder of her mother. But at fourteen, she seemed far more mature than he remembered being at that age.
‘I gotta go, Ellie,’ he said, brushing past her and kissing the top of her head.
‘Piano practice tonight,’ she said. ‘Did you remember?’
‘Sure,’ he said, not meaning it. ‘Pick you up at seven from Valerie’s?’
‘You forgot again.’
‘Did not.’
Logan walked through the CPO reception, nodding at the woman behind the desk. The company name – the ‘O’ a stylised target of concentric rings – was on the wall above her. Cahill and Hardy were waiting for him in the War Room – the biggest of the meeting rooms in the CPO office suite. The two men were sitting at a small conference table in the centre of the windowless room, spotlights shining on the glossy table top. A large TV was mounted in the centre of the wall to the right of the door.
Cahill looked up and put a finger to his mouth when Logan came into the room, pointing at the conference phone that was sitting on the table. Logan pulled a chair out from the table and sat quietly.
‘Guys,’ an American voice sounded from the phone, ‘I can’t help you on this. Not right now anyway. Place is locked down tight and no one is telling me anything.’
‘Thanks, anyway,’ Hardy said before pressing a button to end the call.
Logan looked at Cahill.
‘We’re getting exactly nowhere,’ Cahill said. ‘Nobody wants to talk to us.’
‘You need to fill me in on this before I make the call to the woman I know at Homeland Security,’ Logan told them.
Cahill picked a remote device from the table top and aimed it at the TV. The screen ran a feed from an American news network – still focusing on the crash outside Denver.
Cahill let Logan watch for a while before telling him what was going on.
Logan stared at the screen some more.
‘They think it was brought down deliberately?’ he asked. ‘The plane, I mean.’
‘Who knows. The news people aren’t suggesting anything like that.’
‘Would explain the secrecy, though, right?’
‘Maybe. But the only reason that Tim’s name would raise a flag in those circumstances is if he was a suspect.’
Logan nodded like he agreed.
‘But he can’t be. Not the Tim I know.’
‘So it’s something else?’
‘Can you make the call?’
‘Sure. But she’s based in New York so it’ll be the middle of the night over there. We’ll have to wait, you know. Plus, if this thing is sensitive, she might not be able to tell me anything.’
Cahill stood and went to the TV, watching the images from less than six feet away. He turned to face Logan.
‘If I remember correctly,’ he said, ‘it was more than just professional between the two of you.’
Logan felt heat rise in his cheeks.
‘Am I right?’
Logan nodded.
‘Okay, then.’
‘Not okay,’ Logan told him. ‘It was a brief thing. We only saw each other like that a few times when I was over in New York. I don’t feel comfortable using the relationship this way.’
‘I’m not asking you to.’
‘What are you asking?’
‘Make the call. Ask the question. If she says no, then that’s the end of it. Don’t put any pressure on her.’
Logan looked at Hardy. He was non-committal, shrugging his shoulders.
‘Fine,’ Logan said, turning back to Cahill. ‘But I’ll do it like you said. Ask her the question in a businesslike way. Nothing else.’
‘That’s all I’m asking.’
‘So, what do you want to do now?’ Logan asked.
‘Let’s call Tim’s wife.’