“Yeah, me too.”
They sipped their coffee uneasily, aware of wandering into a minefield that neither felt eager to explore.
“I should have gone with you,” he said. “In Atlanta. I shouldn’t have let you go after George by yourself.”
“Let me?” She arched an eyebrow.
“I mean, we should have stuck together.”
“Well, we didn’t,” she replied without it being an accusation. A simple statement of fact. She ran her fingers through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
“Still . . .” He appreciated her exonerating him, but it fell on guilt’s deaf ears.
Jenn saw it in his face and came around the counter. She hugged him. His hands went around her, and he clung to her gratefully, ignoring the gun tucked against the small of her back.
“Why didn’t you ask for my help?” he asked.
“Because you were doing well. Dan said that you had a good job lined up and that things were turning around for you. I didn’t want to jeopardize that.”
“Wait.” Gibson stepped back. “When were you in touch with Hendricks?”
It was Jenn’s turn to look guilty. “From the beginning.”
“From the beginning beginning? Since Atlanta?”
Jenn nodded.
“Son of a bitch,” Gibson said. “Son of a bitch.” He kept saying it, hoping he’d start to feel less of a fool. It didn’t help. All those phone calls had been nothing but a smoke screen. Hendricks had known all along that Jenn was alive and had left Gibson in the dark. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Gibson,” Jenn said. “Gibson. No, it’s not Dan’s fault. I told him to stand down. It was my call.”
He picked up his mug and slammed it back down on the counter, slopping coffee everywhere. “Why? I thought you were dead, or worse. Do you really trust me that little?”
“That’s not it,” Jenn said. “That’s not it at all.”
“Do you know how much time I spent looking for you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then what the hell?”
Jenn sighed. “Because I knew you’d try to help, and I didn’t want it.”
Gibson would have thought that he’d graduated from hurt feelings at this point in his life, but he’d have been wrong.
“Why the hell not? Do you think I—”
“You’d done enough.” She reached out and touched the scar at his throat. “We both thought you’d let it go.” Jenn smiled at him. “But you’re so damned stubborn. God, how Dan used to bitch at me about how he could set his watch by your calls.”
“Great. I’m glad I was good for something,” Gibson said bitterly.
“It meant a lot to me.”
“Well, you’re welcome.” Gibson poured himself more coffee and took it over to the fireplace. He stood gazing into the flames. Jenn came and stood next to him. She nudged him with her shoulder.
“I should have told you,” she said.
Admitting mistakes was not in Jenn Charles’s blood; it surprised Gibson, but he wasn’t inclined to be so easily placated. “You’re damned right you should’ve.”
“But I didn’t, so quit pouting.”
“Pouting?” Gibson said, not believing his ears.
“Yeah, you’re pouting. Knock it off, already. I haven’t seen you in two years, you big baby.”
He looked at her, bracing for a fight, but she was grinning at him.
“Look, I said I was sorry.”
“No, actually, you didn’t.”
Jenn thought about it. “Well, I meant to.”
Gibson waited, but that was as close to an apology as Jenn got. And she was right, they hadn’t seen each other in two years, and he didn’t want to start with a fight.
“It’s good to see you,” Jenn said.
“Yeah, you too.”
“So what happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, knowing exactly what she meant.
“I mean, you vanished. One second Dan can’t get rid of you, and the next your ex-wife’s house burns down and you’re nowhere to be found. We thought you might be dead.”
“I could say the same for you.”
Jenn began to press the issue, but then her phone buzzed in her pocket. She frowned at the number and went into the next room to take the call. When she didn’t return, Gibson wandered back to the kitchen to refill his coffee. Exploring, he stuck his head through a nearby door and found the dining room. Jenn had converted it into an office. A large white architectural map of Dulles International Airport had been taped to the dining room table. Arrows, circles, lists, and notes had been scrawled across the map in a variety of inks. A stack of legal pads sat beside a laptop. Gibson would have needed a laser to line up the row of multicolored Sharpies that precisely.
Casually, he reached out and jostled one of the Sharpies a quarter of an inch with his fingernail. That he knew someone well enough to mess with them like this made him happy. It felt more human than anything he’d done since his release. He cast around for another prank to play, but Jenn came back from her call.
“See you found my war room.” Something in her voice told Gibson she would have rather he’d stayed in the living room.
“Tell me this airplane isn’t flying out of Dulles.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Dulles International Airport? Little bit, yeah.”
“I thought you liked a challenge,” Jenn said with false bravado. “Come on, let me show you the rest of the house.”
She seemed eager to get him out of there, so he let her lead him on a tour of the upstairs. Of the four bedrooms, she’d taken the smallest for herself.
“You can take any of the others, but I had them put your stuff in here,” she said, opening the last door.
“My stuff?”
Two black garbage bags and Toby’s cardboard box had been set against the far wall. Gibson opened each one—it looked to be everything from his basement room.
“When?” he asked.
“An hour before you got here.”
That meant they’d cleaned out his room while he’d been meeting with Calista. Further evidence of her calculating confidence. To beat him here, her people would have had to start packing him up as soon as he’d gotten into the SUV this morning. Calista had known she’d won before he even walked into her office.
“So I’m moving in?”
“That’s Calista’s intention. Until this is over.”
“And my car?”
“It’s in the garage,” Jenn said.
“She’s unbelievable.”
“Doesn’t miss a trick, does she?”
Something in Jenn’s tone bothered him. He stopped rummaging through the garbage bags and looked up at her framed in the doorway. He wasn’t sure how to say it.
“So I got to ask you something . . .”
“Just ask,” Jenn said, a hardness creeping into her voice.
“How long have you been in bed with Calista Dauplaise?”
Jenn’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, was I with her in Pennsylvania?”
“Just answer the question, Jenn. How long?”
Jenn ran her tongue over her front teeth. “About two months after Atlanta. She approached me, offering to bankroll my operation. She’s got her reason, which is Eskridge, and I’ve got mine, which is George. And no, I don’t trust her. But one thing they taught me at Langley is that the world is too complicated to do business only with your friends.”