Page 74 of Final Approach

“Hmm. Okay then.”

Silence fell and Kristine yawned, shut her eyes, and leaned back against the headrest.

“Or maybe I’d rather,” he said after several minutes.

“That’s okay too.” She didn’t open her eyes and look at him. Ifhe was hesitant to talk about something, having her watching him might make it harder.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t talk about it much.”

“I gathered.”

“In fact, I don’t know why I want to now.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.” He paused. “Are you going to keep your eyes closed?”

“Would you prefer I open them?”

He snorted. “Maybe not.”

“I’m listening.”

A sigh slipped from him and he stayed silent. She wondered if he changed his mind. Again.

“Okay,” he finally said, “so you know Hank and I were undercover for a long time with the Serpentine Network.”

“Yes.”

“We’d been under forever, trying like crazy to get the evidence we needed to cut the head of the snake off.”

“I see what you did there.”

He laughed, the sound indicating he might be relaxing a fraction. “Anyway, we could have taken down the organization underlings at pretty much any point. We had so much evidence againstthem. But we never could get the evidence we needed to nail the leader. We called him the phantom because we never saw him. Ever. But he went by the name Showbiz. So we weighed our options and decided to stay and keep working to find out who he was. He had a tight crew. Only two people that he trusted without question. I was trying to be the third.”

“And?”

“And it almost worked. His son trusted me, but I needed his father. I needed to get close. When I couldn’t do that, I turned to his son. The guy was jumpy and an addict, but for some reason, he thought he could trust me, so I used that. I was trying to take it slow, but my SAC at the time, well, he was impatient. He needed something good to happen so he could look like he was competent.”

“Let me guess. He wasn’t.”

“No. He was put in that position because of who his father was golfing buddies with. Among other people.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyway, the Serpentine Network has that signature jacket they all like to wear.”

“Black with red trim and a green snake around the neck.”

“Yeah.” He paused and let out an audible breath.

Kristine snuck a quick peek. He had his hands on the steering wheel and his knuckles were white. She reached out and placed her left hand on top of his right one. He glanced at her and turned his hand so they were palm to palm, fingers laced. She swallowed hard.

Whoa. She closed her eyes again, wanting to encourage him to keep going, but couldn’t get the words past the tightness in her throat. His touch just did something to her insides. It drew her to him like an almost inaudible whisper in the dark. One where you wanted to know what was said, but weren’t sure you should get that close. He could hurt her. Not physically. He’d never do that. But emotionally? Oh yeah. “The jacket. What about it?”

His hand tightened around hers, then released it. “I’ll have to finish this later. Look who just showed up.”

She opened her eyes and turned to see a figure in a dirty hoodie, hands jammed in the front pockets of his jeans, walking toward the door. As soon as the guy knocked, Andrew and Kristine slipped out of the car and made their way toward him. No sense in calling out just yet and giving the guy a chance to run.