while.” He’d thought damn hard and long about that, too. Whatever happened with Con, he really did need to be with her when it all came down. He couldn’t run from the fallout, no matter how many college professors she was seeing.
“I’d like that,” she said.
Okay, then—he slanted her a quick look, surprised as hell. She’d like him hanging around. For the last couple of years, she’d usually been so angry with him that he’d gotten in the habit of staying as far away from her and Con as possible.
But this was great.
Perfect.
And too damn late. She’d gone off and found somebody, but he’d take it as long as he could, hanging around while she and old Karl billed and cooed, and if things went bad with Con, he’d take it no matter what. The whole Denver thing was just too god-awful, and he’d sworn nothing bad would ever happen to her again, not on his watch.
He started up the Regal but didn’t turn on the headlights, keeping the car dark. Easing away from the curb, he backed up the hill and drove onto a side street before he made the U-turn to head back to downtown.
So everything was straight between them, except for the part about the blonde, the one in Key Largo, the only woman she’d ever actually seen him with. He wasn’t particularly discreet, except with Scout. For reasons he didn’t completely understand, he’d never wanted her to know about any of his fly-by-night romances, not a single one. He guessed he didn’t want her to think he was a jerk—for all the good that had done him. And maybe he had, in some odd way, just always wanted her to think he was available, in case she ever wanted to kick their relationship up a notch.
There had been nothing discreet about her and Con finding him shacked up in a tiki hut condo in the Florida Keys, and from the moment he’d opened the door and seen her standing there, instantly zeroing in on the little cocktail waitress cooking his breakfast in the kitchen, he’d wanted to apologize to her from the bottom of his heart. Maggie had cost him his last chance with Scout—and that was a loss that went way beyond sorry.
Now was his chance.
“I’m … uh, sorry about what happened, well, everything, actually, in, uh, Florida, with Maggie and all.” He was wincing by the time he got it all spit out. It was embarrassing, really, what a crappy apology that had been.
And she must have agreed. Dead silence greeted him from the other side of the car. She’d gone so silent, he could feel the absence of sound sitting like a two-ton boulder on the seat between them.
What had happened?
One minute she’d been glad he was going to stay closer to home, and the next she was freezing him out.
So, great. He’d apologized and somehow made things worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Skeeter took the exit ramp off the interstate at 20th Street and was halfway to Blake Street when her cellphone rang. She’d just gotten off the computer bolted into Coralie’s dashboard, checking in with Travis and Red Dog. They’d photographed a medication chart in J.T.’s motel room and sent it to Dylan and to Dr. Brandt.
Hell, she loved Red Dog, knew what the woman had been through and what she could do, but she really didn’t want a world full of juiced-up spooks and operators muddying the alphabet soup of covert ops.
She reached for her phone, thinking it might be Dylan again, but when she looked, she didn’t recognize the number—which was damned odd.
Her brow furrowed. She knew every phone number Red Dog and the guys had ever used to call her on her private line—and this wasn’t one of them.
“Uptown Autos,” she said. “We only sell the best.”
“Mrs. Hart.” A voice she didn’t recognize came over the phone, a man’s voice, and she immediately reached over and keyed in a three-stroke code to connect her Bazo to Dylan and the comm console at Steele Street. Then she put her phone on speaker.
“Mrs. Hart isn’t here,” she said. “May I take a message and have her return your call?” Her voice was chipper and bright in her receptionist’s mode. She glanced at the Bazo and saw Dylan’s tracking and recording signal come up on her screen.
“My name is Tyler Crutchfield. I’m an aide to Randolph Lancaster at the State Department.”
That got her attention.
“How can I help you, Mr. Crutchfield?” she said, dropping the enthusiasm