Page 3 of The Dangerous Dance

I'm at my desk by seven. Conor has already sent a summary of overnight activity — nothing critical, a few border reports, a note that the warehouse on the west side is running short-staffed again. Manageable. I draft two responses and am midway through a third when my door opens without a knock.

Roise comes in with my coffee the way she always does, which is precisely and without warmth. She sets it on the corner of the desk, smooths the front of her blazer, and takes out her tablet. She is twenty-eight, efficient, and has not made direct eye contact with me in eleven days.

"You have a call with the solicitor at nine," she says to the tablet. "Conor needs a signature on the Docklands paperwork before noon. Your sister's flight lands at two-fifteen at JFK. And you've had three messages from a number I don't recognize that I've flagged for security review."

"Thank you, Roise."

"The car is available from one o'clock if you need it for the airport."

"I'll let you know."

She nods once, precisely, and turns for the door.

"Roise."

She stops. Doesn't turn fully. "Yes."

I consider what I was going to say, which was something about the eleven days, and decide against it with the wisdom of a man who has made this particular mistake before. "The Docklands paperwork. Leave it on the desk, I'll sign it before noon."

A beat. "Of course." She leaves, pulling the door shut with a click that is not quite a slam but is making a point nonetheless.

I sit with my coffee and the complicated silence she leaves behind and am still sitting with it when Ailish appears in the doorway approximately four minutes later, because Ailish has always had an instinct for timing that borders on unsettling.

She looks at the door. She looks at me. She sits in the chair across from my desk without being invited, which she never waits to be.

"How bad is it this morning?" she asks.

"Roise or Declan?"

"Both, but start with whichever one has you making that face."

"I'm not making a face."

"You're making your face," she says. "The one that means you're calculating what something is going to cost you."

I lean back in my chair. "Roise is professional. Efficient. Excellent at her job."

"And furious with you."

"And somewhat furious with me, yes."

Ailish tilts her head. "You couldn't have just⁠—"

"No." I say it before she finishes because I know exactly where that sentence ends and we have had an abbreviated version of this conversation before. "I couldn't have. And I didn't make her any promises that suggested I could. She's angry because things didn't go the direction she wanted them to go, which is⁠—"

"Human."

"Which is human," I agree. "And inconvenient. And not something I can fix without making it significantly worse."

Ailish looks at me with the expression she saves for moments when she thinks I am being obtuse. It is a frequent expression. "So what are you going to do?"

"Hope that time is the great healer everyone keeps insisting it is and in the meantime avoid being alone with her in rooms." I pick up my coffee. "Declan came back from somewhere last night before I got to him. Somewhere that wasn't sanctioned. Did he say anything to you?"

The question shifts the room slightly. Ailish's posture doesn't change — she is too controlled for that — but something behind her eyes does. "He didn't say much of anything useful. You know how he gets when he's in that particular mood."

"Who was he with?"

"He didn't tell me." A pause. "I didn't push it."