Page 41 of Wrong Way

Miles nodded. He had no disagreement with that read and actually found it encouraging.

"The neon case," Hayes continued, "is closed, pending the formal processing of Gallagher. Three murders and the attempted mass casualty event at the Paramount are going to be a significant piece of work to put together, but the evidence is strong and the DA's office in Austin is already engaged." He looked between Miles and Vic. "You did excellent work. Both of you." He looked at Sarah. "And you, Agent Kim. The Rachel Gallagher connection was the piece we needed, and you found it. Damned fine work."

Sarah accepted this without excessive modesty. "Thank you, sir," she said.

Hayes gathered the papers in front of him into a loose stack and closed the folder. "That's where we are. The task force continues. The Parsons arrest gives us some political room to breathe, which we're going to need. Hahn's approach is going to require a very candid conversation about sources and methodology before it gets codified into anything formal, but the result speaks for itself." He looked at Ortega briefly, and something passed between them that Miles couldn't fully read but recognized as the shorthand of people who had been working alongside each other long enough to conduct whole conversations in a single look. "Questions?"

“None here,” Vic said. Miles and Sarah shook their heads in agreement.

“Then you’re dismissed,” Hayes said.

They left the conference room in silence and made their way to the elevator bank at the end of the hall. Vic punched the Down arrow and then sighed, stepping away. “Damn. My laptop’s upstairs. You guys take this one. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bright and early,” Miles said.

"Bright and early," she confirmed.

The elevator arrived and the doors slid open. When Miles and Sarah stepped on, Vic looked in at them for one single second. She met Miles’ eyes, gave him a small grin and then walked toward the stairwell to head upstairs.

The elevator doors closed and there was silence—not awkward or tense, but it was there. And just as he thought he had found something to say to break the silence apart, Sarah stepped toward him and kissed him. There was no preamble and no clear warning sign, just a decision executed without hesitation. For just a second or two, Miles returned it and the world contracted to a very small and very specific point. Then he pulled back.

He looked at her, not sure how to respond. She was watching him with an expression that was readable and direct, and there was no embarrassment in it.

"Sorry," she said, though she didn’t sound sorry at all. "Sometimes a girl just wants to shoot her shot, you know?"

"Don't apologize," he said. "I'm glad you did it."

"So glad that you pulled away?"

"I know." He looked at the elevator doors, facing the harsh fact that he was thinking of Elena. He’d been thinking of her ever since the moment he'd pulled back. He figured he could explain this, but explaining it would take more than a forty-second elevator ride, and he wasn't sure he had the full explanation yet anyway. "I'm just too much of a mess right now. That's the honest version."

"That's fair," she said.

"I hope you'll try again sometime, though?"

She looked at him for a moment. "Sorry, buster,” she said with a smile. “I made my move and got shot down. The next one is your duty.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, briefer this time and gentler. It was a kiss that made a point without pressing it. He was aware of what he was doing and he did it anyway. And a large part of him rejoiced.

She was quiet for a second, and then she smiled, and it reached everything. "Okay," she said. “I’m back on the clock. The next one is mine.”

"Come over for dinner," he said. "Tonight."

"Absolutely. On one condition."

"What's that?"

"Kiss goodnight when it's over."

He felt something loosen in his chest, something that had been pulled tight for longer than he could easily account for. "That sounds fair," he said.

The elevator reached the lobby and the doors opened. They stepped out together into the main corridor, headed into a night of countless possibilities.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The monitors were arranged in a two-by-two grid on the folding table against the far wall, four screens fed by four different inputs: two cable news channels, a local Austin affiliate streaming through a browser tab, and a Portsmouth, New Hampshire station that had picked up the Parsons story within six hours of her arrest and had been running it at intervals ever since. Kane sat in the chair he'd positioned at the correct distance from the screens and watched all four simultaneously, which was a skill that had taken years to develop and now required no effort at all.

The Austin coverage was the more visually interesting of the two stories. The Paramount Theatre story sure as hell made for good television: the art deco facade, the enormous vertical sign, the ambulances that had staged outside during the evacuation. The chyron on the lower third of the cable news feed read AUSTIN THEATER SCARE / SUSPECTED KANE DISCIPLE IN CUSTODY. The reporter standing outside the Paramount used the phrase "mass casualty event" twice in a ninety-second segment, which was technically accurate but also the product of a press briefing designed to maximize the task force's public profile. Kane recognized the framing without any particular feeling about it. The FBI would take what credit the situation offered. That was expected and irrelevant.