Page 90 of His Wall

"The case is still active. I'm still assigned to it."

"That's not what I asked."

She looked at me.

"I know."

She set the phone down on the coffee table. She turned her body toward me. She lifted her hand to the side of my face. Her thumb on my cheekbone. Her gray eyes on mine.

She didn’t say anything anymore.

She kissed me instead.

Slow. Her mouth opened against mine. Her hand was on my jaw. Her other hand slid up to the back of my neck and into my hair. This was a goodbye kiss in slow motion.

SEVENTEEN

LEAH

We were standing on the sidewalk outside the safehouse with two Bureau cars at the curb and ten minutes past the time we should have left.

Julian was leaning against the back fender of his ride. Jacket over his shoulder. The grin small at the corner of his mouth. The morning sun was on his sandy hair, and he had the look of a man going home to his own bed for the first time in three days.

I was at the open driver's door of mine.

I had been there for ten minutes.

"You finally get to sleep in a bed that isn't a mattress and a half," he said. "That is the only positive of all of this, and I am holding it close."

I did not laugh.

He noticed. He pushed off the fender. He crossed the sidewalk to me.

"What."

"I don't like this, Julian."

"The separate cars? Agreed. Ride with me."

"I'm serious. Conrad's passport flagging at an airfield is too clean. He has been running an operation for this long without making a mistake. Suddenly, he gets scanned at a private airfield? It’s too much of a coincidence."

"Your people confirmed it. Two sources."

"I know."

He stepped closer. The grin was gone. He lifted his hand and put it against the line of my jaw, the pad of his thumb on my cheekbone.

"Hey. It is over. The Bureau is on it. Conrad is running. I am safe."

I wanted to believe him.

I looked at his face — the face that had been on my pillow, eyes still heavy with sleep at 6:00 a.m. and on my side with a coffee cup at 7:00 a.m.

He kissed me.

Soft. Unhurried. His thumb stroked my cheekbone. I kissed him back and let it linger because something low and quiet in my chest was telling me to hold on.

He pulled back.