“Absolutely right. Budget cuts happen, especially in black ops. She can’t rely on having you in her corner for long, and we both know it. After all, to you she’s an asset, not a person. Give her some hope for her own destiny.”
Riley shook her head and smiled. “I thought you were smarter than that, Patrick. None of us controls our destiny. Not in this day and age. Especially someone with her … special challenges.” She looked straight at Bryn. “I can authorize a fifty-year guaranteed supply of Returné, provided you carry out any assignments you’re given to earn it—the first of which is that you track down Mercer and his operation, and shut it down. Agreed?”
“Do I have any choice?” Bryn asked.
“You could see if Mercer’s offering a better deal,” Riley said, and shrugged.
Bryn met McCallister’s eyes for a moment, and then said, “I’ll take it. One condition.”
“Which is?”
“You’re fired from Fairview.”
Riley laughed, a sound of real amusement this time, and left.
McCallister limped over and sat down on the edge of Bryn’s bed, sighing in relief. She put her hand over his, and their fingers twined together.
“We have to find Annie,” she said. “No matter what, I have to get her back. I have to make this right.”
“I know,” he said. “And we both know that no matter what Riley says, you’re running on borrowed time. They won’t honor their agreements. You noticed the caveat she slipped in?”
“About assignments?” Bryn nodded slowly. “They’ll use me.”
“Until they can’t use you anymore. Then they’ll cut you off.” He cleared his throat and looked down. “I know Manny informed on us, but he’s our best bet at this point to work on a reverse-engineered replacement for Returné. He’s close to cracking it.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“I don’t either, but he’s the only nongovernment game in town except Mercer, and we need him.”
“We,” she repeated. She closed her eyes and felt a wave of darkness and despair rise up to choke her from within. “Why are you even here? Pharmadene’s gone. It’s over. You can walk away now. You should.”
“My family’s trust has a significant financial investment in Fairview,” he said. “And in you.” That sounded calm and clinical, but there was nothing clinical about the way he touched her face, so gently, and when she opened her eyes she saw that he’d dropped his guard. All his armor, split open.
She saw the look in his eyes, and her heart shattered, and healed, and broke again.
“We can’t do this,” she said. “Why the hell would you want me? I’m not—”
He put a finger over her lips. “You’re not dying anymore. I, on the other hand, still am. So I think the question isn’t why would I want you. It’s why would you bother with me? If you intend to, of course.”
She stared at him, transfixed by the glow in his eyes, by the emotion flooding out of him, unexpressed but all the more real for that.
“I guess I will,” she said. “Bother with you, I mean. I’ve got fifty years to kill, right?”
“Well, I am a good conversationalist.”
“Really. That’s all you’ve got?”
His mouth pressed hers, warm and soft, and his tongue slowly stroked her lips until they parted in a soft breath. “Not all,” he murmured. “I have all kinds of skills I can share.”
“Oh,” she whispered back. “I think I can find a use for you after all, Mr. McCallister.”
She felt his lips curl into a smile where they pressed against hers. “Is this an interview?”
“Why, do you need a job?”
His smile widened. “Actually, I do seem to be temporarily underemployed.” And then he kissed her again, more urgently this time, and she felt her heart pick up beats and start to race. “What do you say?”
“That depends,” she said, and pulled him onto the bed with her, his warmth heavy against her. “How do you feel about the death business?”
He kissed her again, and let it linger. “Actually,” he finally said, “I’m starting to like it quite a bit more than I ever expected.”
“What about Mercer—”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow we deal with that.”
“And tonight?” Because it was dark out; she could see that from the glow of streetlights through the shuttered blinds.
McCallister reached over, picked up the control lying next to the bed, and lowered the lights in the room. “Tonight,” he said, “we deal with the two of us.”