Donovan climbed into the cab he’d hailed at the airport. Black and sleek and expensive, it was the only one willing to drive the distance to his home. Donovan had promised a healthy tip.
Now he laid his head back against the headrest, glad he didn’t have to drive, and happier still that this case was over. He was ready to shut out the world for a while.
He didn't notice the buzzing of his phone until it quit and immediately started up again. Dreading who it might be, he tugged it from his pocket and flipped it over. It was that second buzz, the caller’s unwillingness to let the phone send them to voicemail, that let Donovan know he would see Agent Westerfield's face on the screen. He did. And it took still another moment for him to shake out of his haze and answer the call.
Donovan tried to put his best professional voice forward. "Heath," he offered by way of greeting, not really achieving his goal.
"How did the recruitment effort work?”
Frankly, Donovan was surprised that his boss hadn’t asked before now. When he hadn’t heard by the time he boarded the plane in Miami, he assumed that either Westerfield didn’t care, or else he’d already assessed Agent Kimball’s answer for himself.
Donovan had forgotten all about it, and he was not looking forward to dredging it up now. “He said no.”
“What?”
Well crap. Westerfield hadn’t known about Noah’s answer already, and Donovan was in no mood to deal with it. He’d thought he was done. “He said this case brought him face-to-face with things he hadn’t seen before, and he preferred not to delve into that world again.”
That wasn’t what Noah had said, but Donovan was not conveying the “Oh hell no, not in seven lifetimes” attitude that Noah’s actual answer had politely invoked.
“Never mind that. We have something more concerning.”
And there went any break Donovan had hoped to take advantage of. He wanted to see Lucy. He wanted to run in his woods. He wanted to take a week and watch bad TV and eat medium rare steaks each night. But as he pulled his focus back to the phone conversation, Westerfield's voice sharpened it even more. "Agent Christina Pines has gone dark."
“I know,” Donovan replied, almost irritated at Westerfield’s interruption over something he already knew. “Walter—Lucy Fisher—has been tailing her for a while.”
“No.” The sound was an abrupt cut-off, and the edge in it straightened Donovan’s spine. “You’re right that Fisher has been following her. But yesterday, she reported that she’d completely lost the trail. And today. . . well, I’ve lost Fisher, too.”