“Just sex for you. Was it just sex for him?”
“Maybe it was.” She set her cup down and stared at him. “You really do care about him?”
“Why do you sound so surprised by that?”
“Unfairly or not, some view you as this machine without a lot of human touches.” When he didn’t respond, her features softened. “I don’t include myself in that group, Decker. I’ve seen you being human. You’re being human right now with your concerns about Melvin. It’s…it’s nice, actually
.”
“If you two hit it off, great. He could use someone like you.”
“Meaning what?”
“You may have to deceive as part of your job, but I see you as honorable, Agent Brown. Your father got on that wall because he served his country faithfully. I don’t see the apple falling far from the tree. And Melvin is a very honorable person. So you two have that in common. I would say you both deserve nothing less.”
This was obviously not what Brown had been expecting. She took a sip of coffee and looked away. When she turned back her eyes held a shimmer of moisture.
“Let me rephrase what I just said about you being human, Decker. I actually think you’re one of the most human people I’ve ever met. And call me Harper, please.”
They both sat there in silence for another few seconds until Brown cleared her throat and said, “Why were you at the hotel in the first place?”
“I’d called Melvin a few times and he never answered. I was worried.”
“I think he turned his phone off. He was fine when I left him.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
She fingered her cup, her gaze pointed at the tabletop. “We did talk some. Mostly about you. How amazing he thought you were. How, if not for you, he’d still be in prison.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“Not according to him.”
“It was nice of him to say,” Decker said quietly, not looking at her either.
“What really happened to your face? I’ll find out eventually.”
Decker took a few minutes to tell her what had happened. Brown’s jaw sank lower with each sentence.
“Is Jamison okay?”
“Not now, but she will be. It’s not easy, killing someone. You don’t just get over it in a day.” He looked over at her. “You know that feeling.”
She nodded. “The guy in your parking lot was not my first. And though I know I didn’t show it that night, I went home, drank a bottle of wine, and didn’t sleep a wink. I kept looking down at my hand and thinking that there was one less person alive that day because of me.”
“I figured as much.”
She smiled weakly. “I guess I’m not as tough as you thought I was.”
“Actually, that makes you tougher than I thought you were.”
“Every time I think I have you figured out, Mr. Decker, you throw me a curve.”
“Not my intention.”
“I wonder.”
“How did you leave things with Melvin?”
“That I very much wanted to see him again.”
“We still have a case to work,” he replied.
“I compartmentalize with the best of them. Speaking of the case, any revelations since we were last together?”
“Well, if they were working together, her contacts got him the ten million bucks to pay off his son-in-law’s gambling debt and save his daughter’s and granddaughter’s lives. You’d think he would have been grateful toward her, not homicidal.”
“It’s funny how the human mind works. It all depends on perspective.”
“And the third party you mentioned? The one who almost killed you and stole the flash drive you discovered?”
“They’re clearly still out there. They’re connected to this at a level I don’t understand yet, but that connection is deep. And I have a feeling we’re going to have to go face-to-face with them before we solve this thing.”
Brown took out her Beretta and laid it on the table. “Well, let’s hope they don’t get us before we get them,” she said.