“What?”
“I didn’t think he’d—” I stopped, exhaled once, and shook my head. “No. That’s a lie. I did think he would. I just didn’t think he’d be this… elegant about it.”
Brewster nodded, the movement small but deliberate. “He respects you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
The honesty surprised me even as I said it.
“It shouldn’t.”
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed. The calendar reminder flashed across the screen—Zoom call, already counting down. I’d managed to shove it entirely out of my head.
I reached for the laptop, then the earbuds.
“You’re not telling them,” Brewster said.
Not a question. An instruction.
“No,” I agreed without hesitation.
“You’re going to let this meeting stay about strategy.”
“Yes.” It was too late to cancel anyway—and if the Unsub understood workflows as well as we now suspected, there was no guarantee he wasn’t already aware of the meeting’s existence.
“Good,” Brewster said. “I’ll stay.”
“I didn’t ask?—”
“I know,” he cut in smoothly. “I’m not asking either. I’ll observe.”
Once, that kind of unilateral decision would have irritated me. Now, it landed differently. Reassuring. Grounding.
I set the earbuds down and opened the laptop. As the meeting queued up, Brewster moved away long enough to refill both our mugs. When he returned, he didn’t reclaim his chair across from me.
He pulled it close. Right next to mine.
The heat of him pressed along my right side as he settled in, unhurried, utterly at ease. He placed the coffees, then flipped open a small notepad and clicked a pen like this was exactly where he belonged.
Like this was work.
At this rate, I was going to metabolize caffeine directly. My blood type was probably dark roast by now.
The Zoom chime sounded.
Brewster didn’t look at the screen. He looked at me.
“Ready?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
Rudy Vargas’s face popped onto the screen first.
The familiar camera angle—slightly low, slightly wide—told me he was using his phone. Probably in his car instead of using his usual rig at the office. Rudy liked being in the field more than inside. I got that.
He flashed me a brief smile and a firm nod. The question in his eyes asked for an answer.You good?
I nodded once.
