"Then let's work on the case together," he said. "Because I'd like to find some answers, too, so I can get back to my real job." Pulling out his phone, he pulled up a food app. "What do you like on your pizza?"
"Everything," she said.
"Are you sure, because I might take you seriously. And I haven't had the greatest experience with ordering when a woman says she doesn't care."
She laughed. "Okay, no pineapple or anchovies. Anything else is fair game."
"Great. I love specifics. Makes it so much easier." He ordered an extra-large pizza and then said, "It should be here in about twenty minutes."
"Perfect. I'm getting hungry. It's been a long time since that Caesar salad. The days feel like they're flying by, but we're not getting a lot done." She paused, confusion in her gaze. "I have to say, today's explosion was shocking. I really thought the café bombing was a one-off, that it was about taking out Samantha Barkley. But it wasn't."
"No, it wasn't."
"I'm tired, but I also feel wired, you know?"
"I know. It's part of the job," he said with complete understanding.
"What was it like being a secret agent?"
He smiled at her words. "It was exciting."
"Really? I thought you were going to lie and say it wasn't at all interesting."
"Are you kidding? I was living a hundred different lives all over the world."
"That sounds both fun and exhausting. Maybe even a little lonely," she ventured, giving him a questioning look.
"Sometimes. There were jobs when there was a lot of waiting around, sitting in a hotel room until a meeting could get set up, but I always had a mission. And that focus made the waiting more tolerable, the isolation more acceptable. I'm sure you can relate."
"In the NYPD, I always had a partner, and most of them were great. They became close friends. The FBI has been harder to find that kind of connection, but I went to Quantico and then to 26 Fed and now to a new team, so I haven't been anywhere long enough to forge a close relationship. And to be honest, I'm also more wary after what happened to me. I don't trust as easily as I used to. Maybe that's a good thing."
"Probably," he agreed. "Trust can be used as a weapon."
"Sometimes you say very dark things."
He tipped his head in acknowledgment. "Sometimes I feel very dark things."
Her expression grew more serious. "You have a wound, something that hurts, and I'm guessing it's not just about the criminal who was turned into an asset. Something else happened, something more personal."
His gut tightened with each word as she came dangerously close to a truth he didn't want to talk about. His phone dinged, and he took a grateful breath. "The pizza is almost here. I'll go get it."
"Saved by the pizza," she said dryly as he stood up. "But I don't think I'm wrong."
"I didn't say you were."
"You didn't say anything."
"We have enough to talk about in the present; we don't need to go into the past." He headed out the door and down the hall and opened the front door just as the delivery guy walked up the stairs. He took it inside and found Kara pulling out plates and napkins, and he was relieved to be done with a conversation that had gotten far deeper than he'd wanted it to.
Chapter Twelve
After a delicious, filling pizza, of which she ate far too many slices, Kara grabbed her computer and brought it over to the table while Max finished eating. They hadn't talked about the case or their pasts over pizza, keeping the conversation to more neutral topics. Although she had learned that he loved baseball, was a big fan of indie films versus commercial blockbusters, had read a fair amount of history books, and had favorite foods in probably six different cultures. He was smart, well-read, and one of the sexiest men she'd ever met, and the more she got to know him, the more she liked him.
She told herself not to get carried away, not to trust everything that he said. He'd admitted to being a spy. He knew how to create a persona, and she'd made mistakes before believing someone to be good when they were anything but good.
Forcing herself to stop thinking about Max, she put Whitney Holden's name into the search engine. While she didn't have access to her team's resource databases on her personal computer, she could still do a little digging.
"What are you looking up?" Max asked.
