Gil matched her tone and took on a professorial air. “Stabbings, while they are more of a slice, count as holes. I’d give full credit for a stab wound. But scrapes are just scrapes. Bruises are just bruises. And getting skinned by a .22”—Gil nodded toward Luke—“is just getting skinned by a .22.”
Luke laughed despite himself.
Gil turned to Zane. “I’m afraid I have to agree with the doctor—”
“The doctor can shove it where—”
“Perhaps,” Faith interrupted with a tone that earned her all three men’s full attention, “Luke and Gil could head to the office, while you and I discuss what happened on Monday. Then I could drop you back off at your house”—she made a hasty adjustment at the look on Zane’s face—“or wherever you want, when we’re done.”
Why did Faith want to talk to Zane alone?
“If that’s okay with you, Luke? For us to stay here a bit longer?”
Leaving an FBI agent in his house went against every bit of sense Luke possessed, but Zane would be with her. He wouldn’t let her ... what? What did he think she was going to do in his house? What was wrong with him? This was Faith. He didn’t trust the FBI, but he was beginning to trust Faith.
But something about this didn’t sit well.
“You’re still planning to take me back to my house,” Zane said.
“I am.” Faith flashed him a bright smile. “You’re putting on a brave show, but your skin has a decidedly green tinge to it. Your friends are right to insist that you go home and rest. And if I were a nicer person, I would back them up. But I need to talk to you, and here you are, so I’m offering you the opportunity to stay in the game an hour longer than your friends would agree to. And my guess is, by the time I’m through with you, you’ll be ready to lie down. What do you say?”
Gil scoffed. “Wow. Talk about a no-win situation. Go home or stay here and chat with the FBI and then go home. Have fun.” He stood. “Luke, you ready?”
This whole needing-a-ride situation had already gotten old. “No. Give me five minutes.”
Luke gathered all his stuff for the day and joined Gil by the door. He’d figured out what was bothering him about this. It wasn’t leaving an FBI agent in his house. It wasn’t leaving Faith or Zane in his house. It was leaving Faith alone in his house, with Zane.
He wasn’t joking as he looked from Faith to Zane and said, “Try not to destroy everything, okay?”
10
LUKE AND GILdrove away, and Faith turned to Zane. “I wasn’t kidding about you lying down. If you need to now, I won’t rat you out to your friends.”
Zane let out a tiny moan as he returned to the seat. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”
“You aren’t.” She hadn’t been joking about the green tinge. Zane Thacker was working way beyond his physical capacity. But she did need to talk to him. And despite what Luke thought, she wasn’t nice enough to give the man more time to recover.
“What do you want to know?” Zane closed his eyes. “Did we kill Thad? Did we kill Jared and Michael and have someone pretend to attempt to kill us to cover it all up?”
This was the problem with investigating investigators. They already knew what you wanted to know. So why deny it. “Well, did you?”
Zane flexed the fingers on his left hand. “No.”
He opened his eyes then and gave her a wry smile. “But you already know that.”
“I have to ask the questions.”
“I know. But what you really want to know is who that womanwas with Thad, and if we know about her, and if he was having an affair with her, and if she’s the reason they were killed.”
“I haven’t ruled out the possibility of the affair.”
Zane flexed the fingers of his right hand. “You haven’t met Rose yet, have you?”
“Thad Baker’s wife?” At Zane’s confirming nod, she said, “No. I haven’t.”
Zane rolled his neck in a slow circle. “It takes a special kind of woman to be married to someone in the Secret Service. The hours are long and unpredictable. The duty can be dangerous one day and dull the next. Intense for a week, boring for three. Rose and Thad got married while he was in Phase One, had the kids while he was protecting the vice president, and then moved here when the twins were four. Rose loved Thad, but she is no pushover. She is scary smart, and sometimes she’s just flat-out scary. If Thad ever looked twice at another woman, Rose would have taken care of it. And she wouldn’t have done it with a car bomb.”
The quirk of Zane’s brows as he delivered this last line forced a smile to Faith’s lips. But she pulled her face back to her usual professional demeanor. She’d seen smart women been made fools of before. “She might not have known. Everyone says they would know, but most don’t.”
