“Most. Maybe. But there’s something you should know. No one talks about it, but Rose was CIA before she met Thad. She would have known.”
CIA? “That’s not in the file.”
“Like I said, no one talks about it.” Zane fisted the fingers on his free hand, then held it out in front of him and twisted it in small circles.
Was he ever still? “Did the doctor tell you to do these exercises?”
Zane laughed. “I think best when I move. Drives Luke crazy.I walk around my desk all the time. And I toss a little stress ball. Keeps the juices flowing, annoys everyone except Tessa. She ignores it.”
Faith didn’t comment. Somehow she didn’t think Agent Reed ignored anything.
“We don’t know why Thad was at the restaurant, we don’t know who he was with or why that woman was in the car. I know everyone wants to think the worst. I guess it’s human nature. But I think it could be something entirely other.”
“Like what?”
“Luke and I were close to Thad. Closer than is normal for an office like ours. He was intentional about mentoring us. And he was good at it. He was a man of deep faith, and he believed God had put us on the same team for a reason. He had prayed with us and for us over the past few years, and we had become way more than coworkers. Luke and I were lucky to have a guy like Thad as a friend. And that’s why the fact that neither one of us know what he was up to makes me think he was planning something, a surprise for Rose.”
Not in a million years had Faith expected something like that. “Why would you say that?”
“When you meet Rose, you’ll understand. Thad never could pull off a surprise for her. Rose knew when he was going to propose. She knew when he was coming home early. She knew what he got her for Christmas every year. She always knew, and it was a running joke between them. Thad kept trying. She kept figuring it out. And she’d told him that if he involved any of us to help him hide something, it didn’t count.”
Zane’s lips flattened into a thin line. His demeanor shifted, and for a moment, Faith caught a glimpse of the fierce warrior that hid behind the normally gentle eyes. “We need to know what happened. It’s personal.”
Faith waved a hand in his general direction—the arm in the sling, the bandages she couldn’t see but knew were there under his shirt—but he dismissed her.
“It was personal before Monday morning. Thad was a friend. He was one of the good guys. In church every Sunday he wasn’t on duty. Prayed with his wife and kids. Took good care of his parents. He set up a rotation of guys in their church to mow a widow’s yard last summer. The man was a saint. He didn’t deserve to die. His wife didn’t deserve to be widowed. His kids...” Zane’s voice broke. “His kids didn’t deserve to go through life without their dad. Someone took him from them. From all of us. The world is a darker place because he isn’t in it. He believed in a good God who could be counted on. But I don’t get why a loving God would allow it. And I certainly don’t see how a God with any sort of real power could let his death drag on with no closure.”
Faith studied her shoes. The situation was different, but Zane had just articulated her own despair and confusion.
“I want to believe Thad’s death wasn’t in vain and there’s some deeper meaning behind it all. But I can’t see it. What I want is to get ahold of the person who did this. And if they do happen to be the same person who killed Michael and Jared on Monday, well, that would be the icing on the cake.
“If you can figure all that out, you’ll get my full cooperation. I don’t normally enjoy hanging out with the FBI, but no one wants you to succeed more than I do.”
The buzzing of his phone spared her from having to respond immediately.
“It’s Gil,” Zane said.
“Please, go ahead.”
Faith stood and walked toward what she assumed would be Luke’s kitchen. The house was open and spacious. More roomthan a bachelor needed—especially one who worked the kind of hours Luke worked. The kitchen was spotless, with the trace of a lemony cleaner in the air. It looked like the kind of place that would make Gil happy, complete with a gas stove and a large island. Across from the island was a cozy nook with a squishy chair, a lamp, and several stacks of books. Curiosity overrode polite behavior, and she perched on the edge of his chair and picked up a book from the stack to the left of the chair. A biography of one of the founding fathers. Then a travel book focused on scuba diving sites. On the right side of the chair she found a novel and a worn Bible.
Her fingers tapped the edge of the Bible.
She struggled to believe that God was actually good. It was terrifying to admit it. But who could blame her? How could a good God allow awful things to happen?
Her sister—her brilliant, funny, gorgeous sister—hit by a car, the driver of whom had waved her across the street and then gunned it. Faith had been there. She’d seen Hope’s body flip over the car, and she’d known before the ambulance arrived that Hope would never walk again.
She ran her hand over the worn leather of the Bible. Luke and Hope would get along great. Hope still believed. Despite multiple surgeries, missing prom and all the normal high school things, having her heart broken by men who didn’t think they could have a relationship with someone in a wheelchair—through it all, Hope’s faith had grown stronger.
While Faith’s had faltered.
“Faith?” Zane’s voice called her back from her musing.
“I just wanted to give you some privacy,” she said as she retraced her steps.
“No problem. Would you mind taking me to Gil’s house insteadof mine?” Zane’s voice had a faraway quality, and he didn’t look at her as she entered the room but instead stared at the television, now on a local news station.
“Is everything okay?”
