“He was blocking the hoop!”
“It’s called playing defense, Fee.” Finn stands up for himself.
Leo hides a smile.
As they near the campus, the kids spot some classes and run off to join the pack making its way to the primary school wing.
Sasha stops at the fork in the path and addresses the air, “Have a good day. Oh, I love you, too.”
He gives her a look, and she laughs.
“I know, it’s a good thing that they’re comfortable.”
“It is.”
“But it’s weird, right? They’re growing up so fast all of a sudden.”
He gets it. “It is weird. But, you’re right, it’s also good.” Then he leans over and whispers, “Have a good day.”
“You, too.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She stretches on her toes and he leans down to meet her for a quick kiss.
It turns into a long kiss.
Pedro Rojas from Leo’s second period class walks by, does a double take, and shouts, “Mr. Connelly, you dog!”
Sasha pulls away, her cheeks pink. “Hope we don’t get detention for the PDA.”
She’s laughing as she heads toward the library.
Chapter Sixteen
The school library is quiet. There’s an all-school student assembly, and Linda has a dentist appointment. Sasha has the place to herself for at least an hour.
She brings one of the computer terminals to life and opens a browser. She’s immediately hit by a wave of something like homesickness. She’s a great researcher, but Naya is better. For most of her career, she leaned on Naya, who could find anything, anywhere. Fast.
But she can’t call Naya. Because Naya can’t know about this.
She’s now read The Payback three times, front to back. The attack described in Caleb’s book may not match the attack that happened last week at the joint air force base in Adana, but it matches an attack. She’s sure of it. The descriptions read like they were ripped out of an incident report. But Hank’s right. It doesn’t read like an incident report from the twenty-first century.
She rolls her shoulders and starts searching. She focuses on Turkey and terrorism, which brings up hundreds of false hits. Bombings, kidnappings, assassinations. Nothing about a potassium cyanide attack on a water supply.
What would Naya do?
She’d take a different tack.
She looks for information about Turkey’s silver mining industry and finds reports of environmental accidents, worker mistreatment, community objections. Nothing about the theft of potassium cyanide.
She clears the browser history, closes the tab, and walks away. Time for a break.
She looks around to confirm she’s still alone. Then she drops into a squat, holds it, rises up on her toes. She continues to do combination squat-calf raises until her glutes, quads, and calves burn and her mind clears. Her Krav Maga instructor once shared an article with her detailing the way lower body exercises increase blood flow to the brain, which in turns leads to improved focus, better concentration, and clearer thinking. It hasn’t failed her yet.
Although, she could really use a glass of water.
Water.
