For some reason, ever since I took over surveillance, I’ve gotten the reputation of being a yeller. Which is ridiculous. I barely yell.
Only when it’s appropriate.
Mackie’s eyebrows lift anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I add with a sigh. “It’s not your job to let me know when my husband decides to play hooky.”
I unlock my phone and open our message thread.
Where are you???
An automated reply pops up almost instantly:
The person you are trying to reach is unavailable and will get back to you as soon as possible.
Great.
I toss the phone onto my desk and watch it land on the mountain of paperwork I still have to get through.
Mackie sits down in the chair across from me.
“Are you okay?”
I look at her concerned face and wonder when exactly our relationship shifted from mentorship to… this.
Probably somewhere in the middle of all those late nights we’ve spent working overtime together.
I used to be good at keeping professional boundaries.
But Simone still hasn’t forgiven me, and Claudia refuses to tell me anything personal about herself, so that relationship is pretty one-sided.
Which leaves me with Mackie.
Lucky her.
“I’m tired,” I answer her honestly.
Mackie lets out a breath and slumps back in the chair. “Tell me about it,” she says. “I can barely keep my dog alive with all the overtime we’ve been pulling. And you’ve got toddlers at home.”
I give her a small, grateful smile.
“I’d say things will quiet down once we settle in,” I reply, “but let’s be honest, this is our life now.”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again.
“What?” I ask.
Uncertainly, she says, “I don’t understand why we’re in charge of reports from the field team. Shouldn’t that be handled downstairs?”
I rub the back of my neck, already knowing how stupid this sounds. “I told them I’d take over while Logan was in San Diego for his mom’s birthday,” I explain. “Now they just keep sending them up here because technically they fall under surveillance review.”
She scowls, folding her arms. “I bet that was that Harvard asshole’s idea.”
I laugh. “I doubt he went to Harvard.”
She nods. “Right. No way he’d be here if that were true?”
I give her a look.
