Worth the Trip

Author:Penny McCall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

IF HIS LEG HADN’T BEEN THROBBING LIKE THE heartbeat of Satan, Trip would have been up and pacing the room. Instead, he had to sit there, burning—and not in a good way—as he listened to the water run while Norah showered. He wanted to join her. After last night he wouldn’t have hesitated. If not for her parting shot.

She came out, cool, calm, keeping her distance—despite a T-shirt that read Too Sexy For My Clothes— and letting him know it. She’d been holding a part of herself back anyway. He’d resented it even as he’d acknowledged he was doing the same. Now she was back to the woman he’d met a few days ago, not trusting him, although he had to admit she had cause. The FBI would use whoever they wanted by whatever means were handy with no regard for the consequences to anyone but the Bureau.

The part she’d overlooked was that he was a tool, too. Then again, he’d chosen his path. He’d been fine with it, too, until now. Maybe it was the first time he’d been faced with a truly innocent person caught up in a criminal enterprise. Maybe, he allowed, it was Norah.

Trip took that idea out for a spin, looked at it from every angle he could think of, then put it away, into a little box in his mind. A man in his position didn’t have the right to think in emotional terms, and a man who might have to use another person to complete a job had to know he was poisoning the well before he ever dipped into it. She was right to freeze him out. As long as she didn’t shut him out where the Gold Coast Robbery was concerned.

“Let’s get something straight,” he said, “you’re not going to work against me, right?”

“You have my father in custody.” Her voice was even, matter-of-fact, but she wasn’t looking at him.

He couldn’t let it matter. “I’ll tell you where he is right now, if you ask me.”

“Because I’m the key to finding the loot.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes lifted to his. He held her gaze for a moment that felt like an eternity roasting over hot coals. Then she nodded and looked away.

“I appreciate the truth.”

But she didn’t answer his question. She didn’t ask where her father was, either, so Trip decided to take it as progress toward closing his case and getting back to Washington, and eventually moving on to the next job. And if there wasn’t the same sense of anticipation and exhilaration he usually felt, he’d deal with that when he had to.

Norah dug into the food bag, pulling out sandwiches and soup containers and sliding one of each across the table to Trip.

Trip cracked the lid on the soup. The scent of chicken noodle wafted out, lukewarm, but he was starving and hurting, and it was just like Norah to provide the kind of food that would satisfy every kind of hunger, both the physical and the emotional.

She ignored the food altogether and pulled out the clue bag, still pissed but keeping her word.

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