Allison Brennan - Silenced

Lucy tilted her head up and kissed him. “I need it. Please don’t let me out until I’m shriveled like a prune.”

“That’s an attractive vision.” Sean frowned. He kissed her. “Stop scaring me, Princess.”

“It’s been one of those weeks. I’m sure you’ll have your chance to make me worry.”

“We have two weeks until you go to Quantico. Think I can get you to take a couple days off? Two? Can I hope for three?”

Noah came up to them. “How about four?”

“We’ll take it,” Sean said.

“You’ve earned it, Lucy,” Noah said. “Not just here, but yesterday. Matt Slater told me what he said to you the other day.”

“I wish he hadn’t-”

Noah put up his hand. “I didn’t go out on a limb bringing you in as an analyst. You’re an asset, and I trust your judgment. Matt shouldn’t have put those doubts in your head. He feels shitty about it.”

“He should,” Sean said.

“It’s over and forgotten. I just hope Matt will forgive me. I kind of promised Abernathy that he might be able to serve his sentence in Hawaii.”

“I heard. And if he can put Clark Jager and Devon Sullivan in prison for the rest of their lives, I’ll make certain he serves his time in Honolulu.”

They walked toward the parking lot.

“Why are you here?” Lucy asked Noah.

“Kate called. The chip you pulled out of the cat?”

“She could read it?”

“It has everything we need to put Devon Sullivan away, and she only pulled ten percent of the data off. Audio recordings, some video, JPEGs that appear to be snapshots of financial documents. Kate’s planning on spending all weekend categorizing the information. I told Josh Stein and you’d think he’d won the lottery.”

“A great ending to a really miserable case,” Lucy said.

“I need to check on my prisoner. See you on Monday.”

Sean frowned. “I thought you gave her four days off.”

“The four days before she reports to the Academy. We need all hands next week going through the mountains of evidence and paperwork.”

“I’ll be there,” Lucy said.

Noah went into the hospital, and Sean put his arm around Lucy. “ Now can we go get our cat and sit in the hot tub?”

He steered her toward his car and grandly opened the passenger door for her. She slid into the leather seat and closed her eyes.

A week of paperwork followed by four days alone with Sean. She finally admitted to herself that she needed the time away.

Sean got into the driver’s seat and Lucy asked, “Where do you want to go on our vacation?”

“I hesitate to call it that, considering how our last vacation turned out.” He turned the ignition. “How about a cottage up in Cape Cod?”

“Massachusetts? That’s kind of far.”

“Not by plane. I got word this morning that my Cessna is ready. I’m picking her up on Monday. While you’ll be neck deep in paperwork, I’ll be flying over the Adirondacks.”

“You know what? After being shot down in that plane, I’ll take the paperwork instead.”