Chapter 25

There were four outfits on the bed and McGee hated all of them.

She stood in the middle of her bedroom in a towel, dripping onto the rug, glaring at the lineup like it had personally offended her. Work clothes, work clothes, work clothes, and one dress she barely remembered buying — dark green, simple, the kind of thing you grabbed on sale telling yourself you'd wear it somewhere.

"You're overthinking it," Hannah said from the doorway, holding two wine glasses.

"I've been thinking about it for an hour. There's no over left. I'm past over."

Hannah had come by at five with a folder of Langley background — "light reading," she'd said, which was a lie — and stayed. Now she crossed the room, set the glasses on the dresser, and poured from the bottle she'd found in McGee's kitchen. Red. McGee hadn't asked where she'd found it and Hannah hadn't said.

"Drink," Hannah said, handing her one. "You're wound tighter than a wire."

McGee drank. It helped, which annoyed her, because she didn't want to be the kind of woman who needed wine to get ready for a date. But her hands had been shaking when she tried to do her earrings, so maybe she was exactly that kind of woman tonight.

"Talk to me," Hannah said, settling onto the edge of the bed amid the rejected outfits. "What's the worst thing that happens?"

"He thinks I'm boring."

"He's a grown man who pursued you. He doesn't think you're boring."

"He hasn't seen me try to pick a restaurant. I panicked and said 'I don't know, you pick' and he looked relieved, which means he was testing me."

"He was not testing you." Hannah sipped her wine. "Men don't test. They just pick the Italian place and hope you like candles."

McGee laughed despite herself. "How do you know it's Italian?"

"Lucky guess. Now — the green dress. Put it on."

"The green dress is a mistake. I bought it three years ago and never wore it, which tells you everything."

"It tells me you have good instincts and no follow-through. Put it on."

McGee put it on. It fit like it had been waiting for her. She turned in front of the mirror and Hannah made a noise — low, approving.

"There she is."

"Yeah?" McGee looked at herself. The woman in the mirror didn't look like a detective. She looked like someone who got picked up at seven by a man with an accent. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Okay."

They'd been talking for an hour by then, the easy back-and-forth that had been building between them for days without either of them naming it. Hannah told her about the worst date she'd been on after the divorce — a tax attorney who'd brought a spreadsheet to dinner, "an actual spreadsheet, Marcene, with projections" — and McGee laughed so hard wine nearly came out of her nose.

"And Thomas?" Hannah asked, refilling both glasses. Just the one more. They were pacing themselves. "How are you feeling about Thomas?"

McGee sat on the bed, careful of the dress. "It's early. I know it's early. But he's — he's a gentleman, Hannah. A real one. He covered me with a blanket and left instead of staying, because he thought staying would be creepy." She shook her head. "Who does that?"

"A good man or a smart one."

"Can't he be both?"

Hannah smiled, but something flickered behind it. "He can. Just — be careful, okay?"

"I know."

"I mean it." Hannah's voice went soft. "You're tough, McGee. You're the toughest rookie I've ever met. But this is the part where tough doesn't help."

McGee nodded, and didn't say that she'd already decided not to be careful, not really, not with this.

On the kitchen counter, under the warm light, lay the Langley folder — and beneath it, the edge of the Fauwks file. The surveillance still from the precinct elevator: the mask, the head tilted left, the hand going to a throat where no tie was. She'd looked at it that morning until her coffee went cold.

She looked at it now for exactly one second, and then she turned away and put on her earrings.

The doorbell rang at seven on the dot.

McGee's stomach dropped straight through the floor. "That's him."

"Deep breath." Hannah stood, smoothed her own blouse — the FBI agent, always on — and followed her to the door. "Let me get it. I want to see this man."

"Hannah—"

"I'm just opening a door, detective."

She opened it.

He stood in the hallway with his hands in his coat pockets, easy smile, not a hair out of place — and McGee watched Hannah do the thing Hannah did, the once-over she'd probably done to a hundred witnesses and suspects, quick and total. Shoes, coat, hands, eyes. Looking for the crack.

She didn't find one. Thomas's smile didn't waver. "You must be Hannah," he said. "McGee talks about you. All good things, I promise."

"Do I pass inspection?" Hannah asked, dry.

"With distinction." He looked past her to McGee, and his whole face changed — the easy charm giving way to something unguarded and real. "You look beautiful."

"Hi," McGee said, which was all she could manage.

Hannah stepped back, caught McGee's eye, and gave her the smallest nod. Approval. He's all right, this one.

McGee felt something loosen in her chest. If Hannah liked him, she could stop worrying.

"Have fun," Hannah said. "Not too much."

"We'll see," Thomas said, and offered McGee his arm like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She took it.

At the door, McGee looked back. Hannah stood in the warm light of the apartment with her wine glass, smiling — genuinely smiling, the way people smile when they're happy for someone else and a little bit wistful about themselves.

Then the door closed, and they were gone, and Hannah was alone with the quiet and the folder on the counter and the masked face in the photograph.

She finished her wine.