The SUV pulled up, and I was already by the door with Wiley’s coat in one hand and his coffee in the other.
“Coffee’s hot. I’ve got your coat. Let’s move.”
He was in the parlor, staring at a legal pad. He’d hidden whatever was on the second page under a blank first page.
He didn’t move.
“Wiley.”
“One minute.”
“You don’t have one minute,” I said.
“I have however many minutes it takes for that car to be at the curb.”
“It’s already at the curb.”
He looked up, and Christ, he looked rough. His hair was still damp from the shower, with dark smudges under his eyes a Sharpie couldn’t have drawn better.
He finally stood. I held the coat open behind him, and he shrugged into it. I pressed the coffee into his hand.
“Phone in airplane mode.”
“It’s in my pocket.”
“Not the same thing, Wiley.”
He pulled it out, killed it, and dropped it back. “Better, Mom?”
“Marginally.”
“You’re a delight in the morning, Farrow.”
“I’m a delight at every hour. Most people are only sober enough to notice in the morning.”
He almost smiled. That was beyond expectations at five-fifty in the morning, considering where we were going.
Reed was at the front door, with a hand on the deadbolt and a comm in his ear. “Front clear,” he said. “Collins is driving.”
The hundred-year-old hardwood floors gave everyone away in the house. Dane was coming down the hall.
“Farrow.”
I turned.
He wore jeans and a black hoodie, sleeves shoved up nearly to his elbows. The camera feed was open on his phone, and he held a mug of coffee in his other hand.
God, he looked good. Tired and contained and beautiful, the way only Dane Fletcher could look at six in the morning in a borrowed safehouse. And the man Dane had fucked the night before was about to walk out the door and head to a meeting that already smelled wrong.
“You have everything?” he asked.
I patted myself down. “Earpiece. Sidearm. Backup. Wiley. Coffee for Wiley. Patience for Wiley. Spare patience for Wiley. Eamon’s already at the building?”
“He’ll be in the lobby when you arrive. Cabot stays with me. Eamon’s not putting both principals in the same building for a meeting he doesn’t fully trust. The meeting brief?”
“In my head.”
“I’d prefer it in your pocket,” Dane said.