She picked up her coffee.
“You didn’t post any of this to the forum,” she said.
He shook his head. “I wanted to talk to you first.”
Warmth settled behind her ribcage. It might seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of things. He could have posted the Varro identity the same way Halcyon had posted the crime scene photograph, and the forum would have done what the forum did—worked it fast, in parallel, with a dozen angles she couldn’t cover alone. That would have been reasonable. Expected. That would have been completely in line with how DeepTrace operated.
He hadn’t.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
He held her gaze for a moment—just long enough to register that she meant it, not so long that it became awkward, then bit into a chocolate glazed. “So. What do you want to do with it?”
She considered this. Silently appreciated that he was giving her the choice.
“Post it to the forum,” she said finally. “If there’s anything to find, they will.”
“And you?” he asked carefully, concern and something that looked like protectiveness dancing in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“For the moment,” she replied. “I’m not seeing the big picture though, and it’s frustrating. Too many missing pieces.”
“Maybe you’re looking at it too closely. Maybe you need to take a step back and let your mind work it out. Shower theory, and all that.”
Her lips quirked. “Shower theory?”
“Yes. You know, you rack your brain trying to figure something out. Then, when you’re standing under the water not thinking about anything in particular, the answer comes to you.”
“Are you seriously telling me to go take a shower right now?” she asked, genuinely amused.
“No. I’m saying that maybe we should do something else to get your mind off of this for a little while.”
The fact that he’d said “we” and not “you” wasn’t lost on her.
The dog—Bruno—had migrated from under the table to beside her chair, done with subtle hints, now shamelessly making a plea for a donut.
“He likes you,” Patrick said.
“I suspect he likes anyone who gives him donuts.”
“No,” he said. “He really doesn’t. It’s you.”
Flushing slightly, she looked down at Bruno, who met her gaze evenly as if to say,He’s right.
She was thinking how to respond to that when Patrick’s phone buzzed on the table.
Patrick looked down at the screen. “It’s from my uncle.”
24
SHE’S WITH ME
PATRICK
Morgan sat up a little straighter.“What does it say?”
“Standard tox panels didn’t reveal anything, but he wants to run some additional tests. He says to give him a day or two.”
She exhaled, clearly disappointed. “A day or two is more than reasonable. Some specialized tests take weeks to come back, especially if you have to send them out.”