want to keep to yourself because you're not going to run my investigation or me. I'll tell you when I've got something or when I need something. Until then, this stays between you and me so just sign my check or get someone else."
We measured one another across my desk; neither backing down until he conceded with a cracked grin.
"We've got the same problem, you and me," he said.
"What's that?"
"We're both losing the one thing we can't afford to lose—control. You over your body and me over my mind. I don't know why you won't tell me about the FBI but I gather you've got something else at stake, something personal. I could get anyone I want to do this job but I like having someone with a lot on the line. I'll stay out of your way but I want results or I will get someone else."
"What if you don't like the results?"
"That's tomorrow's problem. The question is whether you can do this today."
More than the shaking or the brain fog, I resented that my condition compromised my choices, forcing me to accept weakness as normal, walking away instead of pushing on as unavoidable. If I was going to give in, I might just as well quit. The FBI forced me to do that and the bitter taste hadn't gone away.
Simon Alexander was wrong when he told me that this would be an easy gig, a job I could do on my own schedule, and I was right when I told Milo Harper that something like this doesn't want to be controlled. Neither mattered now. What mattered was whether I was going to answer the bell or pack it in, taking the rest of the day off because I felt like I'd gone ten rounds or rattle Anthony Corliss's cage, knowing that the surest way to chill an investigation was to wait until it was convenient for me.
"It's no hill for a climber," I told him.
Chapter Twenty
The personnel directory Leonard gave me listed Anthony Corliss's office on the fourth floor and Maggie Brennan's on the third. I tried Corliss first. He answered on the first knock.
"Door's unlocked."
The lights were turned off, the blinds drawn, the only illumination coming from a desk lamp and a flat panel television mounted on one wall. Corliss was leaning back in his chair, feet on his desk.
Two people, a woman and a man, their backs to me, occupied chairs in front of his desk. I stepped to one side, giving me a view of their profiles. Both looked to be in their midtwenties, the guy wandering from the screen to his iPhone to the books on the wall. The woman leaned forward, arms across her middle, eyes narrowed on the television, a legal pad in her lap filled with notes.
I recognized Maggie Brennan from the photograph in her bio. She was sitting on a small sofa and turned toward me, her brows rising, her eyes flaring like I'd snuck up on her in the dark. She shifted her weight, giving me her back and facing the screen.
Corliss held a finger to his mouth, telling me not to speak. They were wrapped in the shadows, watching the television.
I put Corliss in his early forties, enough mileage in the wrinkles and folds on his face to separate him from his youth but not enough that it was all in his rearview mirror. Though he was Milo Harper's contemporary, he had an easy energy about him in contrast to Milo's urgency, the difference no doubt owing to the distance on their horizons. His sandy brown hair was cut short, framing a full face. He was shorter than me, creeping past stocky with a black sweatshirt bunching over his belly.
He'd frozen the image on the television when I opened the door, now waving the remote at the screen where a young man, maybe twenty, sat in a chair, the camera in tight, his face locked in a blank stare, the soul patch beneath his chin more like a mud smear. Corliss clicked the remote and the image jerked to life. The man rocked back and forth, palms on his knees, then squared up to the camera.
"Go on," an off-camera female voice said, the tone anxious and encouraging. The young woman with the legal pad was mouthing the words that I assumed were
We measured one another across my desk; neither backing down until he conceded with a cracked grin.
"We've got the same problem, you and me," he said.
"What's that?"
"We're both losing the one thing we can't afford to lose—control. You over your body and me over my mind. I don't know why you won't tell me about the FBI but I gather you've got something else at stake, something personal. I could get anyone I want to do this job but I like having someone with a lot on the line. I'll stay out of your way but I want results or I will get someone else."
"What if you don't like the results?"
"That's tomorrow's problem. The question is whether you can do this today."
More than the shaking or the brain fog, I resented that my condition compromised my choices, forcing me to accept weakness as normal, walking away instead of pushing on as unavoidable. If I was going to give in, I might just as well quit. The FBI forced me to do that and the bitter taste hadn't gone away.
Simon Alexander was wrong when he told me that this would be an easy gig, a job I could do on my own schedule, and I was right when I told Milo Harper that something like this doesn't want to be controlled. Neither mattered now. What mattered was whether I was going to answer the bell or pack it in, taking the rest of the day off because I felt like I'd gone ten rounds or rattle Anthony Corliss's cage, knowing that the surest way to chill an investigation was to wait until it was convenient for me.
"It's no hill for a climber," I told him.
Chapter Twenty
The personnel directory Leonard gave me listed Anthony Corliss's office on the fourth floor and Maggie Brennan's on the third. I tried Corliss first. He answered on the first knock.
"Door's unlocked."
The lights were turned off, the blinds drawn, the only illumination coming from a desk lamp and a flat panel television mounted on one wall. Corliss was leaning back in his chair, feet on his desk.
Two people, a woman and a man, their backs to me, occupied chairs in front of his desk. I stepped to one side, giving me a view of their profiles. Both looked to be in their midtwenties, the guy wandering from the screen to his iPhone to the books on the wall. The woman leaned forward, arms across her middle, eyes narrowed on the television, a legal pad in her lap filled with notes.
I recognized Maggie Brennan from the photograph in her bio. She was sitting on a small sofa and turned toward me, her brows rising, her eyes flaring like I'd snuck up on her in the dark. She shifted her weight, giving me her back and facing the screen.
Corliss held a finger to his mouth, telling me not to speak. They were wrapped in the shadows, watching the television.
I put Corliss in his early forties, enough mileage in the wrinkles and folds on his face to separate him from his youth but not enough that it was all in his rearview mirror. Though he was Milo Harper's contemporary, he had an easy energy about him in contrast to Milo's urgency, the difference no doubt owing to the distance on their horizons. His sandy brown hair was cut short, framing a full face. He was shorter than me, creeping past stocky with a black sweatshirt bunching over his belly.
He'd frozen the image on the television when I opened the door, now waving the remote at the screen where a young man, maybe twenty, sat in a chair, the camera in tight, his face locked in a blank stare, the soul patch beneath his chin more like a mud smear. Corliss clicked the remote and the image jerked to life. The man rocked back and forth, palms on his knees, then squared up to the camera.
"Go on," an off-camera female voice said, the tone anxious and encouraging. The young woman with the legal pad was mouthing the words that I assumed were
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