Jihad

CHAPTER 30

As he drove Lia back to her hotel, Dean waited for her to tell him something more about Pinchon and what had happened. Before training for the Turkey mission, they’d spent nearly two weeks together at a friend’s cottage in rural Pennsylvania, wandering through the woods and exploring the nearby villages. Things between them had felt close and easy; they had no walls, secret compartments. But once back at work, all that changed. Lia became a different person, walling off the rest of the world, including him.

Maybe he was that way too, though he didn’t do it consciously.

“So you going to tell me about it?” he asked when he pulled up outside her hotel.

“Tell you about what, Charlie Dean?”

“Pinchon. Who was he?”

Lia reached for the door.

“Don’t give me the peach pit face,” he told her. “What’s the deal?”

“There’s no deal.”

“You told the Art Room that he didn’t mess up.”

“I said it was a judgment call.”

“Sure, if you have the judgment of a five-year-old.”

“You don’t like him, do you? Was it the crack about your being old?”

“He’s not a kid himself.”

“There’s nothing between us.”

Oh, thought Dean to himself. Oh.

“All right. I’ll see you later,” he told her.

“Yup.” She slammed the door and walked away.