“I like ballets and symphonies too, although some operas can be a little heavy.”

“Well, aren’t you cultured. What about sports?”

“Ice hockey.”

“Me too. I’ve been to a couple Sharks games. It’s a rough sport. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the only sport that actually allows fighting, with a penalty, of course.”

“Yep. Five for fighting.”

“I wish I had more time for stuff like that.”

“Fighting? Nah, it’s overrated.”

She smiled.

“You need to make time, Holly. You know what they say about too much work.”

“Do you think I’m dull?”

“Not at all. What I’m saying is something you already know, but need to hear. You need downtime, time to reboot. Especially with a high-stress job like yours. It can’t be easy running a field office along with all the resident agencies as well. You must have… what, five hundred people working under you?”

“I manage.”

“But at what cost? Sooner or later you’ll reach burnout.”

“I haven’t yet.”

“It sneaks up on you. One day you’ll just break down into tears over something small. It’s your brain telling you you’re on overload.”

“You speaking from personal experience?”

“Absolutely. Take my advice and do something for yourself, something totally selfish. Go to Cancun or Bermuda. The Bahamas. Lay out at the pool. Give that lily-white skin of yours a tan. The FBI will do just fine without you for a spell.”

“Henning told me the same thing, except for the lily-white-skin part.”

“I hate to agree with the guy, but he’s right.”

“I guess I do have pretty fair skin.”

He half laughed. “I was talking about the stress. Why don’t we try dinner after the dust settles?”

“I’d like that.”

Holly followed the caravan onto I-5 north and then onto the Highway 70 exit a few miles later. For the next thirty miles the landscape was totally flat. Farmland receded into the darkness on either side of the highway. Marysville was deserted except for a few convenience gas stations. They followed Highway 70 as it  jogged through town before again heading north toward Oroville. To the west, the black outline of the Buttes contrasted the distant glow from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Holly kept the conversation lighthearted and told him about her family, how she came from a long lineage of law enforcement. Her father was a retired City of Sacramento detective and her two brothers were both cops, one in Dallas, one in Modesto. She talked about her years at Boston College, her childhood, and of their family pet, a toy poodle named Pierre who used to sleep under the covers with her.