But if not for Dmitry’s invitation, he’d have remained invisible.

This flight was what had drawn him out into the open, and that left Dmitry seeming not so that Dmitry, after all. And that took him back to the beginning and back to questions without answers.

Jill said, “So?”

He shook his head. “All I’ve got is mud.”

It was, perhaps, the most honest thing either of them had offered since leaving Dallas.

She said, “Come on, John, stop with the bullshit. You left the terminal. You’re holding out on me. Quid pro quo, brother dearest. How far did you get?”

Resentment he’d held back during the long wait for her to arrive morphed into anger over her button-pushing hypocrisy, and against his better judgment, it came rolling out his mouth. “You want to call bullshit?” he said. “I made it around the airport and back and still managed to get to my seat before you. What took you so long?”

She said, “I needed a drink.”

“Oh, sure, you had a drink. A White Russian, singular?”

“Clever.”

He raised his wrist and tapped his watch. “How many guys did you hit up? Four? Five? Or did you manage to score the harder stuff this time?”

She cocked her head, as if running numbers, let the questions go without comment, and reached for a book.

He clenched his jaw and bit back spite.

She knew better than to carry drugs when she traveled, and he’d gone behind her back to search her luggage to make sure she hadn’t tried to smuggle them along anyway, but that didn’t mean she’d stay clean after they arrived.

The intercom dinged, signaling cabin attendants that takeoff was imminent.

Shoulder inching into the aisle, he said, “You almost missed the flight.”

The aircraft picked up speed.

He said, “Where. Were. You.”

She leaned toward him, close enough that they were nearly face-to-face, patted his cheek, and said, “I’m here, John. I made the flight. Let it go.”

Frustration ground to a hard stop at a sudden fork.

Her eyes were clear. There was no alcohol on her breath, or foreign smells on her skin or clothes or hair. Drink and drugs were predictable if worrying variables, but she hadn’t been drinking and she wasn’t high, and the absence of explanation was worse than the one he’d imagined. “What are you not telling me?” he said.

She smiled a dangerous, power-flaunting smile.

The core of him shut down.