Daniel walked to where she still stood, just to the right of a round glass table that held a large vase filled with fresh flowers.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

Silence followed his ungraceful greeting. It was awkward and tense and so incredibly uncomfortable it made his skin itch, but his comfort wasn’t important right now.

Finally, she responded. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone back to DC.”

“Virginia,” he said. “Vienna, just outside of DC. That’s where I’ve been since…well, since the day after I last saw you. The debrief after months-long operations takes some time.”

“Are you back in Austin?”

“Just for today,” he answered. “Just for right now. I have to fly back tomorrow.”

“Tying up loose ends, I assume? Like the apartment you share with your ‘friend’s brother’?”

Damn, even her air quotes seemed angry. Daniel swallowed hard. There had been so many lies.

“I moved out of the apartment last week. And my roommate, well, I guess you figured out that Quentin isn’t exactly what I presented him to be.”

“Is he your partner at whatever place you work up there in Virginia?”

He shook his head. “Quentin is with DHS, Department of Homeland Security. I’m an agent at FinCEN.”

“Fin what?”

He looked over both shoulders and stuffed his hands farther into his pockets. “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network,” he said in a slightly lower voice. “It’s a division of the Treasury Department.”

She nodded again, but didn’t speak. Tension-filled seconds continued to tick away as they maintained this awkward tableau. What should he do? Should he move toward her? Should he offer to relieve her of the shopping bag she held? Should he accept that this is how things would end and say goodbye?

No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t leave without clarifying any misconceptions she might have about the operation he’d conducted here. At the very least, he had to make sure she understood that he hadn’t set out to use her.

“Samiah, can we…can we go up to your place?” He raised his hands. “I just want twenty minutes to explain to you what happened.”

“I don’t need you to explain anything. I already know what happened,” she said. She clasped both hands around the shopping bag’s handle and sent it on a gentle sway. The crinkle of the plastic hitting her thighs was the only sound in the lobby.

“Not all of it. It wasn’t all a lie,” he whispered past the emotion clogging his throat. “I need you to know that, Samiah. Please,” he pleaded. “Give me twenty minutes.”

She pressed her lips together, her expression evolving from pensive to conflicted to, thankfully, one of acquiescence.

“No,” she answered.

Daniel’s head jerked back. “No?”

“No,” she repeated. Then she turned on her heel and left him standing in the middle of the lobby.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight