“Mierda, ya no sé.” He really didn’t know what he wanted from her.

“Fine.” She started to walk away.

“Joder, no me digas que hablas español,” he mumbled. It was his way of letting off steam.

She glanced over her shoulder with a half smile. “Suficiente.”

Great, she understood Spanish. He was going to have to bite his tongue or he’d get himself in trouble with his only witness.

“Stop,” he said.

She did, turned, and faced him. “Matt, you want to know more about me to figure out if you can trust me. I get it. Your guy talked to my boss. Lex is not going to give you anything more than my basics, primarily to protect me, and secondarily because he doesn’t like the feds. We work out of Special Operations, and I work undercover. I’m telling you this, even though I don’t tell anyone outside of my unit anything about my work. But I’m stuck up here for ten more days. I’m a good cop—I can help.”

It was a good speech, but she hadn’t really told him anything. “You’re not homicide.”

“No.”

She didn’t expand, and that ticked him off.

“¿Por qué no puedes darme una respuesta directa por una vez?” he mumbled. Why can’t you give me a direct answer for once?

He wanted a straight answer, and Quinn didn’t give straight answers. And he really wanted to know what had gone on between her and the LA-FBI office.

“Trust me or don’t,” she said. “You’re short-staffed and I would really like to stop this guy.”

“Why?” Maybe that was the crux of his problem with Kara Quinn. “Why do you want to get involved with a 24-7 investigation like this while you’re on vacation? It’s a lot of grunt work.”

“You know why.”

“If I knew why, I wouldn’t ask.”

She looked like she didn’t believe him. “Huh.”

“Don’t play games, Quinn—I’m freezing my ass off and I have work to do.”

“I planned on visiting my grandmother for a weekend. My boss told me not to come back until March 15. That’s sixteen days of not doing my job. Somehow, I don’t think you’d be comfortable sitting on your ass for sixteen days.”

She was right. He hated taking time off, and when he did he played hard, like when he decided to learn how to scuba dive a couple years ago. If he didn’t have something challenging to do, he’d go back to work early. “Why’d your boss tell you to take a vacation?”

“I wrapped up a tough case and he thought I needed the time. First seventy-two hours were mandatory. And, I created a bit of a problem for the administration because my mouth opened before my brain engaged. But you know what? Time sucks. Time means you think about what you should have done or would have done. There’s nothing that beats working.”

“Case didn’t end well?”

“Didn’t end well for the bad guys.”

Something flickered in her eye. Something definitely happened on her last case, and she was angry about it. But she hid her emotions better than most people. Her reaction was so subtle and well-timed that he wondered if she intentionally showed her anger, then covered it up so he’d be curious.