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I held up my thermos of coffee. “I’m good.”
I downed a few more Advil after the door closed and settled into the chair. The world needed a better hangover cure than these fucking pills.
Watching the street, my eyelids became heavy, and I chugged some more coffee. All I could think about was the look on Kelly’s face as she’d talked with MPD Officer Walker.
She’d told him she didn’t want to talk to me, and she couldn’t even tell me herself.
What the fuck was with that?
Getting almost fall-down drunk had become the only way to get any sleep, even shitty, restless sleep. Kelly had energized me, then wrecked me, and right now, letting myself fall for her had been both the best and worst experience of my pathetic existence.
One Benson had ruined my future in the NFL, and now Kelly had finished the job of ruining my life. First she’d introduced me to the hope of a better future, then yanked it away, just like that.
I had another four hours of this monotony to endure before Harper showed up to relieve me—assuming he was on time for a change. I blinked back the fatigue and slurped some more coffee. The pain in my chest would get better with time. At least that’s what conventional wisdom said.
* * *
Kelly
Last night,just as every night, Adam’s face had appeared when I closed my eyes. There was no escaping him, whether I was trying and failing to fall asleep or trying to concentrate at work. It was as if he was the screensaver in my brain. He showed up on the blank screen of my computer, on my phone, and in the window when I looked outside.
If only my name weren’t Benson. Then I could be waking up in his arms every morning and looking forward to a bright future, instead of the dull, gray haze that now enveloped me. The Metro jerked to a halt, and I disembarked for the escalator and short walk to our building.
As tired as I was from lack of sleep, I hadn’t felt safe driving since the day I’d cut it off with Adam. Still, I knew I’d done the right thing, the humane thing, the only thing. Adam couldn’t be Adam without the FBI.
I’d only just set my heavy purse down when Helmut Krause arrived in my office doorway. “Paul called.”
I waited for more. We knew Mr. Heiden’s mother had passed away last week, and he’d planned to bury her over the weekend in Colorado, but none of us had heard anything more.
“He said he’d be in by lunchtime today.”
I stood. “I’ll get back to my cube right away.”
“Take your time. You’ve done well in his absence.”
Krause wasn’t a people person—he didn’t get it.
I had no intention of being anywhere but back in my old cubicle when Mr. Heiden walked in. It would be best if things looked and felt just as they had when he’d left. I owed it to him to make him as comfortable as possible.
He didn’t need me making it look like he’d been displaced while taking time off to care for his mother in her final days.
Krause had only been gone a minute when Kirby showed up. “Coffee run.”
I filled her in on Krause’s news while making my tea.
“Why’s he in such a hurry to get back?”
I shrugged. “If I had that kind of turmoil in my life, I’d probably bury myself in work for a while to get it out of my head.”
She added sweetener to her cup. “Me, I’d go to the Caribbean, lay on a beach, and bake it out of my brain.”
I laughed—it was so Kirby to say something like that. I kept dunking my teabag and realized I’d stopped counting dunks, another small impact Adam had made on me.
She nodded toward my cup. “Still not sleeping well?”
I’d switched from English Breakfast to these Zest teabags with triple the caffeine, more even than her coffee. “It’s hard.”
“I don’t see why you don’t—”
