Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(81)

“I’m not going to give you a break. Do you know why I didn’t pick up on those slips that Jessie made? It’s because I couldn’t believe you’d ever do something like this to me. It’s beyond belief.” She pronounced every word with precision. “I’m very angry with you, Lynch.”

“I know you are. I’ll give a damn some other time. Let me keep you safe.”

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“No, you aren’t. Not until you tell me that you’re going to let Jessie do her job.”

“Her job is Waldridge.”

“And you. Tell me.”

“I’ll discuss it with her. It might not be a pleasant discussion.”

“Then she’ll call me, and I’ll take the first flight back.”

“Damn you.” She hung up.

She stood there breathing hard, trying to regain control.

He would do exactly what he’d said he’d do. Stop what he was investigating and fly back here.

Was her anger and hurt pride worth losing what Lynch might learn in London?

She had felt like a child when she had guessed what he’d done. She was not a child. She was an intelligent woman who was capable of taking care of herself.

Lynch had just had that Rye scare and couldn’t think beyond it.

But that scare might affect finding Waldridge if she couldn’t find a way to get beyond it.

Okay, she would go get a glass of water and spend a little time thinking and regaining her control. Then she would go and have that discussion with Jessie she’d told Lynch she would have.

She was not looking forward to it.

Or maybe she was, she amended. She wanted to strike out, and not from thousands of miles away as she’d had to do with Lynch.

*

“THE DOOR’S OPEN,” Jessie called out when she heard Kendra coming across the living room toward the guest room. “Come in. I went upstairs on the roof and liberated that bottle of wine after Lynch called me. I figured we might need it.”

“The wine you used to try to con me?” Kendra pushed open the door to see Jessie sitting cross-legged on the bed. She was barefoot and dressed in a sleep shirt and had two wineglasses in her hand. “I’m not in the mood, Jessie.”

“I know.” She put the wineglasses on the nightstand. “You’re pissed off, and you feel humiliated, and you want to kick someone.”

“That about covers it.”

“I can’t help that you’re pissed. I would be, too. I’d want to kill Lynch. He might have meant well, but that doesn’t mean he had a right to do it. You shouldn’t feel humiliated because he hired the best when he hired me.” She smiled. “It’s not as if he didn’t have respect for you. As far as kicking someone, be my guest. I can take it. I was captured by the Taliban on my last tour, and nothing you could do would be any worse.”

“Was that supposed to deflate my anger with both of you? It doesn’t. He shouldn’t have hired you. You shouldn’t have taken the job.”

“He has an excuse. He cares about you. I don’t have an excuse. I like you, but I don’t know you well enough to use it as a reason why I’d violate your independence.” She met her eyes. “Independence is important to me. So the only excuse I’ll give you is that I believe you have a chance of getting killed if I don’t stick around and keep it from happening. Hell, it might have happened the day that I kept them from tossing you into that barrel. But I don’t think so. I believed Powers when he said he was hired to deliver you. But if this Dyle hired him because he found you necessary for some reason, that need remains. But after it’s fulfilled, you might very well be expendable.”

“You can’t know I’m still a target. The fact that Powers has been arrested might have scared them off.”

“Lynch doesn’t think so, or I wouldn’t be here.” She lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. “And while you were with Dillingham today, a black paneled van cruised by once, slowed, then, when he saw me in the Toyota, sped up and took off. So I’m beginning to think that they’re not finished with you, either.”

Kendra gazed at her in shock. “Why didn’t you go after them?”

“And leave you alone? That wasn’t my job. They could have been trying to draw me away from you.” She made a face. “Though I was tempted.”

“Did you see the van later?”

She shook her head. “I was on the lookout, but I didn’t notice anyone following. But if they were good, I might not. I can manage to follow almost anyone and not be detected.”

“And maybe that van was just looking for an address.”

Jessie just raised her brows skeptically.

Kendra’s hands clenched. “It’s never made any sense to me why they would try to snatch me.”

“Maybe they don’t have Waldridge and think you do? Or maybe you’re looking too hard for your old friend, and they want to discourage you? Maybe they believe you have something they want? A few less benign reasons are occurring to me, but I won’t go into them. At any rate, neither Lynch nor I want to find out until we have the upper hand.”

That last sentence struck her wrong. They were clearly leaving her out of any decision making. “Lynch and you. What about me?”