“That’s not teamwork.” He cut his steak, taking his time finishing it and the potato to let that sink in. When he had his empty plates covered, he drank his own beer, letting the silence do more to push her than his questions.
She finished her meal and emptied her glass. “I’m done.”
He stood and moved the table outside the door then stepped back in to call for a pickup.
Hailey watched him do all that, her eyes full of questions. Was she not used to someone handling the menial tasks?
She walked over to the window and pulled the thick covering into place, then turned and sat in the chair in the corner. “I hear what you’re saying, but the kind of teamwork you envision takes more time to develop than we have.”
Sam wheeled the office chair out to where he could sit with his sock-covered feet on the bed he’d chosen. Pushing her to share control started with small decisions.
Impatience got to her. “No comment?”
“Yeah, I’ve got something to say,” Sam said with his hands folded in his lap. “You’re intelligent. You have skills, which means you’ve likely had enough conversations with people who do black ops to understand that wanting us to work like a team even though we’re not putting in the time to make it happen is ridiculous. You don’t hit me as a ridiculous person. That tells me you have a personal investment in this to push the limits, which has your mental wires crossed. That puts this mission at an even higher risk of failure.”
Her face had relaxed when he’d called her intelligent, but any happy feelings scattered to the four walls after that. She started to speak and stopped.
Sam said, “Good. At least you aren’t going to try to convince me this isn’t personal for you. Why don’t we start at that point?”
She huffed a sound of disgust. “You expect me to keep telling you things when you just said there is no hope for rescuing my person?”
“I didn’t say that.” He maintained a calm but serious expression. “I said it puts this mission at a higher risk of failure. Every mission has some risk of failure. The key is for a team to identify the weak spots and shore them up at any moment, which allows us to be fluid when things change so we can adjust on the run. I’m asking you to tell me why the person you’re looking for is so important.”
She propped her elbows on the chair arms and steepled her fingers again. “It’s a seventeen-year-old girl who was kidnapped from a party in Clapham in south London.”
Damn. It had to be a teenage girl. He asked, “Was there a ransom?”
“No. This was no standard kidnapping.”
“How’d you learn she was missing?”
She yawned then scrubbed her face with her hands and dropped them to the chair arms. Drawing in a long breath, she said, “I’m looking for my half-sister, Phoebe. She missed a weekly meeting to visit our mother who is sick. Phoebe and I know each other, but we don’t have a close relationship. Still, I agreed to be present when she asked me to be there during visits with our mother. Phoebe is struggling with losing her. Like most teens, she has no idea what to say when facing a parent who is dying.”
Her words reached into Sam’s chest and squeezed his heart. Hailey sounded all business, but the sadness in her eyes gave away how difficult it was for her to face her mother’s death. He asked, “Is your dad in the picture? Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
She shook her head. “No to both questions.”
Speaking gently, Sam asked, “What’s wrong with your mother?”
“The doctors don’t know, but I ...” Hailey started then stopped herself. She had an idea what was going on with her mother but did not want to share whatever she knew.
Why would she keep that a secret?
Did she fear giving voice to some misgiving?
Hailey said, “My mother asked me to watch out for Phoebe and help her through ... her passing.”
“What about her father?”
“He doesn’t care that she’s missing.”
“What?” Sam dropped his feet to the floor and sat forward. “Does heknowshe’s missing?”
“I told him the minute I started hunting for her. He claims she’s out spending his money somewhere and not answering his calls either.” She covered her mouth to stifle another yawn. “He doesn’t want a divorce. It would cost too much when marriage places no restrictions on him. He sends money to pay for their living expenses and my mother’s medical costs. He’ll send money so long as no one bothers him.”
“Bastard,” Sam murmured. He had the urge to comfort Hailey whose eyes were shiny, but no tear fell. She had probably ordered her tears to stand down.
She laughed at him.
