Free Split Second by David Baldacci

was coming from the direction where King was staring. And she seemed to hear a slight hush or whooshing sound.
    She thought rapidly. A
ding
in a hotel almost always meant that an elevator car had arrived. And the whooshing sound could have been the elevator doors opening. The diagram of the room where Ritter was shot showed a bank of elevators. If an elevator door had opened, had it revealed anything to Sean King? And if so, why hadn’t he said? And why hadn’t anyone else seen something? Lastly, why hadn’t anyone picked up on what she had just noted after having watched the tape a couple of times? But why was she so interested in Sean King and his plight from eight years ago? And yet she
was
interested. After days of tedium she wanted to
do
something. She needed action. Impulsively Michelle packed her bag and checked out of the hotel.

CHAPTER
    14
    L IKE M ICHELLE M AXWELL, King had also risen early and was also out on the water. He was, however, in a kayak, not a scull, and was going considerably slower than Michelle. The lake was ripple-free at this hour, and the quietest it would be all day. This was the perfect place to think, and he needed to do a lot of that. Yet it wasn’t to be.
    He heard his name being called and looked up. She was standing on the rear deck of his house, calling out to him and holding up a cup of what he assumed was coffee. Joan was wearing the pajamas he kept in the guest bedroom. He took his time paddling back in and then walked slowly up to the house where she met him at the back door.
    She smiled. “Apparently you were the first up, but no coffee was on. That’s okay, I live to provide suitable backup.”
    He accepted the coffee from her and sat at the table after she insisted on making him breakfast. He watched her prancing barefoot around his kitchen in the pajamas, apparently playing the role of the happy vixen housewife with aplomb. He remembered that Joan, though one of the toughest agents the Service had ever produced, could be as feminine as any woman, and in private moments she could be downright sexually explosive.
    “Still prefer scrambled?”
    “That’s fine,” he answered.
    “Bagel, no butter?”
    “Yep.”
    “God, you’re so predictable.”
    I guess so, he thought. He ventured a question of his own. “Any news on Jennings’s death, or am I not cleared for it?”
    She stopped cracking eggs. “That’s FBI territory, you know that.”
    “Agencies talk to each other.”
    “Not any more than they used to, really, and that was never a lot.”
    “So you know nothing.” He said this in an accusatory manner.
    She didn’t answer, and instead scrambled the eggs, toasted the bagel and presented the meal complete with silverware, napkin and more coffee. She sat across from him and sipped orange juice while he ate.
    “Not having anything?” he asked.
    “I’m watching my figure. Apparently I’m the only one here doing that.”
    Was it his imagination, or did her foot graze his leg underneath the table?
    “What did you expect? After eight years we just jump back into the sack?”
    She tipped her head back and laughed. “In an occasional fantasy, yes.”
    “You’re crazy, you know that? I mean certifiable.” He was not joking.
    “And I had such a normal childhood. Maybe I’m just a sucker for a man in shades packing heat.”
    Okay, that time it was clear. Her foot
had
touched his leg. He was sure of that because it was still there and currently heading toward certain private areas of his person.
    She leaned forward. Her gaze was not soulful; it was predatory. Clearly she wanted him, here, now, on the kitchen table in the middle of his “predictable scrambled eggs.” She stood and slid off the pajama bottoms, revealing flimsy white panties. Next she slowly and deliberately undid the pajama top as though challenging him to stop her at each button. He didn’t.He just watched as the pajama top opened. She wore no bra. Joan dropped the pajama top in his lap and with