Free Expectation (Ghost Targets, #2) by Aaron Pogue

own tight, and shook her head. "I'll be fine," she said. "Let's go to the station."
    Reed clapped her on the shoulder. "I like to see that enthusiasm," he said, "but you do look tired. And I'm not convinced you're completely recovered from your incident in Argentina. Go on up and get some sleep. I'll fill you in on the details tomorrow morning."
    She wanted to argue—she hated the thought of being dismissed by that woman—but she was  tired, and not too enthusiastic about spending the rest of the night in close quarters with the chief. After a moment's tortured hesitation, she finally nodded her thanks to Reed and climbed out of the car. An instant later it sped away. She watched it go, then turned and headed into the hotel while her handheld checked her in and her headset told her the room number.
    Her headset woke her the next morning with the angry trill of an alarm. She answered it with her face still stuffed in the pillow. "I'm up! I'm up!" Then a moment later, "Ten more minutes." When it went off again, she threw the covers off her and sat up, hooking the headset over her ear.
    "Fine," she said, blinking bleary eyes. She grabbed her headset to check the time, 7:11 a.m., and found a voice message indicator. She sighed as she opened the message center on her handheld. "Play me Reed's message. Thanks." She left it on, her boss talking quietly into her ear, while she got ready for the day.
    She was in the middle of brushing her teeth when it occurred to her to wonder, and she grabbed the handheld from its place on the counter. The message had come in at 5:04 a.m. It was twelve minutes long, probably the whole time he'd spent in the cab between the police station and the hotel. Reed had pulled an all-nighter. She shook her head while he filled her in on the complexities of the army's involvement.
    The investigation, as it stood, was currently in the wife's hands. While the army had a significant role in the clinic's operation, they couldn't release Barnes's medical information without the wife's consent, and she was aggressively withholding it. As the police chief had indicated, the army wasn't spending any real effort trying to compel her, primarily because their  investigators had all the details they wanted through Barnes's role in the clinic. It was just the police and the public left out.
    That put some real pressure on Katie's morning. She had an appointment to meet the wife at her home in the suburbs, about an hour from then. Reed signed off with an apology, saying he would like to accompany her for the interview, but he had to meet with the army officer coordinating the clinic's research. Katie slipped into her jeans, pulled a gray sweater over a green t-shirt, and then slipped out into the hall.
    Before she pocketed her handheld, she pulled up Reed's handheld activity, just out of curiosity. He had obviously called her on his drive home last night and apparently been up doing his research for another half hour after that. He had set an alarm at 5:37 a.m. for six thirty, and he had an appointment at the military base at eight thirty. She shook her head, wondering how he would handle it.
    Then his voice spoke from her right shoulder. "Whatcha reading?" She looked up with a blush just as he recognized his own details. He chuckled. "Spying on your boss?'
    "Just wondering how you're going to handle a full day after the night you had."
    He lifted a white hotel mug to her in answer and took a long sip before he said, "Strong coffee." He took another and then nodded to her. "Come on, they've got a decent breakfast downstairs, and you've got a few minutes before you need to head out."
    She grabbed a bagel while he helped himself to the scrambled eggs, then they sat across from each other at a tiny table while he idly scrolled through a World Events news feed. She just watched him. His eyes were sharp and clear. He seemed relaxed, collected, and there was no sign of weariness, let alone the emotional wreck he'd been