Five hours after that, he wasn’t home. He was in Houston.
His father answered the door himself.
Avery was unshaven and bleary-eyed but then, it was barely six in the morning. Matthew had phoned as the plane touched down, awakened his old man and announced that he’d be there in half an hour.
At that, he figured he’d been more than polite.
A man who sent you into an Agency-connected mess without warning you first didn’t deserve a lot in the way of good manners.
“Coffee?” Avery said. “I just made it.”
Matthew nodded and followed his father into the kitchen. The coffee was strong and hot and he loaded his cup with sugar. A
caffeine high, a sugar rush… He needed both.
“How was Cartagena?” his father said, sitting across from him at a marble-topped table.
The question of the year, Matthew thought, and smiled tightly.
“Hot.”
“Yes, well… I assume you met with Douglas Hamilton?”
“Oh, I met with him, all right.” Matthew narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, father, when you asked me to help him, did you know what kind of man he was?”
“What kind of—”
“Hamilton’s a slimy son of a bitch.”
“Is he? I’ve never met him. It’s his father who was my friend.”
“He wanted me to hunt down a woman.” Matthew’s jaw knotted. “His woman.”
“That’s what he wanted? I’m sorry, son. Had I known, I’d never have bothered you with it.”
Matthew felt some of his anger fade. Avery’s bewilderment couldn’t have been faked.
And when had he ever heard the old man call him “son,” or say he was sorry?
“Yeah, well, I found her.”
“Then, why do you look so distressed?”
Matthew stared at his father. None of your business, he started to say…but what came out was something entirely different.
“I got involved with her,” he said quietly. “The whole thing got personal, and it shouldn’t have.”
Avery nodded. “Caring for a woman can complicate things.”
“I didn’t care for her,” Matthew countered sharply. “I told you, I got involved, that’s all. I just—I just—” His eyes met Avery’s, then slid away. “I made a fool of myself, is what I did,” he said. “Damn it, I should have known better!”
“You can’t know better, when you fall in love.”
“Father, I keep telling you—”
“It’s what happened to me, when I met your mother.”
Matthew’s eyebrows lifted. He couldn’t recall his father ever talking about his mother before.