All too well. “No,” I say to her. “I have no idea what that’s like.”
“Because you don’t love anyone except yourself,” she says. “If you had a family member who died in that fire—if you knew what the word ‘family’ meant at all—I don’t think you’d be upset about us not rushing to drop our investigation.”
“It won’t bother me if you never do.” I wait for her to say something else—to attempt to rattle me with her emotional nonsense—but all she does is stare.
“Let me guess.” She finally finds her words seconds later. “You were already heading into Florida to handle a deal and this meeting with me just fell on the same day?”
“I’ve already hit my quota on questions for the day, Miss Poole,” I say. “And, unfortunately, you’re not someone I’ll ever make an exception for. Tell your boss I said hello, and that hanging on to a tragedy from years ago won’t get her any closer to knowing what I do.”
“We know exactly what you do, Mr. Rochester.” She steps closer. “We just can’t prove it.”
“You never will.” I head toward the door. “I’ll send a proxy for this next time.”
“Wait.” She jumps in front of me before I can push the door open. “Wait.”
“Yes, Miss Poole?”
“I don’t want you to take this personally, but I have a compulsive inner drive that lets me get to the bottom of every case—no matter how cold it is—and there’s nothing I love more than beating a man who thinks he’s smarter than me.”
“Well, I don’t expect us to have any problems,” I say. “I know I’m smarter than you. But if it’s any consolation, I find you entertaining. A waste of my time, of course, but mildly entertaining.”
She rolls her eyes and tucks a pen into her pocket. “Can we speak off the record for a minute?”
I glance at the clock that hangs on the far wall.
Autumn should land in New York soon…
“You have exactly one minute,” I say, preferring thoughts of Autumn to anything else this woman has to say.
“I’m sure you get stressed a lot in your line of work, so if you ever get lonely or could use some female companionship…” Her tone is now high-pitched, like a teenager. “I could help you out with that in Seattle. And depending on how good things get, I could also convince my boss to drop all these suspicions.”
“Are you attempting to hit on me for sex?”
“Only because we’re off the record.”
“Then let’s get back on it,” I say. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.” She blushes. “Anything.”
“Can you get the hell out of my way now?”
“Welcome back aboard, Mr. Rochester.” The pilot tips his hat at me as I finally return to my plane.
I walk past him without a word, stopping at the sight of Chester.
He’s sitting in my favorite window seat, glaring in my direction. Since he’s always had a deep-rooted fear of flying, I blink a few times to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
“We have a problem,” he says. “Actually, we have two problems.”
“Is one of them the fact that you’re trespassing in my chair?”
“Funny.” He crosses his arms, and I take a seat across from him.
“What’s the easiest one to fix?”
“The final Canada delivery was short,” he says. “The trucker we vetted months ago stole part of the payment.”
“I’m assuming that he left a suicide note after doing so.”
“No, he’s running.” He holds up his hand. “And before you say it, yes, we know where he is already. Everyone is simply waiting for you to make the next move.”
“What’s the second problem?”
“You and your dick,” he hisses.
“I don’t recall ever mentioning any issues with that.” I smile. “Maybe you’re projecting.”
“Mr. Rochester…”
“We have a full-time doctor on our staff, Chester. He can prescribe Viagra.”
“There was never a real ‘job’ here in Miami,” he says, not taking my bait. “And I doubt you flew all the way here to personally blow off those assholes from ATF, so I popped a few anxiety pills to see the reason for myself.”
“Maybe I just wanted to get away.”
“Or maybe you’re full of shit.”
I raise my eyebrow. “What did you just say?”
“You escorted your brand-new courier on a nonexistent job.”
“It’s a personal job that ends in New York,” I admit. “It’s also her first day at work.”
“So?”
“She needed to be put at ease,” I say. “She thinks I’m a criminal.”
“Smart girl.” He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“I agree that she’s highly intelligent.” I quickly change the subject. “How much did this trucker steal from me?”
“Eighty-thousand.”
“That’s it?”
“He probably thought the amount wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things,” he says. “Should I tell the guys to fall back?”
“Yes. I’ll handle this betrayal myself.”
“Sooner than later, I hope.”
“Sometime next week.” I wait for the pilot to settle into the cockpit. “Glad we’re on the same page about everything now.”