Being apprehensive of Goliad and Timmy, she had gone along with his rigmarole about the receipt, sounding just hacked enough to be convincing. But that didn’t mean there was blind trust between the two of them. Was what she’d told him about GX-42 just another in a series of lies and half-truths?
A miracle drug with a short shelf life? Really, Brynn?
If that was true, and said drug was destined for a patient whose days were numbered without it, and Brynn was delivering it with more than twenty-four hours padding, which was exactly what she’d been desperate to do, then why wasn’t she chatty and bubbly with anticipation of soon achieving her goal?
Instead, she’d been silent and forlorn ever since their departure from the cabin.
They hadn’t been given an opportunity to speak alone, and, dammit, he needed to know what was going on with her. He stopped pretending to doze and looked over at her. She was looking out the car window at Atlanta’s skyline, which had appeared on the horizon, visible but blurred by fog.
She seemed about as excited to see it as a lifer approaching Alcatraz.
Her posture was rigid with tension. Her hands were in her lap, clasped in a death grip. He reached across the seat and cupped his hand over them. Jumping like she’d been shot, she turned to him. Their eyes locked. They didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.
Nor could he account for her expression of stark desperation.
She knew something that he didn’t. Frustrated by his inability to crack her reticence, he pressed his fingers around her clasped hands as though to squeeze truthful information from her.
Then, startling everyone, his cell phone rang.
Timmy turned his head, his vulpine face appearing in the space between the two front seats. Goliad’s unblinking eyes met Rye’s in the rearview mirror. “Answer it,” he said.
Rye took the phone from his jacket pocket and saw that the caller was Dash. He clicked on. “Here.”
“Where’s here?”
“Coming into Atlanta.”
“That’s good. You finagled a ride?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Did you talk to the FAA?”
“Monday at the earliest.”
“Figured.”
“I may have to go back up there to get pictures. Couldn’t today.”
“We’ll work around it. You had any sleep?”
“Not much.”
“Get some more. You fly tomorrow night. I took the liberty of booking you a room. I’ll text you where.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t be in a rush to thank me or anything.”
Dash paused as though waiting for him to respond, but he had a listening audience that Dash didn’t know about, so he didn’t say anything.
After heaving a long-suffering sigh, Dash continued, “I also got you a seat on a cheapo commercial carrier that’ll get you back here.”
“What time?”
“Little after nine. Unless you’re delayed.”
“There’s still fog.”