CHAPTER THIRTY
It was an awkward flight back to Washington. Paige and Christopher had solved the case, but Paige still wasn’t sure about the way that things stood between the two of them. Could she really work with someone when things were so difficult? When she spent every moment with him having to be careful not to go too far, not to say or do the wrong thing?
Even being stuffed into an airplane seat next to him was difficult, because it meant that Paige had to spend the whole flight back to D.C. just inches from him, closer than she’d allowed herself to be in all the time she’d been in Las Vegas.
Being that close, it was hard not to reach out to touch him, no matter how much she knew that she couldn’t. Paige had to tell herself again that her feelings didn’t matter. That she and Christopher could only be partners. That they had to be partners because this was the only job where Paige could find out what she needed to know about her father’s killer.
Paige knew all of that, but it didn’t make being this close to Christopher without being able to do anything any easier.
“Are you sure that one of us shouldn’t stay to make sure that everything goes smoothly?” Paige asked.
“The plane’s in the air now,” Christopher pointed out. “Besides, you caught Stephen Booth red handed trying to kill Antoinette Couchon. Once he gets out of the hospital, he’ll confess, and even if he doesn’t, there’s more than enough to get a conviction.”
Christopher sounded pleased.
“You… did well, Paige.”
There was a hesitation there that Paige couldn’t quite read, as if Christopher were worried about complimenting her like that.
“You did your part too,” Paige pointed out.
“Yes, we make a good team.”
Christopher sounded almost regretful about that, as if he would rather they didn’t work together quite so well. Maybe he’d been hoping for an excuse to swap Paige out for a new partner. He might not be able to guess the reasons that Paige was making things so awkward between them, but he could probably sense that there was that awkwardness. Anyone sensible would want to run from it, to find a partner he actually had some chemistry with.
Of course, the problem for Paige was too much chemistry, rather than too little.
“You saved my life back there, in the space under the stage,” Paige said.
“That’s what partners are for,” Christopher replied.
“No, Christopher, I mean it. If you hadn’t been there, I would have died.”
“So maybe next time, don’t go running off without me,” Christopher suggested.
Next time. That was the thing now: they were partners, working on the same team. There would be more serial killers for the two of them to face, more victims to find answers for. In order for that to happen, Paige would need to find a way to work with Christopher without the attraction she felt every time she looked his way causing a problem.
She just hoped that she would be able to do that.
“I won’t have to run off if you listen to me next time,” Paige pointed out. “Did you ever find out why Mark Zint wasn’t talking?”
“Detective Sanchez texted me. It turns out that there were more women he’d been harassing, and he was worried about it coming out. At the time of Sienna Niven’s murder, he was off sleeping with a fan.”
That explained that part of it, at least.
“Detective Sanchez is going to be happy to see the back of us,” Paige ventured, struggling to try to find a safe topic of conversation. She glanced over to Christopher, saw him staring back at her, and glanced away again.
“I think she’s happy enough that she’s been involved in the successful hunt for a murderer,” Christopher said. He paused, not saying anything for several seconds. “Look, Paige…”
What was he going to say? That question sent a thrill of worry running through Paige. Was he going to tell her that he’d noticed how awkward things were between them and guessed the cause? Was he going to tell her that they needed to keep things strictly professional, and that if she couldn’t do that, she was going to have to find a new partner?
It wasn’t like those were things she didn’t already know.
“Yes?” Paige said.
Christopher shook his head, though. “Nothing. I just wanted to say that we make a good team. When we get back to Quantico, I’ll let Sauer know that you were the one who found the crucial breakthrough in this case. He should know that you’re more than capable of pulling your weight as an agent.”
That praise both sent pride swelling through Paige and hurt more than she could say. She was proud, because Christopher was the one person from whom praise of that kind truly mattered. He’d been the one to pick her out to work with him in the first place, the one who had insisted that her insights into killers might be enough to let the two of them catch them.