Page 14 of Gryphon

She managed to catch up with Mike by what was left of the nose of the plane. “Hey.”

“Hey what?” Mike didn’t stop.

Holly grabbed his arm and spun him around.

He shrugged off her grip with a hard shake but at least he stopped.

“Why you chuckin’ a wobbly?”

His glare said whatever had pissed him off had done it but good.

Mike hunched in the shadow that the snowcat’s searchlights cast from the wreck. They had both turned off their headlamps so as not to blind each other, but he now stood in deep shadow with his fists jammed in his pockets. With all the glass blown out of the cockpit’s forward windows, the plane’s crushed nose had taken on a darkly sinister glower as if it only needed the smallest excuse to leap forward and crush them all.

Holly considered waiting him out. She never had much patience with angry men, one of the things she liked about Mike: not much riled him. Then she remembered his look when Miranda had been kidnapped by Russia. He kept his anger off his face, usually, but below the surface there was a whole other story happening.

One deep breath.

Two.

By three she’d lose her patience so she spoke instead.

“What don’t you like about Tad Jobson?”

“Want a list, Hol?” It was that same rare slice of him that she’d only glimpsed a few times but made her suspect he’d have been a top soldier in a different life. Or a ruthless assassin by the look of him at the moment.

“I guess I’m gonna need one, because I have no idea.” Not something she liked admitting. Mike would know that about her. Weak wasn’t her.

“Okay. Number One. Did you think for a single second to check his story?”

“I didn’t need to. No one can fake the kind of operational knowledge he has. He is what he says.”

“Sure,” Mike nodded but he wasn’t smiling to match his tone. “He knows his rotorcraft. Even my idiot brain, that you think doesn’t know what an MRAP or an IED is, heard that. But, Number Two, he says he was sent by the NTSB. To, Number Three, join Miranda’s team without any notification to us. And, of course Number Four, you verified that he has the security clearance to be on the team for the type of ugly that Miranda keeps getting us snarled up in.”

Holly opened her mouth, then snapped it closed. Mike was absolutely right. She was supposed to be the suspicious one on the team. She hadn’t had Miranda’s back last spring in the UK and it had almost cost both their lives to fix it. And now she’d—

She loosened the vicious Fairbairn-Sykes dagger she wore in a thigh sheath. She’d go and get a few answers for herself, even if she had to carve them out of Tad Jobson. A twitch of her hip and she felt the second blade she kept at the small of her back was in place. One of the advantages to not passing through airport customs.

“Holly, give it a rest, will you? He checks out. All the way down the list. They kicked him to us for field training rather than sending him through the Academy because we’re the only NTSB team that stays permanently staffed. And we do need a rotorcraft member.” Mike’s face looked serious. Not messing with her. “First thing I did during lunch while you were distracting him with all your eyelash batting.”

“I don’t bat my eyelashes at any man.”

“Whatever you say, Harper.”

But it was harder to let go than she expected. Not once had she thought to check Tad Jobson on any of those factors. It didn’t matter that he checked out, she should have been the first one to the line on that. Her adrenaline had latched open, and it didn’t want to stop pumping into her system. Even a conscious effort to breathe didn’t ease her system back down.

“Okay. Okay. Sorry. I should have been on it.” Contrite had a bitter taste. Who knew? One more deep breath. “What else am I not seeing?”

Mike simply stared at her. Didn’t even blink. Staring like he’d never speak to her again.

“What?”

He turned on his heel, flicked on his headlamp, indicating the conversation was done when it totally wasn’t, and walked off toward Miranda. She’d come around from the far side, following the orange tape on the snow with broad zigzags aside to make sure no debris lay outside that perimeter.

“What?” But she didn’t raise her voice enough to carry to him.

As she turned, she saw Jeremy watching her from inside the windowless cockpit.

“What the hell’s up with you?”

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