Page 228 of Whisper
Was there nothing to report? Had they discovered nothing?
Or were they keeping everything under wraps? Had Dawood been shot dead somewhere in the street already? Or taken alive, brought in for interrogation?
Was the mole real?
Had Dan uncovered their trail?
Had the mole slipped up?
He’d said he’d stay at Dan’s, stay out of the way. Not interfere.Again.
But a phone call was okay, right? Just to check in. Just to see how the investigation was going. If Dawood was…
If he called Dan, Dan would take it as him checking up on him. Could he call Dan and ask about his husband, the wanted terrorist? Ask if Dawood was okay? If he was right or wrong, if there was a mole or if Dawood was a master manipulator.
How would Dan react to him asking about his husband?
He tried to care. He really did. But—
Maybe he and Dan needed some time apart, after this. Or maybe he needed time apart from the world, away from everybody.
Where was Dawood? Was he alive still?
Had everything he’d told Kris been a lie?
Damn it, his mind was racing in circles, going around and around and around, over and under itself, tying his soul in knots.
He grabbed his cell, dialed Dan’s number.
He had to know.
Dan’s phone rang and rang. Kris waited, one foot swinging off the barstool, his toes tapping out a too-fast rhythm. Surely Dan was busy. He couldn’t just drop everything for Kris.
But he always had before.
Kris hung up when Dan’s phone rolled over to voicemail, his calm voice politely asking the caller to leave a message.
He’d wait a few minutes, then call again. Or Dan would call back.
Five minutes later, he dialed Dan’s number a second time.
Again, no answer.
He called the CIA switchboard next, asked to be patched to Dan’s office. Ringing, endless, endless ringing. That drone, that buzz, would live in his brain, he thought, a drill bit behind his eyes. Where the fuck was Dan?
“Hello?” Finally—
But, that wasn’t Dan’s voice. His deputy answered, her voice ragged and fraying at the edges.
“Shannon? Where’s Dan?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I haven’t seen him since this afternoon. He said he had to go talk to Ryan.”
No. Dread crawled up Kris’s soul, slithered around his bones like ice creeping out of the ground. “Have you spoken to him at all? Been able to get a hold of him?”
“No, no one has. I can’t find him. Weneedhim, though. We’re getting nowhere in this investigation!”
“What about the mission logs?”
