Nothing.
Emotion squeezed Jason’s heart so hard, he thought it would simply stop beating.
He said—and his voice shook, but he forced himself to talk past it, “I love you, and I think you do love me. As much as you’re capable. But there’s something…cold about you. That you can turn this off and on at will. I’m not saying I’m great at relationships either, but I do know you don’t get to take breaks from loving someone. And the fact that you do, that you can just…turn me off. Shut me out. That it always has to be your rules or nothing. I can’t do it anymore.” He let out a long, shuddery breath. “Even if I wanted to. I can’t. I just can’t take it.”
Some emotion flashed through Sam’s eyes. Another expression Jason had never seen. Fear? No way. And yet… Sam hesitated, opened his mouth—and someone knocked on the door. His face tightened with frustration. He pressed his lips together tightly.
Jason glanced out the sidelight and spotted Petty with a stack of folders. Because of course. Of course, it would be goddamned Special Agent Travis Petty waiting eagerly in the wings. Well, good luck, asshole. He plastered a determined smile on his face, opened the door.
Petty offered a quick, apologetic grin. “Hey. Sorry to interrupt.”
“Hey, nothing to interrupt,” Jason returned.
He stepped past Petty and kept walking.
Chapter Nineteen
The sound of doves cooing beneath the pergola on the side of the house reminded Jason of Montana’s pornographic pigeons and the last morning he and Sam had been together. Really together.
Don’t.
Don’t start down that road.
Because right now he was okay. He was happy to be home. Grateful for peace and quiet and…normalcy. He had speed-read through Roy Thompson’s letters on the flight back from Bozeman, and he was feeling…at peace.
As he had hoped—and feared—his grandfather’s name did pop up in Thompson’s correspondence. At first Thompson had been proud of being assigned to help protect the treasure of Engelshofen Castle. He had liked working with Emerson Harley, whom he considered an equal in intellect and sophistication. But Deputy Chief Harley had reprimanded him twice on—according to Thompson—trivial b
ut unspecified matters.
After that Thompson’s tone had changed.
Jason could guess, but was never going to know for sure why Thompson had tried to implicate Emerson Harley in his thefts—and Jason had not been able to find any hard physical evidence that his grandfather had not been complicit—but he was okay with allowing people to draw their own conclusions.
People would believe what they wanted to believe. Because that’s how people were.
If he had to do it all over again… Well, he had made mistakes, big ones. Given the chance, he would try to learn from them and not repeat them.
He was not sure he would be given the chance. Not as far as his job went. Not as far as anything went.
But then, as far as “anything” went, he wasn’t the only one who had made mistakes.
If he was not terminated on Monday, he was going to ask George for a little time off.
Time to pause and reflect, sure, but mostly time to fly to Amsterdam and speak with de Haan’s Anna. He wanted her to know how important Hans’s help had been—if anyone deserved credit for restoring that Vermeer to the world, it was him—and he wanted her to know how much Hans had wanted to keep his promise to her.
He dumped the contents of his luggage in the washing machine, wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge, studying the fresh cartons of eggs and milk, the loaf of bread—his sister Charlotte doing what big sisters did.
Not that he was hungry, but one of his resolutions on the flight home had been to make a disciplined effort to opt for healthy choices. Eat more. Drink less. That would be a good start.
Someone tapped sharply on the glass window of the kitchen door, and he jumped—remembering instantly that Jeremy Kyser might not really be dead, that he must not let his guard down.
Heart in mouth, he went to look out the window.
Sam frowned in at him.
They stared at each other through the glass, and for the first time Jason could remember, he was not glad to see Sam Kennedy on his doorstep.
For Sam to show up this fast, he had to have left the office within a few hours of Jason.