Internal Affairs by Jessica Andersen Page B

skull, maybe even something that would blow the whole case wide open.
    You’re reaching, his inner cynic whispered. The story sounds good, except for one thing. If you were undercover, why aren’t you getting any memory flashes of that? All you’re getting are the bad guys.
    He should go, he knew. But he’d hesitated too long.
    “Leaving?” Sara’s quiet voice said from the other end of the hallway leading to the back door.
    She stood silhouetted in the light from the main room. The illumination picked out golden highlights in her shoulder-length hair and emphasized the long, lean length of her body in its smart power suit. She wore a long raincoat of mossy green against the damp, late-summer day, and the belted waist emphasized the narrowness of her waist, the femininity of the curves beneath. She looked expensive and put-together, and probably should have made him feel underdressed, in his borrowed sweatpants, T-shirt and bare feet. Instead, he was buffeted by an unfamiliar sense of rightness, a surge of “oh, there you are!” that made him want to cross to her, kiss her and welcome her home for the night.
    And he so wasn’t going there. Didn’t dare. So instead of approaching her, he held his ground. “I wasn’t taking off. I was preparing in case your cop came in with you and I needed to do a fast fade.”
    She made a quiet humming noise that didn’t quite call him a liar, but said only, “Tucker offered to come in and take a look around, but I declined, and he took me at my word.” She paused. “If you were going to vanish, you could’ve done it hours ago.”
    He thought about denying it, but figured there was little more than patchy honesty between them at this point, and he didn’t have the heart to take that away from either of them. “I would have, but I passed out and only just now came around.”
    “Maybe that’s your subconscious telling you to stay put.”
    “Maybe.”
    They stood squared off opposite each other for a long moment. Romo couldn’t see her eyes, could only see the dark outline of her in the low, golden light, but he knew she was studying him, trying to figure him out. He wanted to tell her to let him know what she came up with, and he wouldn’t have been kidding. He had a feeling she’d understood him better than he’d understood himself, even before the amnesia. But if that were the case, why had he cheated? He didn’t feel like a cheat, didn’t think it was his normal M.O. It didn’t make any sense. None of it did.
    “Well, it’s your call. As usual.” The last was said with a faint bite as she took a step back into the main room, ceding the hallway. The move brought her out of the shadows and into the light, showing him her lovely face, which was wearing an expression that was simultaneously both composed and worried. Her tone, though, was even as she said, “If it helps, neither the blood nor the bullet came from one of the officers or agents on the manhunt.”
    It did help, but he latched on to what she hadn’t said. “The spatter was consistent with me cutting the victim’s throat.”
    She swallowed. “Yes. How did you know?”
    “I don’t remember what happened,” he said, answering the unspoken question. “It was just a feeling.”
    Unfortunately, feelings were all he had to go on just then, and they included his growing attraction for Sara, which was starting to mess with his ability to assess and analyze all the other things going on around them. He suspected the pull he felt toward her was a combination of unremembered history, the situation, and the simple fact that he’d been attracted to her once before, and nothing had changed about his basic taste. The things that had drawn them together before were still in place. And he suspected he wasn’t the only one feeling the pull. He didn’t know exactly what had happened during their breakup, or why, but he thought part of Sara might be seeing the situation as an opportunity for a do-over. Or