time.”
I sat for a good solid minute, digesting everything. “No one ever found my mom’s body? So . . . she might still be alive?”
"GiGi,” TL sighed. “Eduardo wanted her dead. She’s dead. You need to accept that.”
But if no one ever found her body . . . bull crap, I didn’t need to accept anything. “Why didn’t you tell me all this two days ago when you first showed me that picture?”
“I wanted to see what you’d do with the information you had. Yet another one of the many tests you will go through in your training. ” He paused. “Plus, knowing your personality, I knew you’d do your own research and try to find out the answers yourself.”
Sometimes I didn’t understand TL’s reasoning. Why put me through all this? For two days I’d been down in my lab, barely eating and sleeping. All for what took him ten minutes to tell me. I closed my eyes, irritated, aggravated, and raw with the truth about my parents. My dad had been murdered. My mom might, might, still be alive.
I opened my eyes, purposefully showing him all the frustration weighing me down. “Would you have told me this two days ago if I’d asked?”
“No.”
My frustration morphed into anger, and I snapped. “I don’t understand you. I know you have a reason behind everything you do. And I’m sure in this instance it was something about me maturing or gaining independence or whatever. But these are my parents, and you had no right to keep that information from me.”
Without giving him a chance to respond, I shot to my feet, pumped with adrenaline. “You said Eduardo Villanueva is still out there, still at large. Well, I want to go after him.” I jabbed my finger in TL’s direction. “And since I can’t do it alone, you’re going to have to help me.”
[2]
TL maintained a dead-pan expression as I stood defiantly in front of him, staring unblinking into his icy eyes.
Silence stretched between us.
Long seconds ticked by, and my heartbeat pulsed in my neck, my veins, my temple. In the quiet room I heard only its thumping and my raspy, quick breaths.
I didn’t resist the anger and sadness fueling me. I allowed it in. It felt good.
“I want to go after Eduardo Villanueva,” I repeated. “And I want you to help me.”
“I realize you’re upset, but make no mistake, I give the commands around here. Not you.”
His intimidating comment made my jaw tighten.
“I suggest,” he continued in a measured tone, “that you leave my office to cool down and collect your thoughts before you say something you’re going to regret.”
“How do you expect me to sit back and ignore the fact my parents’ murderer is still out there. What if it were Nalani?” I blurted out. “What if someone murdered your wife? You wouldn’t stand by and calmly accept it. You’d go after them.”
Every muscle in TL’s face hardened. Slowly, he got to his feet. No one else but David knew TL and Nalani, our pre-op agent, were married. And until this second, TL hadn’t known that I knew.
Not giving him a chance to answer, I railroaded on. “You have no hold on me. Remember, I’m the only Specialist who didn’t do anything illegal on my own. You tricked me into coming here.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I was taking things too far. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “I can walk out right now, and you can’t stop me.”
“So walk out then.”
Suddenly, my boiling anger faded to a concentrated focus. He’d once given me an ultimatum; now it was my turn. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, without a doubt in my mind. “You have until tomorrow morning. If you’re not prepared to help me find my parents’ murderer, then I’m leaving.”
I quickly turned and opened his door.
“Don’t drop a threat,”