He wouldn’t be allowed in the room, even with his level of security clearance; this wasn’t his investigation. It was frustrating, but he hadn’t expected anything different. The only thing he could do was try to take as much of the stress off Gillian as possible.
She was quiet that morning, and it wasn’t normal. He’d spent enough mornings with her now to know that she was naturally chatty and didn’t shy away from talking about whatever came to mind after they woke up. But this morning, she wasn’t her usual lively self.
Hating that she was worrying about the meeting, but not able to do much about it, Trigger simply held her hand as he drove them into downtown Austin. Traffic sucked, as usual, but because they’d left plenty early, neither of them were stressing about it.
After he’d parked in a garage near the courthouse, he turned to Gillian. “You holding up okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Yeah. I just…I keep trying to figure out who could’ve been in on it. And it seems impossible that anyone could’ve been in cahoots with those killers. Everyone I saw was crying or acting like zombies because of shock over what was happening. Even the men. Okay, they weren’t crying, but it was obvious they weren’t happy. They were the ones who had to throw the first-class passengers’ bodies out the hatch when we first landed in Venezuela, and it was just awful. It’s hard to believe that anyone was that good of an actor. Maybe Brain and the other officials translated the conversation between the other hijackers wrong? Maybe there isn’t someone else involved?”
Trigger wanted to agree with her, but he couldn’t. He shook his head sadly. “There was no mistaking what they said, Gilly.”
“I hate this,” she whispered.
Without a word, Trigger let go of her hand and climbed out of his car. He quickly walked around to her door, opened it, and, instead of helping her out, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She melted into his chest, holding on to him with more desperation than he’d felt in her since he’d first taken her in his arms on the tarmac in Venezuela.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmured.
“I know,” she replied.
Trigger gave her another few moments, then pulled back and put his hands on her shoulders. “Your job is not to figure out who the bad guy is here. All you need to do is tell the investigators everything you can remember. Don’t analyze anyone’s actions. They’ll take your information and compare it to the data they’ve dug up from the other hostage interviews, and hopefully come to a conclusion. It is not your responsibility to tell them who you think the seventh hijacker is. They’re the experts, not you. Understand?”
Gillian took a deep breath, then nodded. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
Trigger leaned forward and kissed her gently, then said, “Good. Ready?”
“Ready,” she said in a stronger voice.
He couldn’t not be proud of her. She hopped out of his Blazer and he locked it as they walked hand in hand out of the garage toward the courthouse.
Gillian sat in the chair the DEA investigator gestured to and wiped her sweaty palms on her khaki slacks. She tried not to live her life being intimidated by anyone; she’d met with CEOs, presidents, managers of some of the best-ranked hotels in the world, and politicians without blinking.
But for some reason, sitting down with FBI Special Agent Tucker and Calum Branch, the DEA investigator, was freaking her out.
“Thank you for coming to meet with us today,” Gary Tucker said. He was a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a slight paunch. He was dressed in what she thought a typical FBI agent would wear…black slacks, dark shirt, and a blue tie that didn’t match his pants.
“Yes. We’re both very glad that you’re alive and well,” Calum added. He was a bit younger than Gary, and had on a pair of jeans, cowboy boots, and a button-down gray long-sleeve shirt. He even had a cowboy hat sitting on the table next to him. But instead of looking like a Texas cowboy, he looked like a tourist who was trying too hard to emulate a native rancher.
“That makes three of us,” Gillian said nervously. She wished Walker was with her, but she understood why he couldn’t be. He was sitting right outside the small conference room, looking way too big for the uncomfortable little office chair he’d parked himself in. He’d promised that he wouldn’t budge and he’d be right there when she was done, no matter how long the interview took.
“If it’s all right with you, I think we should just get right to it,” Gary said. “How about you tell us what happened from the moment you realized something was wrong until you were rescued.”
Gillian wanted to laugh. They weren’t messing around. She took a deep breath and told them everything she could remember. How scared she’d been when she realized what was happening and that the hijackers had actually killed some of the passengers. How terrified she’d been when Luis told her she was going to be the one to talk to the negotiator. She even told the two men how much she’d hated the first negotiator, how he hadn’t listened and that she thought it was his fault another passenger had been killed.
She praised Walker and said he’d done an amazing job of keeping her calm, decoding her lame clues, and making sure they’d received food and water. He also hadn’t gotten anyone else murdered, which was a huge plus in Gillian’s mind.
She thought she’d been matter-of-fact in her retelling of what she’d felt, but obviously the men had caught on to her feelings for Walker.
“Did you and Mr. Nelson have a relationship before the hijacking?” Calum asked.
Appalled, Gillian shook her head. “No! I hadn’t ever met him before. We don’t exactly run in the same circles.”
“What do you mean by that?” Gary asked.
“Just what I said. He’s in the Army. He lives forty miles away from me. I’m busy with my life and job, just as he is. He was in Venezuela doing his job and I was there…well, being held captive.”
“But you and he are dating now,” Gary insisted.
“Yes,” Gillian said firmly. She wasn’t going to be ashamed of Walker.
“Don’t you think that’s odd?” Calum probed.
She frowned. “What’s odd?”
“That the two of you just happen to live near each other and he’s the one who was sent to free the hostages from that plane?”
Gillian stared at the DEA agent in disbelief. “Are you insinuating that I somehow arranged for us to meet? That we planned this?”
“Well, no,” Calum backpedaled a bit. “But you have to admit it’s a bit too coincidental.”
“No, I don’t,” she fired back. “No more coincidental for anyone else on that plane who was headed to Texas. Most of them live here, like I do. And I can’t believe you’re sitting there accusing me of…what are you accusing me of?”
Calum held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, but Gillian could tell it was a bit condescending. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Then maybe you can stop, because it’s annoying me.”
She thought she heard Gary chuckle, but he deftly covered it up with a cough. “We’re just doing our jobs, ma’am,” he told her. “I know this is hard, but put yourself in our seats. We can’t dismiss anything that might lead us to the seventh hijacker. Do you want this person to continue to be free? To possibly participate in other terrorist activities that might result in the deaths of more people next time?”