Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

stole outside of McAllen, Texas. But instead of being topless, like he was when she fell asleep, he was now dressed in a long-sleeved plaid shirt.
    Sydney sighed as she lifted her arms above her head. Danny noticed that she had come back to life.
    “Good morning, sleepyhead,” he said.
    “I’m sorry. It is very easy for me to fall asleep in moving vehicles.”
    “No worries. I wish I had that same ability.”
    “What time is it, anyway?” Sydney asked as she grabbed for the guard’s clothes that she had laid out on the backseat behind her. They were still damp and cold. She decided to let them dry out a little longer and then hunted for the lever on the side of the seat that raised the seatback.
    “A little after twelve.”
    “That’s not morning. That’s the beginning of the night where I come from. I’m either still up or out for another four or five hours.”
    “You’re a night owl, then?”
    “Just on my days off.” She found the seatback lever and pulled it. After grinding through the gears in the seat, she finally raised it to the same position as Danny’s.
    “You and machines don’t like each other, do you?” he asked her.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Never mind.”
    “Where are we?”
    “About halfway to Houston.”
    “Did you ever get in touch with your mother?”
    “Yes. She’s going to stay at a friend’s for a while.”
    Sydney touched his arm. “It’s good to hear that she’s safe.”
    Danny smiled his reply. The dashboard’s faint glow highlighted his worn face in the darkness.
    “You look tired, Danny. Don’t you want to stop for a while and rest?”
    Danny shook his head. “I’d rather get to where we’re going before I worry about resting. But now that you’re up, you can help me stay awake by talking to me.”
    “What shall we talk about?”
    “Not anything about conspiracies or the people hunting us, okay?”
    Sydney chuckled. “Agreed.”
    “How about you? How does a French girl get the name Sydney anyway?”
    When Sydney met people, the conversation would eventually roll around to her past, as normal conversations tended to do. That was where the conversation usually ended. But she would probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for Danny, so she at least owed him the short answer.
    “I’m an orphan. A French couple took me in when I was still a baby. They were great fans of the American actor Sidney Poitier.”
    “Makes sense. Guy’s French. At least his name is.”
    “He’s actually from the Bahamas and moved to Miami when he was still a teenager.”
    “Are you trying to wow me with facts about American actors, or do you just want to keep the topic of conversation off your past?”
    Sydney cocked her head. “Only one experienced in trying to hide their past can readily recognize it when it happens.”
    “Touché, Ms. Dumas.” Danny offered her a funny look and then grinned. “By the way, that’s about all the French I know.”
    “I’d be happy to teach you a few lines to keep you out of trouble.”
    “Well, I do know one line, “ Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir ?”
    Sydney clapped. “ Très bon . Very good. But we just met, and you are already asking me to sleep with you?”
    Danny stammered. “No … I … I was just …” Sydney chuckled again. “Having some fun with me, Ms. Dumas?”
    She offered him a flirty grin. “ Absolument .”
    Sydney was sure that he felt their shared look as much as she did. “I’m sorry we got off topic,” Danny finally said. “You were telling me your life story.”
    “Yes, well, I graduated high school and enrolled in the Toulouse School of Management. I had a knack for numbers, for economics specifically, and went away to study international business law at Cambridge. In a nutshell.”
    “So, in addition to being an ICJ judge, you’re a Cambridge-educated lawyer specializing in international business law?”
    “My foster father was a business law professor at Toulouse. I guess I just picked it up over the years.”
    “Like father like daughter, huh?”
    You have no idea , Sydney thought. “Yes.”
    “So what kind of cases did you handle?”
    Sydney shook her head. “I never tried a case. I only went to law school because I wanted to teach. Having two areas of expertise gives a woman in Europe a much greater chance to become a professor.”
    “So, you’re a professor, too?”
    “Until my election to the ICJ, I was the head of the international law department at the University of