by Beth Yarnall
“He’s been convicted of aggravated assault. You shouldn’t even have him as a friend, let alone go out with him.”
“You’re investigating my friends too?” My voice went supersonic, setting off car alarms and howling dogs.
“Well, yeah. It’s my job.”
“Your… You know what? You’re fired!”
“You can’t fire me.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I can kick your ass out of my house.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Maggie.”
“Miss Castro to you.”
“We’re back to that?”
I shot my arm out and nearly flung my phone. “Get out.”
“Fine. I’ll be next door if you need me.”
What the…? I propped my hands on my hips. “What do you mean, next door?”
“We rented the apartment next door.”
“We again.”
“I don’t work alone. We set up a temporary command center.”
Well, that explained Mr. Hands-to-himself I’d been living with. The walls in these old apartments were as thin as my patience with him at the moment.
“How many people do you work with?”
“Two or three, depending on what’s happening.”
“And they’re doing what?”
“We’ve got eyes on every corner of this building. As well as tracking the latest info as it comes in.”
“Inside my apartment too?”
“No. That’s why I’m here.”
I nodded.
He eyed me as if I were a coiled rattler. “What’s going on inside your head?”
“Oohhh,” I moaned loud enough to be heard through the wall, then whispered, “Nothing.”
“Maggie…”
“Oohhh, yeessss!”
“Stop it.”
“Don’t stop!”
“You’re pushing your luck.”
“Oohhh, yeessss. Harder!”
He covered my mouth with his, and suddenly I was back to the wall, his knee wedged between my legs. I gripped his shoulders and met him kiss for kiss. I didn’t remember wanting anyone or anything as badly as I wanted him. He broke the kiss long enough to pull my shirt over my head, then took a half step back and sucked in a breath. Exactly the reaction I’d hoped for when I’d put the purple lace bra on that morning on the off chance he’d finally break his vow of chastity.
“If you stop now,” I warned, “I’ll make good on my earlier threat.”
“Not a chance.”
Chapter Six
He took me hard and fast, right there up against the wall after we’d cranked up the TV and radio as cover. Thankfully it was an outside wall, or his friends next door might have thought we were having an earthquake. Angels sang. Fireworks went off. I might have even died briefly. All that pent-up sexual frustration was ten tons of dynamite packed tighter than a starlet in designer jeans.
One thing about Super Agent, he was incredibly thorough in his investigation techniques, leaving no spot on my body unexplored. The second time on the bed was where Super Agent really lived up to his nickname. I was pretty sure I saw God that time, and he whispered, “You’re welcome.”
We lay in the aftermath, sheets and clothes strewn all around. A fine sheen of sweat coated his body, highlighting the hills and lowlighting the valleys. He looked as though he’d been sculpted from fine stone. Whereas I looked like I’d been molded out of Play-Doh by an art-challenged toddler. My hair, unruly on most days, now lay in tangled ropes around us, but I hardly cared about any of that with the zing of multiple orgasms still jolting my system.
“You’re not going out with that Jonas guy,” Super Agent decreed, barely out of breath. I might have hated him a little for that except I couldn’t muster the energy for it. Or anything else.
I rolled my head to the side to look at him. “Who?”
“Damn right.”
I snorted a laugh.
“That was a good lead he gave you.” He sounded reluctant to admit it.
“You think?”
“Maybe.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did.”
“How long have you had me under surveillance?”
He answered without hesitation. “Almost a year.”
I hadn’t expected that answer. It was much longer than I’d ever imagined. He’d seen me at my best and my worst. I considered all the things people did when they thought no one was watching. Except in my case someone had been watching and that someone was now lying gloriously naked beside me. Alarm bells jangled at the back of my brain. Unease crept cold over me, obliterating my warm afterglow.
He must have sensed my agitation. Rolling toward me, he studied my expression. “I hated seeing you with him. I knew what he was into, what he would drag you into. There were times…”
I waited him out. Not because I was anxious to hear what he had to say, but because I was just so stunned. I pulled the sheet up to cover myself, needing that barrier. I was overexposed. He knew everything about me, every detail of my life. I hadn’t thought about that until this moment, not all the way.
He reached out to touch my cheek and I flinched. He frowned. “Maggie…I’m sorry. I wish we’d met the normal way.”
“Normal. I don’t think I’d recognize normal if it walked up and introduced itself.”
He reached for me again, slower this time. I stayed still, but his touch felt different somehow. “When this is all over I want to take you out on a real date.”
I sat up, easing out of his reach, and fashioned the sheet so that only my head was uncovered. “Yeah, I think we might have jumped the shark here.”
He leaned up on an elbow. “What exactly are you saying?”
I tried to look at him, but all I saw was how stupid and impulsive I’d been. I knew nothing about this guy, and he knew everything about me. If I lived a thousand years I’d never learn all of the things about him that he’d known about me for months now. I didn’t have the staff, resources or access the FBI did.
I rose from the bed, gathering the sheet tight. “I think you should leave.”
Chapter Seven
Alone in my apartment, I tried to watch a movie, then read a book, then twelve other things that didn’t take my mind off Super Agent. In the end, I gathered up the spent condom wrappers, stripped the sheets from the bed, stuffed them in the hamper and had myself a good long cry in the shower.
Some people might have wondered why I’d stayed so long in my unusual relationship with Chuck Puckett. The thing was, it was easy. He was easy, predicable as sunrise. I was happy. Mostly. He treated me well, took me places, made me feel special. He was my best friend. I could tell him anything, and I never doubted myself with him. Well, not until that night anyway. The illusions it had shattered still dotted my life, like shards of broken glass.
Had I jumped so quickly into bed with Super Agent to make myself feel sexy and desirable again, or were my feelings for him real? I couldn’t be sure. It was all so tangled and twisted.
A knock at my door startled me. I tossed the magazine I wasn’t reading aside and went to the door. Super Agent looked small and ordinary through the peephole, nothing like he was in reality.
He knocked again. “Maggie. Let me in. I need to talk to you about something.”
I hesitated, my hand hovering over the knob.
“Maggie, please. It’s important.”
I pulled open the door, and we stared at each other for a moment, neither really sure of where we stood or what effort to put forth.
“Can I come in?”
I stepped back and he slid past me into the room, giving me a wide berth. I closed the door but kept my hand on the doorknob.
“That tip from your friend paid off. We think we’ve found the real identity of the senator’s killer.”
He didn’t say her name. I gave him points for that.
“I have a photo I want you to look at.” That was when I not
iced the manila envelope he was holding. “It’s a little grainy.” He slid out an eight-by-ten photo and extended it to me.
Hesitant and uncertain, I stepped closer and took the picture from him. Our gazes locked. I could tell he wanted to tell me something. He looked pointedly at the photo. Whatever he had to say would wait.
The image in the photograph was as confusing and unexpected as everything else that had happened to me over the past few weeks. “It’s a man.”
“Look closely.”
I studied the features, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the mole under his right eye. The mole. Bringing it closer, my nose nearly touching it, I went over the features again.
“Oh my god. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.” I dropped the photo and backed away from it, wrapping my arms tightly around myself.
Super Agent picked it up and slid it back into the envelope out of my sight. “His name is Thai Dinh, a Vietnamese national. He’s been on our watch list for a couple of years. Professional hits, terrorist activities—you name it, he’s had his hands in it.”
“He had boobs.”
“Those can be faked.”
“They didn’t look strapped on.”
“Were you really studying his boobs that closely?”
He had a point. I’d been more focused on the fact that she…he…whatever had been riding Chuck Puckett than I’d been on whether or not all his parts had been real. A few of the puzzle pieces slid into place, forcing me to look at my life with Chuck Puckett as a whole. I’d been his beard. I’d been arm candy he could parade before voters saying: Accept me. I’m just like you—white, straight and electable.
I was such an idiot.
“Maggie, look at me.”
I tried, but he was all swimmy, blurring in and out.
Next thing I knew he had his arms around me, gathering me against him. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this. He was an asshole to do this to you.”
“No, he wasn’t. He just couldn’t be who he really was.”
And that was the thing. I didn’t blame Chuck Puckett. I didn’t hate him. I couldn’t even muster a fraction of the anger I’d felt for him. He was the tragic figure here, not me. I felt sorry for him. Society had made him who he was. We’d dictated his life for him. He could have the only thing he ever wanted if he broke off a chunk of himself and lived with that gaping wound. He’d only ever wanted to serve. To do right. But he’d gone about it all wrong.
And I had to look at my part in all this. I’d wanted the illusion. I’d helped perpetuate it, ignoring the small voice at the back of my brain that told me something was rotten in Boyfriendville. All the parties, the glamour and status of being a senator’s girlfriend, I’d wanted it, encouraged it. I was just as culpable as anyone else.
I wasn’t crying for myself. I was crying for him. Finally grieving the loss of the man I knew and the man I wished I’d known.
“Do you think I could see his grave?” I asked.
“If you want.”
I nodded. I’d missed his funeral and my chance to say goodbye to one of the best friends I’d ever had. I couldn’t let him rest until I told him how very much I’d loved him. And how very, very sorry I was.
Chapter Eight
We stood before the Puckett family vault in a half-walled courtyard lightly landscaped with shrubs and bushes. Elaborate wreaths flanked Chuck Puckett’s temporary grave marker. He rested beside a cousin, an aunt, four uncles, three out of four of his grandparents and his sister. His parents would have been at his funeral along with his remaining brother. The Puckett family had known more than its share of heartache.
I traced a finger over his name and dates of birth and death. He wouldn’t see his thirty-sixth birthday next month. I’d already started to plan a party for him when the whole thing had gone down. He liked German chocolate cake. Funny I should think of that now.
Super Agent stood off to the side, scanning the flat rows of graves dotted with mementoes and flowers. I wished I’d thought to bring something. Flowers or some kind of token to show that I’d been here, that he’d mattered to me. And then I remembered the keychain he’d gotten me on our trip to New York. It was a cheap thing from a souvenir shop with a picture of the Statue of Liberty. I pulled my keys out of my purse and worked on freeing it from the tangle.
With one last slide around, it finally popped free and flew out of my grasp. I shot forward to grab at it. Above my head, a chuck of stone exploded into pieces, pelting me. Suddenly, I was flat on the ground, a two-ton Super Agent on top of me.
“Stay down!” he ordered.
Like I had a choice with him crushing me. He barked out instructions to someone somewhere about a shooter. Our harsh breathing filled the silence that followed. I could feel the pounding of his heart on my back. It matched my own erratic rhythm. Shooter. Someone had tried to take a shot at me.
No more shots came. Super Agent asked for a status update. He must have gotten good news because he blew out a breath of relief.
“Jesus, God. Are you hit?”
I tried to take mental stock of my state, but my mind got stuck on Shooter. Gun. Kill.
“Maggie?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
He eased off and rolled me over, pushing at my clothes to check for bullet holes. He stopped and stared at the top of my head. “Your forehead.”
I reached up to feel and my hand came away red. “I’m bleeding.”
He examined the wound. “Do you have a tissue or something?”
“In my purse.” I looked around and spied it up against the mausoleum. “Over there.”
He got up to retrieve it and that’s when I saw the keychain in the dirt next to me. Broken. I sat up and picked up the pieces.
“Here.” He crouched down next to me and handed me my purse. “What’s that?”
“What’s left of my tribute.”
“Your…are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”
“I’m fine.” Sort of. I glanced up at the chunk of stone missing from where Chuck Puckett’s permanent nameplate would eventually go. “That could have been me.”
Super Agent’s mouth flattened into a bleak frown. “Yeah.”
“Thai Dinh?”
“You can say his name?”
“Not saying his name would be running from what happened. I can’t do that anymore.”
He gave me a small smile and lifted a lock of hair away from my face. “Good for you.”
“Did they catch him?”
“No.”
“You’re the freakin’ FBI, for crying out loud. You know what brand of tampons I buy, but you let a murderer get away from you twice?”
“We’ll get him.” He was all defensive about it, as though I’d questioned his manhood or something.
I shoved what was left of the keychain in my pocket and got to my feet. A little shaky and lightheaded, I swayed, catching myself on the half wall.
Super Agent was at my side faster than you could say “murder attempt”. “I think you should get checked out.” He started to call for an ambulance.
“Don’t. I’m fine. It’s just the adrenaline.” Mostly.
I spotted a figure jogging toward us and ducked back behind the wall.
“Come on up. It’s just one of my guys.”
He walked over and met the man. I could tell something was up by the way Super Agent kept looking back at me, his expression growing darker as the other man spoke. By the time he returned to me, he looked downright dangerous.
“We need to move you. Now.” He took me by the elbow and hustled me to where we’d parked the car. The other FBI dude was gone.
“How’d he do that?”
“What?”
“Disappear like that?”
He bundled me into the car without answering. As we pulled away from the curb, an ominous feeling came over me, and I shuddered.
“That wasn’t Thai Dinh who shot at me, was it?”
“No.”
“Who was
it?”
“We don’t know. It seems there’s a new player in the game.”
Chapter Nine
I’d lived my whole life on the principle I won’t pee in your pool and you don’t pee in mine.
Somebody was not only pissing in my pool, they were defecating in it.
I couldn’t go back to my apartment, because as Super Agent had put it—it had been compromised. Compromised. A stupid word with a double meaning, neither of which were of any use to me at the moment. So there I sat in an impersonal apartment somewhere “safe”, surreptitiously listening in on Super Agent’s cell phone conversation with his superior. So far I hadn’t been very impressed by this other agent’s superiority, as it was his foul-up that had landed me here.
Super Agent ended the call and let out a frustrated sigh. “They were able to salvage a few things from your apartment. The rest is a total loss.”
Total loss as in fire. Fire as in firebombed. Firebombed as in a total and complete fuck-up.
“Fantastic.”
“Insurance should cover most of it.”
“Yeah, if I had any.”
He stared at me as if I’d broken out my rusty Greek. “You don’t have insurance?”
“Oh, gee. Did we just stumble on the only thing you didn’t already know about me?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Holy fucking hell.”
“Yup. My thoughts exactly.” I opened my purse for my Furious Fuchsia lipstick, because what do you do when everything you own has been destroyed and you have two people out there who want to kill you? You freshen up, naturally.
“You amaze me.”
I looked up from the mirror. “How so?”
“You’ve just been shot at, everything you own is gone, and you’re sitting there touching up your face.”
“If I’m going down, I’m going down with lipstick on.”
He grinned at me, and I realized how long it had been since I’d seen that smile. There hadn’t been a lot to get cheered up over lately. Seeing it now put a lump in my throat the size of my Pontiac.
“I’m so freakin’ crazy about you.”
All I could do was stare at him. Stupidly.