Desperate Girls

by Laura Griffin

  She caught his eye as she reached for the edge of the pool. She stopped to look at him, and the water swirled around her.

  “Hi,” she said, panting. She wore her plain black Speedo, which shouldn’t have looked sexy, but it did.

  “Pretty late for a swim.”

  “Long day. I needed to burn off some frustration.” She pushed up on the concrete, hitching herself onto the side of the pool. She reached up to squeeze water from her ponytail. “Trent said you were off tonight.”

  He watched the water slide down her shoulders and into the valley at the base of her spine. “I was running some leads down. I’m back on shift in the morning.”

  She looked away, and he didn’t know what she thought of that. Did she want him to spend the night here? Or was it easier if he didn’t? For him, it was hell spending the night at his hotel. But it would be worse here, passing the night on her sofa while she was in a bed only footsteps away.

  “Why was it a long day?” he asked.

  She shifted to face him, propping her knee up and resting her arms on it. “Trial stuff. Trust me, you don’t want to hear it.”

  She was wrong, but he let it go.

  “How was Ross? You stopped by there earlier?”

  She frowned. “He’s tired. He looked okay, though. Better than I expected. I didn’t tell him about Mark’s theory.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. He was all pale and hooked up to an IV. I just didn’t want to lay anything new on him right then.” She reached for a water bottle beside the chair, and he handed it over. “Anyway, where were you?”

  “I interviewed that janitor at the Ames Theater. He stands by his first statement. It was a black Honda he saw in the parking garage. Dented back bumper, like the one Corby used Friday. But we haven’t been able to track down any black Hondas registered to an Ann Johnson.”

  She swigged her water. “Who is ‘we’?”

  “The task force.” Not that he was a part of it formally, but they were cooperating.

  She held his gaze, and he let himself look at her, all flushed from her swim, her hair slicked back from her face. His eyes went to the bead of water sliding between her breasts.

  “Texas only?” she asked.

  “They’re expanding the search. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Thanks. Can you hand me my sweatshirt?”

  He glanced around, then snagged the gray sweatshirt off the chair next to his and reluctantly handed it over. She pulled it on and stood up.

  “Ready?”

  “Sure.”

  She put on flip-flops, and they rode the elevator down to her floor without talking. The new camera they’d installed beside the elevator doors was up and running, Erik noticed.

  He used his key to open the apartment, and the unmistakable smell of bacon made his stomach growl.

  “Wait here,” he said, leaving Brynn beside the door while he did a quick walk-through. When he was finished, she went into her bedroom.

  Erik dropped his keys on the counter and glanced at the TV, which was muted and tuned to a local news broadcast. Nothing about Corby. But it was the end of the hour, and the manhunt had been the top story all weekend.

  Brynn returned to the living room, still wearing the sweatshirt, but she’d changed out of her swimsuit and put on the frayed cutoffs she loved to wear.

  “Someone make breakfast for dinner?” he asked.

  “We had BLTs.”

  She had to mean Trent, and Erik ignored the twinge of jealousy.

  “Want one?” she asked. “I made extra bacon.”

  “I’m good.”

  “You ate dinner?”

  “I had a protein bar.”

  She rolled her eyes and walked past him into the kitchen. “So your team is working with the marshals now, I take it?”

  “We’re cooperating.” He went into the kitchen as she took items from the fridge: beer, mayo, a cellophane-covered plate. She grabbed the loaf of bread from the basket on the counter and took out several pieces.

  “Is this willingly or . . . ?” She trailed off as she dropped the bread into the toaster.

  “We don’t mind cooperating. They’ve got the best databases, so it makes sense to share intel.”

  She nodded, quickly slicing a tomato. She put the plate of bacon into the microwave. When the bread was finished, she slathered mayonnaise on it and assembled the sandwich—three layers tall—and Erik’s mouth watered just looking at it.

  “Get me a couple of plates, would you?”

  He turned to the cabinet behind him and took down two small plates. She cut the sandwich into neat triangles, then arranged the sections on a plate and handed him one.

  “Thanks.”

  “Bon appétit.”

  The dining-room table was blanketed with paperwork. Brynn set her plate on the coffee table. Erik took a seat on the sofa and left room for her beside him, but she took the armchair.

  She grabbed the remote and turned up the volume as she chomped into her sandwich.

  “Why was your day frustrating?” he asked again.

  “Oh, you know. Work stuff.” She shrugged.

  Erik eyed the dining table as he ate. She worked harder than any client he’d ever had, going at it evenings and weekends. And if her house was any indication, she worked in her downtime, too.

  Brynn’s home had surprised him. He wouldn’t have expected her to be a do-it-yourselfer. But he was learning that despite having read her file, there were plenty of things he didn’t know about her.

  She filled her time with work. Erik did, too, so he understood. The less time on his hands, the better. When he had a lot of free hours, it was too easy to think about everything lacking in his life. Such as a life.

  “You really want to hear about my day?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She nibbled on her sandwich and licked mayonnaise off her thumb. “Okay, you know Perez, right?”

  “Your MIA witness.”

  “Except he’s no longer missing. Bulldog brought him back from Las Vegas, and now they’re holed up together in a two-room suite at the Four Seasons, on the law firm’s nickel.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I spent the afternoon with this guy. You know, running him through his testimony. This was originally Ross’s job, getting him prepped for trial.”

  “And?”

  She blew out a sigh. “And I’ve got a bad vibe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some people are good in front of a jury; some aren’t. This witness could go either way, but I’m not feeling confident about it.” She leaned back in the armchair. “I have a feeling Conlon’s going to get to him.”

  “And you need him for what?”

  “To alibi my guy. He’s the heart of our case. We’ve got some forensics stuff to present, too, but this guy was supposed to be the emotional anchor. Perez swears he and Justin were at his girlfriend’s apartment watching a Spurs game at the time of the murder.”

  “Perez’s girlfriend or Justin’s?”

  “Perez’s. They have a kid together.”

  “Can you put her on the stand?”

  “I would. But she wasn’t there at the time, so she didn’t see Justin coming and going. It’s all up to Perez.” She closed her eyes. “I made a promise to the jury in my opening statement that I’d show them Justin wasn’t guilty of this crime.” She looked at Erik. “It’s like a commandment with defense attorneys: thou shalt not disappoint the jury. And now I’m worried my main witness is going to fall apart on the stand.”

  Erik wanted to ease her mind, but he didn’t know what to say. He knew jack shit about practicing law.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore.” She sighed. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

  Erik finished his sandwich down to the last crumb. Brynn rested her feet on the edge of the table, and he tried not to think about her shiny pink toenails. Her fingernails were pink, too. And he had to truly be
losing his mind if he was noticing nail polish now.

  “Trent tells me you guys are off to Hawaii next.”

  He looked up. “He told you that?”

  “You’re working for some actress who’s on location?”

  Erik pushed his plate away. “She’s filming a new series. Something on HBO.” Erik had never heard of the woman, but she’d been getting death threats. Or so her manager claimed. Erik had reviewed the case with Liam, and they both agreed there was a chance the manager was making it up as a publicity stunt. They’d find out soon enough.

  Erik looked at Brynn, not happy that Trent was telling her all about their next gig. Now Brynn was focused on him leaving, when he was still trying to gain her trust. He didn’t want her to think she had anything less than his full attention.

  “Well, aren’t you excited?” she asked. “I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I hear it’s gorgeous.”

  “So they say.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “You don’t like the travel, do you?”

  “I don’t think of it as travel. Not like you mean. If the job’s done right, it’s consistent no matter where we are. Location is secondary.”

  She tipped her head to the side, studying him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you ever going to tell me why you left the Secret Service?” She didn’t say “quit” this time.

  “I can’t talk about the details.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m a lawyer. I’m good at keeping confidences.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then don’t give me details,” she said. “Broad brushstrokes are fine. What happened?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because. You know everything about me.”

  “Not everything.”

  “You know a lot. And I don’t even know why you left the job you loved.”

  “How do you know I loved it?” he asked, even though she was right, and he had loved it, at least in the beginning.

  “Because.” She shifted on the chair to face him, like she was settling in for a story. “You went through a rigorous application process, then seven months of training, and then you spent years working your way up to one of the most sought-after assignments out there. And then—snap—you left. Something must have happened.”

  She’d been doing her homework. He watched her watching him with those bottomless blue eyes. And for the hundredth time, he wished she wasn’t his client.

  Erik felt a deep, consuming fear that his weakness for her was going to get her hurt.

  Maybe he should open up to her. Maybe she’d understand where he was coming from and that he wasn’t just some jerk who’d slept with her and now wanted nothing to do with her.

  “You know, you talk about trust all the time,” she said. “But it’s a two-way street.”

  Brynn waited for him to say something. She’d learned to read his reactions, even though they were subtle. And she could see he didn’t want to talk about this.

  Which made her all the more determined to coax it out of him.

  “Okay, so . . . broad brushstrokes.” He gave her a stern look.

  She nodded.

  “You referred to our training. That’s what it all goes back to, same as in the Marines.” He paused. “We have a saying: The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.”

  The thought of him bleeding in a war or anywhere made her sick. But she kept her face blank.

  “So training is key. People’s lives depend on it.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “We go through all sorts of drills—firearms, close-quarters combat, tactical driving. And it’s not just a one-pass deal, something we do as trainees. It’s ongoing. That’s critical. These skills—especially the shooting—they have to be practiced over and over, until it’s pure muscle memory. You follow me?”

  She nodded.

  “The average attack is over in less than three seconds. So there is no time—none—to hesitate or second-guess yourself. Your reaction must be instantaneous. It must disrupt the threat and save the life of your protectee. Three seconds. So we can’t be slow on the trigger or sluggish or inattentive. That’s what I mean when I say I have to be in the moment, every moment. In this job, there’s no margin for error.”

  She gave another nod, and he paused to look at his hands.

  “I was six years in, and I’d moved up the ranks. At this particular time, I was posted to a teenage principal.”

  Brynn lifted her eyebrow. Given the time frame, a teenager could have been one of four people in the president’s or the vice president’s family.

  “For the sake of the story, we’ll give her a code name. Butterfly.”

  “You guys really use those?”

  “We do. Makes things easier over the radio. And every family’s names begin with the same letter. Anyway, Butterfly was up in Boston visiting some friends over Christmas break, and we were with her. She told us she had plans to go out to dinner, but we’d already pretty much figured that was a ploy, because what she really wanted to do was slip out the back and go to a bar.”

  Brynn smiled. “She tried to ditch you guys?”

  “All the time.”

  “Did she manage to do it?”

  “On occasion, she did. She was actually pretty good at it. Which sucked, by the way. It never happened on my watch, but the few times it did happen, it was a shit show. ’Scuse my language.”

  “That is hysterical.”

  “No, it’s not.” His expression hardened. “Because one time when she tried to do it, somebody grabbed her.”

  “What do you mean, ‘grabbed her’?”

  “Some guy grabbed her in the back of the restaurant and locked her in the women’s room.”

  “Locked her in there? Like held her hostage?”

  He nodded. “This guy had been stalking her. He’d followed her all the way up from D.C., which was bad enough in itself. Then he saw his opportunity to get her alone without an agent, and he grabbed her.”

  Brynn put her hand to her chest. “You must have been freaking out.”

  “We were when we finally figured out what was happening. Due to some major gaps on our part, it took about ten minutes. And in the meantime, she’s in there with him, and he’s reading her a love letter.”

  “So he’s crazy.”

  “Schizophrenic, as it turns out. It took another five minutes for us to send a female agent in to get her out of there. She posed as a civilian, let herself into the bathroom with a key, and pretended to be surprised to find them in there. Then she had the guy on the floor and cuffed in about four seconds flat.”

  Brynn shook her head. “I never saw this on the news.”

  “Nobody did.”

  “Was the girl okay?”

  “Physically? Yeah. But she was traumatized. Scared the hell out of her. Scared the hell out of all of us.” He looked down at his hands. “This guy had mental issues, which was dangerous enough. But if he’d been a foreign operator? Or someone with military training?” He shook his head.

  Brynn watched him, wondering about everything he wasn’t telling her.

  “So . . . this wasn’t your shift, but somehow you took the fall for it?”

  “Shift doesn’t matter. I knew about the guy, and he’d been on my radar for a while. I’d interviewed him, even. The reason he got to her was sloppiness, pure and simple. We were short-staffed across the board and cutting corners. People were skipping out on training routinely while supervisors looked the other way. On this assignment, we had too few people staffed, and the ones we did have were not on the ball. Every single agent on duty that night had worked over ninety hours that week. One had worked a hundred. You can’t run a detail with people who are sleep-deprived and strung out on caffeine. Bottom line, it’s dangerous.”

  Brynn watched his eyes. “What did you do?”

  “I outlined a list of procedures that were being flat-out ignored because of staffing and budget issues, put it all in
a letter, and handed in my resignation.”

  “You chose to leave?”

  “I left in protest. But yeah, it was my choice.”

  “What happened to your protest letter?”

  “Nothing. I’m sure someone buried it.”

  Not nothing. No way. Brynn would be willing to bet that letter had been buried only after someone made sure Erik was permanently blacklisted from the service.

  “You know, Erik—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “I know what you’re going to say, and I’m not interested in getting litigious. I left, end of story. And I’m better off where I am now.”

  She watched him, wondering if he really felt that way or if he’d just convinced himself. He couldn’t go back now. His career with the Marines was over. His career with the Secret Service was over. This job in the private sector had to work out for him. Liam Wolfe’s firm was one of the best in the business, and if Erik blew this opportunity, there was nowhere to go but down.

  Brynn felt selfish for putting his job at risk. Sure, it took two to tango and all that, but she’d been determined to wear down his resistance. And she had.

  He was watching her now, studying her reaction.

  “You don’t have to worry,” she said, “about me saying anything.”

  “I know.”

  Did he really? He’d been slow to trust her, but he did. The last thing she wanted to do was break that trust.

  Erik held her gaze, and she felt a familiar charge in the air, only this time it came with a zing of panic.

  She wanted him to kiss her. She was suddenly swamped with memories, and she wanted him to make love to her again as he had the other night, when he’d been so forceful and tender, both at the same time. Just looking at him, she felt a bone-deep craving for him. It wasn’t just his body or his hands or his mouth but his eyes that did it, the way he looked at her with such complete focus it made her heart melt.

  She couldn’t do this to him again. She cared about him too much. It was ironic, really. She wanted him close to her in every way, which was exactly why she needed to keep her distance.

  She stood abruptly. “I should get to bed.”