by Mary Stone
Biting back a sigh, Ryan spread his hands. “As ready as I’m going to get, I’d imagine.”
With a reassuring smile, Bobby gestured to Agent Black. “We’ll both be right outside if you need us. Do you have any reason to believe there’s the potential for a violent confrontation?”
Ryan shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. They’re a bunch of shady arseholes, but they aren’t like the mob or something. They watch each other’s backs and cover up each other’s skeletons, make sure all their kids get into the best schools, screw over poor people to make a few bucks, but they aren’t about to go from door to door busting kneecaps if they think something’s off.”
“Right.” Agent Black still looked serious, or like she had the makings of a headache coming on. “If they need something like that done, they’d hire someone to do it, right?”
Ryan rang a pretend bell. “Bingo. These dinner parties aren’t anything extravagant. They’re exclusive, but they aren’t ‘knock on an alleyway door and give a secret password’ exclusive.”
Agent Weyrick scooted his chair closer to the table. “Still. We ought to have a few code words or phrases in case you run into trouble.”
The thought made Ryan’s heart pound against his chest. The men and women who attended the dinner parties might not have even been capable of throwing a punch, but he was sure they knew how to find someone who could. If they discovered that he was spying on their little club for the FBI, he might be able to make it out of the house, but he wouldn’t make it far beyond that.
Even though there would be no attendees who had the gall to confront him themselves, they had more than enough money to pay an actual mafioso to find and deal with Ryan’s disloyalty. And if the members of that elite circle knew that he was there to air their dirty secrets to the world, there wasn’t much that two FBI agents could do to help him in the days that followed.
That was the beauty of their type of power. They never dirtied their own hands. They never had to worry about how they’d deal with a potential threat. They just located a capable third party, pointed them in the direction, and fired them at their adversary like they were a Howitzer.
Ryan had learned long ago that knowledge, though powerful in its own right, was not power. Only power was power.
“Once you get there, you’ll just find your contact, same as you normally do.” Winter Black’s voice cut through his grim thoughts.
Mechanically, Ryan blinked to clear his vision. “Her husband used to be a major player in their weird little social circle. The only women other than her that I usually see around there are the wives. Honestly, I don’t even think that Mrs. N is real keen on being part of this thing. But she’s a political figure, so she needs the donations and the endorsements.”
Agent Weyrick’s mouth had become a hard line. “Everyone’s got a price, don’t they?”
The pit in Ryan’s stomach was more noticeable at the agent’s grave expression. He knew firsthand how an attempt to walk with one foot in the darkness and one in the light ended. Eventually, no matter how hard a person tried to maintain a balance, everyone had to choose.
Living in both worlds wasn’t just a tightrope walk—it was impossible. And for someone like Mrs. N, a time would eventually come where she would fall onto one side or the other.
But Nicole Nichols’s fate wasn’t his concern. She’d made her bed, and she’d become adept at maneuvering through the underworld of the wealthy elite without staining her hands too extensively.
Ryan was here for his sister and his niece and nephew. He’d asked himself if he wanted one foot in the dark or one in the light, and he’d made his decision. But just because he’d chosen the light didn’t mean the decision wouldn’t come with a price.
As he pulled himself from the reverie, he glanced back up to the two agents. “Before we start figuring out these code words, you know I’ve got to ask. Any update on the US Attorney?”
Winter Black nodded. “Yes, though we’re still waiting to hear the results. SAC Osbourne is meeting with him tonight. We ought to know more by tomorrow morning, and as soon as we do, we’ll let you know.”
Weyrick’s eyes shifted from Agent Black to Ryan as he tapped a finger against the polished table. “He’s going to tell them about what we’re doing tonight, about how you’re helping us with it.”
Swallowing the sting of bile that had risen up the back of his throat, Ryan managed not to puke. “Okay. That’s all I can really ask for, I guess.”
He’d hoped to know more about the deal the US Attorney planned to present to him before he attended the dinner party. After all, if an opportunity to escape existed, it would be in the short window of time he was relieved of the high-tech ankle monitor.
However, he still didn’t know what the US Attorney intended to heap onto his plate. And unless he knew that the man intended to well and truly screw him over, he wouldn’t run. He owed that much to Lil. The kids. Himself.
Coughing into one hand to clear his throat, Ryan nodded again. “All right. Well, let’s figure out these code words then.”
22
When Peyton Hoesch glanced up from her phone, her first instinct was to look back down and pretend she’d seen nothing. Cameron Arkwell was an amiable enough guy on most days, but she’d always seen a different persona that lurked beneath his pale blue eyes.
He was intense, but she was sure he was harmless. After all, plenty of friends and coworkers had told Peyton she had the same sort of intensity too.
“Caroline isn’t going to make it.” Peyton wasn’t sure why she felt the need to vocalize the words. Cameron was looking at the same group text message conversation as she.
Shadows shifted along his clean-shaven face as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. The seconds of silence ticked away, and the only sound was the quiet drone of the refrigerator to Cameron’s side. His eyes were fixed on the screen of his smartphone as he slowly nodded. “Looks that way.”
Shifting in her seat at the massive kitchen island, Peyton looked back to her phone and pulled up her and her mother’s text history.
Peyton’s mom had been an agent in the Drug Enforcement Agency for the past twenty years, and even though the work didn’t often follow her home, Maryann Hoesch made a point to pass some of her law enforcement knowledge down to her daughter.
To be sure, Peyton didn’t want to be a federal agent like her mother. Her major was sociology, and the marketing class she took with Cameron and Caroline had been more of an accident than anything. She’d added the course to her schedule at the last second, needing the three credit hours to remain a full-time student. Unless she maintained full-time status at VCU, she wouldn’t be eligible for scholarships or financial aid.
The marketing course was one of the few that hadn’t filled up during Peyton’s last-minute scramble to throw together her schedule, and it had been a placeholder until she found a course that actually interested her.
Marketing strategies might have been intriguing to people like Cameron Arkwell and Caroline Peters, but Peyton had to fight to keep her eyes from glazing over during each class period.
By the time she remembered to swap the class to something less mind-numbing, she would have had to pay a nominal late enrollment fee. To avoid the seventy-five-dollar charge, she decided to tough out the marketing class.
I should have paid the seventy-five bucks, she thought as she glanced back to Cameron.
The unsettling anger had dissipated, but the glint in his pale eyes was still present.
As his gaze met hers, Peyton shrugged. “We could just set up a different night to work on it. I’ve got a paper due tomorrow for one of my other classes, so I can just head home and work on that.”
With a slight smile, Cameron waved a dismissive hand. “No, don’t worry about it. We can work on something, make the trip out here worth it, you know?”
In that moment, the irascibility seemed so distant that it might have been a figment of Peyton’s imagination.
&nb
sp; It might have been, but she still couldn’t shake the nagging sensation in the back of her head. Rather than leap out of her seat to collect her car keys and leave, Peyton stayed where she was, silently consenting. But she wasn’t consenting at all.
One way or another, she was going to leave the awkward air that had settled over the kitchen.
Breaking her gaze away from Cameron’s, her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard of her phone.
Hey Mom, favor? I’m at a classmate’s working on a group project and it’s getting kind of awkward. Could you call me so I can leave without seeming rude?
Tonight wouldn’t be the first time she had asked a friend or family member to help nonchalantly extract her from an unwanted social situation.
Sure, honey. Give me a sec and I’ll call and say something about the dog we don’t have.
In spite of the palpable discomfort that hung in the air, Peyton smiled to herself as she locked her phone. They had three cats and an iguana, but no dog.
All the while, Cameron’s blue eyes had been fixed on his own smartphone. As if he’d been snapped out of a trance, he looked up to her before gesturing to the fridge. “Do you want something to drink?”
Just as Peyton was about to shrug and make an effort to brush off the offer, the screen of her phone lit up as the device buzzed against the granite bar.
Eyes wide, she feigned surprise as well as she was able. “Oh. That’s my mom.” She didn’t wait for a confirmatory gesture before she picked up the phone and swiped the screen. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
“Hey, sweetie,” her mom said. “I just got word from my boss that I’m going to have to stay late. Charlie’s been cooped up inside all day, and I hoped I’d have been home by now to let him out. Could you do me a huge favor and head home to let him out before he pisses on the living room carpet again?”
Peyton suppressed a chuckle. Their fake dog’s name had always been Charlie. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“And, honey, please. I know you’re working on something for one of your classes, but he’s probably ready to piss himself right now.” Her mom’s voice was level with just enough of a hint of panic that Peyton almost had to ask herself if they really did have a dog.
They didn’t, of course. Peyton was deathly allergic.
“Of course, Mom. I’ll head over there now.” Painting an apologetic expression on her face, she shrugged as she met Cameron’s curious stare.
“Okay, thank you, honey. I’ll see you later. Love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
As she locked the screen and returned the phone to the back pocket of her jeans, she spread her hands. “I’m sorry. My mom got roped into working late and she needs me to go home and let out our dog before he pisses on the floor.”
Cameron leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Your dog? I didn’t know you had a dog.”
Shouldering her handbag, Peyton blinked. “Yeah, we’ve had him for a few years.”
Cameron arched an eyebrow, suspicion alight on his face. “Really?”
What was going on? Why was he skeptical of her sudden need to leave?
Even if he’d put two and two together and realized that she’d concocted an excuse to escape, there wasn’t any reason for him to care. He and Peyton were just short of perfect strangers.
She swallowed the sudden rush of anxiety and forced an amiable smile to her lips. “Yeah, his name is Charlie.”
Partly because of her mother’s line of work and partly because of the activism she’d done on campus, Peyton was well aware of sexual assault statistics for young women in college.
By the time they graduated, one in five college girls would have been sexually assaulted at least once. The number had held steady since at least the 1980s, and it didn’t seem to be in decline.
Peyton also knew that the most likely perpetrator of such an assault was a man who was a friend or acquaintance of the victim.
Women were rarely assaulted by someone they didn’t know.
By the time she’d run through the disturbing knowledge, her heart hammered in her chest. She’d been down this road before, and only quick thinking and a convincing line of dialogue had gotten her out of the scenario unscathed.
She was confident she would be able to say the same for tonight. Thanks to her mom, Peyton had an unquestionable way out of this damn house.
If Cameron and Caroline wanted to work with Peyton on any more of their project, they could meet up in the student commons in the middle of the day.
There was no way in hell Peyton was ever coming back to Cameron Arkwell’s house.
He’d mentioned earlier that his father was home, but the man wouldn’t be able to hear a thing from his upstairs office.
For the first chunk of Peyton’s visit, she’d been comforted by the flickering light of the television in the nearby great room. But when Cameron’s sister, Maddie, had flicked off the screen and left, Peyton had gone on guard.
“Charlie, huh?” Though he’d donned a smile, the sly glint in his eyes remained.
Before Peyton could elaborate on her and her mother’s fake dog, Cameron chuckled.
“You know.” He leveled an index finger in her direction. “I love that name for a dog. I love it when pets have people names, you know? You can say things like ‘dammit, Kenneth, stop drinking out of the toilet,’ and it just sounds hilarious.”
Peyton could only hope her smile was convincing.
With a laugh that sounded more nervous than amused, she tightened her grip on her handbag and nodded. “That’s almost exactly what my mom said when we named him.”
There was some truth in the statement. Two of their three cats were named Mavis and Greg. They’d named the other one Almond Joy, and Peyton had named her iguana Geico.
Whenever her mom walked by the terrarium, she’d always coo at the lizard about how she wished he could save her fifteen percent on her car insurance.
At the fond memory, Peyton dug up the remainder of her fortitude.
It was time to leave. When she got home, she could tell her mom all about the uncomfortable encounter with Cameron Arkwell. Maybe one of her law enforcement friends had heard the young man’s name mentioned in connection with a crime.
Or maybe, the entire unnerving look in Cameron’s pale eyes had been manufactured by Peyton’s imagination. Maybe Cameron was a perfectly normal, albeit intense, twenty-two-year-old man.
Either way, Peyton didn’t intend to stick around to find out.
She squeezed the handle of her purse. “Well, thank you for hosting this group study thing. Sorry we didn’t actually get anything done.”
His smile widened as he shook his head. “It’s okay. It happens, you know?” He straightened to his full height and gestured to the hallway at the end of the kitchen. “Here, you can go out this way. I’ll follow you so I can open the garage door. The front entrance is usually all locked down after the staff leave.”
The effort to maintain her nonchalant smile had turned monumental.
Just as she was about to turn to make her way to the hall, he held up a hand. “You’re going to go let your dog out, right?”
His stare didn’t waver.
Swallowing against the sudden roiling in her stomach, Peyton nodded. “That’s right.”
Though the corner of his mouth turned up in the start of a smile, the look wasn’t content or amused. Between the smirk and the devilish glint in his eyes, Cameron Arkwell looked like a lion circling the antelope that was about to become its next meal. The subtle warning signs in her head blared now, and she fought the urge to turn around and run to the door.
“You don’t have a dog.” His voice was so matter-of-fact, so cool and sharp, that the chill of adrenaline clawed its way up her spine.
“I-I’m sorry?” She managed to furrow her brows to flash him a confused look.
With a nonchalant shrug, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a step toward her. “Last week in class, remember when
we were talking about being mindful of allergies in marketing campaigns? Professor Marshall asked for examples, and you told him you were allergic to dogs.”
Oh, no.
Her throat all but closed up, and the glance over her shoulder was all but involuntary. When in doubt, just tell them the truth. In her thoughts, the words had been spoken by her mother.
Heaving a defeated sigh, Peyton tucked a piece of ebony hair behind her ear. “Well, considering that I didn’t even remember that, I didn’t think you’d remember it.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. The expression was wooden and icy, just like everything else about him.
“Look, I…” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t want to be a jerk, but it’s just weird. I’ve just about reached my limit for social interaction for the day, and I want to go home.”
The seconds ticked away as he kept his pale eyes on hers. His expression shifted from thoughtful to understanding, but for the duration of the change, the look in his eyes remained the same.
Finally, after what might have been an eternity, he chuckled, a deep ha-ha sound that raised goose bumps on her arms. “Yeah, all right. I get it. I’ve always been pretty extroverted, but I guess there are a lot of people out there who don’t really look at social interactions the same way I do. My sister, she’s pretty introverted. So’s my dad.”
Peyton’s muscles were so tense that her neck creaked as she readjusted the handbag on her shoulder. With a half-smile, she nodded.
He spread his hands and took another step. “You didn’t have to have your mom call to make up some excuse for you, you know? You could’ve just told me the truth.”
For a moment, she didn’t think she’d be able to speak. Fortitude, dammit. “I’m sorry about that. It just…it seemed like the truth was too rude, I guess. And it’s not you, not at all. You’ve been a great host. I’m just really not much of a social butterfly, or at least if I am, my quota for it fills up pretty fast.”
Somewhere in the house, a clock tick-tick-ticked the seconds by. Peyton thought she might scream before he raised both shoulders. “Understood. All right, come on, then.” He waved to the hallway again. “I’ll open the garage door for you. There’s a keypad that we use to open the door out there. My dad’s a little crazy about security, so he doesn’t want us giving the code to anyone. Even though, you know, it’s inside the house.”