15
YASMINE LIKED TO SPEND the last few days of the year deep-cleaning her apartment, so that when the new year began, she could start totally fresh. It was possibly her most anal-retentive habit, one she avoided mentioning to her friends for fear of coming off sounding like her own mother, who, although she generally didn’t do the cleaning herself, insisted on a spotless household.
Today Yasmine’s cleaning was fueled by rage, and her wood floors had already reached a level of shine that presented issues for the cat, who kept seeing his reflection in the floor and freaking out.
She didn’t want to think about Alex, didn’t want to keep being mad about him, so she took out her anger on the dirt.
When her doorbell rang around noon, and Yasmine opened the door and saw an FBI badge glinting in front of her, she felt as if she’d been struck in the chest. All this time, she’d been a law-abiding citizen, and she’d sworn to herself she’d never cross paths with the Feds again.
She’d never wanted to see another one of those badges.
The first thought that flashed in her mind was that Alex had told the authorities about her hacking into terrorist Web sites…but what would be the point of his doing that?
“Ms. Talbot, I’m Agent Connelly. I’m a field agent for the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center, and we have some questions for you about your recent Internet activities.”
Yasmine gripped the door frame to steady herself.
It struck her only now that maybe Alex had lied about more than just his name. Maybe he’d lost his job because he was a crooked agent, and maybe he was trying to frame her for something. She’d been so dumb, she hadn’t even checked out her computer after he’d used it, and now, for all she knew, he could have set her up for any number of false accusations.
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not a hacker anymore,” she said, her mind turning over possibilities.
Just how far could Alex have gone? And if he had set her up, why did he do it?
“I understand, Ms. Talbot. But I’ll need you to come with me. You answer our questions, and then you’ll be free to go.”
She considered saying no, saying she’d only talk with an attorney present, but really, she hadn’t done anything wrong, and some niggling urge to prove it won out over her reservations.
“Fine. Let me just grab my shoes and purse,” she said as she left the door.
After tugging on her boots and grabbing her bag, she followed the agent down to his car and got in the passenger side, then buckled up. It all felt eerily similar to the first time she’d ever been brought in for questioning. Only, then she’d been scared out of her mind, barely able to breathe, on the verge of tears throughout the ordeal.
They had to have seen she was just a scared kid, a spoiled brat teenager with too much time on her hands, but then again, maybe they hadn’t. They’d wanted to prove a point with her, show the world that the FBI was cracking down on hackers regardless of their ages or seeming harmlessness.
At least now she wasn’t so scared, and she knew what to expect.
Agent Connelly got in on the driver’s side and started the car. As he steered it out into the street, she tried not to let her nerves get the best of her. He headed south, and it only took a moment for Yasmine to remember that the FBI field office was in the opposite direction. Unless they’d moved it.
“Why are we going this way?” she asked.
He cast a glance at her, then turned his attention back to the street. “I’m trying to avoid traffic.”
She stared straight ahead, a lump of doubt forming in her belly as her neighborhood passed outside the car window. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he knew some roundabout shortcut. Or maybe she didn’t really understand what was going on here. Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten into this car at all. A film of perspiration formed on her upper lip, in spite of the cool temperature.
The only thing he would avoid by going this way was a route to his claimed destination.
And then it occurred to her. Agents always seemed to come in pairs. From what she’d seen, they never worked alone when handling suspects.
“Where’s your partner?” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to have one whenever you deal with the public?” Even as the words formed in her mouth, the feeling grew in her that something was not right.
Agent Connelly stared straight ahead, silent for a moment too long. “He’s sick today.”
She was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Hadn’t she learned anything in her entire life? Like never get into a car with a stranger?
She glanced around, looking for clues. To what, she didn’t know. Finally, anger overwhelmed fear and she knew she couldn’t go anywhere with this man.
“You’re lying. Who the hell are you?” She gripped the door handle, peering ahead for the next stop light where she could jump out of the car.
Agent Connelly’s hand dipped into his jacket, and he withdrew a gun, then rested it in his lap aimed at her with one hand as he continued to steer with the other.
“You’re not going anywhere, so don’t even think of jumping out.”
Yasmine’s throat constricted and her stomach turned sour. Fear iced through her limbs until she felt cold all over.
“What do you want with me?” Her voice came out sounding tight and near hysterical.
“Like I said, I’m just taking you in for questioning.”
“Then why are we still heading in the opposite direction of the FBI office?”
“I never said I was taking you there.”
“Then where?”
“Someplace private where you can provide me with the information I need.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You know plenty about accessing places you shouldn’t, don’t you?”
“I don’t do that anymore, I told you!”
“But you still know how.”
“What difference does that make?”
“You help me gain the access I need to certain information, and I’ll let you go. After I’m finished with you.”
He glanced at her then, and his gaze felt unclean, as if just by looking at her he was soiling her.
“Who are you?”
“I’ve been watching you. I know everything about you. I know you’ve been screwing my former partner, when you should have been screwing me. He’s always the one women notice, but I’m the one you’ll remember most.”
His words registered a few at a time. Penetrating her anger, then her fear and sinking in deeper still. He’d been watching her. He was Alex’s former partner. So he was, or had been, an actual FBI agent. And his intentions were far from good.
She tried to imagine how he knew she’d been sleeping with Alex. Had he bugged her apartment? Had he been in contact with Alex? Could it be that they were still working together somehow?
No. He sounded genuinely pissed off at Alex. And she couldn’t let herself believe right now that Alex was capable of that depth of betrayal.
She had to get away.
But for now, while the car was moving too fast for her to make a move, she had to distract him.
“Why me?” she asked. “Why did you pick me?”
“I’ve had my eye on you for years. I saw your picture in the paper when you were a teenage wet dream, and I knew back then that I’d have you someday.”
She bit her lip to keep from saying anything. Of all the reasons she had to be sorry for her childhood mistakes, this one had just gotten bumped up to number one. She knew she’d attracted the attention of some creepy guys, but after all these years, she’d thought that was behind her.
“I wrote to you back then, told you what I wanted to do to you. But you never answered me. So now I’ve had a lot of years to think of all the things I want to do with you.”
Memories of all the creepy e-mails she’d gotten came flooding back to her. She tried to recall if any one stood out to her as more disturbed than the others, but she’d done her best to forget details like that. And she’d always deleted the sleazy messages back then—never dwelled on them.
“Why now? Why wait all this time?”
“I would have left you alone if it weren’t for Alex. He just had to chase after you, just had to stir things up….”
His tone had turned harder, and she watched his one-handed grip on the steering wheel tighten. Her gaze dropped to the gun, cradled in his left hand, and her stomach knotted again. She fought off the urge to vomit.
Focus. She had to stay calm and focused.
Yasmine saw that the next light was green, and her stomach twisted into a tighter knot. She had no idea how she could escape with a gun pointed at her, anyway, unless she caught him off guard. Unless she jumped when he wasn’t expecting it.
Which would be painful as hell, especially considering they were passing cars parked on the curb. Maybe she couldn’t even jump out safely. But she glanced over at the gun, at the grim set of Agent Connelly’s jaw. And she knew he wouldn’t let her go. No one pulled a gun on a person he intended to have a friendly agreement with. No one made sexual threats toward a woman he didn’t intend to harm.
She had to find a place to jump out, maybe at an intersection during a green light.
But her unlocking the door would alert him to her intentions. So she’d have to distract him somehow. She mentally inventoried the contents of her purse for anything that might catch him off guard, but unless she could disarm him with a tube of lipstick, she was out of luck there.
Her gaze settled on a cup of coffee in the cup holder between their seats. Steam rose up through the small hole in the plastic lid. Still hot. But could she reach for it without him getting an itchy trigger finger?
The radio volume was turned low, and a barely audible talk show played over the car’s speakers. Could she turn up the volume without him getting suspicious? Maybe ask to change the station?
Too risky.
They passed a homeless man wearing an orange coat and pushing a child’s stroller piled high with garbage, and Yasmine watched as he wandered into the street. Their car slowed to a stop at a red light, while the homeless man continued making his way between the parked cars and the traffic on the street.
Agent Connelly spotted him, too, just as he headed for the rear of the car. “Damn homeless, ruining the city,” he said as the light turned green and he let his foot off the brake.
This was her chance, probably as distracted as he was going to get. He was still watching the homeless guy in the rearview mirror. The man had wandered into the lane behind them and was blocking traffic.
Yasmine said a little prayer, reached for the coffee cup, and grabbed it. With her other hand she flipped off the flimsy plastic lid, then hurled the cup toward Agent Connelly’s face. He yelped in pain and let loose with a string of curses as he swiped at his face with his arm that held the gun. The car slowed as his foot slipped off the gas.
Without another thought, she slammed her hand down onto the automatic lock, grabbed the door handle, and jerked open the car door, realizing only as she tried to jump out the door that she was still wearing her seat belt.
Damn it.
Her hands shook as she fumbled with the seat belt lock, sparing a glance at Agent Connelly, whose face had turned an ugly red as he swiped at it, gun still in hand.
“You bitch!” she heard him say as she freed herself from the seat belt.
Then the sound of a gunshot drowned out all other sound, and searing pain invaded her thigh. Sheer force of will propelled her from the car, dragging her leg like a dead, throbbing weight. She slammed against the asphalt and started rolling forward, her skin burning along with her leg now.
In the chaos she heard another gunshot. And she scrambled to her knees, then her feet, and ran without regard for the pain in her leg between the parked cars, around the parking meters and pedestrians who had stopped to gawk, only a few thinking clearly enough to run or hide.
“Hey, do you need help?” someone called after her.
But she couldn’t stop yet. She had to get away.
Down the street to the next corner, up the cross street, through a parking lot and into a shoe store where she’d once bought a pair of cross trainers. The employee behind the counter took one look at her bloody leg and came rushing out to help.
“Call 911,” she said as she sank onto the nearest bench, shaking and out of breath.
The shoe salesman turned back to the counter and dialed. “Have you been shot?” he asked as he waited for an answer.
“Yes, once in the leg.” And now that she took a look at herself, she saw that her other leg was bleeding, too. Her jeans had ripped away when she hit the asphalt, baring her skin to the rough surface, and it looked as if she’d left some of it behind on the street. Her arm was scraped and bloody too, and judging by the burning sensation on her cheek and brow, she had to assume her face had met a similar fate.
The salesman put the operator on hold after having a short conversation. “We need to stop the bleeding. An ambulance is on the way.”
“Do you have a place in back? The guy who shot me might still be out there.”
“We have some towels and a first-aid kit in the break room.” He helped her up from the bench and supported her as they walked to the back.
Outside, she could hear a police siren in the distance, and she wondered for the first time what kind of scene she’d left behind her. Thank heaven for that homeless guy, or she might not have gotten out with just a gunshot wound in her thigh.
In the safety of the store’s break room, she sat down and felt herself get dizzy, then decided to rest her head on the table. Her leg hurting like hell, her face and arm burning from where she’d smacked the road, nausea churning her stomach, she stayed there while the salesman assured the 911 operator that he’d followed their instructions. She sat in a daze until sirens sounded right outside the store and men in uniforms rushed in and started tending to her.
Minutes later she was in an ambulance, on a gurney, on her way to the hospital, and she was finally able to relax and drift off into the comfort of darkness.
CASS SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT of Drew’s car, in love as always with the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, the rust-colored pillars towering above them as they crossed it. Once they’d crossed into Marin County, Drew took the Marin Headlands exit, and they headed west, away from the main road.
It was the night before New Year’s Eve, and Drew had been acting kind of funny all evening, as though he had ants in his pants or something on his mind. She tried not to think about what it might mean.
Because, much as she enjoyed their sexual relationship, the looming complications were stressing her out, and she wanted out before things got too heavy. Drew was too sweet a guy to have his heart broken by the likes of Cass. She was just waiting for the right time to tell him that he had two options with her—strictly sex or nothing at all.
She had to admit that she got an uneasy feeling about this whole situation. She might already be too late in avoiding complications. Drew’s carefully selected outfit, his haircut, their well-thought-out evening together—on top of his antsy state of mind—all added up to trouble.
Drew navigated the car along the narrow road bordering the coast. Cass had been here once before, maybe as a kid. The city was visible across the bay, and as they headed farther out, she knew that even the Farrallon Islands could be seen on the horizon ahead on a clear day.
They passed a picnic area, and Drew stopped the car where the road ended at a scenic lookout point that was uninhabited by other people at the moment. It was one of those rare places near the city where a person could go and actually hope to be alone.
“Been here before?” he asked when he killed the engine.
“Maybe once. It’s been forever, though. What made you think of coming out here?”
He smiled and gave her an odd look. “Get out of the car.”
“You didn’t bring me out here to kill me, did you?”
“Not a chance.”
Outside the car, wind whipped Cass’s hair into her face, and she pulled her leather coat closed tightly, then fastened the top button. She wrapped the red wool scarf that had been draped around her collar a little tighter as she walked to the fenced-off edge of the gravel parking area.
Down below, waves churned against the rocks, and though the sky was a deepening blue as the sun sank lower and lower past the horizon, while the ocean, as always, looked dark and brooding. A couple of seagulls squawked nearby, while a third poked along on the ledge, probably waiting for them to produce some food.
Drew came up behind her and slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her to him and warming her backside. He kissed the side of her neck and nestled his face against her.
“You have any New Year’s resolutions?” he asked.
“Every year I say I’m going to work out six times a week or stop eating junk food or be nicer to my mother or all three, and none of it ever happens. This year I think I’ll go for simplicity.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I want to make a resolution I can actually keep.”
“How about spending more time with me?” he asked, his tone teasing, though Cass got the feeling he was doing anything but.
Before she could answer he added, “Exclusively as my girlfriend?”
Cass’s throat seized up. Did people actually ask for exclusive agreements anymore? It seemed like such a quaint gesture, like offering her his class ring.
“Hmm,” she said, scrambling to think of an appropriately gentle response but producing nothing.
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m just a little caught off guard. I mean, we only met last week.”
“I’m thirty-six. I can figure out pretty quickly by now if I like a woman or not.”
“I have no doubt we like each other. I just don’t think an exclusive arrangement is really…what I’m looking for.”
“You want to date other men?”
“No, not at all,” she said, turning to face him, wanting to make sure he saw her smile, fake as it might have been. “But what if your Miss Perfect comes along—”
Wrong thing to say. His expression turned hard. “I thought she already had.”
“I can guarantee you, I’m not your Miss Perfect.”
“Cass, I know what I feel.”
“You feel a fuzzy-headed, misguided sense of affection brought on by intense feelings of lust.”
“No, that’s not it.” He took her hands in his and gave her a look that said he was all business.
Damn it. She should have seen this disaster coming a mile away. She should have taken precautions to avoid it—acted a little flakier, not put so much of herself into the sex, not let down her guard so easily.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
“I’m really into you, Cass. Like it or not, I am, and I don’t need any more time to know it. I thought we were on the same page there. And I want to give us a chance.”
All the air whooshed out of her lungs, and if Drew hadn’t been holding on to her, the wind might have knocked her over.
“I’m sorry, Drew.” She shook her head, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. He was a sweet guy, and she didn’t want to hurt him, but…“I thought we were just having some fun.”
The seagull that had been skulking around nearby edged closer, possibly contemplating whether it could eat their fingers if they didn’t produce any food. Cass’s gaze focused on it instead of Drew.
“So what? You’re not interested in making this exclusive?”
“I’m not interested in relationships at all. I’ve tried the romance thing and, honestly, I’m happier without it.”
She didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes, but there it was, clear as the sky above them.
His hands fell away from her, and he took a step back. “I didn’t realize—”
“No, I should have told you right up front.”
“I’d better take you home, then.”
Cass’s mouth hung open, words failing her. There had to be something she could say to fix this. Something witty, something sexy, something kind.
“We could still have dinner together.”
“I don’t see the point,” his said with a shrug. He was trying to sound casual, but beneath the light tone there was something else.
She knew that tone. She’d heard it before, and she’d used it herself. She’d hurt him worse than he was letting on.
“Drew, please don’t be upset. All I’m saying is, I’m not wired like other women. I really love being alone.”
“That’s fair, but I do have all the normal wiring. I want a relationship to go along with the sex, and I really don’t understand how you couldn’t.”
Cass’s stomach twisted. She didn’t expect him to understand, but she hated hurting him nonetheless.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.”
She went to the car and got in, then sat staring out the window at the stunning scenery ahead. She’d gotten what she wanted, right? She’d eliminated the possibility of future complications with Drew. So why did getting what she wanted feel like total crap?