“Thank you…” He managed to drop the instinctive “sir” at the last minute. Kurt hadn’t been an officer, and the formal address made him uncomfortable.
“Get some sleep. Might be your last chance for a while.”
Early Tuesday morning, Valerie stifled a whoop of triumph and glanced around the quiet motel room. Alan had moved to the bed at some point in the night and was now slumped against the headboard with his laptop tipping from his legs onto the faded blue bedspread. Scott had stretched out on the couch with his legs over the armrest and finally dozed off around two a.m.
She’d spent the first half of the night trying ignore his presence, trying to pretend his reaction—or complete lack thereof—to their parking lot tryst didn’t cut deep. Was he angry? Embarrassed? Indifferent?
She didn’t know how to feel. Maybe their encounter had been nothing special for him. Maybe women gave him blow jobs in random places all the time.
Her mind had gone round and round until she finally, blessedly, got pulled into her online world and everything around her ceased to exist. Her butt had gone numb hours ago, but once she had a door into Aggressor, she couldn’t stop digging. The email she’d sent to Duncan’s admin from the bookstore in San Diego had paid off. Meseret had opened the attachment and even overridden the antivirus software to let the macro run—the power of using a trusted sender’s address—giving Valerie a trap door into the woman’s computer.
Valerie had spent the last five hours going through every file she could get her hands on, but it had been Meseret’s access to Duncan’s calendar that proved most valuable.
Ready to burst with the need to tell someone, but reluctant to wake either of her companions at five a.m.—they both needed the sleep—she took a potty break, washed her face, and did some quick yoga stretches to ease her tight muscles.
Across the room, Scott sat up and rubbed his face, pushing his sleep-mussed hair out of his eyes. Without a word, he beelined for the toilet and emerged from the tiny room with a scrubbed pink face and damp hair, scratching the whiskers on his jaw.
“You look happy,” he said in a low, deep voice that stroked her like the gentlest caress. His breath smelled like peppermint toothpaste.
They hadn’t touched—had hardly spoken—since last night, and even though she didn’t regret her actions, she hated the strain between them. “I have access to Duncan’s business calendar,” she said, instead.
He blinked. “Really? When we get to D.C., that could be a game changer.” A faint smile crossed his face. “Nice job.”
She couldn’t resist smiling back. “Thanks.”
His brow furrowed. “Did you get any sleep?”
“I look that bad, huh?”
“You’re always beautiful.”
Her heart yo-yoed, and she couldn’t look away.Kiss me.
A shrill ring obliterated the moment. Scott stepped aside and pulled the burner phone from his hip pocket, moving past her into the room without a backward glance. “Yeah?”
Business before pleasure. She sighed. Their survival was at stake here. She didn’t have time for romance.
Alan sat up and rubbed his eyes, and then gave her a quick “Morning” on his way to the bathroom.
“How soon?” Scott said into the phone. Looking her way, he asked, “Can we be in Fort Worth by seven p.m.?”
She opened a map site on her browser and checked the routes, ignoring the boulder in the pit of her stomach. If not for a sign on the side of the road, she could cross into Texas without ever realizing it. There was nothing to differentiate it from New Mexico or Oklahoma, nothing specifically sinister about its air or soil. And yet dread took up residence in her gut at the thought of entering the Lone Star State. Half the reason she’d suggested they stop in Las Cruces overnight instead of El Paso was to delay the inevitable.
“Looks like about nine or ten hours, plus stops… So, yeah. It’ll be a long day, but it’s definitely doable. If we leave soon, we could probably get there by five.”
“We’ll be there,” he said, turning away, listening for a few seconds. “What’s the address?” He bent over the desk and scribbled on a notepad with the hotel pen. “Thanks.”
“Your boss?” she asked when he returned the phone to his pocket.
“Yes. A charter pilot is going to pick us up at a private airfield outside the city. We’ll be in Virginia early tomorrow, and he’ll have someone waiting.”
Home. And more importantly, close to Duncan. “Perfect. But do we have enough cash to pay for that?”
“I’ve got it.”
“But—”
“I can handle it.”
