I shook my head as I backed away from her. “Please, Lexi. Please, don’t tell anyone. I have to make this two o’clock meeting. It’s just to help them out with a case we were working on well before all of this happened. I’m begging you not to tell anyone.”
She blinked. “You’re… an informant for the FBI?”
I pressed my finger to my lips. “Please, just let me go do this.”
I turned my back to her once more and made my way for the tree line. I had to get out of here before anyone else stepped out that front door. But before I could even get deeper into the shadows, Lexi’s strong grasp wrapped around my forearm.
“One question,” she said, rooting me to my spot.
I sighed. “No, I’m not informing on the crew if that’s what you’re about to ask. I’m not that stupid.”
She clicked her tongue. “Then, take these.”
She slid something cold and metallic into the palm of my hand, and when I turned around, a set of keys sat against my skin.
“They go to the van parked over there,” Lexi said as she pointed with her finger.
“Wait, how do you have—”
She turned me toward the van. “Just stop asking questions and go if it’s that important. I’ll help cover for you.”
I craned my neck over my shoulder. “I love you, girl.”
She nodded. “Love you, too. Now, go.”
I bolted for the van and climbed behind the wheel of the car. Another gust of wind kicked up and I prayed it was enough to conceal the cranking of the van’s engine. I eased down the gravel pathway until I hit the dirt one. The second I found myself staring at the highway, I flipped on my right-hand blinker.
And I didn’t stop driving until I pulled up to the diner Agent Baker couldn’t get enough of in his life.
“I was wondering when you’d get here,” he said as I sat down in front of him.
I checked my cell phone. “It’s ten minutes ‘til. I’m not late.”
He shrugged. “If you’re not early—”
“Actually, I am early. Ten minutes early. So, what do you need?”
He leveled his eyes with me. “I think you’ve got a bit more respect in your bones that you can afford me than your tone represents.”
I wanted to strangle the man with my bare hands every time I had to sit down with him. “My apologies, Agent Baker.”
He grinned. “Wonderful. Now, I need you to use the laptop I’ve brought you to—”
I held out my hand. “Just give it to me and let me do my job.”
His face fell. “What we need from you is traffic camera footage we can’t quite get our hands on right now. Of course, it’s not admissible in court, but if we can find...”
As he rambled on, telling me how to do my damn job, his eyes wandered around the parts of my body he could see. I hated this man with all of my might. Not only did he constantly remind me of the shitty person I had once been, but he always had a way of explaining my job to me as if I hadn’t hacked the Pentagon’s system and gotten my hands on sensitive documents that I then sent to a burner server simply because I could. It sent them into a blind panic for weeks. It took them fucking weeks to track my ass down into my hidey-hole basement.
Idiots.
“So,” Agent Baker said as he handed me the laptop, “you think you can do that without releasing anything out into the world? Or do I have to keep you on a tighter leash?”
I’d rather be in jail.“I think you know I’m good, Agent Baker.”
And as I took the laptop from him, I prayed to God on high that this was an easy mission. That I could get him the information he sought so I could get out of there and get back to the warehouse.
Because if this man figured out what the hell I had gotten myself into, Hell would unleash itself into our lives.
