Clearly, they don’t know me if they think I can pull that off.
Reed faces me with his brows lifted inquisitively. “You good to go?”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
No.
“Absolutely,” I lie through a lunatic’s grin. “Fair warning; Silas probably won’t answer. My last text to him was snippy, and I sort of stood him up for our meeting. Plus, even when we were on friendlier terms, he never answered unless I texted first.”
“Ah. Because it wasn’t his only phone and was probably turned off most of the time,” Agent Andrews surmises.
“He said he wasn’t allowed to get calls at work,” I explain, detesting how flimsy the excuse sounds.
The agent who chooses his seats with open hostility twists toward me. “Just curious. What did he tell you he did for a living?”
I close my eyes to hide my shame and answer out of the side of my mouth. “Logistics supervisor.”
In the caring way I’ve grown to expect from him, Agent Dad tries to fluff my ego. “Don’t feel bad, Lila. No doubt he’s supervising the transportation of products and coordinating many moving parts in his organization. Ergo, logistics wasn’t atotallie.”
I was such a sucker to believe his BS stories about his life. Looking back, most of them weren’t even clever lies. Yet I gobbled them up like Mrs. Hayes’ peanut butter cookies.
All because I was so desperate to be loved that I clung to the first man in years who paid me the slightest bit of attention.
What are the chances I’ve fallen into the same trap with the man on my right?
“Lila, I think you should do what you’d normally do.” Using his chin, Reed points at my cell. “Send him a warning text.”
While blinking away my doubts and fears, I type out the message. My fingers tremble so much I have to backspace five times to fix my typos. “Okay. Sent. Are you tracking his location from the text?”
Reed shakes his head discouragingly. “The tech doesn’t work the same for text messaging.”
“Bummer.” I exhale some of my nerves away. “Do we just wait now?”
Reed responds, “While we wait, there’s something we want to play for you. It’s a recording from?—”
The female agent—I think her name is Bianca—raises her index finger to cut him off. “Actually, I got an urgent email fromthe SSA. She just got off the phone with the head of security at Oak Winds. They want Lila back to work tonight. We should prep for that before we get to the air vent recording.”
My eyes lose focus as heated fury floods my body.
The FBI is talking to my employer.
About me.
As part of a theft ring that’s been stealing them blind.
And the man I squirted on last night didn’t warn me about it.
Although I probably should have figured this out on my own, I didn’t. Is this a shame on me moment or shame on him?
In my defense, I’ve had a lot on my mind. And he couldn’t exactly give me a heads up whilst giving me head.
So, here I sit, blindsided.
And soon to be unemployed.
Fluffing heck.
You know what? Let me rephrase as a curse. No drugs required to swear this time.
