Page 22 of Baby Take Me Home
Well, if she was going to use that definition of lying, she had a point.
“Who are you?” she asked, backing away from me.
The look on her face... I couldn’t stand it. Like I terrified her. Like she thought I was one of Malone’s goons. “I’m one of the good guys, I promise. You have to trust me.”
She stopped and caught her breath. “What did you say?”
“That I’m not—”
“No.” She shook her head. “Your exact words. Say that again. ‘I promise. You have to trust me.’”
Her face had changed. She was deep in thought, working through an intricate mental puzzle. As she turned over my words in her head, I could almost see the pieces clicking into place. I shook my head.
“Say it!” she hissed, clenching her fists. She closed her eyes, waiting.
There was no point in denying it. I added the other words I’d spoken to her the day of her rescue when she’d been dehydrated and overwhelmed and slipping in and out of consciousness. As the medics had lifted her into the ambulance, I’d stood behind her, out of her sight, worried sick that we would lose another civilian. That the world would lose the talented Ashlee Armand.
“You’re safe now, I promise. You have to trust me.”
She opened her eyes slowly. “I thought it was the voice of an angel. Hearing your voice again... That’s why I trusted you Saturday night, why I’ve continued trusting you.” She moved to the sofa and dropped down to sit on the arm. “I want all the information about my kidnapping. Not just what you deem acceptable to share.”
“Ashlee, my heart breaks for you, for what you went through, but a lot of that is classified.”
“No! You don’t get to say that to me.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “My friend died in that kidnapping. Right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t even grieve for him because I spent every minute of the next 24 hours waiting for them to come kill me, too. So I need you to pull every string you have, declassify every document necessary, polygraph me and swear me to secrecy, teach me the secret fucking handshake if that’s what it takes, but I need to know what happened to me.” She was sobbing and shaking.
I stepped toward her.
She held up her hands to stop me. “Will you do that for me?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Is there some way you can do that for me?”
There was exactly one way, and it wouldn’t be free. It would cost her everything.
CHAPTER 9
Ashlee
I thoughtI knew what I was getting into. After that, I was sure I could get out of it. Now, neither of those options looked likely.
In my eight-year professional career, I’d faced down crooked CEOs, corrupt politicians, perverted Hollywood moguls, and all-around shitty masters of the universe, all of whom wouldn’t have bothered to piss on me if I’d been on fire. In fact, they would probably have been the ones lighting the match. I’d been hated, threatened, detained, and once—six months ago—kidnapped and held for three agonizing days.
But as I sat in TJ’s nondescript, dark blue sedan in a parking garage on the west side of DC, staring at the unmarked black panel van in front of us, it occurred to me that I had either gone off the deep end and was living out a dystopian fantasy, or shit had just gotten real beyond my wildest imagination. And given that I had a dual degree in journalism and creative writing, my imagination could go pretty hog wild.
“How many of them will there be?” I asked.
TJ glanced at me. “Right now? Two.”
I nodded. Two spies. Well, three, since TJ was one of them as well. I could probably handle that without too much anxiety. I waited for the men in black to emerge from the back of the van with dark glasses and suits.
The back van doors opened and I clenched every muscle in my body. I was sweating through my coral blouse and tan pantsuit, one of my favorite summer professional outfits that I was probably now ruining. I shouldn’t be so overwhelmed. I’d met FBI and CIA and NSA agents. I had confidential contacts in all those agencies, most of them more chatty than they should be. But this was a covert operation, an off-the-books agency, a black line in the budget. This group, whose name TJ had yet to reveal to me, had the resources and camouflage to be the stuff of nightmares.
The first person out of the van was a tall, redheaded woman wearing a designer peach sundress and matching stilettos. The army field surgeon turned private doctor, which was obviously a cover story. I’d seen photos of her while researching TJ and his associates. The second agent was a young guy, probably in his twenties, with short-cropped dark hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore tan cargo shorts, a black tee shirt, and slide-on beach sandals.
“That’s Dr. Bond and... a surfer dude?” I asked TJ.
“Glad you still have your sense of humor. That’s Jensen, the best white-hat hacker and worst bartender in the business.”
I furrowed my brow. “Worst bartender in the spy business?”
TJ shook his head. “Worst bartender in any business.” He climbed out of the car and came around to the passenger side to open my door for me.