Page 8 of Baby Take Me Home
“I appreciate the sentiment, but if you really want to thank me, don’t require rescuing again.” He left quickly, I presumed so I couldn’t get in the last word.
Part of me was sad to see him go, so the rest of me reminded those lizard-brain-driven parts that the man had interrupted my investigation, sedated me, and ordered me around in my own home. Of course, I wouldn’t listen to him, but the nerve of him to think I would acquiesce to his every whim was beyond the pale. Then again, why wouldn’t he think that, after I’d stopped speaking and started touching?
The drug he’d given me hadn’t manufactured my attraction to him. He didn’t fit the profile of my standard dating type, which was buttoned up, corporate, lawyerly. Boring. But he did fit the profile of my deepest fantasy type. Whatever was in that sedative must have removed my filters and let my deep desires swim to the surface.
One more reason to be annoyed by TJ whoever-he-was. Finding out more about him would allay some of my pique, so I would spend my Sunday afternoon researching him.
In the meantime, he was right about my stomach needing to settle, and those eggs did smell delicious. As I plowed through them, then chewed on my buttered toast, my eyelids drifted closed. I finally gave up and set my plate back down on the coffee table, then lay down and pulled the cozy quilt up to my chin.
All right, so it appeared I would take two pieces of TJ’s advice. And I would rise to the challenge he’d all but dared me to undertake by investigating him. But after that, I was done listening to TJ whatever-his-last-name-was.
A minute later, I shook myself awake, remembering one more thing that had come out of his beautiful, bossy mouth. Luka Kovac.
I sat up, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I needed coffee to chase away my brain fog. I stumbled to the kitchen and set up my coffee maker as I puzzled through the breadcrumbs TJ had left for me, probably intentionally. Earlier, when he’d mentioned Kovac, he had only invoked Luka’s name, not Izak’s. I pieced that together with the reaction of Renalda and her husband insisting she meet with me to sing Luka’s praises, despite what I could now see was probably her fear.
I would do the woman a kindness and leave her out of it, but despite TJ’s advice to drop my “fluff piece,” it was time for me to go all in on it. Unlike the guards and Renalda and most other people I met these days, Luka hadn’t mentioned my kidnapping, which was a very public part of my recent history. I had no doubt he knew about it. I had naively thought he was being respectful and circumspect. I had also thought I’d been using the perfectly nice, somewhat shallow, incredibly vainglorious husband to get to his bad-guy spouse. In reality, I’d been talking to the bad guy all along. Luka was the Kovac who was involved with the shady organization behind my kidnapping.
I would make Luka Kovac pay, not only for his lies but also for his part in blowing up my sense of my place in the world.
PART2
THE ARMAND JOB
CHAPTER 4
Ashlee
On Monday,I kept my standing date. A few minutes before two, I entered a small, family-owned restaurant from the south entrance and waited near the salad bar. Precisely on the hour, Jayne Collins entered through the east entrance, across from the Metro station.
She was dressed in a camel-colored, sleeveless silk dress and matching low heels. She kept her long blonde hair—now graying at the temples—pulled up in a tight chignon. I’d never seen her wear it down. Her Jackie O sunglasses and small diamond stud earrings completed the look that screamed chic editor, although she looked more like she worked for a fashion magazine than one of Washington’s leading newspapers.
She smiled when she saw my casual, pale blue linen dress and white sandals with heels. It was a vast improvement from the stained sweats I’d lived in for months after Aiden’s death, but it was far from the polished look I would wear on the job. That was all part of my disguise because as far as the world was concerned, I currently wasn’t on the job.
We greeted each other like the old friends we were, then slipped into the secluded back room that Mikey, her cousin and confidante, used for private gatherings. Jayne trusted Mikey with her life, so I trusted him with my clandestine meetings with my editor.
By the time we sat across from each other at a small booth, Mikey was there with our usuals, a chicken salad on whole wheat for Jayne and a grilled calamari salad for me. He hugged us both and the three of us spent a few minutes making small talk, then he disappeared into the kitchen to help his wife and small afternoon staff prep for dinner.
“How are things going?” Jayne asked. She took a small bite of her sandwich and chewed quickly while she waited for me to answer, using her time as efficiently as possible.
I furrowed my brow. I was still undecided about how much I should tell her about TJ Russo. The seconds dragged on and Jayne raised her eyebrows. I broke eye contact and poked my fork into my calamari. “I met someone.”
She wiped her hands on her napkin. “Do you mean that personally or professionally?”
“Professionally.” I’d been thinking about him personally, though. Maybe even obsessively as I’d filed request after request, under the Freedom of Information Act, for details about him, his company, and his time in the army.
“Good guy or bad guy?” She took another small bite of her sandwich.
I flinched and glanced at her. “Did I say the person was a guy?”
She frowned and narrowed her eyes. “I’m using that as a figure of speech. What’s wrong, Ashlee? You seem...” She shook her head. “Distracted. Shut down.” She nodded toward my salad bowl. “Picking at your food. This is the way you were in the months after—”
I waved my hand in the air to cut her off. “I’m fine, I promise. He’s interesting. Mysterious, though.”
“Is he working for Kovac or someone at the embassy?”
“I don’t think so. To answer your question, I think he’s a good guy.” I shrugged one shoulder. “He might be helpful.”
“But you need to do a deep dive into his background. Do you need resources for that?”