Page 9 of Baby Take Me Home

I shook my head. Normally, I would turn over records searches and FOIA requests to our staff researchers, but I wanted to do the leg work on this one. TJ Russo was my puzzle to solve. I tried not to think too hard about what that might mean.

She took another small bite in silence. I speared some calamari and pasta and made a show of taking a generous bite. Despite the dish being as delicious as it was every week, my heart wasn’t in eating it.

Jayne sighed and pushed her plate out of her way, then rested her forearms on the table and leaned toward me. “Ashlee, you’re worrying me. This guy has you rattled. Tell me.”

“I’m sorry.” I laid down my fork and leaned in as well. “It’s hard to explain. It’s not that he seems dangerous, it’s more that he somehow feels safe. But how can that be when I’ve never met him before? ” I shook my head as I searched for words to put to the story that was TJ Russo. “I don’t know how to describe it. The right words are eluding me.”

“That’s a problem,” Jayne said, immediately understanding how unsettling that was for a professional writer. “Whatdoyou know about him?”

“Previously in the army, the usual amount of secrecy around that. Currently working for a government contractor, seemingly nothing exciting.”

“Seemingly?”

I frowned as I met her gaze. Her expression conveyed everything I was thinking. Former military, still associated with the government, sniffing around the Slovakian embassy.

“You think he’s IC?” Jayne asked, using the abbreviation for Intelligence Community, known more colloquially as spy agencies.

“So far, his cover checks out, but there’s a lot more to that man than meets the eye.” And even what met the eye was a fascinating contradiction. Near-military-issue haircut and goatee plus side scruff. Tuxedo and tattoos. Cushy desk job and rock-hard muscles.”

“How many FOIA requests have you filed?”

“As many as I could without attracting too much attention.”

“Text me the details,” she said. “I’ll make some calls, and see if we can speed up the response times on them.”

I pulled a notepad out of my purse and slid it across the table to her. “The information is all in there. Everything he told me and what I’ve dug up on my own. Until I know more, this should fall under our electronic communication ban.”

She swept up the notepad and dropped it into her large brown leather bag. She laid one of her hands on top of mine. “Do we need to worry about the attention you might have already attracted? You know you can stay with me. The guest room still has your name on it.”

I squeezed her fingers. “Thank you for that, but it’s not like before.” And it never would be again. Between therapy and self-defense training and taking back my power through my covert investigation, I’d rebuilt life so it could never again be decimated as it had been last February.

“If anything changes…”

“You’ll be the first to know,” I promised her. “Now you need to go if you’re taking the metro or you’ll miss your afternoon staff meeting.”

“I can spare another fifteen minutes and take a cab.”

“No need. I’m fine, I promise.”

She sighed. “All right, we’ll have Mikey box up our lunches. Promise you’ll eat yours later.”

I knew why she was concerned. I’d skipped far too many meals after Aiden’s death. For a while, I’d been so run down, I’d looked a decade older. I crossed my heart. “I promise I’ll eat. I’ll need the fuel for my kickboxing class this afternoon.”

“Good. Until we know more, I think you should avoid this guy.”

“That’s my plan.” But as I said the words, I doubted I meant them.

I’d felt safe—a rare experience for me these days—with TJ Russo, despite my reporter’s instincts screaming that the man was hiding something. To learn the truth, I might have to get close to him, and soon. If I’d pegged him wrong and his secrets were deep and dark, I was pretty sure I’d live to regret that decision.

CHAPTER 5

TJ

I stoodin my office at HEAT’s DC headquarters building and watched my team through the half-glass wall. HEAT buildings were all built on the same footprint so our teams, constantly traveling for missions, felt at home in any HEAT facility. The first floor had a large, open gym as its center, where the entire Alpha Team worked out when we were together on a mission, although Li and Kessler, as our on-the-ground tactical team, spent the most hours there. Now the two of them crossed the gym on the way to the kitchen to grab caffeine and sustenance before heading to the second floor for our 0900 hours briefing.

They emerged from the kitchen with Martin Penn and his logistics crew partner Tamela Sparks. Penn and Sparks had just returned from their shift of physically surveilling Ashlee Armand. So far, signs pointed to her behaving herself since I’d left her with an ominous warning two days ago, although our emergency wiretapping subpoena was limited in scope so Jensen couldn’t guarantee it. I was almost a little disappointed that I didn’t have an excuse to return to her house and spar with her some more. The woman was as quick and sharp as she was beautiful, a lethal combination.

Samantha knocked on my open door. “The team is waiting in the SCIF,” she said, referring to the sensitive compartmented information facility, which was a large conference room on the second floor of every HEAT building. “Do you know if X is ready?”