Page 69 of Dark Duet: Platinum Edition

She nods, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me. What would she know?

“I think your mother loves you a great deal.”

I stare down at my picture of Caleb. I thought he loved me. Could it be the one person I discounted loves me more than the one I trusted completely? My heart aches. It’s a question I am not prepared to have answered.

Slowly, I crawl under my covers. I want to go back to sleep. I want to be with Caleb again. In my dreams, there is never a reason to doubt my heart. In my dreams, he is everything I want him to be. He is mine.

As if on cue, Dr. Sloan stops asking me emotionally-charged questions and once again regales me with tales of free-form knitting and interpretative taxidermy.

Chapter Five

Day 8:

I’m feeling somewhat better today. I still miss Caleb; I don’t think the feeling will ever go away, but I can get through several minutes without wanting to break down and weep for him. It’s progress. Dr. Sloan says one day I’ll make it to an hour…a day…but that’s as far as I let myself hope. The thought of one day not thinking of him at all is just too much for me. It feels like a betrayal to ever hope for such things.

Once again, I am sitting in the dreadfully cheery room they use to interrogate kindergarteners. This time, I don’t have to do very much talking. I have a lawyer to do it for me. He and Agent Reed have been battling it out for the last hour. David, my lawyer, isn’t much to look at, but he’s very smart and incredibly aggressive. There’s something super hot about watching the two of them argue…or maybe I just like Reed when he’s unsettled.

His hair is somewhat disheveled from where he’s run his fingers through it so many times to keep from punching David in his face. Every now and again, his eyes flick to me and I feel a dark thrill just thinking about what he’d like to do to me if only he could. If he were Caleb, I would assume a spanking is most certainly in order!

“When exactly did you imagine yourself as…? My lover?” My heartbeat vibrated my skull. “Was it the first time I made you come with my mouth? Or one of the many times since that I’ve put you over my knee? You seem to like that.”

And there he is – Caleb, in my thoughts, in my blood. I can feel my face getting warmer, my stomach getting tighter, and already there is the drumbeat of my arousal pulsing between my legs. I squeeze them together and get so lost in my thoughts it takes me a second to realize Reed is still staring at me. When our eyes finally meet, I blush – hard. I smile when he blushes too.

Agent Reed clears his throat and takes a drink of water. It’s enough to bring back his control. I sigh through my disappointment.

“Agent Reed,” David says, reclaiming Reed’s attention, “my client is being held on ridiculous charges that would never stand up in court. She was living with her mother and attending high school at the time of her kidnapping. Even though she’s eighteen, the U.S. Attorney would be hard-pressed to try her as an adult. If she’s considered a minorandinvolved in a human trafficking case, under Section 107 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 she’s protected from the FBI’s tactics of investigation. There’s no point in us even sitting here. I should be talking to the U.S. Attorney, not you.”

Reed does not look happy, but he doesn’t look beat either. “Your client has two hundred fifty thousand dollars in a foreign bank account. How did it get there? She won’t say. Also, she’s been living with suspected terrorists. She’s admitted to it. Then, there’s the small matter of her knowledge of a meeting between enemies of the United States taking place in less than a week! We need information, and her refusal to give it qualifies as an obstruction of justice –”

“What terrorists!?!” I yell at Reed and move to stand, but David calmly pushes me back into my seat.

“Muhammad Rafiq, Jair Baloch, Felipe Villanueva, and of courseCaleb,” he says. “Do you or do younotalso have information about Demitri Balk?”

“I never said I knew him!”

“You said you knew where he’d be,” Reed says with a raised eyebrow.

“Miss Ruiz, please stop talking and let me handle this,” David says in an irritated tone.

“By the way,” begins Reed anew, ignoring my lawyer and focusing on me, “Balk is suspected of having ties to arms dealing and narcotics trafficking. And until I know how you,” he jabs his finger in my direction, “are involved, you’re a suspect too. You can deal with me or I can let the DEA and Homeland Security in here, and when they use Patriot Act against you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“That is enough,” David said firmly, glaring at us both.

“Caleb is not a terrorist. I don’t know about the rest of them, but he’s not a terrorist! And neither am I! And–” A cold wave crashes over me.Felipe. I never said anything about Felipe. Reed knows things he’s not saying.

Caleb! Fuck!

I can’t breathe; all of the oxygen is suddenly being sucked from the room, from my fucking lungs! I keep taking deep, deep breaths, lots of them, but I can’t get any air.

My heart is racing.

I can’t breathe!

“Olivia?” says Reed, and I can hear him shuffling around.

“We’re done here, Agent Reed. I’ll be speaking to your superiors.” David reaches for me and tries to get me to stand. I don’t like his hands on me. I can’t breathe! He’s suffocating me. I need to think. I need to breathe.

“Shut up! Everybody just shut up!” Reed and David go silent and I ignore them as I put my hands on the table in front of me and try to catch my breath.