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CHAPTER FOUR

C allan followed Alyssa through a door labeled The Library . Rich people didn’t need anything so banal as numbers to differentiate their hotel suites.

He didn’t hate that. Even if Ghazi or his men figured out where they were staying, they’d never be able to locate their room.

“Crenshaw?” Callan asked.

The clerk had come up with the name so quickly, it was as if he made up aliases every day.

“We’ll be in the system under that name.” Alyssa continued into a living room.

Callan passed a bathroom on one side of a short hallway and a kitchenette on the other, then stopped in the living room’s threshold.

This was a hotel room?

The dining table and chairs alone were worth more than his car.

Definitely not in Kansas anymore.

The overstuffed sofa and love seat faced a sixty-five-inch TV that rested on a carved mahogany sideboard that matched the end tables and coffee table, all of which probably dated to the nineteenth century. A desk perpendicular to the bay windows looked even older, though the wheeled chair pushed up to it was modern, and even that was out of his price range.

On the two walls facing the deck, antique bookshelves were filled with books. Maybe that was why they called this room the library.

The carpet was plush, the drapes lavish, the artwork expensive reproductions. Were the books first editions?

Everything about the room was sturdy and masculine. Callan had never met Gavin Wright, but he’d heard stories. He’d seen the man on more than one occasion. The room suited him.

“Does your dad own this place or something?” Callan asked.

“He just comes to the city a lot.” Alyssa had already settled on the sofa, toed off her shoes, and plopped her feet onto the coffee table. “This is his favorite suite. Once, it was taken—he was offended they would dare rent it to someone else—and they gave him a similar one on this floor. Similar in design, but the decor was all pink toile and lace.” She grinned, shaking her head. “He was not impressed.”

Callan still didn’t move into the living room. He’d known Gavin Wright made a killing when he'd left government service. The private sector paid more, no question about it. But this much more? Crazy.

“What will he think about us being here? Are they going to put this on his bill? Because I want us to be safe, but I can’t afford this place, and I don’t like the idea of you paying?—”

“Dad will cover it.” She gathered her blond hair on top of her head, reclined, and let it drape over the couch.

A beautiful, graceful lioness, relaxing in her den.

“Don’t worry about it.” She flicked her hand toward him as if to flick away the thousands of dollars per night this place must cost.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like relying on someone else to pay his way. He didn’t like knowing he could never set foot in this building, much less this room, if not for Alyssa.

Hopefully, Gavin Wright would forgive the expense if it meant his daughter was safe. If Callan took her elsewhere and she were to get hurt… That would be unforgivable.

Callan checked out the two bedrooms. One had a four-poster bed and an attached private bathroom. The other had two queens and a door that led to the same bathroom he’d seen from the hallway. He carried her suitcase into the master. “I’m going through this.”

She pushed to her feet and followed. “What? Why?”

He’d already unzipped her luggage on the bed and opened it. “Your intruders weren’t concerned about you knowing they’d been there. If I wanted to track your movements, I’d put a tracker in this.” Still bent over her things, he turned her way. “Do you have other luggage?”

“Just that and a big one for longer trips.”

“Okay, good.” The suitcase had been in her closet, on a high shelf, so it was likely that, if they’d wanted to track her, they would’ve shoved something into one of the pockets. He’d check the clothes first. He pulled out a pair of yoga pants and ran his hands along the seams. Nothing out of the ordinary in the hems, and it had no pockets.

She watched him from the end of the bed. “If they put a tracker in it, then they could be on their way here right now.” Her voice rose the slightest at the end, as if the idea terrified her and she was working to hide it.

“Unlikely.” He added a reassuring smile to the word. “If you were their target, then what happened at your building would have gone down very differently.” He worked his way through her clothes.

But Alyssa wasn't wrong. He should’ve done this before they reached the hotel. He’d been focused on getting here, getting Alyssa out of danger. He hadn’t been thinking.

He needed to do better… be better.

When he reached toward a bulging zipper pocket, she slapped her hand over it. “You’re not sifting through my underwear.”

“I’m not a pervert, Alyssa. I’m trying to?—”

“Just tell me what you’re looking for.”

He stepped back. “Anything that’s not clothes. Anything that doesn’t belong. It’ll be tiny, maybe no bigger than a fingernail.”

She scooped all her personal items into her arms and carried them to the bureau. She picked up a pair of socks, checked each one, and then folded them again and set them in a drawer.

Confident she was being thorough, he focused on the suitcase itself, probing every pocket and fold with his fingertips.

“Nothing that doesn’t belong.” She closed the drawer and faced him. “You?”

“It’s clean.” He zipped the suitcase and slid it into her closet. “I think we’re safe here.”

“We are safe here.” Alyssa grabbed the knob on the door that led to the living room.

This was the second time he’d gone into Alyssa’s bedroom in a matter of hours. Mom would slap him upside the head for his rudeness.

Mom was so tiny that she’d need to climb a step stool first.

“The entrance is always locked,” Alyssa explained, “and the bellhop doesn’t let people in without Jonathan’s say-so. Jonathan only opens to people he recognizes. Others have to buzz for entrance and explain who they are and why they’re there before he’ll allow them inside.”

Callan had known, theoretically, that such places existed. His family vacations consisted of tent camping. They went fishing and hiking and cooked hot dogs over a fire. If they wanted to splurge, they’d rent a canoe.

Her life wasn’t even in the same universe as his.

Tangible proof that he didn’t belong with this woman. Not that she’d ever shown the slightest interest in him.

Knowing that had never kept him from wishing things could be different.

* * *

Considering the maze of hallways they’d navigated to get here, Callan was surprised when he looked out the window to find they faced the street and not an alley. He usually had a good sense of direction, but he’d gotten turned around.

He closed the drapes against the darkness and rolled the desk chair closer to the sofa where Alyssa had settled. Sitting with his back to the window, he propped his feet on the coffee table. He refused to be intimidated by furniture. “Your father takes security seriously. Which makes sense, considering what he does for a living.”

“The understatement of the century.” Her eyes narrowed. “You know my father?”

“I know of him. I’ve never met him personally, but I’ve heard him speak. So, do you believe me now?”

“That something weird is going on? Sure, but what? Why would Charles break into my apartment minutes after I agreed to work with him? I still think you could be wrong about him.”

“If I’m wrong about Ghazi, then so is the entire intelligence community.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. But I’m saying maybe my client isn’t this Ghazi person. I never work with anybody without doing a background check on them, and he checked out.”

Callan opened his phone and navigated to a website. Then, he handed the phone to her.

She scrolled down, scanning all the fake information about the fictional Caleb Thompson.

“Go ahead and click the links,” Callan said. “You’ll find social media profiles and posts. You’ll find old addresses, where Caleb went to college and high school. You’ll learn that Caleb volunteers to feed the homeless occasionally—there are photos of that. He teaches Bible study at his church.”

She handed him the phone back. “So everything I read about Charles Sanders was a lie.”

“Sorry to prove to you, once again, that you’re not infallible.”

“I never said I was.”

“You spent four years in college trying to prove you’re better than me.”

“I am better than you.” She glared.

He grinned. “At a few things, maybe.” His amusement faded. “Charles Sanders is Dariush Ghazi. And Dariush Ghazi is a very dangerous man.”

He needed to convince her, sooner rather than later.

“Fine. Why would he break in when I agreed to work with him?”

“Maybe he got spooked when I showed up. Maybe he wanted to find something to use to blackmail you. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Who else?—?”

“Why couldn’t it just be thieves, like you said to the Uber driver?”

“Think about it, Alyssa. Why your apartment? It wasn’t exactly a crime of convenience. Your building is secure. Even if someone gained access, there are lots of other apartments they could’ve chosen. Why yours?”

Her lips pressed together. “But why would Charles do it? There’s nothing there he could use to blackmail me.”

“His name is not Charles.”

“You know what I mean.”

Callan dropped his feet to the floor. “Let’s go over what they took.”

“My iPad. The hard drive from my desktop. Which reminds me…” She dug through her purse and pulled out the thumb drive she’d purchased on the way here.

“You think they could access the information on it?”

“Probably." She shrugged. "Nothing is completely secure. You know that. Every code can be broken if given enough time and resources. That’s why all my sensitive data is stored on a secure cloud server.”

“Which can also be accessed.”

“But they’d have to know where to look.”

He considered that. “Will the desktop tell them where to look?”

“Yes. Which is why I need to download everything off the server.” She powered up her laptop.

“What else was taken?”

“My planner," she said, "which holds my calendar and to-do list. That’s all I know, but it’s not like there was time to look around.”

“Did you have anything of value?”

She shrugged, though it didn’t come off as casual as she probably hoped. “Jewelry. Not super valuable, but sentimental. It’s not like I keep bundles of cash hidden in the cookie jar.”

“The thing is, I don’t think your burglars were Ghazi’s people.”

“You don’t?” She set the laptop aside. “I thought…why do you think that?”

“When they heard your keys in the lock, they were taken off-guard, which tells me they didn’t know you were home. So either Ghazi’s men didn’t follow us to your apartment, and I’m pretty sure they did, or the intruders weren’t Ghazi’s men.”

“I see what you’re saying. Ghazi’s men would have warned the intruders that we were on the way.” She seemed to consider that. “Then who were they?”

“It could’ve been his enemies.”

That had her straightening. “What do you mean? What enemies?”

“People like him always have enemies. It’s not like all bad guys are buddy-buddy.”

“I know that. But why target me? What do I have to do with anything?”

“Maybe they’re after the information you’ve already found for him.” He nodded at the thumb drive she’d inserted into the USB port of her laptop. “You need to secure it.”

“Right.” She returned to what she was doing.

“Or it could’ve been our guys. I don’t see the FBI attacking the way they did, or being surprised. But if they wanted it to look like it wasn’t them, then maybe.”

“Could it have been someone working off-book?”

“Maybe.”

“But that still begs the question, why me?”

“No matter who it was, the why isn’t that confusing. You were dining with a terrorist. That tends to set off alarm bells.”

“We weren’t ‘dining.’” She put air quotes around the word. “We were having a business meeting.”

“The distinction is irrelevant.”

“And anyway, whether it was FBI or Ghazi’s enemies, they moved very quickly. Either that or they knew about my meeting beforehand. But how could they have?”

“The FBI is surveilling Ghazi. Chances are good someone else is as well. Maybe someone—whoever it was—realized he’s been in contact with you. If they’ve bugged his comm?—”

“Wait a minute.” She stood and paced in front of the TV. “I’m confused. I thought you were the one watching him. Wasn’t that why you were there tonight?”

“That’s a long story.”

She made a show of looking around. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“Don’t you need to”—he gestured to her computer—“finish that?”

“The files are downloading.”

Should he tell her the truth? He considered the ramifications but couldn’t think of any reason not to.

“I got a call from a person who said Ghazi was going to be at that restaurant and that somebody would be in danger.”

She froze and crossed her arms. “Not that long a story. Who called?”

“I think it was a man.”

“You think ?” She propped her fists on her hips. “How do you not know?”

“The voice was distorted. The speech patterns made me believe it was a man, but of course a woman could alter her speech patterns, so…”

“Why would you follow an anonymous tip from a distorted voice? What if the person was setting you up? It could’ve been dangerous or?—”

“I was curious. The person said Ghazi was meeting someone at a restaurant in town, a target.”

“What target? What do you mean?”

It wasn’t that complicated.

After a moment, color drained from her face. “Wait. You think I’m the target?”

“That’s what the voice said, but of what? And why? And why you?” He lifted his hand in a show of who knows? “I’ve never been assigned to Ghazi, and now that he’s in the US, the FBI is keeping tabs on him and his activities.” Until the tip, Callan hadn’t thought about Dariush Ghazi in months. But he’d done his homework on the way to the restaurant. “When did you and Ghazi set up the meeting?”

“Last night. He flew in yesterday.”

“FYI, he’s been in the country for months. But if the appointment was only set up yesterday?—”

“Last night. He called about seven.”

“Okay. So whoever called me didn’t have a lot of notice. Maybe he would have been there in person if he’d had enough time. Or maybe he’d have gathered his own people.”

Or maybe the caller didn’t want his own people to know what he was up to. Also plausible.

“You’re saying they didn’t have time? That doesn’t make sense. The entire intelligence apparatus couldn’t get one person to the restaurant in time?”

“The FBI had people there.”

She blinked. “I don’t… How do you know that?”

“They’re easy to pick out, if you know what to look for.”

She perched on the end of the sofa. “I don’t understand. Why call you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. That was part of the reason I was curious. The powers-that-be have reason to believe Ghazi is up to something big, but they don’t know what. I want to know why you were pulled into it.”

“I wasn’t pulled into it. Not until you showed up.”

“You’re working with the guy.”

“I’m not working with him. He hires me to find things, and I find them.”

“Right. But how did your small—and brand-new—investigation business get on his radar?”

“How do you know how old my business is? Or how big it is?”

“I keep tabs on old classmates.” Some of them, anyway.

A handful.

Okay, just Alyssa. But not for any nefarious reason. He just missed their rivalry. Their banter. He missed…her.

Which was ridiculous considering they’d never been more than acquaintances. And she could hardly stand him.

“There are more experienced investigators he could’ve hired,” Callan said.

Her eyes narrowed, and he worked to hide his pleasure.

He’d successfully diverted her attention.

“I’m very good at what I do.”

“Nobody knows that better than I do, Alyssa, because you were the only one who could best me—occasionally. The question is, how does Ghazi know?”

“He said he got my name from Michael.”

“Which we know is a lie. Your cousin would never point a terrorist your direction. But…” He considered that, thinking out loud. “If he knows Michael, and he knows Michael is in the CIA, then…he must’ve figured out his real name. Which would have led him to you.”

She was nodding. “Right. That makes sense.” She spoke with a curious lack of concern.

“How does it make sense?”

“I don’t know the details. But Michael’s wife, Leila, and her sister, Jasmine—she’s married to my youngest cousin, Derrick—are Iraqi. There was some trouble last winter at my aunt and uncle’s vacation home. Something about how someone wanted Jasmine back in Iraq? Maybe this guy, Ghazi, was involved.”

“We need to talk to Michael.”

“He’s on his honeymoon.”

“He’ll forgive the interruption. Call him.” Or Callan would.

“Yeah, okay.” She snatched her cell phone and tapped the screen. “I’ll just text him, in case they’re sleeping or…busy.” Her cheeks turned pink at the implication.

That quick flash of embarrassment, the way she avoided looking up, only peeking at him through her eyelashes. He’d never thought of her as shy, but something in that expression…

Man. She was gorgeous. Too distracting.

“Michael will get back to me when he can.” She sent the text and set her phone on the coffee table, then stepped into the kitchen. She returned with two bottles of water. “You need one?”

“Please.”

He twisted the cap off.

“A question.” She sipped from her own bottle. “Why the whole fake-fiancé thing?”

“I wanted to throw him off, make him think he missed something important.”

She took that in. “But we have to pretend we’re engaged.”

“It’s a good excuse for us to stay together until this is over.”

By the way her eyebrows lowered, she didn’t like that idea at all.

He’d try not to be offended.

That look…

That was the reason he’d never asked her out in college. No matter how much she appealed to him—and between her beauty and her brains and her quick wit, she’d always appealed to him—he’d never had a single reason to believe she returned his feelings.

He’d been a coward back then, too afraid of rejection to risk it.

Today, he’d take the chance. Alyssa put on a tough front, but how much of that was a defense mechanism?

If things were different, he’d ask her out. He’d take the risk.

But now that he had Peri, it was too late.

He’d keep Alyssa safe and then let her go. No matter how much the idea twisted his gut.