A Beautiful Lie (15 page)

“We had a standing library date every afternoon after our last classes were finished.  She didn’t show up the next day or the day after that.  When I tried her cell, she didn’t pick up.”

Garrett reached over for Parker’s hand, entwining his fingers in hers and holding on tight.  He sensed what was coming before she even finished the story.

“I pounded on her door and called her name, but she never answered.  The RA heard me and came over to see what was going on.  After I explained to him that I hadn’t heard from her in two days, he got the master key and opened her room.”

Parker closed her eyes and focused on the feel of Garrett’s hand holding hers, on how soft and warm his skin felt against her own small, cold hand.  Parker hadn’t thought about Lacie in years.  She wouldn’t let herself remember the girl with the short blonde hair, glasses, and sweet smile.  The memory of that day had been locked in the recesses of her mind, never to be thought of or spoken about, ever.

Yet here she was, letting the words float past her lips, remembering the sweet friend that touched her life for just a moment.

“I was the first to enter the room.  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me or that Lacie had decided to play some kind of prank.  She was lying on her bed, like she was asleep, but there was a slice across her throat and her pillows were soaked with blood.  Later that night when I got back to my room, there was a note in the middle of my bed that said,
'That was your one and only warning.'
  I signed a non-disclosure agreement with the CIA.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but I also knew I could trust Lacie.  She would have never told anyone.  And this was the God damned United States Government.  The most I thought they’d do was fire me and take back their offer.  But it didn’t matter if Lacie could keep my secrets.  It didn’t matter at all,” Parker said softly as she stared straight ahead at a spot on the wall.

Garrett wanted to tell her to stop.  The entire time she told the story in a monotone voice with no emotion, he wanted to pull her towards him and shake the life back into her.  He’d never seen her so void of everything that made her
his
Parker as she told the story.  The spark was gone. The smile was gone and he couldn’t stand it.  It killed Garrett to know that he’d been right, that they had taken something from her.  He knew about her father and the abuse she took from him, but he had no idea there was more.  More pain, more regret, and more guilt that she kept buried inside.  But it just didn’t make sense.  The CIA didn’t go around killing people if you told them who you worked for.  The non-disclosure agreement should have just been in regards to the assignments she did for them.  Someone wanted to make sure she kept quiet about what she did for a living.  He’d bet his life it wasn’t the CIA.

“I’m so sorry.  You have no idea how…”

Parker turned to face Garrett and covered his lips with her fingertips.  She didn’t tell him so he’d feel sorry for her.  She didn’t bring forward a memory that cut into her soul just so he could look at her with pity in his eyes.

Garrett had scooted as close to Parker as possible while she spoke.  He knew it was more for his benefit than hers.  He had an extreme need to feel her against him, no matter how simple the touch was. Their shoulders and thighs were pressed together and they both had their backs against the headboard.  When Parker turned to face him and pressed her fingers against his mouth, Garrett could feel her breath on his face they were so close.  He could see the pain in her eyes, and he wanted to take it all away just to see her smile again.

“You can’t feel sorry for me, Garrett.  I made the choices I did, and I’m responsible for the consequences.  I just need you to understand that none of this—none of the lies, the pretenses, the sneaking around—it had nothing to do with our friendship or my trust in you and
everything
to do with keeping you safe.  Keeping
both
of you safe.”

Garrett closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Parker’s.  He should feel like the biggest asshole for being happy she hadn’t kept all of this from just
him
.  It seemed like Milo had been as much in the dark as he was. Garrett knew the one thing that angered him the most in all of this was that maybe she just hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth.  Garrett should have known better, and he admonished himself for thinking something like that about his friend.  Everything she’d done had been to protect them, and he threw it in her face the first time she’d been honest.

Garrett eased his head away from hers and stared at her face.  He took in the light dusting of freckles on her nose, her full lips, and her long, dark lashes that framed the most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen as she opened them up and looked at him.  This was his friend, for better or worse.  She’d lost so much in her short life, and he wasn’t about to do anything to mess up the bond they shared.  He promised himself that if it was the last thing he did, he would find out who the hell had been messing with her life when she joined the CIA.  When this mission was over, he’d make sure they paid.

But right now, Parker needed him as a friend more than anything else.  A friend that wouldn’t let her down, a friend that would keep her secrets and understand the decisions she made.

But most of all, a friend that wasn’t mesmerized by the way her tongue darted out to wet her lips or the way she seemed to lean into him.  Parker’s hand rested on his chest, and Garrett wished she would take that hand and push him away.  But like a magnet, he felt himself being pulled towards her, so close their noses grazed against each other.

Garrett shouldn’t have wanted to kiss her right then.  He shouldn’t have wanted to know if her lips tasted like sugar or her tongue felt like silk inside his mouth.  He felt like he had no control of himself when he was near her, and he didn’t understand why she was letting him in, allowing him to get this close.

Parker swallowed and tried to slow her breathing, tried to force her chest to stop moving up and down so quickly with each drawn breath.  She felt the excitement in her stomach and welcomed it.  The way Garrett looked at her right then made her think he had his own secrets.  He stared into her eyes and down at her lips like he wanted to kiss her, like he wanted to devour her.

She wouldn’t make the first move, of that she was certain.  Parker wouldn’t be able to take getting shot down by the one man that could unravel her entire existence just by telling her no.  All she had to do was tilt her chin forward and her lips would be on his, but she couldn’t.  Garrett had never made any indication that he felt anything for her other than friendship, and she refused to make a fool of herself no matter how much she ached to taste his lips and slide her tongue against his.

“Anna,” Garrett whispered as he looked back and forth between her eyes.

He rarely, if ever, called her by her first name unless it was in jest.  The way he said it now, like he was aching inside, made it impossible for Parker to move away from him.

They both knew there was something different about this moment, maybe it was the fact that Parker had opened up to Garrett and shared something that she never told another living soul and it brought them closer together.  Whatever it was charged the air with electricity and made everything around them disappear.

Except for the ringing of the phone on the bedside table.

Chapter Nine

Saved by the Bell
had never been a more apt description for a moment than the one Garrett and Parker currently found themselves in.  When the phone rang, the spell had been broken.  They jumped apart and Garrett answered the phone before it rang a second time.

Five minutes later Brady was knocking on their door.  Garrett let him in and Brady took a moment to look back and forth between the two roommates.

“Is everything okay?  Did I interrupt something?” he asked with a smile.

“No!” Garrett and Parker both shouted at the same time.

“I mean, no, you didn’t interrupt anything.  We were just…” Parker paused, her brain flashing to images of her and Garrett kissing and rolling around on the bed, hands touching, clothing dropping, and mouths connecting. 

She hastily bent over and started grabbing the papers that had been shoved aside when Garrett first sat down earlier.

“We were just going over some of the things Parker found while I was gone today,” Garrett finished for her.

He tried as hard as he could not to look at Parker’s toned ass as she bent over the bed to scoop up the reports, but it was right there, and the movements she made as she leaned over the mattress reminded Garrett of what she would look like if he had her bent over that same bed, chair, couch, or kitchen table, and pounded into her from behind.

Parker stood up and turned around, forcing Garrett to breathe a sigh of relief and groan in frustration at the same time.

“So, Marshall, what did you find?” Parker asked, getting down to business, fantasies of her friend pushed aside for the moment.

Garrett looked between the two in confusion, and Brady jumped in to explain.

“Parker gave me a list of the shell corporations she uncovered that lead back to Fernandez.  She wanted me to look into them further and see if I could come up with anything that didn’t look right.”

Garrett nodded in understanding and motioned for him to go on.

Brady walked up to each of them, handing them a few pages he printed out.

“At first, everything on that list seemed on the up-and-up, even questionable businesses that you would normally think of as being perfect front companies.  Massage parlors, tattoo shops, saunas, insurance sales—things like that.  Every single one had spotless books and records.  Every penny is accounted for, complaints that had been filed were disputed and proven false, and employee records were comprehensive and organized.”

Parker and Garrett scanned the pages while Brady spoke.  He was good at what he did, that was certain.  He dug as deep as he could and got the information they needed, taking copious amounts of notes on the pages he printed.

“What’s Agencia de Destino?” Parker asked, looking up from the page.

“I believe that means The Target Agency,” Garrett said with a smirk.

It made Garrett feel good to actually know something Parker didn’t.  The big, bad CIA agent obviously didn’t speak Spanish.

Parker narrowed her eyes at him and responded rapidly.

“Yo sé lo que significa que culo.  Deja de mirarme como un pomposo gilipollas.  Tenemos trabajo que hacer, imbecile.”

Brady laughed and Garrett’s jaw dropped.

“I believe she just called you an ass, McCarthy.  And maybe a jerk.”

“Don’t forget dickhead,” Parker retorted.  “What I meant, before I was so rudely interrupted, was what kind of a
business
is The Target Agency?”

Brady flipped through some more of the papers in his hand until he found the one he wanted and handed it to Parker.  Garrett, finally recovering the ability to function, stepped over towards her and looked over her shoulder.

“According to tax records, The Target Agency doesn’t exist.  Not on paper at least.  The phone number goes directly to voicemail and instructs the caller to leave a message if they are interested in working for The Target Agency.  Very vague, no other information provided.  According to the Dominican Chamber of Commerce, The Target Agency is listed as a temporary staffing agency,” Brady explained.

“Why wouldn’t a temp agency have tax records?  Is it a new company?” Garrett asked.

Brady shook his head.

“Nope. According to the Chamber, it was established eight years ago.”

Parker looked up at Brady suddenly.  Something didn’t feel right about this.

“Eight years ago was when I was first brought in to keep tabs on Fernandez.  It was my first job and his first term as President.  His years as a senator preceding his presidential term left a lot of unanswered questions.  Many government heads here and in the U.S. were shocked when he won that first election.  There were rumors floating all over the place for years that he was involved in shady dealings.  He covered his tracks well though; we never found anything that tied him to the rumors.”

Garrett looked down at Parker’s face.

“Your first assignment was looking into Fernandez?” he asked in astonishment.

Parker turned her head to look at Garrett over her shoulder.

“It’s one of the main reasons your CO wanted me for this job.  He knew I was one of the lead investigators on this guy.  Risner knew I had a lot of inside information I could contribute.  Unfortunately, nothing we did for eight years ever turned up any pertinent information, like The Target Agency.  That business never showed up on any of our reports in the past.”

Brady chuckled lightly, breaking the stare between Garrett and Parker.

“Well, maybe that’s because you didn’t have me helping you out,” he said to Parker.  “For the record, I may have done a few illegal things to get this information.  Including charming a very beautiful, very young government official to obtain a list of non-profit organizations that are on the waiting list to be turned into for-profit once a thorough investigation has been done.  It turns out our little Target Company has been pushed back down to the bottom of the pile every couple of months.”

“So once it becomes for-profit…” Garrett paused.

“They have to start reporting tax information,” Parker finished.  “Son of a bitch!  No wonder we couldn’t find anything.  Who knows how many people Fernandez has under his thumb doing his bidding?”

Parker shook her head in disgust.

“What else?” she asked Brady.

“Well, from what I could find, The Target Agency states they have a minimum of forty-seven new employees that apply to become 'temps' every month.  On average, in the Dominican, staffing agencies get
maybe
fifteen new candidates each month.  So either they are a kick ass firm that finds people great jobs or—”

“Or they’re full of shit,” Garrett finished.