Express Male (26 page)

He made his way across the deserted parking lot to the big, black BMW which, five months ago, he’d started parking in the farthermost corner of the lot instead of his assigned space. The lot was well lit at its center, but grew darker at the far reaches. Too, in this corner, bushes grew thick and tall and fat. Great cover for anyone who might need it. As he did every night, Noah listened for sounds that might alert him to trouble as he approached his car. And as he had every night for the past five months, he listened for other sounds, too.

Tonight, finally, he heard what he’d been waiting for.

Instead of thumbing the key fob once to unlock the driver’s-side door, Noah thumbed it twice, to unlock them all. And although he couldn’t see his companion through the denseness of the bushes, he knew he wasn’t alone. He never faltered in his stride as he approached his car, and not once did he offer any indication to anyone who might be watching that tonight was any different from any other.

He opened the driver’s-side door at the exact same moment someone else opened one in the back, then he folded himself inside. He adjusted the rearview mirror to reflect the backseat, where he saw a lone silhouette against what little light was outside. And quietly, he said, “Hello, She-Wolf. ’Bout damned time you showed up.”

T
WO WEEKS AFTER
embarking upon her field assignment, Ellie Chandler sat down at her kitchen table to write the first of her reports for Noah, describing her progress to date. Then she decided it might be better if she fixed herself a drink first. In fact, she might need the whole bottle for this. So she padded barefoot to her wet bar—which was actually the cabinet above the kitchen sink where she stowed a single bottle of Johnnie Walker Black for occasions such as these—snagged the Scotch and a juice glass, and poured herself one neat.

Some kick-ass superspy she was turning out to be, she thought as she capped the bottle again and carried it and the drink back to her seat. Mata Hari and Emma Peel had to be shaking their heads in disappointment. Hell, even Julia Child had been better at espionage—and also poaching a chicken—than Ellie was. So here she sat in her apartment—early enough on a Monday night that she should have been out carousing with friends—all alone, dressed in baggy blue-and-white-striped pajama bottoms and a Teen Titans T-shirt, trying to put a positive spin on ways to say “I’m a menace to society.”

Because Ellie finally had to admit—to herself and to OPUS—that when it came to being a spy, she sucked. Bad.

The only success she’d seen in completing her assignment had come about because of Daniel Beck. Since the night she’d told him to stay out of her life, she’d learned nothing new on her own, had identified no further contacts, had forged no creative theories about what might be going on at ChemiTech. Nor had she been able to narrow the list of suspects—except for being certain Daniel wasn’t one, but she’d known that from the start. And she’d made no connections with the information she did have.

The notes from Baird’s desk had been interesting, but not incriminating. The files they’d downloaded from Truman’s home computer
looked
incriminating, but unless she could find something to tie them to everything else, she didn’t know what to do with them. The files she’d plundered early on at ChemiTech contained a lot of information, much of it intriguing, but without the big picture, there was no way to know for sure how it all fit together. Or even
if
it all fit together. And she had no idea where the big picture lay. She only had lots of pieces, few of which connected to anything cohesive.

Ellie was stumped. She’d done everything she knew to do, had tried every trick up her kick-ass spy sleeve. But the trail OPUS had picked up, and which she’d tried to follow, had hit a brick wall. She was certain there was something on the other side of it. If she could only find the secret passage that would allow her entry.

She was lifting her drink to her lips for another sip when she heard the sound of Daniel approaching his apartment. She’d learned a long time ago to recognize his leisurely tread in the hallway, the way he jingled his keys as he searched one-handed for the right one, the whisper of paper or plastic, depending on what deli or grocery he’d hit on his way home. On the weekends, a woman’s voice or laughter often accompanied his, but on weeknights, like now, he was alone. Though, come to think of it, Ellie hadn’t heard him come home with a woman this past weekend. In fact, she’d heard the television going in his place on Friday and Saturday night both. Unusual for him to have a dry spell that way. Even if he didn’t bring a woman home with him, he usually had plenty of invitations to go to a woman’s place instead.

She’d only seen him a handful of times since the night they’d spontaneously combusted in Sebastian Baird’s office. And each time had been worse than the one before it. They exchanged stilted greetings, maintained a safe distance from each other, studied each other in silence for a moment, then manufactured some reason for why they had to go. And with every new encounter, Ellie felt the gap between them widen.

She still wasn’t sure what had happened that night. Other than that she’d screwed up bad. She winced when she realized her phrasing. Not just because of the pun, but because what had happened with Daniel had been a lot more than screwing and in no way bad. At least, for her. Judging by the way Sebastian Baird had reacted, though, it hadn’t been any more than another night at work for Daniel.

Ellie hated it that she was now like every other woman he knew. Even if their relationship before that night hadn’t been exactly what she wanted with him, she’d at least known she was special in some way to him. She hadn’t been one in a string of conquests, the way the rest of the women in his life were. Now, she was. And like the other women, now that he’d had her, he would quickly lose interest.

As incredible as that night had been, Ellie wished it had never happened. Yes, she’d always wanted a sexual relationship with Daniel. But that was just it. She wanted a relationship. And she’d ruined any chance of that by having the sex first.

She waited for the sound of his front door opening and closing, but instead heard a knock at her own. Her first instinct was to ignore it and hope he’d think she wasn’t home. But she knew better. Because he knew better. Over the past year, they’d become so familiar with each other’s habits and behaviors, so familiar with each other, that there were times when Ellie thought they could read each other’s minds. She was going to miss that. A lot.

She scooped up her drink to consume a fortifying sip on the way to answer the door. Then she inhaled a deep breath, ignored the way her skin suddenly seemed to be hot all over—gotta love that Johnnie Black—and turned the knob. Daniel was dressed in his usual work attire of baggy cargo pants and even baggier T-shirt, a faded blue jean jacket hanging open over both. He was carrying two paper bags from Panda China and wearing a very serious expression.

“We need to talk,” he said by way of a greeting.

Ellie pressed her forearm against the doorjamb and held the doorknob firm with her free hand. “About what?”

“About your spy mission.”

“Assignment,” she corrected him. “We don’t call them missions.”

He uttered an impatient sound. “Well, whatever the hell it is, we need to talk about it.”

She tightened her grip on the door, mostly because she wanted so badly to invite him inside and say or do whatever she had to to get them back where they were before everything fell apart. God, she’d missed him. Her entire life had felt lopsided not seeing him. She honestly hadn’t realized how much she had come to take for granted the dinners and conversations they’d shared. She hadn’t realized how much enjoyment of her life had involved just spending time with Daniel. Not seeing him had made her feel fractured somehow. Incomplete. Awkward.

She wasn’t herself without Daniel. She wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before they had sex. Even if it meant she spent the rest of her life longing for more with him than she would ever have. Because now she would still be longing for him. And now she would know exactly what she was missing.

“I can’t imagine why we need to talk about that,” she said. “You’re not a part of the assignment. You never should have been.”

A muscled twitched in his jaw, and his mouth flattened into a tight line. “Yeah, see, that’s what we need to talk about.”

Ellie said nothing. Mostly because she had no idea what to say. No idea what to do. No idea what to feel. So she decided to, for once in her life, err on the side of, if not caution, with hope. She pushed the door open wide and said halfheartedly, “All right. Come on in.”

He held up a paper bag as he entered. “I brought dim sum.”

She managed a lukewarm smile. “Thanks. I haven’t had dinner.”

He nodded toward the drink in her hand as he headed for the kitchen. “Looks like you’re drinking your dinner. Haven’t seen you do that for a while.”

She sighed without much enthusiasm. “Yeah, well, my life hasn’t been this messed up for a while.”

He stopped in his tracks, turned to look at her, eyeing her warily.

“With the job, I mean,” she hastily clarified. No need to scare the guy by making him think she was talking about her love life. Even if she was talking about her love life.

But instead of looking relieved by her reassurance, Daniel’s expression hardened. “Yeah, the job,” he said. “God forbid you should ever think about anything besides that.”

The icy words caught her off guard, though she knew now she probably shouldn’t be surprised by them. “Daniel, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings when I told you I didn’t need you for the job. But I
didn’t
need you,” she reiterated. “And it
wasn’t
your responsibility. You weren’t even supposed to know what was going on. Getting involved could have put you in danger. Not to mention that the whole point to the assignment was to test my skills working solo.”

He studied her for a long time in silence, then seemed to relax a little. He nodded, then covered the rest of the distance between him and the kitchen, setting the bags on the counter. “And how’s that going for you?” he asked as he began to unpack them. “The working solo, I mean.”

Ellie closed the door and bolted it, then joined him in the tiny kitchen. But she kept her distance, leaning back against the refrigerator, instead of moving to help him with the food. She sighed again. There was no reason to lie to him. Once she submitted her report to Noah, they’d probably be pulling her from ChemiTech, anyway, and sending in a more experienced agent who knew how the hell to do the job.

“It’s not going anywhere,” she said.

He did glance up at that, but instead of looking triumphant and crying, “I knew you’d be lost without me!”—which was probably what she would have done had the tables been turned—he looked sympathetic.

“I suck as a spy, Daniel,” she continued morosely. And strangely, it felt kind of good to finally admit it. “Even though being an agent is the only thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, even though I can’t imagine working for any other organization, even though I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do with my life now…”

She shrugged and battled the tears she felt threatening. Kick-ass spies didn’t cry, she reminded herself. Of course, dumbass spies probably cried a lot, so what was the big deal? In spite of that, she pulled herself up and repeated, “I suck. There’s no way they’re going to let me be an agent. If I want to keep working for OPUS—and I damned well do—then it’s going to have to be as a secretary.”

Daniel pulled the last of the containers out of the bag, opened her cabinet where she kept plates and glasses, and began to withdraw two of each. Without looking at her, he said, “Okay, Ellie, here’s the thing. I think I found proof that Truman is your guy.”

Her reaction would have been the same if he had just walked over to slap her across the face. “What?”

Still focusing on his task instead of her, he repeated, “Truman is the person who’s been feeding government secrets to the bad guys. And I have proof.”

Ellie set her drink on the counter, thinking she’d had enough Scotch for one night if she was hearing Daniel tell her he’d just done her job for her. “That’s impossible,” she said. “I checked everything I could get access to, and none of it could incriminate him. Hell, half of it was stuff OPUS already knows.”

Daniel closed the cabinet and turned to look at her, but his gaze ricocheted off of hers the moment it made contact. “But, see, I sorta found some new information at ChemiTech,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that looked at once defensive and apologetic.

She eyed him narrowly. “That’s impossible,” she said. “There was no new information at ChemiTech.”

He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, clearly a nervous gesture. “Actually, there was,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “I looked everywhere I could for information, Daniel,” Ellie told him, “and there was none to be had. How did you come by this info? Divine intervention?”

Now he did meet her gaze. “No, I went by my gut.”

“Your gut,” she echoed flatly.

He nodded. “For starters, yeah.”

“And then what? You had an Alka-Seltzer to soothe your gut and found a secret message in the foil wrapping?”

He dropped his hand back to his side, shoved it into his pocket, removed it again. Then he crossed his arms in that defensive way once more. “No, I used my brain.”

She closed her eyes, counted slowly to ten, then opened them again. Nope, she wasn’t hallucinating. And her brain wasn’t fuzzy enough to be affected by the Scotch. Daniel was still standing in her kitchen. And he was still looking at her like he knew what he was talking about.

“Maybe I better start at the beginning,” he said.

“Maybe you should.”

But instead of doing that, Daniel opened the fridge and withdrew a beer, uncapping it with a quick, wet hiss. He lifted it to his mouth to drain half of it without stopping, then lowered it again, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. “I just couldn’t let Truman off the hook,” he finally said. “Especially after what we found at his place that night. I knew it was him. Why would a guy transfer from Marketing to Research and Development anyway? Aside from the prestige, I mean.”

Yeah, those R & D guys were total glamorama, Ellie thought drily. A couple of them even bought their polyester pants new and sprang for prescription acne meds. And what girl wouldn’t want to go out with a guy who could split atoms in his mom’s basement?

“Anyway, I’ve just always had a bad feeling about him,” Daniel continued. “So I started poking around in his office when he wasn’t around to see what turned up.”