The P.U.R.E. (26 page)

Too late, Jon. If you’d told me who and what you were, Burrows wouldn’t be holding two sets of the same pages.

He launched into a wealth of other interesting facts. My temper rose from a simmer to a rolling boil as his deceptions multiplied.

During the Turner’s party, while I tossed my cookies in the powder room, he doubled back to bug Bob’s home office. He bugged Bob’s and Jeff’s Anderson-Blakely offices too. In addition to the pages I’d copied, he also made a copy of Jeff’s office key after I went to work.

I cringed hearing all his revisions to our common history and blanched when I discovered an agenda that never had anything to do with humoring or wanting to be with me. All our time together had been to further his mission … well, mostly. I’m sure screwing me did nothing to stop bad guys other than put a smile on Jon’s face.

Fucking bastard! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!

The coup de grace was Burrow’s reference to the pages
I
found—the Rosetta Stone to the investigation. Once they seized the computers Jeff kept at his Richardson home, the FBI would crack open Jeff’s hard drive files and gather more incriminating evidence with the password information those pages contained.

How ironic an IT security expert would be undone by breaking one of the cardinal rules of password security—writing them all down.

Jon had already tapped into Jeff’s Internet connection to monitor his online activities with the logins and passwords. A feat he no doubt accomplished when he took a short break from working on Jenny’s car.

Argh!

He downloaded so much evidence in one night the FBI was hours away from closing in and making arrests. Whisking Marilyn away somewhere safe would kick off the final phase of the operation.

If Jon hadn’t lied to me from the get go about who he was and what he was up to, I’d have been mightily impressed by his skills as an FBI agent. I had no such magnanimity in me. If anything, the professional accomplishments he took sole credit for underscored his abuse of my trust.

I maintained a stony silence for an entire hour and refused to chime in whenever Marilyn ‘oohed and aahed’. As Marilyn and Jon laid out their plans to hide her, Agent Burrows motioned me into the hallway. He handed me a business card from Lawless, outlined next steps for my involvement and dismissed me. I slipped out of the attorney offices and pulled the door quietly shut behind me.

Humiliated, I scurried away. I’d parked in the garage at Anderson-Blakely’s offices, not knowing how long I’d be tied up with Marilyn and Agent Burrows—and because the Saturday rates were reasonable. Access to the garage after hours was via the building’s tunnel, so I made my way to the lobby after a quick pit stop to buy a soda and some gum.

“Gayle, wait!”
Oh hell.
Jon had hunted me down. Why hadn’t I slipped into the jungle of the downtown Dallas shops for an hour? I ignored him and kept walking.

His footfall increased as he ran to catch up.

“Go away, Jon,” I said as he fell into stride with me.

“We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t. I’m a big girl. I get it already. You were just doing your job, so congratulations, and you’re welcome.” I didn’t want to look at him.

He grabbed my arm and stopped me, swinging me around to face him. “No, you
don’t
get it. You don’t know the whole story. Burrows doesn’t know the whole story.”

“Maybe not, but I do have a say in what the last chapter’s going to be—something short and sweet. Wanna hear it?” I jerked my arm out of his grasp, gave him the finger with both hands, and spat out, “Fuck you, Jon! Figuratively speaking, that is, because you’ve stuck it to me for the last time.” I turned and stalked off.

He caught up to me again. “I didn’t lie to you as much as you seem to think I did. Will you at least give me the opportunity to sort out the real parts from the cover story?”

“No. Please just leave me alone.” My voice sounded thick and quivery, and my eyes filled with tears, tears he had no right to see.

I’d have rather been struck dead by lightning than let him discover how much he’d gotten to me. He’d done the unforgivable—he’d made a fool of me and capitalized on it.

I remembered how we joked around about him playing James Bond to charm Nicky into letting him into the storage room. I was no better than Nicky. I’ll bet he got a rip-roaring laugh out of the irony of that and all my other amateurish Nancy Drew schemes—probably shared them with his FBI buddies. Poor little nerdy accountant thought she could play with the big boys.

As soon as we entered the lobby, I dashed into the ladies’ restroom. He wouldn’t follow me into such an emasculatory chamber.

I sped into one of the stalls and sat down. The tears that overflowed and fell made visible wet spots on my skirt. I let them go unchecked before I seized a huge wad of toilet paper to try to staunch them and another wad for my nose. Every square inch of me ached from his betrayal and the knowledge we were over. I’d lost him, or he’d lost me, if I’d ever had him to begin with. My breath came in stutters before I finally began to calm down.

Someone entered the ladies’ room, and I froze, hoping it wasn’t Jon. A woman’s high heels clicked across the tiles and into the stall at the far end. Over the next ten minutes, a series of other women came and went. What the hell? Was there a convention in the lobby?

I regained control and dried my face as best I could. Hopefully, no bits of tissue stuck to me anywhere. Jon might still be waiting outside for me. I needed to splash some cold water on my eyes before facing him again. I didn’t want him, or anyone else, to think I’d been crying over his sorry ass.

I unlocked the stall door and pulled it toward me not registering that Jon blocked my way until he hauled me into his arms and kissed me.

He tightened his embrace and kissed me harder the more I fought. When he lifted his mouth, still holding me close, he whispered, “This has always been real, Gayle.” He crushed his lips to mine again.

I stopped struggling and gave in to the sensations he roused strong enough to overcome my anger. When his hold changed from one of restraint to one of passion, I shoved him away.

“You’re too late, Jon. I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you. Just drop the whole act because I’m nobody’s fool.”

“No!” He raised his voice, and the only other woman in the ladies’ room fled. He seized me by the arms and gently shook me. “No. It’s not too late, and you’re not leaving me until you hear me out. Gayle. Please.” His voice cracked.

I stared at him.

His eyes drooped; his mouth sagged. If he faked his anguish, he was a better actor than most of Hollywood. Maybe there was a kernel of sincerity, but the idea of continuing our conversation in the ladies’ room seemed more humiliating than any more of Jon’s revelations.

“Fine, but not here. I do have a few tattered shreds of pride remaining.”

“Well I don’t and am not too proud to go wherever you like, do anything you want. Whatever it takes. You pick the place.” The stricken look on his face crumbled my resolve to be rid of him. Quantico trained its agents well. I could almost believe him if I let myself.

“Fine. Let’s go to that restaurant Scarlett and I ran into you having lunch with Thalia, the woman who may have been your fiancée or who may have simply been part of your cover. Who knows? I have no idea who
you
are anymore.”

He gave me a half smile and sighed. “Okay. Let’s go. Can I convince you to ride with me in my car? I don’t want to walk that far and chance you changing your mind and giving me the slip.”

“Oh, I doubt an ignorant civilian like me could give a top-notch FBI agent like yourself the slip if you didn’t want me to, but fine, my feet hurt anyway.” I really was a pathetic sap and totally out of my league because luring him away to ditch him hadn’t even occurred to me.

When he opened the car door for me, I found a Hershey’s kiss lying in the middle of the passenger seat, remarkably firm and unmelted despite the November sun shining on it for several hours. How did he do it?

“You can stop with the parlor tricks now too, okay?” I threw the chocolate at him, striking him in the shoulder.

“I didn’t put it there. I have no idea where it came from.” A smile bullied its way onto his face.

I didn’t appreciate his making fun of me. “Right. Cut the crap, Jon. Let’s just go.”

35

Jon tried to slide his arm around my waist to guide me into the restaurant.

I recoiled. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Sorry.” His face was as crestfallen as if I’d shot his dog. For the first time since we faced each other at Agent Burrows’ office, I sensed a shift in control from Jon to me.

We ordered nachos and a couple of soft drinks. I leaned forward with narrowed eyes. “Okay, I’m ready to listen to your story, but I don’t want any sort of bullshitting or emotional blackmail. I’ll ask my questions first. You can cover whatever I missed that you think matters afterwards.”

He nodded and clasped his hands on the table in front of him—Judas at the last supper.

“What’s your real name, the name your parents gave you at birth?”

“Jonathan Taddeo Cripps.”

His admission deflated my balloon further. The spy who duped me hadn’t even used a fake name. I frowned despite myself. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you a CPA?”

“Yes.”

Even worse!
Did James Bond have a day job? Somehow I doubted it.

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-five.”

“Aha! Did you or did you not just graduate this past May from Texas A&M?”

He turned a little to the side and covered his mouth with his fist, obviously trying to hide a smile—the arrogant bastard. “Yes and no. I graduated three years ago from Texas A&M. The FBI recruited me, and I spent a little over five months at Quantico in training. I spent a few more months studying forensic accounting and IT systems, then two years working in DC in the government contractor section of the white collar crimes division. I relocated to the Dallas branch this summer. My first assignment as a field agent was to go undercover as an Anderson-Blakely new hire.”

“Okay. I believe you so far. Thalia Milano—who is she?”

“My ex-fiancée and nothing more. She’s the reason I gave up the DC job I loved, moved back to Dallas, and became a field agent. We had drifted apart because of our long distance relationship, but I had to at least try to make it work. My relocating didn’t help at all though. One of us would have ended it for good sooner or later, even if you hadn’t come along. When I met and fell in love with you, it had to be sooner.” He made me sound like a home wrecker.

“You said she was seeing someone else when you broke up with her. True or false?”

He shifted a bit in his chair. “I did say that, so true.”

I rolled my eyes. “Stop playing games with me. You know what I meant.”

His expression darkened. “I regret saying that. I don’t know if she was or wasn’t, and I don’t care because our breakup was about what I wanted, not Thalia.”

My shoulders sagged from a brief flash of guilt at how I’d been the bigger bitch when she’d collected her things from Jon’s apartment. At least she and I had made a shaky peace with each other. We suddenly had a lot more in common.

“Was that really your sister I sort of met?”

“Yes, that really was my sister, Jenny.”

“Is she aware of what you do for a living?”

“Not completely.”

“Seriously? What does not completely mean, anyway?” He wasn’t even straight with his sister? I frowned at the implication.

“She knows I
used
to work for the FBI but thought I quit when I moved back to Dallas.”

“Hmph. Did they teach you how to fight at Quantico?”

“Yes, but I’ve studied and practiced Krav Maga since I was twelve.”

“What’s Krav Maga?”

“It’s the Israeli army’s version of self-defense.”

I drummed my fingers on the table, contemplating my next question. He held my gaze as he sipped his drink, patiently awaiting my next move.

“Was I just the hapless staff person who stumbled onto the Aphrodite job with you, or did you have a deliberate strategy concerning me?”

“Mostly hapless, other than I used my powers of persuasion to sell you on asking to be assigned to the job with me. I did so for my own selfish reasons, which had nothing to do with my assignment.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair. “None of this was part of a conspiracy to hoodwink you into assisting with our investigation. You’ll recall, I only reluctantly went along with most of your schemes and theories—at first anyway.”

I mimicked his movement and kicked back in my chair. I narrowed my eyes at him, if only to convey that he still resided in the doghouse—without a forwarding address.

“Schemes and theories that panned out and made your job easier, I’d like to remind
you.
” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “True. Thank you.” Again he smiled. No doubt he thought he was wooing me back. We’d just see about that. I ceased the interrogation that only underscored my cluelessness and glared at him.

“Are you done now?” he asked.

“For now, but I reserve the right to ask additional questions as they come up.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded a few times, and his demeanor sobered. “Gayle.” His gaze stayed fixed on me during the pregnant pause that followed.

“Jon,” I repeated in his style of high theatrics.

“I’m in love with you. The way I feel about you has nothing to do with who I work for or what I do or did, other than I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed, but I refused to let him distract me. “Foul ball, Cripps. I said no emotional blackmail. So stop it now, or I’m walking.”

“Gayle.”

“Get on with it, please.”

He straightened in his chair, pulling his fisted hands into his lap. “Telling you would have been a serious security breach and a threat to Marilyn, to you, and to the whole operation. Just having you involved, even without your knowing the truth, threw a huge monkey wrench in everything. You affected my ability to do my job and not in a good way.”