“Yes, of course I will.” She jotted down the password he gave, then decided to indulge her curiosity by asking, “Are you still at the Mira?”
The line went silent, as though he were thinking deeply about her question. “Yes.”
She bit her lip against asking for more details. Clearly he wasn’t in a talkative mood. As if he ever was. She rolled her eyes and her attention caught on that afternoon’s mail. “Oh! One more thing. I forgot. A letter came in for you a few minutes after you left from an express courier service. It’s international and it’s got urgent stamped all over the front and back. From a Mr. Paolo Hawk.”
She paused as a crazy idea took shape in her mind. Her only New Year’s resolution was to finally start crossing items off her bucket list, and one of those items was to be more daring—at work and in her social life. It might be less than two hours until the stroke of midnight, but this was her first chance to get started.
“Wait, what did you say?”
“A letter from Honduras. And it looks urgent.” He started to speak again, but she cut him off, knowing if she didn’t get this out now, she might never. “What if... How would you like...” She drew a bracing inhale. Come on, Meadows. You can do this. “Would you like to meet for coffee tomorrow? I could bring you the letter then.”
He sighed. Not a good sign. She waited in silence, her mortification growing. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, he answered, “Yes. Okay. Take it home with you. That would be best. I’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Over coffee?” She cringed. She’d sounded a bit too desperate with that question.
“I have to go. Don’t forget to email me the file. Oh, and don’t tell anyone we talked. Got it?”
“Oh.” What the heck was going on?
“Avery, will you do that for me?”
Any other time, she would have thrilled at the sound of her name from his lips, but an uncomfortable tingling had begun in the back of her throat. This wasn’t normal, not the request for secrecy or the strain that had leaked into Agent Reitano’s usually unemotional voice. “What’s happening? Is there someone I need to call? Agent Mickle or—”
“No,” he barked before continuing more softly. “Please. Don’t tell anyone, especially Mickle. If you want to help me, email me the file, then go home and take that letter with you.”
Despite her misgivings, she trusted all the agents in her office. If Agent Reitano needed her to keep a secret as a matter of national security that might aid in Vincenzo Chiara’s capture, then she would.
Vincenzo Chiara was one of the world’s most wanted men. An Italian black-market mercenary, his crimes included forcing children into slavery and prostitution, the murder of innocent people and orchestrating the sale of drugs, weapons and anything else on demand in the black market.
She glanced again at the department’s emblem. It was time to step up and do what she was born to.
Pumped and feeling good about her decision, she sat up straighter and looked at her watch. Drat. She was already late. Kristen was going to kill her. Oh, well. National security never took the night off. “I’m on it, Agent Reitano.”
“Thank you. And Avery? Call me Ryan.”
Oh. What she needed now was a witty comeback, something flirty and fearless. She screwed her mouth up, thinking hard, but before her brain had a chance to kick into gear, the line clicked dead.
She held the receiver away from her face and stared at it for a beat before dropping it into the cradle. So much for witty banter.
Waiting for Agent Reitano’s computer to boot up, she fingered a stack of Post-it notes and tested his name aloud. “Ryan. Good morning, Ryan. Have a good weekend, Ryan. Would you like to take me home and have your way with me, Ryan?”
Hmm. Felt weird on her lips. Apparently, a first-name intimacy with Agent Reitano was going to take some getting used to. She turned her attention back to the computer.
“Uh-oh.”
The monitor was black save for an error message.
“No, no, no,” she muttered as she pressed every function key to no avail. She tried again, this time pushing the function keys and the control button simultaneously. Nothing. Avery knew her way around a computer. She typed a hundred words a minute and could locate anything on the internet. Spreadsheets and data fields were her comfort zone. But when it came to the actual technological components that made her beloved machine work, she was as clueless as a monkey.
In desperation, she resorted to the only key combination she knew—Control, Alt, Delete. She depressed all three keys with a silent prayer, but the dang thing had the audacity to beep at her like the survey machine on Family Feud.
With an offended scowl, she pushed the power key until it shut down and began to reboot.
The office was loaded with computers, Avery didn’t have access through her own computer to the virtual storage cloud the agents used and she couldn’t jump onto another agent’s computer because each was privately passworded. If she couldn’t get Agent Reitano’s computer to work, her best bet was to scan the hard copy—if there was a hard copy.
Still barefoot and with the paper clip chain attached to the zipper slapping at her back with every step, she walked to the rows of file cabinets and went straight to the drawer where she’d put the Chiara case file that afternoon. She flipped through the files but found nothing on Vincenzo Chiara.
Baffled, she searched again. It should’ve been right in the front, but it was gone. She laid her palms flat over the tops of the files and considered her options. Before she got ahead of herself coming up with a plan C, she checked back at Agent Reitano’s—Ryan’s—computer. It had finished rebooting and the same error message from before still glowed on the screen.
She poked the monitor, muttering a mild curse, then jogged into Director Tau’s office. A quick scan of his desk for the file’s hard copy yielded nothing.
His file cabinets were locked, as she knew his desk would be, so instead of wasting more time, she pivoted and went straight for Agent Mickle’s desk, the other agent working the Chiara case.
It was locked.
With another, more stringent curse, she walked back to Agent Reitano’s desk. Maybe the hard copy of the case file had been right under her nose and she’d been too focused on the computer error to notice. The desktop was bare except for the bald eagle bobblehead figurine Director Tau had given him when he’d transferred to the department, as was the office tradition. And, as was the office’s tradition, Mickle and the other agents had promptly dressed the eagle in a pink Barbie bikini top and coordinating hat.
With her hand on the top drawer handle, she warned the desk, “Don’t be locked,” then gave a tug.
It opened, sending Bald Eagle Barbie’s head bobbling and pens in the drawer rolling. She eyeballed each drawer in turn but didn’t see the file. Or anything interesting or personal in nature. Nothing to give her a clue into the life or personality of her stoic office crush.
She had her head in the bottom drawer,
