Club Brazil like they’d planned. She hustled to her desk and fished her purse from the floor.
“Hey, Krissy.”
“Where are you? We’ve been standing here for twenty minutes.”
That late already? She chewed her lip and glanced at her computer screen to check the time—but all she saw was the same error message as on Agent Reitano’s computer. Stifling the curse that was on the tip of her tongue, she smacked the side of the monitor, then sunk into her desk chair. “Sorry I didn’t call. Something came up.”
“Aw, sweetie, are you still at the office? You’ve got to snap out of this work rut you’ve been in lately. You need to get a life.”
Avery was about to protest that she had a great life, and was, in fact, on the verge of crossing off the first item on her bucket list. And maybe a second one if Agent Reitano followed through on her coffee offer. But she didn’t have time to get into it with Kristen over the merits of working late on a case, not when Agent Reitano was expecting that transcript.
“Yes. I’m still at work. National security never sleeps, ya know.”
“You already used the work excuse to weasel out of joining us for dinner tonight, and now this? I know what’s really going on.”
“You do?” Avery asked.
“You mentioned the other day how lame you felt being the only single person in our group. You don’t still feel that way, do you? ’Cause you’d be the only one.”
True, it bugged her that she’d be partying with three couples. No one liked being the odd man out, but she’d never use that as an excuse not to go dancing with her friends. Just this once, though, she was going to let Kristen run with the idea.
“It’s so awkward, Krissy. Who am I going to kiss at midnight while you, Gina and Megan suck face with your men?”
Kristen groaned. “Oh, come on. Midnight’s not for two more hours. Plenty of time for us to find you a hot guy to ring in the New Year with. Have a little faith.”
Avery stuffed the letter from Honduras into her tote bag along with her work clothes. “All right, you win. You guys head into the club and scope out the scene. I’m going to have to meet up with you in an hour or so, after I take care of something here at work. If you see a cute guy who’s my type, do whatever you have to do to keep the other girls away from him until I get there.”
“I hope you’ve picked a new type because Zach was the last pretentious, tofu-obsessed jerk I ever want to see you with.”
Zach was the son of her parents’ best friends, and Avery had only stayed with him as long as she did because it’d made her parents happy to see her with someone they approved of, someone with their same lofty ideals and political leanings—or so they’d all thought.
Avery glanced at Agent Reitano’s desk. “I think from now on I’m going to go for the strong, silent type. Tall, dark hair and eyes. And lots and lots of muscles.”
“I like the way you think, but every girl goes for the strong, silent type. If I find an unattached one, I’ll try to save him for you, but you’re going to have to do your part and get here fast.”
Avery slapped the side of the computer monitor, but the blasted error message shone firm. “I’ll do my best.”
Once she got Kristen off the phone, Avery took one more look around the room. If there was any place she forgot to check for the Chiara file, it certainly wasn’t announcing itself with a neon blinking sign. There was nothing left to do but call Agent Reitano and find out how he wanted to proceed.
She called his number, but it flipped straight to voice mail. She left a message, then wrote him a text message.
Now what did she do? She had no idea why he needed that transcript of a wiretap tonight while he cased the hotel, but, frankly, it was none of her business. She wasn’t even supposed to know the LM1204 file was a transcript of a wiretap. Besides, if he said he needed it, then that should be good enough for her.
She had one more option left, but it wasn’t a particularly great one. Agent Reitano wouldn’t know this because Avery tried not to spread it around, what with all the national secrets she was privy to at the office, but she’d been cursed with a near-perfect photographic memory. She knew the contents of the LM1204 file by heart and could re-create it for him word for word, because the week before, when she’d waited at his desk while he signed off on a stack of evidence transfer paperwork, she’d seen the file open on his computer monitor. All she needed now was a functioning computer to type it out on and she could re-create it in minutes flat.
Her apartment was a half hour away through New Year’s Eve traffic. It would be much faster to walk the six blocks to the Mira Hotel and lay out his options for him in person. She could even recite the transcript if he wanted to go that route.
Far from being concerned about blowing his cover, she was confident she’d fit in great with the downtown party crowd, dressed to kill as she was in her slinky pink gown. She couldn’t imagine a solid reason why she shouldn’t go for it.
She slipped her feet into the pair of four-inch strappy black heels she’d spent two weeks breaking in by wearing every waking minute she spent in her apartment. Though she’d probably walk with a limp for days afterward, she was determined to start the New Year off in the shoes she’d maxed out her Macy’s card for.
A dab of gloss to her lips, a toss of her hair to give it some oomph and she was ready to go.
She set the office alarm, turned off the lights and locked the door, tote bag and purse in hand. After a quick stop at her car in the underground parking garage to drop off the tote bag in the trunk, she strode to the street-level exit and into the cool night air. Halfway down the first block, she recalled the paper clip chain swinging behind her. Mortified, she pulled her hair out of the way and tried to remove it. When her efforts failed, she stuffed the chain down the back of her dress and kept moving.
Computers or no, this secretary was seeing her job through to the bitter end tonight. After all, Moneypenny would never allow such trifling matters to stand in the way of her work, and neither, by God, would Avery.
Chapter 2
The ice machine released another round of tumbling ice as Ryan dragged the second unconscious man into the supply closet attached to the ice and vending machine alcove and cuffed him to a plumbing pipe. The first man groaned. It was the only noise he’d made since Ryan had smashed his head against the mirrored vanity in the hotel room.
Reaching around to the small of his back, Ryan withdrew the 9 mm he’d confiscated from the groaner and tapped him on the head with the barrel. “Anybody home?”
After he let out another pitiful sound, the man’s head lolled to the side. Out cold again.
With his dress shoe, he toed the sneaker of the second man, a lean, fair-haired Eastern European–looking sort. “What about you? You alive in there?”
Nothing.
Damn it. With so much at stake, he didn’t have time for this. He rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling, reining in the maddening frustration. Ten long years he’d been at this, hunting the man who haunted his nightmares. Ten years of near
