normally earned.
But it was time to move on. She would spend another hour downloading as much information as she could onto her supercapacity memory stick, then leave here and never come back.
Casanova would take her to a safe house. He’d promised. And then, when all the arrests were made and the perpetrators were in jail, she could start over somewhere else. A new job, a new life.
It sounded like heaven.
At ten after three, she was ready. She stashed the memory stick in her bra. Taking only her purse and umbrella, she told Peggy Holmes, Mr. Vargov’s executive secretary and the woman who knew everything, that she was going home early due to an upset stomach.
“Oh, my dear, I hope it’s nothing serious. You’ve missed only one day of work since you started here, and that was for a root canal. On a lower-left molar, I believe.” Peggy was in her sixties and had worked for Mr. Vargov for twenty-something years. With her tightly permed hair and dumpy, big-bosomed figure, she was everyone’s grandmother. But Lucy knew she was highly intelligent with an astounding memory for detail and an efficiency that bordered on pathological.
“I’ll be fine,” Lucy said, hoping it was true.
The idea of walking into the parking garage alone held little appeal. One of the security guards would have been happy to escort her, but if a hit man was waiting for her there, she might just be dragging the guard into danger.
She shouldn’t behave as expected, she decided. She would take the bus. There was a bus stop just a block from her office.
The weather was warm and humid with an insistent, light rain falling, but Lucy felt cold inside as she exited her building. She put up her umbrella, taking the opportunity to glance surreptitiously around to see if she spotted the man in the raincoat. But she saw no one suspicious.
She walked up the block, her sensible low heels tapping against the wet sidewalk. She pretended to window-shop, not wanting to stand at the bus stop too long. When she saw the bus approaching, she hurried to the stop and dashed onboard just in time. The only other people to board with her were a mom with two small children. Thank God.
When she got off at the stop near her Arlington, Virginia, town house, she still saw no one. Maybe she’d outmaneuvered him. Or maybe he’d given up on her, decided she was no one to worry about. He wouldn’t have found anything incriminating in her home. She kept the memory stick with her at all times.
Her tiny town house had only one door, and this morning she’d rigged it so she would know if anyone had been inside. She checked; the tiny hair she’d caught between door and frame was still in place. She inserted her key and entered, pausing to close her wet umbrella and shake it off on the porch.
She’d lived here for two years. Her uncle had found it for her, and she’d committed to renting it without ever seeing it. It was nice but boring—like her life had been until a few weeks ago—and she’d made no effort to turn it into a real home. She wouldn’t mind walking away from it.
As she closed and bolted the door, a hand clamped over her mouth and a strong arm hauled her against a rock-hard body.
Panic rising in her throat, Lucy didn’t think, she just acted. The umbrella was still in her hand. She aimed it behind her and jabbed her attacker in the thigh as hard as she could.
Her attacker issued a strangled gasp and loosened his grip on her just enough that she could bend her knees and drop. As she did, she grabbed one of the man’s denim-clad legs and yanked, throwing him off balance. He fell onto the marble floor with a painful-sounding thunk. Still gripping the umbrella, Lucy straightened, swiveled toward her attacker and went for his throat with the sharp tip of her impromptu weapon.
He grabbed the umbrella and deflected it. “Lucy, stop! It’s me, Casanova!” He jerked the umbrella out of her hands and tossed it aside. Unfortunately, he also knocked her off balance. She fell on top of him and found herself staring into a pair of the most remarkable blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“Casanova?” But she knew it was him. She’d recognized his voice instantly.
“Jeez, woman, are you insane? You almost killed me.”
“You broke into my home and attacked me, I fought back, but I’m insane?”
“You’re not supposed to be home until later. I had no idea who you were. And where did you learn to fight like that?”
“I took a self-defense class. What are you doing in my house?”
“If you’re under surveillance, I couldn’t just come to the front door. I broke in.”
“How? I have an alarm.”
“Your neighbor doesn’t.” He grinned, and Lucy looked up and into the living room, where she saw a huge hole in her wall. “You came through the wall? You didn’t frighten Mrs. Pfluger, did you? And what’s my landlord going to say?”
“You won’t be here to find out. We’re leaving.”
That was the first comforting thing he’d said. “Then you believe me?”
“Your house is riddled with more listening devices than the American Embassy in Russia. Someone’s been here, all right.” His expression turned grim.
Lucy dropped her voice to a whisper. “Are they listening? Right now?”
“My guess is the bugs are connected to a voice-activated recording device. They—whoever they are—probably aren’t monitoring live when you’re not supposed to be home. But we don’t have much time. They’ll catch up with you soon. I want to be long gone by the time they get here. So if you could, uh …”
Lucy was humiliated to realize she was still lying on top of him, and she hadn’t made even a token effort to move. She could feel every hard-muscled inch of him pressed against her body, and she had to say the effect wasn’t unpleasant. It had been a very long time since any man had touched her more intimately than with a handshake.
She scrambled off of Casanova, managing to knee him in the groin in the process, though not intentionally.
“Damn, woman, you’re dangerous.” He sat up and shook his head as if to clear it, and she got her first really good look at him. In all her fantasies he’d been handsome, but nothing had prepared her for the reality. He was gorgeous—six feet of highly toned body, thick, jet-black hair and those incredible eyes. His hair was all mussed from their impromptu romp, the way it might look if he’d just gotten out of bed.
Oh, Lucy. Knock it off.
“You’ve got exactly three minutes to pack anything you absolutely need. Medications, a toothbrush, change of underwear. Don’t worry about clothes.”
Lucy believed him. She ran into the bedroom, grabbed a couple of pairs of underwear and socks, her toothbrush and her allergy medicine. All of it could be tossed into a tiny backpack. Since she had a couple of minutes, she peeled off her skirt and sticky pantyhose and put on a pair of jeans and her running shoes. She didn’t know where they would go, how they would travel or how long before they stopped, and she wanted to be comfortable.
She emerged from the bedroom with seconds to spare. Casanova was waiting for her, looking antsy, rolling up on the balls of his
