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Lara and hadn’t thought a single thing about passing Freddy’s missive to her in front of Connor.
Lara herself was another story. She usually bucked authority in her own peaceful way. He wondered if Lara would have surrendered Freddy’s letter so easily if they hadn’t slept together the night before. Sex seemed to put her in a deeply cooperative mood.
Or not. If he hadn’t exited the bedroom at the right moment, Lara would have opened the door herself, and this letter would now be in her hands. His game would probably be over.
Connor tore open the envelope. Yep, there it was. Somehow the fucker had found a picture of him from the Yale newspaper taken during his senior year. Those photos were supposed to be history. All pictures of him had been removed from the Yale database. Of course the Agency couldn’t stop people from scanning their hard copies in. This photo showed him standing next to Zack as they walked out of the student union. They were both younger, but their faces were clearly depicted, their identities obvious.
Your bodyguard is one of them. There were six. Crawford, Bond, Spencer, Sparks, Calder, and Hayes. I think your guy is actually named Connor Sparks. He’s here for our data. He will protect the president at all costs, including killing us both. He works for the shadow government. He’s the one Hayes would hire. There’s almost certainly blood on his hands. I have to leave. I can’t stay with so many of them around. They were in your apartment last night. I watched them go in. I’ll pray for you, Lara. Fight the good fight.
Freddy.
Fuck a duck. He was going to have Roman’s ass. The asshole had sworn they would be quiet as silence and as undetectable as air. They weren’t supposed to leave any fucking witnesses.
What was he going to tell Lara? He couldn’t show her the note, but he also couldn’t destroy the entire contents of the envelope. He needed to use Freddy’s paranoia against him.
Connor very carefully tore the picture, deleting himself entirely. He folded his half of the photo and the note, then tore both into tiny pieces before flushing them down the toilet.
It was all he could do for now. Connor couldn’t deny that Freddy had figured out who he was quickly and couldn’t forget that the man would be back.
This missive also told him that Freddy was investigating Zack for some reason. That meant Lara was helping him, and he couldn’t have that. She needed to stay as far away from Zack as possible.
Things were getting complicated, especially his feelings for her. She was a weakness and he’d never had one before. Sure, he had his friends, but they were all savvy and played things safe. Lara was reckless. She seemed convinced that she could save the world.
Connor knew the world would eat her alive and he couldn’t let that happen.
He opened the door and walked back out, wishing like hell that Kiki and Tom hadn’t shown up.
“Is everything all right?” Lara was standing in the living room as he walked out. “Kiki left. I locked up and warmed breakfast.”
He’d been looking forward to it. Now he was going to have to force himself to eat. “Good. I’m starving.” He handed her the envelope. “Nothing scary. Just an old picture of the president. Why would he send you that?”
She opened it and looked down at the picture. “I’m not sure. He printed this. It looks like the source might have been a newspaper, but this came from his printer.”
“Maybe he found it on the Internet. Hayes looks young in that picture.” It had been snapped before Joy died, back when the hair at his temples hadn’t been threaded with silver. Zack joked that his bit of gray made him look older and more competent to voters, but Connor remembered the day he’d first seen those signs of aging in his friend. It had been at Joy’s funeral, as though his grief needed a physical outlet.
“I wonder where it was taken. I’ll have to research it. If he left it for me, it must be a clue. Hey, you know the president, right?”
He hated lying to her. He tried to work his way around blatantly lying. “I’ve worked with him a bit.”
It was true. He’d worked with Zack since they were lab partners in chemistry.
“Do you know Roman Calder as well?”
Shit. He took a sip of coffee. She’d refreshed it like the good hostess she was. He reached out and pulled her close. He knew how to distract her. “I know who he is. Kiss me good morning.”
Her whole body softened against his. She responded as if she’d been made specifically for him. “I already kissed you good morning. If I remember correctly, I did more than kiss you.”
“Kiss me again.”
She rose up to her toes and pressed her lips to his. Every single time she kissed him he felt it in his gut, in his dick, in his flipping chest. He was in deep with her, but he couldn’t make himself get out. He gave her a moment and then sank his hands into her hair and took over, delving deep inside her mouth. Arousal warmed his body. God, he couldn’t seem to get enough of this woman.
After a moment he pulled away, briefly kissing her nose before he took his seat and grabbed his fork. “So what was Freddy working on? Why did he bug out?”
Connor hoped Freddy had actually left the area. It would make his job so much easier. He needed to separate the guy from Lara, and he didn’t like the idea of having to silence a disturbed vet.
Eggs. Real, from-a-chicken eggs. Sure they were scrambled with god only knew what kind of vegetables, but compared to her tofu, it was like heaven. His appetite resurged.
“He thought he saw a big group of men in black. You know, the kind who silence people with too much knowledge.”
“I’m well aware of the term.” Hell, half the time he was the boogeyman and he did, indeed, wear black. The color not only blended in with the night, it hid bloodstains well. “So he saw a couple of dudes in black suits and decided they were here for him?”
The eggs were cooked perfectly. He didn’t even mind all the veggies.
“That’s how his mind works. But Kiki thinks he might have seen Roman Calder in the building because she saw the guy in the lobby on a trip back from the drugstore really early this morning.”
He was going to kill Roman. Had his old pal forgotten the whole op was supposed to be secret? Had he just run around chatting up people in the hallways? “Why would he be here? Although if he was, he would likely come with a security detail. That would explain the men in black.”
She settled in across from him. He loved how pretty she was with no makeup on and her hair in a messy bun. “That’s what I thought. I don’t know why he was here. There are a couple of congressmen who keep apartments in the building. There’s also a former model on the fifth floor. Do you think he’s having a fling?”
“Could be.” At least she wasn’t buying Freddy’s theory.
“I might look into it. It’s a juicy story. Of course, Freddy also told Kiki you were one of them. In fact, he thinks you not only let them into the building, you allowed them into my condo last night.”
And just like that his appetite was gone. What else had Freddy told Kiki? “Really? I’m working with the president’s chief of staff? I need to figure out where that paycheck is going.”
“I happen to know you weren’t running around with a big group of men in black last night. You were busy.” She smiled. “Freddy is suspicious of any new person in his life. I still don’t think he’s the one stalking me.”
Connor shrugged, unwilling to give her an answer. “Why would he think men in black are dangerous? Is it the alien stuff?”
“Actually, I was going to talk to you about that.” Her cajoling voice put him on edge. She wanted something from him. He was starting to learn her tells. She only used that sexy voice on him and that was very likely why it would work. If he could give something to her, he would. “I told you we’d been investigating a possible story.”
“About the president.” Somehow he couldn’t see Freddy working with her on an innocuous article about the president’s lovemaking prowess.
“Yes. We were investigating a th
eory last week before you arrived. This was something Freddy has been working on for months. He found some supporting footage and actually traveled to three different states to get copies of the original, unedited tape. I have no idea what he paid for it, but he kept it off the Internet. He had it on a hard drive and I’m sure he took that with him, but I finally convinced him that if I was going to be able to write a convincing story about this theory, I would need a copy of whatever he’d acquired. He was making me a thumb drive so I could study it, too. I left it on his coffee table along with my notes. I need to go get that.”
