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He shot a covert glance toward the hallway. “I can do the talking for both of us. Leave you out of any threads.”
What, did the man use a messenger pigeon? “I’m already tangled up in all the threads,” she retorted. “Besides, I have a secure phone in my car.”
“And how do you propose we get to that phone?”
Josie couldn’t believe she’d walked into such a convenient trap. “You’ve got me right where you want me, Randall. What’s the deal here?”
His face tightened into an irritated glare. “The deal is—I asked for your help and you came. So we have to see this through. Get over the notion that I’m out to do you in. I have enough problems without that kind of attitude.”
The man who’d fooled so many people was lecturing her about attitude? Josie wanted to handcuff him and take him into town, fast. But she had agreed to help him. Getting Armond had to be her only goal. For now.
“Okay, so what’s the protocol? How did you handle things with your last liaison?”
Connor lowered his voice again. “I came and went on my own most of the time, but when I needed to get a message out, I sent a text on a secure phone to an address that looks like it belongs to my sister, Deidre.” He put a finger to his lips to indicate they still needed to whisper.
Josie mouthed the words. “With an encryption?” How cloak-and-dagger of him.
“Yes, several codes. My friends know all of them.” He touched on his phone.
Josie nodded. The text messages were rerouted to the FBI. “I see your point.”
“Will that work?”
She nodded. “We need to let my, uh...boss know I’ll be late for work.” She glanced around, sure someone was listening right along with watching them. “Really late.”
“I’ll fix it,” he replied.
Not liking his smug tone, she shook her head. “No, we’ll fix it. You don’t make a move without me, understand?”
“Got it.” But he gave her a look that indicated he didn’t like her bossing him around. Then he started back tapping at his phone.
Wanting to wipe that smug smirk off his handsome face, she got right in his ear. “Maybe your last contact got transferred for this very reason, Randall. You didn’t play by the rules, and you didn’t bring Armond down when you had a chance.”
His expression hardened to stone. “Look, we can play this game of ‘I don’t like you, Connor Randall’ all night or we can get word out that you’re in and we’re a team now.”
He was right. They were wasting time standing here while Armond could be escaping out the back door. Or worse, while he waited for them to force the issue, or else. “If his people do a background search, they might figure out I’m FBI,” she said. “So we need to establish that I’m legit so we can stall him. Once we have him at the safe house, I’ll come clean.”
Connor clicked his phone. “I’ll tell Deidre that I can’t wait to see her on Mother’s Day.”
“That’s sweet, but this doesn’t involve your mother.”
“If you studied my file, you’d know my mother is dead,” he retorted with iron force.
“Sorry,” Josie replied, truly apologetic. She had studied his file. Several times. She should have remembered that fact, but the man had her all tied in knots. She attributed that to plain not liking him and missing her favorite pizza, but she had a feeling it went deeper than that. “Mother’s Day is your code...for what?”
“Mother’s Day means I’m in,” he explained. “My fail-safe is Thanksgiving.”
Josie almost smiled at that. “Is the Easter Bunny one of your cute little codes?”
“Funny.” He didn’t laugh. “No, but Memorial Day is coming up. A whole month or so with you, Josie. I see fireworks in my future and, yes, this could be memorable.”
“Just get back on task,” she replied, but she saw the gleam in his interesting eyes. So Mr. Cool had a sense of humor and he knew how to flirt. Too bad she really didn’t care. “So we go with Mother’s Day. And?”
“And I’ll be staying here for the weekend with my friend Josie, who needs to settle in and get established in her new position. Josie ‘handles’ things for people.”
