Page 6 of Fox in Plain Sight

“Wow, do you always jump to conclusions this fast?”

“Only when the evidence is pretty clear.”

Both sides of his mouth tilted up. “What are you, Michelle, some kind of detective?” He leaned across the small table between them and set his drink down. “Should I be afraid of you?”

“Should you?” She ran her eyes over him once more. Maybe he should be afraid of her. After all, he looked rather innocent, and she was anything but.

By all accounts, she was a criminal, though she’d never really seen herself that way. She’d been a hacker since she’d first surfed the internet. Exposing things the government wanted to hide from its people had been her mission in life. Anonymous had been her family, anarchy her religion. But all that was gone now, because she had to serve the very enemy she’d fought against for so long: the US government. She couldn’t even run to her old friends, the other hackers, because doing so would only endanger them, expose them. She had to get out of this by herself.

Which begged the question why she was wasting time flirting with Nick. Because, yes, she was actually flirting with him. She would be better off getting back to work and trying to deliver the person Deep Throat was looking for.

However, everybody deserved a break once in a while. And what was the harm in talking to a nice guy for a few minutes? It was relaxing, and maybe this was the way to recharge her batteries and get a second wind for today.

“So you’re a local,” Nick said, just as she opened her mouth, talking over him, “You’re new to the neighborhood?”

Embarrassed she chuckled. “Go ahead.”

“No, no, you first,” he insisted.

“Did you move here recently?”

“Yes, this week. I’m from a small town in Indiana.”

Just as she’d thought: an innocent in the big city. “What brings you here?”

“Work. I needed a change of scenery.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I get that.” She wanted a change of scenery, too. Preferably a sandy beach in a country that didn’t extradite to the US.

“You work here in D.C.? At the university?” he asked.

“At the university?” Her eyebrows snapped together.

He motioned to her computer bag. “You look like you could be a lecturer or something.”

She smiled. If only she had a harmless job like that. “I think you need to work on your detective skills a little more,” she joked. “I could be a student.”

Flashing his white teeth, he said, “But you’re not. Not that you look old, but you look a lot more serious than any student I’ve ever met.”

“I could be a graduate student or a resident.”

“Yes, but they are generally too tired to stay awake.” He pointed at the young female doctor napping in a chair across from them. “Or too focused on their thesis.” Nick pointed to a young man typing away on his laptop so furiously that she was wondering if either he or his computer would start smoking soon.

“Point taken,” Michelle admitted, enjoying the little game they were playing more than she should.

“You’re gonna keep me guessing, aren’t you?”

“You seem to have fun. Don’t most men like a challenge?”

“Guess so. But I’m just a country bumpkin from Indiana. And you’re a sophisticated woman from the Capital. I’ve got the feeling you’d just be playing with me.” He winked.

The country bumpkin routine she didn’t buy at all, though it was cute, she had to admit. “You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you? Is that why you moved to D.C.? To try out your country charm with city women?”

“Something like that.” He reached for his mocha and took a sip.

“So what do you do then?”

“For a living you mean?”