Page 24 of Nothing to Fear

Gideon cleared his throat. “Your car was inspected. I swung by the auto garage this morning. My mechanic said your cruise control cable was stuck, and the linkage in the manifold vacuum from the servo to the throttle was sticky. Which can happen in an older car, short-circuiting the cruise control. But he’s never seen a brake line shredded and rusted like yours. He couldn’t be certain, due the age of your car, but something about the corrosion and tears seemed off to him. It’s possible someone tampered with your brakes.”

“Why would someone mess with my car?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the new program you’re creating. Pandora. Maybe the mole thinks your program will expose him.”

The information rattled her mind. She stroked her pearls, willing her off-beat pulse to steady. Someone wanted to kill her? Over a computer program? Sounded like a plotline from one of the TV shows her dad watched. What if they tried again? Was the Gray Box safe?

But she had to go to work. Her job and her new program just became more important, if someone wanted to kill her because of it. Her stomach soured, and bile coated her tongue.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Finish the program while we work to find the mole. I’ll ask Maddox to give you a ride home after work, if that’s okay.”

Someone trying to kill her was the only thing that mattered in her head, but she cringed at the idea of Gideon pawning her off onto Maddox. If she earned a bigger paycheck, she would’ve insisted on taking a taxi. But a thirty-minute cab ride in the Beltway would cost a fortune.

Who was she kidding anyway? Willow being with a guy like him was as statistically likely as hitting the lottery. She was the quiet girl no one noticed, who lived with her daddy.

At least she didn’t have cats.

“Please, let Maddox know I’d appreciate a ride.”

09

Gray Box Headquarters, Northern Virginia

Friday, July 5, 8:35 a.m. EDT

Quiet settled in the car like a rancid smell in the air. Gideon turned on the radio, but music didn’t ease the strained silence. Willow’s blunt words, declaring what she wanted, had shocked the shit out of him. Nothing about her was disingenuous, making her even more appealing. He admired her chutzpah and wished things were different.

Wished he was different.

He parked in the closest spot, relieved to be at work. They hopped out of the Jeep and walked to the building without exchanging a word. He held the door open for Willow, letting her walk ahead, and waved hello to Stewart and Peter, the armed plainclothes security guards on duty behind the solid marble desk. There was an additional sniper positioned on the top landing, overlooking the entire main floor. Gideon always looked but never found him.

Avoiding the elevator ride with Willow by striking up small talk with the guards would’ve been easy but a chickenshit play. Besides, he enjoyed looking at her, talking to her, listening to her gentle voice.

Being near her sparked a strange desire for a simple connection, an insane longing for something he couldn’t explain, and it was testing him in a way he hadn’t imagined possible.

After a retinal scan, the elevator doors opened. They stepped in. Green lasers scanned them for unregistered devices that transmitted a signal, such as bugs or cell phones. Ridiculous how movies and TV shows had operatives in classified facilities with freaking personal cell phones. Nothing would ever stay classified if that was the real world. The green lights died and the elevator engaged, descending to the sixth sublevel.

The awkward tension in the confined space was worse, heavy and thick, static electricity a breath away from igniting the molecules between them. She stared at the illuminated numbers, making no attempt at idle chitchat. He hated when people spoke without purpose or a point.

With a chime, the elevator doors opened, and they strode off together.

“Thank you.” Willow stared at the floor as if she couldn’t bear the sight of him. “For yesterday. For everything.”

Finally, her gaze lifted and settled on his face. The hurt and disappointment reflected in her eyes plowed through the defenses he’d spent the elevator ride building.

Willow was exposing his emotional soft spots better left locked in his vault. The woman was…whatever you’d call the opposite of the apple in the Garden of Eden. Instead of tempting him to sin, she made him long to be a better man.

For a moment, he couldn’t tell the difference between what he was fighting for and defending against. “You’re welcome. My pleasure to help.”

“These are for you.” She handed him a Tupperware container, and he took it. “They’re blueberry scones with a lemon glaze. My mother’s recipe.”

She turned, hurrying to the Intelligence section before he could thank her. A foreign sensation erupted in his chest, dark and brutal. He couldn’t shake the sense he was losing something important. He fucking hated losing.

Daniel Cutter—a real fast-burner who used others for fuel—intercepted her. “You’re late.” He cut in front of Willow, bringing her to a jerky halt. “I need your status on the Pandora program for the weekly situation report to send to the chief.”

Built like a boxer, Cutter had a stellar reputation with the Marine Force Recon before joining the Gray Box, but his busy nose was in almost every mission.