Page 23 of The Apparent Trap

“My segment is over. There’s no reason for me to be hanging around the building,” he points out.

“Fine, I can go in in like an hour to ask Carmen something and just casually drop a comment about beans to my dad.”

“Perfectly James Bond,” he says, his serious expression twitching to a smile.

“What does that make you?” I ask, opening the door to walk out of the crying room.

“Moneypenny, of course,” he says with a wink. I automatically roll my eyes, and he laughs, like he just couldn’t help himself.

He starts walking down the hallway, but then he turns back.

“It’s Leonardo, by the way,” he says.

“I’m sorry?”

“My name is Leonardo Morgan, but I’ve gone by Lee for twenty-five years, so that’s what it is now.”

“Why?” I ask.

But he just smiles and starts walking away. “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out,” he replies, his back already to me.

Chapter 8

“There’s a murderer named Leonardo Morgan?”

“That was fast.”

Lee’s voice comes through the phone as smooth as it is in real life. Only a psychopath picks up an unknown number, but apparently nothing fazes him.

I couldn’t help it. While I was impatiently waiting for enough time to pass between the food being delivered and happening to wander into Carmen’s office, I googled Lee’s real name. And once I got back to my desk, I somehow found myself looking in the talent directory to get Lee’s cell phone number before I could remind myself that that was probably a bad idea.

“There’s a murderer with your name,” I repeat.

“Yes, Ezzie,” he says with a chuckle. “There is, indeed.”

He doesn’t ask how I got his number. It probably doesn’t even occur to him that anyone wouldn’t have it. He’s probably the kind of guy who gives out his number to women all the time and then completely forgets, so none of this is out of the ordinary.

“So you use Lee because you didn’t want to be confused with a murderer from decades ago.”

“Did you find the part where he was caught because he had uniquely small feet?”

I snort a laugh. “No, I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

“Yeah, mortifying, right?”

“I’d say the murdering-people part is mortifying, but I guess women’s priorities are different than men’s.”

“We are but simple, egotistical creatures.”

I have to stop laughing. “But there wasn’t Google when you were a kid, so you wouldn’t have known.”

“Yes, thank you for reminding me of my decrepit age. I’m really approaching the AARP.”

“Okay, we’re in the same generation, please,” I say. “I’m only like a decade younger than you. Google also wasn’t popular when I was a kid.”

“To answer your question, this was a post–high school, culinary job–related change. So yes, there was Google. And yes, maybe there was also a Dateline episode about it that, let’s just say, raised the profile.”

“No.”