Page 118 of False Flag

She glared at the animal who’d betrayed her. He rubbed his head against her ankle again, unconcerned. She bent down to pet him, and he stretched his head to meet her hand, letting out a loud purr.

It had only taken a few days for her to fall in love with the fuzzy rascal. Fezzik, she could forgive.

She didn’t feel the same about the man outside her door, who’d used his pretty face and sculpted body to try to get what he wanted from her: access to the Laskin files.

“Vicki. I know you’re in there.”

She considered turning on the VPN on her phone and emailing him from Florida, or better yet, Europe. He was a decent hacker and knew how to track IP addresses.

“Vicki...”

Her cell phone screen flashed with an incoming text.

Teague

Open the door. We need to talk.

She frowned at the phone, then replied.

Vicki

What? Sorry, I’m out running errands. No time to talk. Leave me a voicemail.

Liar

Her frown became a glare. She was, in fact, lying, so a denial would only make it worse when she opened the door.

Because they both knew—hell, probably even Fezzik knew—she would let him in. If he had intel on Staci or Jake, she had to talk to him.

Another text came in.

The neighbor across the hall is making a lot of noise. Pretty sure they’re watching through the peephole. Shall I knock on their door instead?

She lunged for the door and yanked it open. She glared at the SEAL and said, “Get in before the cat escapes.”

He grinned broadly and pulled a bouquet of orange, pink, and yellow roses from behind his back. He had the smile of an angel and the heart of an assassin. “Vicki. Sweetheart! I’ve missed you.”

She had no interest in playing her proscribed role in the drama he was presenting for Mrs. Birmingham. “I said get in.”

She stepped to the side as he crossed the threshold. He leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she ducked down, leaving him with nothing but air.

She scooped up Fezzik before he could lunge for the open door, then slammed it closed.

Mrs. Birmingham would have a lot of questions later, and Vicki would spin a good one, borrowing from the plot of one of Barbara Freethy’s romantic suspense novels. Teague would be an undercover FBI agent, but in this story, he wasn’t the good guy. No, he was most definitely the villain.

“Where should I put the roses?”

She studied the bouquet. It was gorgeous. Four of each color, all freshly cut and on the cusp of opening. “In the garbage.”

“If you’re mad at me, why take it out on the flowers?”

“They’re going to wilt and die anyway. May as well get it over with.”

“But Vicki, they still have time to bloom.”

She stared at the SEAL, resenting both him and the flowers. Teague could see potential in them, but not in her, not when his only real interest was in the data on her computer.

“You keep them, then.”