Page 488 of Tease Me


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“Not yet,” he said. “We’re waiting for the subpoena before we touch any of your emails or texts. But the Carbonados will have read them, probably months ago.”

I nodded. “That’s good, right?”

“Or they’ll think it was a cover story.” TJ squeezed my fingers. “And then there’s the article you’re writing about Luka Kovac. He’s bound to be suspicious about the story you’re writing. How, exactly, did you approach him about that?”

“It was dumb luck, actually.” I recounted how my editor had met Sunnie Singleton, one of DC’s society mavens at a luncheon. She’d recently been on a charity committee with several diplomats’ spouses, all of whom had interesting lives of their own. “She pitched the story to my lifestyle editor. When I saw Luka’s name on the list, I jumped at the chance to write a series. I tried not to appear too anxious. Luka’s my third subject in the series. The first two articles in the series have already been published.”

TJ drew his brows together. “Do you remember the date of the luncheon?”

“Yes. It was on July third, right before the holiday.”

TJ put his comms unit back in his ear and spoke. “Penn, Sparks, I need you to dig up everything you can about Sunnie Singleton over the past three months. Find any ties between her and the Kovacs, Slovenian embassy staff, and any known or suspected Carbonados members.”

It hadn’t been dumb luck or coincidence. It had been a setup. How could I have been so stupid? “I should have seen it,” I muttered. “This was a test. They were baiting me.”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” TJ told me. “These guys are good at what they do.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t even make it challenging for them. I didn’t use to be so scattered and naïve and—” I sucked in a shaking breath to calm myself. Tears clouded my eyes. I blinked them away. I was already pathetic enough without devolving into a crying fit.

“At least you didn’t give him any reason to doubt you.”

“Only because you stopped them from catching me in Izak Kovac’s office.” Why had I thought I could get away with that? Where had my common sense gone? Luka had chummed the water with details about the embassy offices and the last-minute gala invitation. When I’d caught a whiff of the opportunity to dig up dirt on Kovac, I had shut down every survival instinct in pursuit of something, anything, that would help me avenge my trauma and Aiden’s death. I now saw all too clearly that I could have suffered the same fate. “Thank you,” I said, barely holding it together. “Thank you for saving me from the Kovacs.”

TJ laid his second hand over mine. He gave his team a few more orders, then removed his comms unit again. He re-clasped my hand between his and spoke to me in his reassuring tone. “We’ll make him pay for his part in what happened to you and your friend, and a lot of other crimes, as well.”

I believed him. “What can I do to help?”

“You’ll keep your meeting with him next Tuesday, just like we planned. Keep it light. Kessler will guide you. You’ll be wired with a small device that will be able to lock in on Kovac’s phone signature, and then we’ll be able to monitor everything he does on it.”

“After that, do you really think I’ll still be in danger, or is there a chance I could go back to my old life?”

“We can’t stop you.”

My hopes soared.

“But we can’t protect you and your family, either. I can’t promise you’ll be safe until we take down Kovac.” He stared down at our hands. “I’m not going to lie to you, Ashlee. Getting to his phone is step one of possibly ten or twenty or one hundred. It’s going to take a while.”

I was back to the same place I’d been a few hours ago, but this time, I didn’t give into the panic. What would be the use? I wanted to find a way to go home, to see my family again, to see TJ again outside the walls of this building. To do all of that, I needed to keep my wits about me. I needed to be smart about my next step. I needed a plan. And I needed to remain as focused as possible for as long as it took to formulate one.

10

TJ

I stood in a cold shower and washed away the stress of the long day. I’d gone from invested observer to almost lover to bearer of bad news to bearer of worse news in Ashlee Armand’s life, all in under eight hours. I climbed out of the shower, dried off, and pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants. I needed a good, stiff drink—nothing like the dreck Jensen had fixed for the team earlier this evening—and a better night’s sleep. Maybe then I would be able to think more clearly and come up with a way to allow Ashlee to safely return to her life.

I tried to ignore the suspicion that my motives weren’t entirely altruistic. If Ashlee were no longer on Kovac’s radar, maybe I would be able to see her again. If she even wanted to see me again, after the day we’d had.

A knock on the door made me groan. But I took a deep breath and called, “Just a minute,” and grabbed a T-shirt from my bedroom. My team members didn’t bother me in my private space unless it was important, so I never turned them away. A minute later, I pulled open the door to find Ashlee in a pair of white shorts and T-shirt, a very tight, pale green T-shirt. I was drawn to stare at the spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks and her unruly hair spilling down her back. I thought about pinching myself to see whether I had fallen asleep and was dreaming her.

She rolled forward on the balls of her toes, full of energy for someone who’d had such a tough day. “You should invite me in,” she said with a grin.

I started to grin back but stopped myself. That opening had led us down a forbidden path once already today. “It’s late. You should get some sleep.” Jesus, I sounded like my grandfather.

She didn’t seem to notice my decrepitude or my lack of an invitation. She peered past my shoulder. “Are you having a drink?”

Well hell, I could hardly add bad manners to my list of poor behavior. “Please, come in. May I pour you a whiskey?”

She was across the threshold before I even finished speaking. “Yes, please. Do you have ice?”

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