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“No, I’m here…” He spins away, making it hard to eavesdrop on the rest of his conversation. “I’m in the courtyard by the west entrance. Could you watch her for a little bit?” He stops and grinds his back molars. “You know I don’t have anyone to watch her. If I did, I wouldn’t have accepted a placement from the other side of the country.” I can’t see his face, but I picture his smirk when he murmurs, “Of course you’d think I overstepped the mark with my previous nannies.” Another pause. “How? This is the first time we’ve left the house in months!”
He continues toward the main building, tugging a disgruntled Lucy with him.
They’re only just out of earshot when I’m startled to within an inch of my grave. “He’s a little old for you, isn’t he?”
With a roll of my eyes, I twist my torso to the familiar voice. Agent Macy Machini smiles a blinding grin before angling her head to the side and twisting her lips. “Are you ready?” She gestures to the skyscraper on her right. “They’re waiting for you.”
“How long are they wanting me to go under this time?”
My nails dig into my palm when she answers with a sigh. “I don’t know. But you can back out at any time. No one will hold it against you. You’ve given them more than enough.”
“But?” I ask, aware there is always more.
I’ve been guilt-tripped into doing things I would have never done if my father were alive. The regularly used line is “Then he will go free.” He—as in the man who killed my mother.
Macy rubs my arm but doesn’t free me from the guilt enough for me not to follow her to a conference room most likely bursting at the seams with federal agents who’d rather see me dead than protect me.
The knowledge makes me desperate to mix things up, but I’m lost on how to end the cruel cycle that’s been my life as of late.
That is until my eyes lock on a murky-brown pair at the end of the corridor.
Lucy is seated on a chair outside the FBI director’s office, kicking her legs back and forth. She looks on the verge of tears. It is understandable when you spot the hideous finger puppets the director’s secretary is trying to entertain her with. They’re as old and ghastly as the wrinkles scoured in her face and dustier than the cobwebs I’m sure no one has cleaned out from between her legs in the past century.
I’ve seen many horrendous things in my short life. However, this one pains me more than I care to admit. Mrs. Boucher isn’t doing anything to upset Lucy, but it takes everything I have not to rip the stupid finger puppets off her fingers and ram them down her throat.
The only reason I don’t is because I have more pressing matters to deal with.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
Macy’s arched brow reveals her shock, but she hides it well. “Sure. They’re down the end of the hallway and to the right.” She removes her credentials from her neck. “You’ll need these to get back in.”
I snatch the lanyard out of her hand before hightailing it in the direction she gestured. To ensure my ruse doesn’t get busted before it’s fully implemented, I angle my head to the side to shield my face with my hair as I bypass Lucy.
My breath catches when my eyes lock on Lucy’s father seated across from a plump man with a salt-and-pepper mustache. His shoulders are sitting as low as his daughter’s, his face as sorrow filled. He is utterly miserable yet oddly endearing at the same time.
I’m so taken aback that I crash into the receptionist’s desk instead of veering past it.
“Are you okay, dear?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” My stern and snappy tone is the only thing stopping me from swearing.
When I peer down to inspect the damage caused to my thigh, my breath catches in my throat for the third time today. The director’s appointment book is open. It is settled on today’s date and exposes the name of the man currently sitting with the director.
Agent Brodie Davis.
“But do you need to sit in the middle of the walkway?” With my eyes locked on the lady I’m guessing is close to triple my age, I grip the open page of the planner, then push back on her desk. “You could really hurt someone.”
The shredding of the page from the planner is hidden by the receptionist barking back with a bite sterner than I thought she’d have. “If you had been watching where you were going—”
I lose the rest of her reply when I jog to the end of the hall, scan Macy’s credentials over the electronic lock next to the restroom, then sprint into the open space like twenty agents are hot on my tail.
