LITMIR.BIZ

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      She wished her parents didn’t have to worry, though. She wanted to ask Bryan if she would ever see them again. But she had a feeling he really didn’t know the answer to that question. Something was troubling him. She got the feeling he was on shaky ground, that the turn this investigation had taken had thrown him for a loop.

      He hadn’t believed her when she’d told him she was being followed. He’d only come to her town house because she’d threatened to disappear with all the data. He’d been very surprised to discover she was right, that the operation was blown to bits.

      Did he suspect she was the one who’d blown it?

      “I didn’t give myself away,” she said abruptly, wanting to clear this up right now. “I was extremely careful. Until today I did the downloading only five or ten minutes at a time, always when I was alone in my office, the door closed. I never said anything to anyone. Ever. And no one had access to the memory stick. I kept it in my bra.”

      He looked over at her. “Really? Is it there now?”

      “Yes.”

      The car swerved slightly, and not for any apparent reason. Lucy wondered if something as innocent as mentioning her bra had startled Bryan. But how could it? The guy was a spy—he’d probably seen things unimaginable to normal people. Surely the mention of women’s underwear wouldn’t faze him.

      Especially her underwear, which was about as boring as underwear could get.

      It had been a very long time since anything she said or did had any effect on the opposite sex. She had buried that flirtatious, reckless girl under a frumpy suit, thick glasses and mousy hair, and she’d done it for a reason, she reminded herself.

      So Bryan had probably been avoiding a bump in the road.

      They drove for almost five hours, but the days were long in July, so it was still daylight when they hit New York. Lucy had been to the city many times, but it had been a while, and she’d forgotten how much she loved it. New York had an energy unlike any other city in the universe. Even if she’d had her eyes closed, she’d have known she was here. The traffic noise and exhaust fumes were peculiar only to this place.

      “Are we staying in Manhattan?” she asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Are you putting me up in a hotel?”

      “No. I don’t want to go anyplace where ID is required until we get your new name officially established.”

      “A safe house, then?”

      “The safest.”

      He flashed her a brief smile, and it was the first time she’d seen him looking anything but grim since they’d met. That smile did things to her insides. No wonder cranky Mrs. Pfluger had become so cooperative. If Bryan had taken ten more minutes, the older woman probably would have dropped her own pants. Jeez, Lucy couldn’t believe she’d taken off her jeans in front of a strange man. But she’d been just panicked enough not to care.

      They’d crossed over to Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel, and in midtown they were surrounded by skyscrapers, buses, cars, taxis and pedestrians. People were everywhere. And such interesting people! All colors, shapes and sizes. Some were elegantly dressed—theatergoers on their way to catch the curtain perhaps. Some in bedraggled business attire, waving down taxis, looked like they were just getting off from a long day at the office. And of course there were the ubiquitous colorful characters—hot-dog vendors, shady men selling designer-watch knock-offs and bootleg DVDs, and your garden-variety vagrants.

      She’d forgotten how much she loved this city, though it held some painful reminders, as well. Normally she didn’t allow herself to think about her last time here, when she’d made a headlong dash home, crying the entire way. But now she did, and she found the pain wasn’t so sharp anymore. She felt more sad and wistful than anything.

      She’d healed during the past two years. She’d needed the downtime, the safe haven her job at the bank had provided. But she was ready to move on now—older and wiser. She was actually grateful to the embezzler, whoever he or she was, for shaking her out of her boring, complacent life, or she might have remained there indefinitely, afraid to live again.

      She was living now, that was for sure. Riding up Tenth Avenue in a Jaguar with a spy. Not your everyday occurrence.

      Lucy cracked open her window, and the wonderful city smells assailed her. She got a whiff of some exotic food—garlic, tarragon, curry—and her stomach rumbled. It occurred to her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and even then she’d barely managed to choke down some yogurt. She’d been too nervous about her situation.

      “I’m starving,” she said. “Any chance this safe house will have food in the fridge? Or maybe we can order in Chinese?” she asked hopefully.

      “Don’t worry, I’ll feed you.”

      They were driving through the Upper West Side now, the street lined with posh shops, trendy restaurants and bodegas, and residential high-rises where the beautiful people lived. Most of her time in New York had been spent around here, near Cruz’s apartment.

      They passed a restaurant called Une Nuit—“One Night” in French. Though it was early by Manhattan standards, a line of trendily dressed hopefuls was already forming at the door.

      “I read about that place,” she said, nodding toward it. “In People magazine, I think. Or maybe The Buzz. Some movie star had a birthday party there or something.”

      “It was one of the Hilton sisters.”

      “Oh, so you keep up with the gossip? How does a spy have time to read The Buzz?”

      “Actually, I didn’t read about it. I was there.”

      “No kidding? You know the Hilton sisters?” Lucy had always been starstruck. She’d been addicted to celebrity magazines since junior high and had fantasized about someday being one of the beautiful people—or at least hanging out with them.

      She’d learned the hard way that the celebrity scene wasn’t all parties and glamour. In fact, beneath all the glitz, it could get pretty rotten. But even after her unhappy brush with that life, she hadn’t lost her fascination with it.

      Bryan didn’t answer, but he pulled his car around a corner and into an underground garage, inserting a pass card to gain entrance.

      “Um, we’re not actually stopping to eat, are we?” Lucy asked, looking down at her orange polyester pants. “I mean, I’d love to go to that restaurant someday, but they wouldn’t let me in the door dressed like this.”

      He grinned. “I could get you in. But, no, we’re not going there right now. This is actually your safe house.” He pulled into a reserved parking space and cut the engine.

      “Seems a funny place for a safe house,” she commented. “I thought we’d be a little more … isolated.”

      “A safe house can be anywhere, so long as no one knows about it.” He led her through a door that was marked Entrance Une Nuit. But once inside a small, featureless foyer, they didn’t follow the signs to the restaurant. They boarded a rickety-looking elevator. Bryan pushed a button that had no floor number on it.

      “Password, please,” came a computerized voice.

      “Enchilada coffee,” Bryan replied. The elevator started up.

      The amazement on Lucy’s expressive face gave Bryan a rush of pleasure, and he had to admit that, despite the gravity of his situation, he was enjoying Lucy’s reactions. He’d expected her to be a basket case, a perpetually panicked paranoid. But she’d risen to the occasion, showing a presence of mind few civilians possessed.

      “How James Bond,” Lucy said. “The elevator is password protected?”

      “With the latest voice-recognition software. No one gets into this loft but me—and my guests, of course.”

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