LITMIR.BIZ

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agreeing to meet. It was her fault for wimping out and asking Maria to take her place at the last minute. And most of all, it was her fault for being wooed by words on the Braille pinpad she’d designed to translate images from the computer screen to letters she could “see.”

      Hadn’t her friends in the neighborhood warned her about the hazards of online dating? “He could be anybody,” they’d said. “He could be a complete jerk. A user. A criminal.”

      Gabby had brushed them off, figuring she was an expert in dealing with the first two options, and refusing to entertain the third. “I know Ty,” she’d said, certain they’d made a connection during their late-night conversations. “He’s not like that.”

      But she’d still refused to take the relationship any further than on-screen…until tonight, when she’d been feeling a little bit reckless, a little bit wild. As usual, the impulses had gotten her into trouble.

      Deep trouble.

      Heart pounding in her ears, she raised her voice and nearly shouted, “That’s right, I’m Gabby.”

      She was hoping against hope that someone in one of the nearby houses would hear and come help, one of the neighbors she sometimes found overwhelming with their extended Italian-American families and endless dinners, fights and celebrations. But they had ignored curfew and trooped down Hanover Street en masse, banding together to get old Mrs. Rosetti into one of the overflowing hospitals when her oxygen tank ran low and her breathing had gotten bad.

      The houses were empty. There was nobody left to hear the tremble in Gabby’s voice, or the drum of her heart in her ears. “Please,” she said quietly, desperately. “Let her go. I’ll do whatever you want.”

      The offer made her nauseous, but it came from the lessons she’d learned as a teen, when she’d run the streets of Miami with a hard-partying, hard-fighting crowd. She’d fought to outgrow that rebellious, self-destructive streak in the years since, but she needed some of the brashness now, some of that brazen go-to-hell confidence.

      She had to get Maria away from him first. Then she’d try to talk him down. She couldn’t believe the Ty she’d come to know—

      Don’t you get it, Gabby? He isn’t that Ty. He’s… She couldn’t even complete the thought. She didn’t know what he was, or who. All she knew was that she’d brought him into her neighborhood, into her haven. Into her heart.

      How she’d agonized over his last few messages, debating how much to tell him, what to tell him. In the end she’d broken up with him rather than admit the truth, that she was blind and rarely left the safe, secure confines of her home territory.

      Then he’d caught her in a weak moment with his invitation, and the wild child had taken over and pushed the self-destruct button once again.

      “Tell me about Liam Shea,” he ordered now, voice low and commanding.

      “Let Maria go and I’ll tell you anything you want,” she countered, gripping her hands tightly in front of her in an effort to hold it together.

      Moments later Maria was free. She grabbed Gabby’s arm and tried to tug her away, sobbing. “Come on. Please, let’s go!”

      But Gabby didn’t need to see the threat to know Ty hadn’t uncocked the gun. He remained in control of the scene.

      She pictured him as he’d described himself online—six feet tall and muscular, with blue eyes and blond hair he didn’t get trimmed often enough. Her imagination had added a shaggy lock that fell forward over his forehead, along with smile-creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth to counteract the hint of sadness she’d sometimes gotten from his words.

      Now in her mind’s eye his mouth turned cruel and his eyes glittered ice-cold, sending a shiver of fear through her body.

      “Please, Ty,” she said quietly. “Let us go. We haven’t done anything to you, and we won’t tell anyone. Just take the gun and go. I’m begging you. If our conversations meant anything to you, you’ll—”

      Then she broke off, knowing the conversations hadn’t meant anything to him. Not like they had to her. His words had been lies, hadn’t they? All lies.

      She was surprised, then, when moments later she heard the distinctive click of metal-on-metal, followed by a rustle of nylon cloth and catch of leather as he disarmed the gun and holstered it.

      “Tell me everything you know about Liam Shea,” he said. “You might know him as Liam Sullivan.”

      “I don’t know anyone by either of those names.” Gabby held on to Maria’s arm and felt the tension vibrate through her friend, through them both. “Please go. I told Maria’s brother to give us ten minutes. He’s going to call the police if we don’t check in with him by quarter past.”

      The lie earned her a snort of derision. “Nice try, but we both know the local cops are busy. And besides, I outrank them.”

      There was another rustle of cloth, and Maria hissed out a breath.

      “What is it?” Gabby demanded, trying to ignore a bite of frustration.

      “He’s with the Secret Service,” Maria said, her Sicilian accent thickening. “Special Agent Tyler Jones,” she recited, reading from his ID. “Vice presidential protection detail.”

      “No he’s not,” Gabby said, going breathless with shock. “He’s a—”

      She broke off, realizing that it fit, sort of. “I’m a bodyguard for a corporate type,” he’d said, and Grant Davis, a decorated military veteran-turned-golden-boy politician, certainly fit that bill in some respects. Rumor had it he was the front-runner for the next presidential election, and he’d been in Boston this past week for some glitzy affair at the Hancock Building.

      Rumor also had it that he’d disappeared right after the blackout.

      “Why are you here?” she nearly whispered, fear and confusion stealing her breath. “Why aren’t you looking for him?”

      “I am,” he said bluntly. “I need you to tell me where I can find Liam Shea. If you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to arrest you as an accessory to the vice president’s kidnapping.”

      The ground pitched beneath Gabby’s feet and the world spun invisible circles around her. “I already told you.” She swallowed hard when tears pressed at her throat. “I don’t know either Liam Shea or a Liam Sullivan. Period, end of discussion.”

      “You hacked into his Web site on March fifteenth.”

      “I never—” she began, then broke off, realizing that her two guilty pleasures—Internet dating and testing her hacking skills against the occasional encrypted Web site—had come to roost simultaneously. And the Secret Service was involved, which meant… Wait a second, she thought. March fifteenth?

      Ty had first e-mailed her through Webmatch.com on the seventeenth. St. Patrick’s Day.

      Sick humiliation poured through her, nearly dropping her to her knees. “Oh, God. You hit on me because I hacked into this guy’s Web site. You—”

      She broke off, nausea building when she remembered all the things she’d told him. She might have hidden her blindness and the circumstances leading up to it, but she’d been open about everything else. She’d told him about her growing frustration with the school and the narrow confines of her life, about how she longed for adventure as much as she feared it. In return, he’d urged her to step outside her comfort zone, to embrace life and focus on the people she loved. He’d told how he’d married his high school sweetheart right after leaving the military, and how he heard his retired-colonel father’s voice in his head, calming him down when he’d been in tight situations. Or had all that been a lie?

      She’d thought they had a connection. It hurt like hell to find out he’d only romanced her because she’d hacked into some guy’s Web site.

      “Why

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