Bryn had refused to meet Dewey until dinner, legitimately citing piles of work to plow through, but now she regretted her attempt to not appear eager when she was the one in torment. To make matters worse, she’d told him to stay home and work his way through the dummy corporations and find the actual person who’d bought the tranquilizer that killed the guard.
It wasn’t a good use of his time. He’d probably finished it in an hour and was now playing some shoot em up computer game on the government’s time. The other day she’d found him deep in it with a kid from Japan and a lawyer in New Orleans. When it became apparent the kid was whipping both their butts, Dewey had logged off with that half-impish, half-sheepish smile that turned her heart into something foreign in her chest. She didn’t like thinking about it much, but when she did, she couldn’t get away from knowing it was a soft, squishy feeling, almost…tender. She hadn’t felt like this since sixth grade when she got her first kiss. Even now it grossed her out to think she’d swapped spit with a kid who grew up to be a mortician.
At some point, she’d realized that the men in her life weren’t going to take her seriously. Ever. They wanted to kiss her on the mouth, maybe feel her up if they could get away with it. She wanted more. She’d always wanted more. Maybe that’s why Phagan had made the inroads he had? He may or may not have been attracted by her body—who knew if he’d ever seen her in real time?—but he sparred with her brain. He teased her, drove her crazy, made her laugh, made her feel alive, right down to her toenails.
And Dewey? What did he intend to tell her? He’d said he needed to talk to her about Phagan. Did he mean he was going to tell her who Phagan was? Or was it personal? And if he was going to finally talk, why now? Was it because he felt personal?
She didn’t want him to tell her, she realized. It was sobering to have to admit it because she was supposed to want to catch Phagan. It had been her primary goal for four years. And as Phoebe liked to point out, all God’s children needed a goal.
She pushed back her chair and paced over to the coffee machine, dispensing a cup of hot black liquid that she didn’t want. It didn’t help her escape realizing she didn’t want Phagan in jail. It wasn’t just that she’d miss hunting him. She’d miss… him.
She added sugar and cream, just so she could stand there and think with her back to an office stuck in a middle-of-the-day frenzy. So where did that leave her and Dewey—besides not on the plane to California that was now carrying Jake and Phoebe toward the fun in the sun that should have been hers. He wasn’t the handsome prince she’d imagined when she was little and still believed in Cinderella. He was kind of cute, in an annoying sort of way. He had nice eyes. And a nice mouth. And she liked the way his hair flopped on his forehead. It had sorely tried her self-control not to smooth it back during the hours they worked together. Would his hair feel as soft as it looked?
Even now, with him not even close, the pads of her fingers tingled at the thought of touching not just his hair, but his skin, his face, his mouth. She rubbed her own mouth, which had parted in anticipation, and sighed.
How could she feel this way about two men? Was she some kind of aberration?
Before she could answer that, the agent at the desk next to her called her name. When she turned, still holding her un-tasted coffee cup, he held up the phone.
Back at her desk, she said, “Thanks,” then picked up the call. It was Matt.
“We need to talk.”
“You can come up—” Bryn began, but he cut her off.
“It’s lunchtime and I didn’t get breakfast.”
“I’ll be right down.” She hung up, opened a drawer, put in her worries and took out her purse. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she told the secretary.
Soon she was seated across from Matt at a restaurant a short walk away. The crisp, cool air had filled her lungs and swept away the remnants of her anxious thoughts, leaving behind only the longing. It was nuts, wasn’t spring the time for a woman to have fancies? It was the freaking dead of winter.
She ordered, then turned to Matt. “What’s up?”
“Had to call in a few favors, but I got us a name of a possible target.” He took a sip of coffee then said, “Albert Gore, former vice president.”
“What? He’s coming here? I thought he was teaching somewhere in the East?”
“Fundraiser with some environmental types is on his agenda for this week. My source says some of those types have also planned a protest of Merryweather Biotech and a few other labs in the area who engage in animal testing.”
“Really. Hang on a minute.” She rang Dewey’s number. When he answered she asked, “You find out who bought that tranq?”
A pause. A sigh. “Yeah. Trail eventually lead to some guy named Merryweather. Hamilton Merryweather. CEO of—”
“Merryweather Biotechnologies.”
“You want me to run him through the big mill and see what else falls out or do you have psychic powers now?”
“Run him. Thanks.” She hung up, trying not to smile about the brief contact. Time was, that kind of comment would have made her grind her teeth. She had changed.
Matt had that look he got, the one that was expressionless but menacing. “Merryweather would be stupid to use his own employee.”
“Yeah, or terribly clever. He has someone grab the girl, then it looks like someone else is applying pressure. Stupid to let the tranqs get traced back to himself, though. I wonder if he is stupid?”
“Could be stupid. Or a player we haven’t met yet.”
She knew Matt hated jumping to conclusions. He liked the facts, just the facts before he made up his mind. Usually she was the same, but something about this situation was making her edgy. Uneasy.
“You ever seen a Gordian knot?” she asked.
“Not for a couple of years,” he said. “You think someone’s trying to play you?”
“I think,” she grinned at him, “I’ll keep the scissors handy.”
Matt grinned back. “Smart girl.”