At some point, unbeknownst to me, Chuck Puckett had switched the original keychain he’d given me for an identical one with the hidden microchip. Handy things, microchips. As I found out, you can store information people would kill your ex-girlfriend for and firebomb her apartment over. Things like bank codes and safe deposit box information. A safe deposit box with evidence that Quinn/Julius had been accepting bribes in Chuck Puckett’s name.
“Bribes for what?” I asked Super Agent.
We were on night four of being stuck in this crappy apartment together, which was starting to feel more like a hamster cage without the wheel. And I was either getting a contact high off all the cheap Chinese plastic furniture in this place or somehow, some way, Super Agent was growing on me. Like drawing-our-initials-in-hearts, scribbling-my-first-name-with-his-last-name, imagining-our-children kind of growing on me.
“An online gambling scheme,” Super Agent answered between phone calls to and from his fellow agents. “Julius Clemmons used the senator to cover up an elaborate online gambling ring. If it were ever discovered, everything would’ve come back to the senator. From what we can gather, the senator found out what Clemmons was up to and tried to put a stop to it. That’s when their relationship went south and Clemmons hired Thai Dinh to get close to the senator. He needed someone on the inside to plant more evidence and control the senator. Except the senator caught on again. We think that’s why Dinh killed him.”
“Why didn’t Chuck Puckett just go to the authorities?”
“We think he was planning to but got killed before he could.”
“So what you said before about Chuck Puckett being involved in gambling and all, that stuff was a ruse?”
He nodded. “A very elaborate one, yes.”
“It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. So go arrest Quinn so I can get out of this crappy apartment and back to my life.”
“We’re not sure where he is.”
“We’re back to that? Really?”
“If we could find anyone anywhere, there wouldn’t be an FBI’s most-wanted list, would there?”
He had a point. A very frustrating, infuriating point, but a point nonetheless.
“What’s the plan then? Please tell me there’s a plan,” I said.
“There’s a plan. Of sorts.”
“If it’s anything like the plan that got me shot at and my house torched, then I think you need to replace your planning committee.”
“I’m on the—” He let out a frustrated sound. “The FBI is not the garden club. We don’t have committees.”
“So what’s your sort-of plan?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” I looked around the thrift-store-furnished shoebox I was temporarily calling home. “Who am I going to tell?”
“It’s not a matter of you telling anyone.”
“I found the microchip,” I grumbled. “You’d think that would earn me a hint.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. But I did get you cable,” he offered.
“HBO?”
“No. But you have more channels than just the local ones now.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He went back to staring at his computer screen.
All this confinement was doing weird things to my judgment and perception. So was everything about Super Agent, from his scent to the way he said crick instead of creek. The other day he’d asked about laundry and added an R to wash. I’d nearly jumped him. And right now, the way the computer made his skin glow was having a peculiar effect on my underused libido.
“I’m bored. Let’s have sex.”
His head jerked up. “As tempting as that offer is…and you have no idea…I know you’re not really serious.”
“I might be half serious.”
“I’d rather you be completely serious.”
“Have it your way.” I got up from the couch. “I’ll just be in the bedroom…you know, going it alone.”
A vein along his jaw throbbed and he stared at me as though he was rethinking his entire moral philosophy. I closed the bedroom door, feeling slightly guilty and a little turned-on. Yup, he was definitely growing on me, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.