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  Akbari said nothing for a very long time. His unflinching eyes merely continued to look blankly at the bill in its plastic envelope. Every now and again his hands balled up into fists, but that was his only reaction. I let him wallow in his own thoughts for a bit. As he did, I leisurely read through the papers in the folder I’d brought with me, and every once in a while, I jotted down a note.

  Eventually, I’d had enough. I glanced at my watch and noticed that we were quickly encroaching on prayer time. I cleared my throat to get Akbari’s attention. He jumped and looked up at me for the first time in several minutes.

  “Mr. Akbari, I just want to know where you got the bill.” I retrieved my prop from the table and slid it back into my folder.

  Akbari’s expression was almost pained, and indecision warred in his dark eyes. “I don’t know.”

  I raised one eyebrow and restrained the impulse to fold my arms over my chest, as most people saw that move as antagonistic. I wasn’t quite ready to take that tack with him. Yet.

  “You don’t know.” My tone was borderline questioning, though it’d taken a considerable amount of willpower to refrain from sounding sarcastic.

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t know.”

  “Do you often walk around with hundred-dollar bills in your wallet, Mr. Akbari?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “What do you do for a living?” I asked, my voice light. I regarded him steadily as I awaited his reply.

  “I am sorry?”

  I held out my hand to Meaghan, who wordlessly deposited Akbari’s driver’s license into it. I glanced at it for confirmation of his age before I handed it back to him. I’d been told he was in his mid-twenties. The date on the license verified that fact.

  “For a job,” I said. “Where do you work?”

  Akbari hesitated. “I’m a graduate student.”

  “So you have no means of income?”

  He shook his head.

  “Yet somehow you have enough hundred-dollar bills at your disposal that you can’t remember where you got the one you tried to use three weeks ago to buy milk and eggs?” Now I allowed my skepticism and disbelief to bleed into my words. I didn’t ask where he went to school. Since I was fairly confident he was lying to me, I didn’t really care. There was no need to poke more holes in his story. We both knew he was full of shit. And we both knew that I knew.

  The uncertainty was back in Akbari’s eyes. He picked at the edges of the driver’s license in his grip but didn’t seem aware he was doing it. The sweat on his brow was more pronounced, and beads of it dotted the visible skin of his neck.

  “Tell you what. I know you have to pray. I’d never stand between a man and his God, so I’ll leave you to it. Why don’t you think about it after you’ve communed with Allah. Try to remember where you might’ve gotten the bill, and give me a call. How does that sound?”

  “All right.”

  I stood up to go but stopped just short of actually making a move toward the door. “Is there a number where I can reach you?”

  “I don’t have a phone,” Akbari said quickly.

  I glanced pointedly toward the credenza where a cell phone lay. Akbari said nothing to refute his previous denial. I sighed theatrically and walked over to pick it up. Akbari didn’t move as I placed it on the table in front of him. While I was doing that, Meaghan had risen and plucked the landline phone off the wall in the kitchen. She nodded when I looked to her, letting me know there was indeed a dial tone.

  “Do you want to try that again, Mr. Akbari? I can get these numbers another way if I have to, but doing that extra work won’t make me feel very kindly toward you. You do want me to feel kindly, don’t you?”

  Looking almost angry, Akbari rattled off two telephone numbers in rapid succession. Meaghan jotted them on her notepad and gave me a thumbs-up to indicate she’d gotten them. I extracted one of my business cards from my commission book and laid it on the table next to his cell phone.

  “Thank you for your time this evening, Mr. Akbari. If I don’t hear from you in a few days, I’ll be in touch.” I moved to the door and opened it to allow Meaghan to exit ahead of me. I hesitated in the doorway and looked at Akbari until he met my eyes. “Amin. It means ‘honest,’ doesn’t it?”

  Akbari’s own eyes grew wide, and his mouth dropped open.

  I smiled. “Your parents named you well.” I stepped out of the apartment and shut the door softly behind me.

  Meaghan gave me a look of exasperation as I joined her in the hallway. She smiled slightly and shook her head as we walked. She managed to maintain her silence until we’d gotten into the elevator, but I could tell the effort was killing her. When we began our descent she turned to me.

  “That was much, even for you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you don’t.” Her tone was teasing, and she playfully bumped my shoulder with her own before she mimicked me. “‘It makes me long for a simpler time.’”

  “Hey, I thought that one was pretty good.”

  “You have to stop shoveling that bull in interviews, Ryan.”

  “Works, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but do you have any idea how hard it is for me not to burst out laughing?”

  “And there’s the other upside.” I grinned at her.

  Meaghan shook her head again and exited the elevator ahead of me. She was trying hard to affect a demeanor of annoyance, and I think she was becoming irritated that it wasn’t working.

  “What was in the folder, anyway?”

  I opened it and held it up so she could see. “Crossword puzzles.”

  Meaghan threw back her head and laughed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’d barely walked through the door to my office early the next morning when I heard my immediate supervisor, Mark Jennings, bellowing my name from the other end of the hall. Clearly, he required my presence in his office, though I wondered what I could’ve managed to pull off in the two minutes I’d been in the building that made him feel the need to yell with such contempt. Maybe if I’d had a chance to stop for coffee on my way in, I’d have had enough brain power to figure it out.

  Rolling my eyes at yet another blatant display of unprofessional behavior on his part, I made my way to his office. The sooner I got this over with, the quicker I could search for caffeine, and the happier everyone would be.

  I entered Mark’s office mildly aggravated and ready to make that fact abundantly clear, but then I noticed the prominent theme of his office décor and stopped.

  Pirates, I thought dumbly. Mark must’ve had some sort of weird pirate fetish I was just finding out about. I never ventured anywhere near his office, so I hadn’t known about this quirk. Someone really should’ve warned me. It’s tough to school my face into a completely impassive expression when I’m surprised.

  And, boy, was I surprised. Signs of pirates abounded: Jolly Roger screen saver and mouse pad, pirate calendar, skull-and-crossbones coffee cup, little skull heads wearing bandannas as erasers on his pencils, a sticky-note pad, a row of tiny pirate figurines accompanied by miniature ships and cannons and treasure chests lined up like sentinels on the bookshelf. (Admittedly, I wanted to play with those.) A print with a skull and crossbones and the motto “The beatings will continue until morale improves” adorned one wall. A skull-and-crossbones tie even hung lazily from the doorknob.

  I frowned as I took it all in. I mean, hell, I like pirates as well as the next girl, but this was bordering on an obsession. One that made me wonder—completely and utterly against my will, I assure you—whether he was wearing pirate boxer shorts. Which then led to musings of whether he was a boxers or briefs type of man. I shuddered, vaguely sickened, and banished the thought.

  I’d been so busy examining my surroundings and trying to combat my nausea at the detour my mind had taken, I’d failed to notice Mark was looking at me intently. He didn’t seem particularly happy. I allowed my eyes to hold his for a long momen
t but didn’t speak. He’d called me in here. He could be the first to break the silence. I’m terribly stubborn about some things, and this happened to be one of them.

  “I have just one question for you, Ryan,” Mark said finally, his voice a low rumble in his chest. His eyes were narrowed, and I’d bet that if I could see his mouth through his large, bushy, seventies-porn-star mustache, I’d see that his lips were pursed as well.

  I waited impatiently, trying not to roll my eyes or let my annoyance show. I had things to do. I didn’t have time for these ridiculous power games.

  Mark let out an irritated huff—presumably at my refusal to speak, though who could really tell—and finally got to the point. “What were you doing on Utica Avenue last night?”

  Just beneath the surface of my skin, a flash of blistering cold turned immediately boiling. Of all the accusations I’d been expecting, that hadn’t been an option. I stalled for time and fought to keep my expression neutral. I inhaled slowly, willing myself not to flush. No small task when you have Irish skin as fair as mine. “Excuse me?”

  A dimple stood out on Mark’s cheek, indicating he was smirking behind his mustache. I was caught, and we both knew it. “Utica Avenue,” he repeated, a note of triumph in his voice. “What were you doing down there?” His eyes were positively gleeful as he waited for my reply.

  Let it be known that, unfortunately, loving my job does not translate to loving my boss. Mark and I’d had a rocky relationship ever since I’d started working for him about eighteen months ago, and judging by the encounter we were currently engaged in, our relationship wasn’t going to smooth out any time soon.

  Mark’s title is Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge—AT for short—of the Protective Intelligence Squad, and Meaghan had been right; he did appear to hate me. Ever since I’d transferred, my life had been a living hell, through absolutely no fault of my own. Now, I know that when most people say things like that, they’re usually sugarcoating a situation to avoid taking responsibility for some bad choices. I’m also aware that ninety-nine times out of one hundred, I’m the author of my own misery, which anyone close to me will be more than happy to confirm. In this instance, however, I did nothing more to earn Mark’s disdain than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I swear.

  One of the very first threat cases I’d investigated after joining the squad had been a veiled threat to the President of the United States, or POTUS, that’d been included in a high-school senior’s current-events term paper. Normally, I wouldn’t have been allowed over into New Jersey to look into the matter, as the Secret Service is an extremely territorial agency and that particular case was something the Newark Field Office really should’ve investigated. However, I’d grown up in Jersey. I’d actually attended the high school in question, so I already had a rapport with the majority of the kid’s teachers, who’d all need to be interviewed as part of my investigation. Also, my mother had reported the threat, since it’d come from one of her students. In light of all that, the bosses of both offices thought perhaps the investigation would go more quickly if I handled it.

  On the afternoon when my life began its downward spiral, I’d arrived at the high school to start the corroborating-interview phase of my investigation. Armed with a copy of an extremely hostile and disturbing rant of a term paper straight from the mind of an angry teenager and mountains of forms to be filled out, I’d been ready to work.

  School had just let out as I’d arrived, and I’d been busily dodging hordes of screeching adolescents, cursing the parents who’d had the nerve to raise such inconsiderate, insolent little brats and vowing never to procreate as long as I lived, when I’d caught sight of someone across the parking lot I thought I knew.

  Mark Jennings, my new boss, had been there picking up his daughter and some of her friends from class, loading the riotous crew into the backseat of his government vehicle, which is a huge no-no as far as Uncle Sam’s concerned. His gaze had snagged on mine, and we’d looked at one another for a long moment before I’d sketched a tiny wave, shaken my head, and turned to head inside the school.

  In my opinion, what he did on his own time was his business. Unless one of the higher-ups asked me specifically whether I’d ever seen him putting nongovernment employees into his government vehicle on a day he was supposed to have been on sick leave, I was keeping my mouth shut. These things had a way of working themselves out that didn’t involve me. I’d also figured the incident was a nonissue. Naïveté at its best.

  The repercussions of that inadvertent sighting had been swift, severe, and ongoing. Mark had done his best to make my life as miserable as possible, giving me the crappiest cases and shittiest assignments to send me a very clear message: it would only get worse if I fucked with him. Somehow I’d been unable to convince him I wasn’t a danger.

  Which brings us back to Mark still trying his damnedest to make his power obvious as he glowered at me from amid all his pirate memorabilia. He was sure he had something on me. And, for once, he was right.

  If another office is investigating a case whose leads redirect the case to another district, that office has to send the other district a formal request for assistance, describing the leads to be run out in as much complicated governmental jargon as one can cram into the report without being overly obvious. It could be a real inconvenience, but it was policy. Until last night, when I’d broken it.

  My interview the previous evening with Amin Akbari had been a favor to an old friend, off the record and completely against the rules. Obviously, I’d known exactly what I’d been doing when I was doing it; I just hadn’t thought I’d get caught. How had Mark even found out I’d been in that section of Brooklyn at that time of night? I guess it didn’t matter. Either way, I was busted. The transgression wasn’t worthy of formal disciplinary action, but I was going to pay. Somehow.

  Fantastic.

  “I asked you a question, O’Connor,” Mark barked.

  “Agent O’Connor.” My voice was low and icy.

  “Excuse me?” Mark demanded after a startled pause, sounding thoroughly outraged.

  “It’s either Ryan or it’s Agent O’Connor. I respect you enough to address you as AT Jennings. I expect the same courtesy from you. I worked hard to earn my title. Use it.”

  Okay, that line about respect was a lie. But he was my boss—someone somewhere probably respected him, at least a little—and I wanted to keep my job.

  Maybe I should’ve just let that go and not stood on principle, just this once. Nah. I folded my arms across my chest as I waited. I scowled and briefly entertained the idea of trying to don a neutral expression. But I blew past that thought as swiftly as the last. Fuck him. He’d disrespected me one too many times. I didn’t care if he knew I was angry.

  “Fine.” Mark’s voice was clipped and strained. “Agent O’Connor.” The address sounded more than a little sarcastic to me, but I let it go. For now. “I asked you a question. I’d like an answer.”

  “Very well. I was looking into something.” I played the semantics game extremely well. If he wanted answers from me, he’d have to work for them.

  “I was unaware of any threat calls connected to Utica Avenue. You weren’t even the duty agent last night. You don’t have any active cases right now. Your annual report on Webster isn’t due for another three months, and he’s confined to a mental hospital in Queens, not Brooklyn. So whatever you were doing, it wasn’t threat-related. What was it?” That last was definitely more of a statement than a question.

  “Counterfeit.” I answered him only because it seemed pointless to lie. I was screwed regardless. He was going to hammer me for this. No sense making it worse.

  “You don’t work counterfeit anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “Did the Counterfeit Squad need extra bodies for something last night?” He frowned, and I was willing to bet he thought he’d been left out of the loop.

  “No.”

  He eyed me, his expression speculative. “Who were
you doing counterfeit for?”

  “A friend.”

  “What friend?”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  And it honestly didn’t. At least not as far as I could see. Nothing would be gained by giving him Sarah’s name. She’d most likely get into trouble for even asking me to talk to Akbari.

  That she’d broken protocol with the unofficial request was problematic enough, but I wasn’t supposed to be working anything except threat cases. Counterfeit was off limits to me because I wasn’t in that squad anymore. Sarah hadn’t known that.

  She also hadn’t known what a complete prick my boss could be, or she wouldn’t have bothered asking. But I’d known. And I’d chosen to help her anyway. I refused to drag her under the bus with me. Mark would call her boss just to spite me.

  “It matters to me.”

  “Well, I’m not telling you.”

  “You’re not telling me,” he repeated flatly.

  “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. I was looking into something for a friend. You don’t need any more explanation than that.”

  Mark glared at me for a long time. “I can slaughter you for this, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You still won’t tell me?”

  “I don’t rat out my friends.”

  “I ran,” he murmured.

  I blinked at the abrupt change in subject matter. “I hate running.” Where was he going with that remark, and why had he suddenly decided to exchange workout tips?

  Mark appeared confused. “What?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you say you hate running?”