Читать онлайн книгу «You′ve Got Male» автора Elizabeth Bevarly
You've Got Male
Elizabeth Bevarly
Can you really find the perfect man online?Avery Nesbitt thought she might have struck online-dating goldAdrian was perfect onscreen. But as the adage goes, if something seems too good to be true. Before Avery knows it, a flesh-and-blood man calling himself Dixon breaks in to her home. Apparently she's been under surveillance by his agency for some time, and now she's in deep, deep trouble.Dixon has worked for OPUS for years, and he's wanted to get his hands on Adrian Padgett for most of them. He assumes that Avery is part of Adrian's criminal pursuits. But could she possibly be as innocent as she's claiming?One thing's for sureif Avery agrees to go undercover for OPUS, she and Dixon will be working in very close quarters.
The unthinkable was happening!
Andrewthe smart, witty, creative, articulate man with whom Avery had fallen passionately in lovewas cheating on her.
A month ago shed known their first encounter must have been destiny. Fate. Kismet. It was simply Meant To Be. What difference did it make if theyd never actually met in person? Who cared if theyd never actually spoken to each other? Their cyber relationship was a meeting of minds, a melding of souls, a blending of hearts.
Until now.
Now he was typing nauseating pop-culture-infested lines to some cheap bit of cyberfluff with the screen name Tinky Bell. A brainless ninny who said things like ur 2 kewl.
The hideous massacre of the English language aside, Avery couldnt believer her Andrew was talking about TV shows! He didnt even watch TV!
But the clincher was Andrew using with Tinky Bell the same words that won Averys heart.
Well, shed fix Andrew. Not only would she dump him, but shed give him something to remember her by. Oh, yes. Shed create just the right farewell giftone he and his precious computer system would never forget.
Youve Got Male
Elizabeth Bevarly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Mom, with love.
Because its been too long since I dedicated a book to you.
Thanks for so many things. Youre the best.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Acknowledgments
I have many people to thank for this one.
First, thanks to Liz Bemis of Bemis Web Design for helping me get all the technical jargon and equipment right, thereby enabling me to make Avery the computer whiz and Webhead that she is. Some of the technology and equipment that both OPUS and Avery use I made up myself, but its okay, because making up stuff is my job. If I did get anything wrong with the real stuff, its my fault, not Lizs.
Thanks to Wanda Ottewell, my fabulous editor, for helping me buff the rough spots and see the gaps, and make everything in the story nice and neat. Thanks to Tracy Farrell and HQN Books for giving this book such a wonderful home. Thanks to Steve Axelrod for helping me find that home.
Id also like to thank the incredibly nice, patient, generous David Dafoe, of Pro-Liquitech, whose lovely donation to Turning Point for Autism won him a brief appearance in the book. For more information about all the great things Turning Point does, visit their Web site at turningpoint1.com (dont forget the 1!). It was great fun being able to invite a real person to the party at the Nesbitt estate.
Thanks, too, to good friends (you know who you are) for daily support and camaraderie and laughter that goes above and beyond the call of friendship. Without you guys, Id be like Avery at the opening of chapter four.
And finally, as always, thanks to David and Eli, my lifelines. My life. Without you guys, Id be lost.
I love you both bunches. Hug. Kiss. Pat.
Youve Got Male
CHAPTER ONE
AVERY NESBITT WAS IN LOVE. Madly, passionately, wildly in love. She was besotted. She was bedazzled. She was befuddled. She was in love as shed never been in love before.
And it was with a man who went beyond dreamy. He was smart and witty. He was creative and articulate. He was handsome and sexy. He always said what she needed to hear, right when she needed to hear it. He knew her backward and forward, just as she knew him inside and out. And he loved her exactly the way she was. That, more than anything else, had sealed her fate and ensured that her love would last forever. Andrew Paddington made Avery feel as if nothing in her life would ever go wrong again. He was just perfect in every way.
The bastard.
Theirs had been a whirlwind courtship, had come at Avery out of nowhere and swept her into a fantasy worthy of an epic romance. Andrew was in her thoughts and her dreams, in her plans and her performance, in her ego and her id. He filled her days with delight and her nights with pleasure, imbued her with joy that made her downright giddy. And that was no small accomplishment for a woman who was normally pragmatic, cynical and down-to-earth. Although Avery had only met him a month ago, shed known after that first encounter that their meeting must have been destiny. Fate. Kismet. It was simply Meant To Be.
Bastard.
What difference did it make if theyd never actually met in person? Physical trappings werent what love was about. Love was a meeting of minds, a melding of souls, a blending of hearts. Besides, theyd exchanged photos, and the ones hed sent to her depicted him as a sandy-haired twentysomething with the eyes of a poet, the mouth of a troubadour, the hands of an artist and phenomenal pecs. He was an utter, unmitigated masterpiece.
Bastard, bastard, bastard.
Who cared if theyd never actually spoken to each other? Vocal avowals of devotion were as nebulous and inconstant as the wind. Avery had Andrews love for her in writing. In the loveliest prose shed ever read, wordsfeelingswrought so tenderly, they would move a despot to tears. After only four weeks, she had a file filled with his e-mails to her and shed logged every chat-room exchange theyd shared in a special folder titled Snookypie. On those nights when she was alone and feeling dreamy and lovey-dovey, she lit candles and opened a bottle of wine, then read over his words again and again, pretending he was right there in her Central Park West condo, murmuring them into her ear.
Bastard squared.
But now the unthinkable was happening. Andrew was cheating on her with another woman. And Avery was finding out about it just as women did on those bad made-for-cable movies. Shed walked in on him and found him in bed with another woman.
Well, okay, figuratively speaking. What had actually happened was that shed stumbled upon him online, blabbing away with some cheap bit of cyberfluff in, of all places, a Survivor: Mall of America chat room. This after Andrew had assured Avery that he loathed popular culture as much as she did. But what really toasted her melbas was that the cyberfluff he was chatting with, who went by the screen name ofAvery had to bite back her nausea when she saw itTinky Belle, was clearly an idiot. But Andrew was agreeing with her that the music of Clay Aiken could, if people would just open their eyes and ears and hearts to it, bring peace and harmony to the entire planet.
Bastard cubed.
Unable to believe her eyes, Avery felt around until she located the chair in front of her desk and clumsily pulled it out. Then she nearly missed the surface of her desk when she set her bowl of Cajun popcorn and the bottle of Wild Cherry Pepsi on top of it. She tugged at her electric-blue pajama pants spattered with images of French landmarks and numbly sat down, adjusting the oversize purple sweatshirt boasting Wellesley College as she did. Then she wiggled her toes in her fuzzy pink slippers to warm them, adjusted her little black-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose, pushed one of two long, thick black braids over her shoulder and studied the screen more closely.
Maybe she was wrong, she thought as she watched the rapid-fire exchange scroll by. She shouldnt jump to conclusions. Surely Andrew wasnt the only guy out there in cyberspace who used the handle Mad2Live. It was a phrase from On the Road, after all. And there were probably lots of Kerouac fans online. Andrew loved Avery. Hed told her so. He wouldnt cheat on her like this. Especially not with some brainless ninny who said things like, ur 2 kewl mad.
Please, people! she wanted to shout at the screen whenever she saw message-board shorthand. Speak English! Or Spanish! Or French! Or German! Or some legitimate language that indicates youre at least halfway literate! And capitalize where necessary! And for Gods sake, punctuate!
Even though she was a computer geek in the most extreme sense of the word, Avery couldnt bring herself to type in anything other than the language shed learned growing up in the Hamptons. Tony private schools could mess with you in a lot of ways, she knew, but at least they taught you to be well-spoken. That shouldnt change just because your language of choice was cyber-speak.
She watched Mad2Live and Tinky Bellegagswap warm fuzzies for as long as she could stomach it and ultimately decided there was no way that this Mad2Live could be Andrew. Andrew would never, ever concede that the Survivor series was, as Tinky Belle claimed, qualty educatnl programing u cn wach w/ the hole famly.
Oh, yes, Avery thought. Its definitely mus c tv.
She was about to leave the chat room to visit anothershe was, after all, supposed to be workingwhen Mad2Live posted something that made her fingers convulse on the mouse: You, Tinky Belle, are a dazzling blossom of hope burgeoning at the center of an unforgiving cultural wasteland.
Acid heat splashed through Averys belly when she read that. Because those were the exact words Andrew had used to describe her that first night they met in a Henry James chat room. Except for the Tinky Belle part, since Averys screen nameat least that nighthad been Daisy Miller. There was no way there could be two Mad2Lives on the Internet flirting with women by calling them dazzling blossoms of hope who burgeoned in cultural wastelands. That was Andrewher Andrewthrough and through.
After that it was impossible for Avery to ignore Tinky and Mads conversation. And as she watched the lines of dialogue on her screen roll past, she read more and more from Mad2Live that was pulled verbatim from some of the e-mails Andrew had sent to her. And she should know, since shed practically memorized some of them.
Had she mentioned he was a complete bastard?
Eventually Tinky bade farewell to Mad and evaporated from the chat room, and Avery watched in astonishment as he immediately began to flirt with another occupant, this one calling herself Deb2000. But Deb wasnt impressed by any of Mads cajoling, so, obviously disgruntled, Mad signed out of the chat room.
And Avery followed him.
Luckily she had dozens of screen names she used for her work and she could log in to rooms under several that Andrew would never recognize. And luckily, too, she knew the online community better than she knew even her own Manhattan neighborhood. Because the Internet was where Avery worked every single night. And it was where she played after she knocked off work. It was also where she shopped, where she learned and where she socialized. It was where she found her music, her books, her entertainment and her dinner selections. Hell, she pretty much lived on the Net. And she knew Andrew almost as well as she knew the online community.
Or at least shed thought she knew him that well. But now she was beginning to think him a complete stranger. Because he flitted from one chat room to another, all of them themed around shallow pop-culture subject mattereverything from Pilates to low-carb cuisineand in every one of them he waited long enough to identify which of the rooms inhabitants were female and which seemed to be the least, uh, bright. And then he chose one and began to work on her in exactly the way he had worked on Avery that first night hed encountered her. And shame boiled within her when she realized that she had capitulated to his pretty words as easily as had women who thought deep-fried pork flesh was an essential part of good nutrition.
How could he do this to her? How could he think she was stupid? She? Avery Nesbitt? She wasnt stupid. She was a criminal genius! Even Time magazine had said so! And even if the criminal part was debatable, once a genius, always a genius. How could he cheat on her this way? And be so obvious about it? He knew how good she was. He knew what she did for a living and how much time she spent online. He knew everything about her. Shed even told him about her past transgressions, and he hadnt flinched. Hed told her her past didnt matter, that anything that had happened before the day he met her wasnt important because he didnt start living until the day he met her.
Oh, he was such a bastard.
Well, shed fix Andrew. Not only would she dump him faster than you could say, Survivor: Up Yours, but shed give him something to remember her by, too. Shed blow off work and stay up all night if she had to to concoct just the right farewell gift.
Of course, being up all night wasnt exactly a sacrifice to Avery, since she pretty much lived her life at night anyway. Nighttime didnt have rules or expectations the way daytime hours did. So when most people were coming home from their jobs and starting to wind down, Avery was rising and revving to go. And when most peoples alarm clocks were going off and signaling the beginning of their workday, Avery was pouring herself a scotch and popping a DVD of a Cracker mystery into the player and trying to wind down. Unfortunately, shed never been as good at winding down as she was at revving up.
Because Avery Nesbitt was what some peoplethose who claimed an ounce or two of compassioncalled a bit neurotic. She was what other peoplethose who didnt give a damn about compassioncalled totally whack. Hey, what else could you call a woman who lived in her pajamas on the Internet and never left her apartment unless it was to take her cat to the vet, and even then had to load up on half a bottle of scotch just to get herself over the threshold? What else did you call a woman who bought into the tripe men like Andrew Paddington fed to unsuspecting morons?
But Avery didnt care what anyone thought about her these days, any more than shed cared when she was a kid. She especially didnt care tonight. Tonight and tomorrow nightand all the hours in betweenshe had other things on her mind. Her gift for Andrew would take the better part of the next forty-eight hours to create.
Fortunately for Avery, she was totally whack and had nowhere else to go.
HEY, HOWS IT FEELING OUT there, Dixon?
Like Antarctica. Only without all the warm toastiness.
Well, well see if we cant get you something closer to Greenland next time youre in the field.
How many times do I have to remind you peopleIm not supposed to be in the field!
Because the field was cold and harsh and unforgiving. Even with a laptop and a decent cup of coffee.
Dixon tugged the zipper of his leather jacket higher, curled his hands around a quickly cooling cup of espresso and pulled his backward-facing drivers cap farther down over inky black hair that was badly in need of a trim. But that did little to warm him below the waist, and faded blue jeans, though normally his favorite garment, werent all that effective in warding off the cold.
Even the cold found in the back of a van that was insulated with high-tech surveillance equipment.
He was infinitely more suited to the great indoors, he thought as he switched his attention from the laptop monitor to a television screen that offered a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the area outside the van. Yeah, indoors he could get a hot shower and a hot sandwich and some hot coffee. Life didnt get much better than that. Unless maybe you substituted warmed brandy for the hot coffee and added a hot woman with hot hands to the hot shower. Preferably one with a hot name like Lola or Mimi or Fritzi or
Dixon?
No, that wouldnt work. That was the name he was going by himself these days. It would get way too confusing. So maybe he could just call her
Dixon?
What? he said, grinding the words out irritably as his hot shower/hot woman fantasy receded to the back of his brain, leaving him even colder than before.
You need anything?
He bit back a grumble at the question that came through the earpiece of his headset. Hadnt he just been thinking about that when the other agent rudely interrupted him?
No, Gillespie, he muttered into the microphone below his chin to the newly minted OPUS agent whod been assigned to shadow himmore to keep Gillespie out of trouble than anything else, Dixon knew. I dont need anything. Except for his usual partner to get back from her leave of absence so she could go into the field instead of him, the way she was supposed to. That way Dixon could go back to collecting the information she sent him and find the missing pieces. Indoors. Where he normally worked. Where it was warm.
Because that was standard operating procedure at Dixons employer, the ultrasecret Office of Political Unity and Security. Agents worked in teams of two, with one in the field collecting information and the other behind the scenes analyzing it. Assimilate, evaluate, articulate. That was Dixons three-word job description. He was the one responsible for making sense of the intelligence, not the one who gathered it. He was the one who analyzed and scrutinized, calculated and estimated, and then put everything together. He wasnt the one who sat on his butt in a cold van waiting for something to happen. At least, he wasnt supposed to be.
Oh, there is one thing, Gillespie, he said, picturing the other agent in his head. Blond, Dixon recalled. Too blond to be taken seriously, really. His dark blue eyescool and sharp and distantwere the only thing that had kept the guy from looking like some gee-whiz, whats for-supper-Mom, all-American high school football hero.
Whats that? the other man asked.
Stop calling me Dixon, Dixon said. Thats not my name.
Gillespie snortedor somethingat the other end of the line. Yeah, well, my name isnt Gillespie, either, but you have to call me something.
Oh, stop making it so easy, Dixon thought. I keep forgetting your code name. What is it again?
Cowboy, the other man said.
Yee-haw, Dixon thought. He just hoped he could say it with a straight face.
Besides, Cowboy added, nobody at my level knows your name. Except for your code name. And you told me never to call you
Okay, Dixon is fine, Dixon hastily amended.
that, the other man finished at the same time. What? You thought I was going to say your code name out loud? Are you nuts? Im not nuts. From what I hear, the last guy who spoke your code name out loud is still in the hospital. Youre a dangerous man.
Damn straight, Dixon thought. And he wouldnt have it any other way. Except that hed be a dangerous man out of the cold. Literally if not figuratively.
The only thing worse than being in the fieldwhere he wasnt supposed to be anyway, in case he hadnt mentioned itwas being in the field in New York City. Mostly because there were no fields in New York City. Except for those in Central Park, which, okay, were very nice, but they were nothing compared to the rolling green hills surrounding the Virginia farm where hed grown up. And even though Dixon was currently parked right next to Central Park, he had to be focused on the big tidy building across from it instead. The big tidy building full of outrageously expensive condominiums that only people with more dollars than sense could afford to call their own.
The big tidy building where Daisy Miller lived.
Of course, her name was no more Daisy Miller than his was Dixon. But hed had to have something to call her, just as hed had to have something to put on his phony drivers license, in case one of New Yorks finest wandered by and wondered what a nondescript white van was doing parked in front of a Central Park West address for hours and hours and, oh, look, is that a dead debutante in the back the way there always is on Law & Order?
It was a pain in the ass trying to do surveillance in New York City. Yeah, he was good at what he didquite possibly the bestbut it would take an ?bergenius to clear up some of the audio crap hed been trying to weed through all evening. Between the lousy weatherwhich the first week of November was way too early forand the incessant cell phone use of millions of people and the twenty gazillion satellite channels beaming down from space and the simple proliferation of car and pedestrian traffic, listening in on Daisy Millers residence this week had been next to impossible. Though Dixon had gotten some decent info about a certain mutual fund when some stockbrokers cell phone conversation had overlapped with Daisys frantic call to the veterinarian about her cats digestive problems. Not to mention a very nice tip on the seventh race at Hialeah tomorrow from some guy named Sal who seemed to know what he was talking about.
Fortunately except for that call to the vet and a follow-up the next dayher cat, thank God, was just fine once it passed that buttonDaisys activity in her apartment was limited to the point of being nonexistent. But then, so was her activity out of her apartment. In fact, in the week that Dixon had been keeping an eye on the place, he was reasonably certain she hadnt left the building once. And that bothered him a lot on some level he couldnt even name. Yeah, there was a definite cold snap going on in the city, and lots of people worked at home these days, but to not leave ones house one single time in a full week? Not even to go to a movie or pick up a gallon of milk or buy a lottery ticket? That was justweird.
He wished he knew more about her. Which was a strange feeling for him, because anytime Dixonor anyone else he worked with at OPUShad wanted to know more about someone, it had taken less than a day to find out everything about that person. That was a big part of his job, after allto find out whatever he could about suspicious characters. And thanks to all the sophisticated equipment and arcane networks he had at his fingertipsnot to mention his superior brainDixon never had much trouble doing his job. With Daisy, though
She was good. Better than he was, Dixon had been forced to concede reluctantly. Not only did she have some kind of screening device on her phone he couldnt figure out, but she had a firewall on her computer unlike anything hed ever seen beforeboth of them homemade and high-tech and very, very effective. Hed managed to chip a few chinks in the firewall through the course of the week, but only enough to be able to keep track of her when she was online with her desktop. And even then it was more because hed been able to tap into her wireless server and track her from there. Her puter just thumbed its nose at his efforts. And her laptopforget about it. Luckily for him, she rarely used that. Even so, Dixon hadnt been able to fish any pertinent information out of her computer files. Not even her real name. He didnt even know which apartment in the building was hers, only that she did live in this building. And hed only been able to trace that much of her because, before this week, hed been surveilling her online boyfriend, Andrew Paddington, and had intercepted some of the e-mails hed sent to Daisy.
Not that Andrew Paddingtons name was really Andrew Paddington, either. Him, Dixon knew well. Too well. And he was a rank bastard. Of course, everyone at OPUS knew Andrew Paddington. Only they all knew him by his real name: Adrian Padgett. And they all thought he was a rank bastard, too. Because once upon a time theyd all believed Adrian was one of them and then had discovered, too late, that he was nobodys man but his own. And a very bad man, at that.
It had been years since theyd heard from Adrian after he went rogue from his position at the Office of Political Unity and Security with millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains and a formerly secret network hanging out to dry. Then suddenly a year and a half ago hed re-surfaced in, of all places, his hometown of Indianapolis. Hed been trying to pass himself off as a legitimate businessman by the name of Adrian Windsor, but there was nothing legitimate about Adrian. If hed surfaced after years of being underground, it could only be because he was up to no good. OPUS had discovered his activities and deterred him in time to prevent him from doing any real damage, but theyd never quite figured out what exactly his activities were leading to, and hed slipped away before theyd been able to find out. Something illegal, though, that was for damned sure. Because Adrian didnt know how to operate inside the law.
Theyd lost track of him for nine months after hed left Indianapolis, in spite of making him their number-one priority for apprehension. Finally, thanks in large part to the efforts of Dixon and his partner, OPUS had unearthed Adrian again a few months ago, living in New York Citywhere he seemed to be doing little more than joining online dating services and chatting up young women on the Internet.
Oh, he was definitely up to no good. The bastard. Dixon just wished he knew what it was.
But Adrians OPUS code name hadnt been Sorcerer for nothing. He could make magic when he wanted to. He could make himself invisible. He could make himself be anyoneor anythinghe wanted. And he could mesmerize other peopleordinary, decent, moral peopleinto thinking they were doing the right thing by helping him out. Other people like, ohDixon didnt knowDaisy Miller.
Who the hell was she anyway?
Not that she seemed ordinary in any way. Or decent, considering what Dixon had read in some of the snippets hed been able to decrypt from her e-mails to Andrew/Adrian/Sorcerer. As for moral, wellthe jury was still out on that. Could be she was just another one of Sorcerers clueless pawns. Or she might be someone as illicitly inclined as he was. Whoever she was, Dixon could see why Sorcerer wanted her. Not just because if she was living here, she had a bundle of money, but if her homemade phone screen and firewall were anything to go by, she also knew a thing or two about communication technology and software. And since Sorcerers last incarnation had been as a high-level executive for a computer software company in Indianapolis, it was a safe bet that whatever he was up to had something to do with that particular medium.
Although Dixon was fully prepared, and able, to break into Daisys apartment and bug the hell out of the place if she ever left long enough for him to manage itand if, you know, he ever found ithe hadnt had the opportunity to do so because she never went anywhere. So hed had to make do with industrial-strength microphones that caught every other damned thing in a half-mile radius, too, and try to filter out what he could. And hed had to intercept what he could of her online activity through the airwaves. But her firewall made even that hard to do.
Tonight Daisy seemed to be especially active, darting from one chat room to another without even posting in any of them. Not that that was so unusual, since she seemed to be following Sorcerer. Plus, she just spent a lot of time in chat roomsenough so that Dixon suspected she was a bit neurotic.
But what hed come to view as her regular haunts were a lot more esoteric than the ones she was visiting tonight. In addition to the Henry James site, she liked the Libertarian Party home page, the Ruth Gordon Fan Club, the Mo Rocca is a Total Babe site, one headed up by the words Love Animals Dont Cut Them into Pieces and Ingest Them, several Magic: the Gathering sites and the Cracker Mysteries site.
That last was where she had declared on the message board that she wanted to have Robbie Coltranes love child and name it Clem. Dixon had tried to reassure himself that she must have been drinking pretty heavily that night. Somehow, though, that had brought little reassurance. All in all, had he met Daisy Miller at a cocktail party, he could safely say hed want to keep his distance.
Nevertheless, she was very intriguing. And he couldnt say he hadnt enjoyed some parts of this week. Just not tonight, since it was so friggin cold and her activity online was so friggin weird. He was supposed to be on duty until daybreak, when Daisys activity generally started to ebb, whereupon hed be relieved by another agent, whose job would be even more boring than his was, because the daylight hours seemed to be the time when Daisy shutdown.
He was about to contact Cowboy and tell the other man he was calling it a night when suddenly, out of nowhere, Dixon got his big break. Because right when he was thinking this was pointless and he might as well pack it in, Daisy Miller picked up her phone and made a call. When he picked up the sound of a mans voice evidently answering the phone at the other end of the line with a cheery, Hello, Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market, he quickly looked up the address on his laptop and saw that it was an all-night market three blocks away.
More satisfying than that, though, was when he heard Daisywhose voice was very familiar by nowsay, Hi, Mohammed, this is Avery Nesbitt. I need some things delivered.
Dixon picked up one of the more primitive tools he had at his fingertipsa pad and penciland listened as Avery Nesbitt, aka Daisy Miller, ticked off a list of essentials that she needed delivered to the very building where Dixon had parked his van. And then Mohammed confirmed that those should go to apartment numberOh, yes, there is a God7B, right? Yes, thanks, Mohammed, and please charge it to my account, as usual. And add fifteen percent for the delivery boy, twenty if he can deliver it tonight, cause Im really running low on milk. He can? Great. Thanks again, Mohammed, youre the best.
Avery Nesbitt. Dixon smiled at the words hed scrawled on the pad of paper before him. Not Daisy Miller. And this week, from the market, Avery Nesbitt needed coffee, bread, peanut butterthe biggest jar you have, please, MohammedFroot Loops, Capn Crunch, a box of Chicken in a Biskit crackers, a six-pack of Wild Cherry Pepsi, some of those red-chili pistachios, a mondo bag of M&Ms, Sausalito cookies, tampons (shed said that without an ounce of hesitation) and lots and lots of other stuff that had the nutritional equivalent of a big bag of lint.
Awful lot of caffeine and sugar on her list, Dixon reflected as he read his hastily jotted notes. Evidently Avery Nesbitt lived on nothing but carbohydrates. Which went a long way toward explaining why she stayed up all night, every night, the way she always did. And he found himself wondering what a woman could possibly have to do all night when she was home alone.
Not playin Parcheesi, thats for sure, he muttered to himself.
And then he came to the last notation hed made: Delivery tonight. That meant some guy would be bopping down the street very soon with a couple of big grocery sacks from the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market destined for Ms. Avery Nesbitt of apartment 7B.
Which gave Dixon an idea he really had no business entertaining.
He contacted Cowboy again, but this time it wasnt to tell the man he was calling it a night. No, this time what Dixon told Cowboy was
Im going in.
What? the other man said.
Im going in, he repeated.
Youre coming in? Cowboy asked. Its that boring?
Not coming in, Dixon corrected him, going in.
You mean going in as ingoing in?
Dixon smiled. Yeah. I just a got a nice bit of intelligence and I want to follow up on it.
So youre going inwhere?
Dixon rolled his eyes. Newbies. To meet our girl, he said.
She-Wolf is back? Cowboy asked, voicing the code name of Dixons regular partner and sounding very confused. Whats she doing in New York? I thought she went home to Las Vegas to see her mother.
Not She-Wolf, Dixon said. Our other girl. Sorcerers contact.
Daisy Miller?
Thats the one.
But you cant, Cowboy said. You dont even know which apartment shes in.
I do now. I told you. I just received some very nice intelligence. And its from an excellent source. Himself. What better source could there be?
Then you pass the intelligence along to me, Dixon, Cowboy instructed. And I figure out what to do with it. Assimilate, evaluate, articulatethats my job. And you dont go in until I say its safe. Hell, you dont go in, period, unless youre the field agent.
But I am the field agent, he reminded the other man, suddenly grateful for that anomaly.
But youre not supposed to be in the field, Cowboy reminded him right back.
Hey, I didnt ask for this assignment, Dixon said with all the mock innocence he could muster. But you know how conscientious I am about doing my work the right way.
The hell you are. Youre as conscientious about that as I am.
And I want to make sure this job gets done right.
No, Dixon, you
So Im going in to make contact, he told the other man finally. Ill let you know what happens when I get back. He smiled to himself. No reason not to mess with the newbie a little. It was so much fun to hear them shriek. If I come back alive, I mean.
What? Cowboy shrieked.
Wish me luck, he said into the microphone before removing the headset altogether.
Not that that prevented him from hearing more shrieking.
This is nuts, Dixon, Cowboy told him. Dont go in there if its dangerous. Youre not even a field agent. Youre supposed to monitor the machines and analyze the data, like me. If anyone goes in to make contact, it should be She-Wolf. Wait for her before proceeding any further. Shell be back in a couple of weeks. Shes the field agent. You dont know what to do. You dont know proper procedure.
Oh, the hell he didnt. Hed helped write the proper procedure. Hed been an OPUS agent when Cowboy was still fine-tuning his small motor skills.
Dixon, Im begging you, Cowboy implored him. But he sounded resigned now. You cant go in. Please. You dont have permission.
Dixon chuckled as he flipped up the collar of his leather jacket and reached for the handle of the vans side door.
No permission. Right. As if that had ever stopped him before.
CHAPTER TWO
AVERY WAS TOTALLY IMMERSED in creating the code to make her farewell gift to Andrew especially noxious when the doorbell rang and blew her concentration. When she glanced at the clock in the corner of her laptop computer screen, she saw that it was 4:08 a.m. Who on earth came calling at 4:08 in the morning? For that matter, who came calling at all? She hadnt had any visitors to her apartment sincenever. That was one of the things that happened whencue the dramatic music in a minor keydebutantes go bad.
Then she remembered the groceries shed ordered earlier. Duh. She really needed those tampons.
Saving the work shed completed to her hard drive, Avery rose and made her way to the front door, switching on lights as she went, because she normally worked in the dark. She also launched herself into a full-body stretch, wondering how long she had been sitting still. It hadnt been midnight yet when shed started working, so more than four hours. Still, shed gotten a lot done. In fact, she was doing a better job than she usually did for something like this, despite the fact that it had been years since shed put one of these things together. Funny how productive you could be when someone pissed you off real bad.
Before opening the front door, she peeked through the peephole, frowning when the guy on the other side turned out to be neither Eddie, the usual night delivery guy, nor Mohammed, who from time to time made deliveries himself. Nor did the man out there look like someone who would make his living delivering groceries in the first place. No, thanks to his enormous sizealthough he was distorted by the fish-eye, he was clearly bigger than the average national monumenthe seemed more like the kind of guy who would make his living as a longshoreman. Or a bouncer. Or a wrestler. Or a Mack truck.
Wow, just how bad was the economy, she wondered, if guys who looked like him were reduced to delivering groceries? Maybe she should start visiting CNN.com from time to time and see what was going on outside the walls of her apartment. Not that she really cared, quite frankly, but she was still a citizen of this state, even if she would have preferred to live in a different one. Like maybe the state of altered consciousness. Nice scenery there.
In spite of her misgivings about the delivery guy, Avery figured he must be legit because he was toting two brown grocery sacks with the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market logo on them. Pulling herself back from the peephole, she unfastened the four dead bolts and chain that she routinely kept locked in place, then dragged her front door open.
Holy cow. He was even bigger without the distortion of the fish-eye, she saw when she glimpsed the man in person. And now he really didnt seem like someone who would be delivering groceries for a living. Once she got a better look at his face, Avery decided he was more the kind of guy whose job would involve being onstage somewhereprobably stripping down to his altogether while hundreds of screaming, frantic women stuffed their grocery money into his G-string. He was staggeringly handsome, from his finely wrought mouth to his ruggedly chiseled cheekbones to his aristocratic nose to his oh-my-God eyes.
But somehow Avery suspected the harshness of his features belied good breeding, since she had more than a nodding acquaintance with thatboth good breeding and harshness. In spite of his tattered attire, he held himself as if he were someone who knew the rules and regulations of proper dresshe just chose not to abide by them. There was a strange mixture of majesty and menace about him, as if he would have been equally comfortable wielding a martini at a high-society function or breaking someones knuckles as an enforcer for the mob.
It was his eyes, though, that she found most unsettling. An icy, almost opaque green, they made her think of the deepest part of the oceanwhere swam the most mysterious, dangerous creaturesfrozen over. Instead of repelling her, however, the look in his eyes made her want to draw closer to him. But it wasnt just his good looks that generated such a response in her. It simply had been so long since Avery had experienced the simple pleasure of being close to a man physically. Especially one who looked like him.
Where do you want these? he asked without preamble.
Automatically she jutted a thumb over her shoulder. In the kitchen. Please, she added as an afterthought, nearly forgetting the good manners that had been hammered into her during her years of after-school etiquette and deportment classes at Madame Yvettes School for Genteel Young Ladies in East Hampton. Thanks, she added with some distraction. Wow. His eyes really were amazing. And the overly long black hair spilling out from beneath the driving cap hed turned backward on his head only made their color seem that much lighterand that much darker, too.
But the guy didnt follow her instructions, only stood on the other side of the door gazing back at her. Incisively enough that she began to feel disconcerted, a feeling she really hated. In fact, it had been years since she had felt disconcerted, and shed almost convinced herself she was incapable of feeling that anymore. Along with discomfort and shame and humiliation and all those other things that had once been her constant companions. The realization that this man, simply by showing up at her front door, could rouse even one of themand so quickly, too, damn himbothered her a lot.
She was about to snap another order at him when he inclined his head forward and said, Do you mind?
Mind what? she asked.
Uh, stepping aside? he told her. So I can get through.
Only then did Avery realize that he hadnt come forward because she was blocking his way by standing there stupidly ogling him. Gee, had she felt disconcerted before? That was nothing compared to the mortification she felt now. Especially since she was leering at him again, thanks to the velvety pitch of his voice, a sound that skimmed over her like rough-calloused fingertips on naked flesh.
Oh, yeah. Shed definitely gone too long without physical closeness to the opposite sex if she was thinking a mans request for her to step aside was the equivalent of foreplay. Good foreplay, at that.
Oh. Im sorry, she apologized, moving to the side. IYoull have to excuse me. I was working. My mind is still elsewhere. Like on how the sound of your voice was making me orgasmic. The kitchen is through there, she added, pointing in that direction.
He sauntered past her, and she pushed the front door closed before following. As nice as his front side had been, Avery had to admit that the view from the rearespecially of his rearwas almost nicer. The faded jeans hugged his taut buttocks as snugly as Saran wrapwould that they were as transparent, tooswathing his lean thighs and calves. The leather of his jacket was cracked white in enough places to give it character, his shoulders broad and strong and hard-looking beneath it.
She bit back an involuntary sigh. Shed always loved a mans back more than any other feature, liked how the muscles there were dense and plentiful and elegant and how the skin was smooth and warm and fine. She could have been perfectly content for days lying next to a naked man doing little more than running her open palm over his back. This mans naked back, she was certain, would be spectacular.
When they entered her kitchen, she marveled at how much the room seemed to shrink with his presence. Funny, but shed always considered the room to be larger than what most apartments in the city claimed. Unfortunately it was also messier than most apartments in the city, cluttered with empty cereal boxes and crumbled pretzel and potato-chip bags and dirty dishes that she hadnt gotten around to putting into the dishwasher. Mostly because she hadnt taken the clean dishes out.
Well, shed been busy. Working. She had lots of work to do these days. Not to mention she was inherently lazy. In any event, there wasnt even enough clear counter space for him to set down the groceries, so she muttered another apology and waved him toward the door that led to the dining room.
Just put them on the table in there, she said as she watched him head that way.
Where, she recalled belatedly, she had been working on Andrews gift, which was still sitting out in the open, where anybody could see it and get her into big, big trouble.
She started to call him back, then decided that if he was delivering groceries for a living, there was little chance hed recognize what she was putting together on her laptop. So she let him go, crossing her arms over her midsection as she waited for him to return.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally Avery took a few steps toward the other door and called out, Is there something wrong?
When she heard what sounded like the shuffling of paper, she bolted toward the dining room in a panic. She halted at the door, however, when she saw the delivery guy down on all fours, scooping up a sheaf of papers that hed evidently spilled to the floor when hed set the groceries down on the table.
Oh, man, Im sorry, he said as he tried to straighten one piece of paper on top of another. I knocked this stuff off when I set down one of the sacks. I hope I didnt mess up anything you were working on.
Only when her heart stopped slamming against her rib cage did Avery realize just how hard it had been pounding. Enough to make her light-headed. Though, truth be told, that might have been due to the fact that the delivery guys adorable butt was facing her, and bent over the way he was, she had an almost uncontrollable urge to go over there and sink her teeth into it.
Hoo-boy, she had to get out and meet some flesh-and-blood men. Though that might be a little difficult, since she was overcome with terror every time she even stepped out into the hallway. As it was, she tipped Billy the doorman to bring her mail up to her every day.
She gave herself a minute to calm down, then joined the delivery guy on the floor, gathering the papers closest to her. Dont worry about it, she told him. I was finished with that pile.
It became clearer to Avery why he was working in the job he was as he tried to help her clean up. For every piece of paper she collected, he seemed to lose three, and although he tried to keep them in order as he gathered them, he kept turning them first one way, then another, as if he couldnt tell which way they were supposed to go.
Here, she said gently, taking pity on him. Thats okay. Ill do it.
He threw her a grateful smile and stood up, and within a few moments Avery had taken care of the mess herself. When she stood, the delivery guy was staring at her laptop, frowning at the lines of code that would be incoherent gibberish to anyone who wasnt familiar with computer programming. He looked over at her and shrugged, smiling an Oh, well kind of smile.
You must be one a them computer programmers, he said.
Kind of, she told him evasively.
I dont know nothin bout computers myself. Cept how to send e-mail. And even then, a lotta times Ill screw it up.
She tried to smile reassuringly. Well, thats true for a lot of people. It can be confusing.
He nodded enthusiastically. Sure can. He looked at the screen again, then thrust his chin toward it. Just whatre you doin there anyway? he asked.
Instinctively Avery moved to the laptop to protect her work, and even though her visitor clearly couldnt find his megabyte from a hole in the ground, something told her to close the lid and hurry him on his way. Why was he hanging around anyway? she wondered. Hed get his tip from Mohammed when he returned, and shed be billed for it. That was the way it always worked. Maybe Mohammed hadnt explained that to him yet. This guy was probably new to the job, since Avery had never seen him before.
Uh, its just something Im working on for someone, she hedged, pushing the top down on the computer as unobtrusively as she could. Look, I told Mohammed to add your tip to the bill, since I dont keep any money in the house, she added.
The comment seemed to invite mischief, and Avery wanted more than ever to get the guy out of her apartment. He seemed nice enough, and Mohammed always did a thorough background check on his employees, but even guys who were easy on the eye could turn out to be anything but easy.
Thanks for making the delivery so late, she added, hoping that might spur him on.
But he didnt take the hint, only stood on the other side of the table gazing at her, as if she were something worth gazing at. Which was the most alarming thing of all, because dressed as she was, in her obnoxious pajamas and her least attractive glasses, with her hair in two long braids, she looked like Pippi Longstocking on crystal meth. If he was staring at her, it wasnt because he liked what he saw.
Thanks again, she said a little less amiably. I appreciate it. When he still made no move to leave, she added, Ill see you out.
Then she turned to make her way back to the front door, completing the journey without looking back once, and was relieved when the delivery guy followed her. But his pace was slow and relaxed, as if he were in no hurry, and somehow that made Avery want to hurry even more. Although his hands were shoved carelessly into the pockets of his jacket, she couldnt help worrying that there might be something else in those pockets that could be potentially harmful to her. Like, ohshe didnt knowa gun, perhaps. Or a knife. Some rope, maybe. Or duct tape.
Amazing all the dangerous things that would fit easily into a mans jacket pocket, she marveled. Though somehow she suspected his hands would be the most dangerous weapon of all.
He was starting to look menacing again, and it occurred to her how truly isolated she was in her life. She didnt know any of her neighbors and honestly wasnt sure if any of them would respond to an anguished cry in the night. Not that theyd even hear an anguished cry this time of night, because they were probably all asleep, as normal people were at four-something in the morning.
And if something terrible did happen to her, who would she turn to in the fallout? Avery hadnt spoken to anyone in her family for nearly a decade, and she didnt kid herself that something like an assault or molestation on her part would change that. On the contrary, were her person to be violated, it would just make the rest of the family that much more determined to avoid her. The Nesbitts of East Hampton were still trying to rebuild their social standing in the wake of their youngest childs exploits. She doubted theyd even send flowers to her funeral.
Her mouth went dry at the thought of her funeral. Or maybe it was because her visitor came to a halt in front of her with scarcely a breath of air separating them. If he did decide to be menacing instead of majestic, he could easily overpower her and no one would be the wiser.
Oh, who was she kidding? He could choose to be majestic, too, and shed still end up a puddle of ruined womanhood at his feet.
Her heart was hammering hard in her chest again, but surprisingly it wasnt because she felt threatened by him. No, what Avery was feeling was infinitely more dangerous and more potent than fear. What she was feeling was hunger, plain and simple. And it wasnt for the bags of groceries this guy had just delivered. It was for an altogether different sort of package that he had.
Without thinking, she dropped her gaze to the package in question and saw that his jeans hugged him there as intimately as they did elsewhere. And it was a very nice package indeed. When she realized what she was doing, she snatched her gaze back up again, forcing herself to look at his face. But he was smiling at her in a way that told her he knew exactly what shed been looking at. Worse, he knew she liked what she saw.
Thanks again, she said as she pulled the front door open and moved behind it. But the words came out sounding breathless and needy and in no way grateful.
Anytime, he told her as he took a few steps forward. But he halted at the threshold and turned to look at her one last time. Then he lifted a hand to his forehead in something of a salute and smiled at her. And, sweetheart, I do mean anytime, he said before leaving.
Avery slammed the door closed behind him with no attempt to be subtle about it, thrusting all four dead bolts into place as quickly as she could and hooking the chain back tight. Then she leaned against it, her arms thrown wide over it, as if her too-slim, one-hundred-and-twenty-pound body could actually hold back two hundred towering pounds of solidly packed male.
Strangely, though, she hadnt taken those precautions because she feared he might come back and ravish her. It was because she was afraid shed run after him and beg for it.
SHE SMELLED LIKE PEACHES.
That was the thought circling with the most frequency around Dixons brain thirty minutes after meeting Avery Nesbitt in the flesh. Not the fact that her attire was the sort of thing normally worn by people whod sustained a severe head trauma. Nor that she hadnt had a qualm about inviting a total stranger into her apartment, never mind that the stranger was carrying groceries shed orderedhell, any Tom, Dixon or Harry could have slipped the real delivery boy a Benjamin out on the street and intercepted those groceries to gain entry into her apartment for nefarious purposes. Nor had Dixon been thinking about what a major slob she was. Or about how shed actually seemed kind of nice, taking pity on the clumsy delivery boy the way she had and cleaning up the guys mess.
He wasnt even thinking most about how, judging by the collection of letters and numbers and symbols hed seen on her laptop screen, she was trying to take over the world. No, what Dixon was thinking about most was that Avery Nesbitt smelled like peaches.
And, hey, she might not have been trying to take over the entire world. Maybe what she was working on up there was just a sinister little hobby of hers, something shed keep to herself and not unleash on an unsuspecting planet.
But she was building a monster up there.
And not one of those lame rubber-suited monsters that stomps all over Tokyo, either. No, the beast Avery was building could potentially wipe out life as they knew it from Alaska to Zambia.
Damn, she really was good, he thought as he sat in the darkened van and reviewed the episode in her apartment one more time. And now he could really see why Sorcerer wanted to hook up with her. If not sexuallythere was still that small matter of her wardrobethen certainly in a way that was even more useful to Sorcerer.
Dixon hadnt been able to see a lot of what was on the laptop before hed heard her approaching the dining room and knocked the papers to the floor in an effort to hide his snooping. But even the quick glimpse hed been able to steal had told him a lot. What Avery Nesbitt was doing in the privacy of her own home was something that could potentially have worldwide repercussions. Because Avery Nesbitt was creating a virus. Not some cute little virus that spread from person to person with a simple achoo, but a fast-traveling and highly contagious computer virus that could wipe out any PC it came into contact with.
Even from the little Dixon had seen, there was nothing to rival it. Unless he sat down to dissect and analyze it, he wasnt sure there would be a cure for it. Hed practically fallen in love with her on the spot, so massive was his admiration for her skill. Until hed remembered that she was a menace to society, wherein his ardor had quickly cooled.
But it had risen to the fore again during that last odd exchange theyd shared just before hed left her apartment. Okay, so she wasnt what any man in his right mind would call beautiful. In those ridiculous pajama bottoms and that shapeless sweatshirt, he hadnt been able to discern a single feminine attribute. Although she appeared to have a thick, glossy mane of blue-black hair, shed been wearing it in a style he hadnt seen on any female over the age of twelve. And shed seemed to select her glasses frames for the sole purpose of birth control. But the eyes behind those glasses
Oh, baby.
Huge and round and bluer than the sky above. And hungry. Theyd been hungry eyes and theyd raked over Dixon as if he were a surf and turf carried to a death-row inmate the night before her execution. Hed nearly burst into flame when shed looked at him the way she had. It had been all he could do not to respond to that look, just to see if maybe peaches were as sweet in the dead of winter as they were during the torrid heat of summer. One touch, hed figured. That was all it would have taken. If hed touched her one time, the right way, in the right place, Avery Nesbitt would have been his for the night.
Because damn, Dixon was good, too.
He figured she would need at least another day to finish what she was working on, and even then he really did have no evidence to suggest she was planning to put it into circulation. Could be she just had a really bizarre, twisted hobby building computer viruses and then sitting back to admire them.
But he doubted it.
In his experience, people who made viruses only did so for one reason: to send them out into the world and laugh hysterically at all the damage they wrought. And if Avery Nesbitt was involved with Sorcerer, that only made the threat ten times more menacing.
So Dixon had less than a day to find out everything he could about Avery Nesbitt and do whatever he had to do to stop her. He wasnt going to waste a moment of it hanging around outside her apartment building doing surveillance. Not when hed learned enough about her tonight to uncover everything about her. But he needed to be at OPUS to do that, with his computer and his networks and his contacts.
He climbed into the front of the van and turned the key and thought again about the peachy scent of Avery Nesbitt. Then he threw the vehicle into gear and drove away. He glanced once into the rearview mirror as he waited for a signal at the corner to change, at the pale blue glow from a computer screen that was barely visible in the window of what he now knew was Avery Nesbitts dining room.
She was still at work on her monster. And Dixon was quite possibly the only human being who knew how to stop her.
IT WAS PAST HIS LUNCH hour when he finally took a break, if for no other reason than that he needed to refuel before taking his findings to his superior or hed get woozy from sheer exhilaration. If Dixon didnt get a major promotion out of thisto nothing less than Exalted Supreme Sovereign of Every Damned Thing There Isthen there was no justice in the world.
Avery Nesbitt was going to be quite a catch.
And Dixon was going to be the one to catch her.
His head swam with his findings as he blindly selected food from the company cafeteria and paid for it. The headquarters for the Office of Political Unity and Security were in Washington, D.C., but the organization had field offices in a handful of major cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami. Dixon normally worked out of D.C., but his search for Sorcerer had taken him and his partner She-Wolf to a half-dozen cities in the past year. He was no stranger to New York, though, having earned his masters degree from Columbia University. Nevertheless, hed had little opportunity to enjoy himself since his return.
Yeah, he was going to enjoy bringing in Avery Nesbitt for questioning, even if he had to bring her in kicking and screaming.
As he ate his lunch without tasting a bite of it, Dixon connected and divided and reconnected all his discoveries in his brain. She was a fascinating piece of work. But as much as hed learned about her over the past several hours, he still couldnt get to the core of herher motivation. Everybody was motivated by something. Something that had happened to them, or something that they wanted or something that they needed. Motivation defined who a person was. Dixon was no different. He understood his motivation perfectly. But Avery Nesbitt
He couldnt figure her out.
There had to be a reason for why she had done the things shed done and there had to be a reason for why she lived the way she did nowwhich was an odd way to live indeed. But there was nothing in her background that even hinted at what motivated her. It had only made her that much more intriguing to Dixon.
Pushing his tray away with the plate still half-full, he rose and returned to his office to gather up his notes and printouts. He reviewed them one last time to make sure he was prepared, then took the elevator down to the basement, to the office of his most superior superior, the One Whose Name Nobody Dared Saymostly because Dixon didnt know what his name was. OPUS was, after all, a top-secret organization within a top-secret organization, and everything everyone knew was strictly on a need-to-know basis. But very few knew who needed to know what, including Dixon. There were times when he wondered if the One Whose Name Nobody Dared Say even knew what his own name was.
Usually No-Name stayed nameless in Washington, D.C., since that was where the most superior superiors of OPUS dwelled. But since Sorcerer had been spied in New York, Mr. No-Name had been spending a lot of his time here with the senior agent of the New York office, Another One Whose Name Nobody Dared Say Because Nobody Knew What It Was Either. Or, as Dixon liked to think of her, Ms. No-Name.
Right now, though, he was going to go straight to the top, to the Big Guy himself. He was greeted by Mr. No-Names secretary, an efficient-looking, white-haired woman dressed in gray flannel, whose name Dixon also didnt knowdid she even know the Big Guys name?and politely requested an audience with the Great and Powerful Oz. She glanced at her appointment calendar, picked up the phone, murmured a few words into it, then smiled.
He says you can go right in, she told Dixon before pressing her finger to a buzzer under the desk.
Dixon smiled in return as he passed her, knowing her own warm, outgoing demeanor was strictly for show. If she was like half the secretaries at OPUS, in addition to having a top-secret button under her top-secret desk that opened top-secret doors, she also had a bazooka under there. Maybe a flamethrower. Or even a surface-to-air missile. And, like the other secretaries there, she wasnt afraid to use it and probably had on more than one occasion.
Sir, Dixon greeted the man sitting behind the big government-issue desk as he entered.
Mr. No-Name was about as remarkable as an insurance claims adjuster would be, wearing a boring gray suit, a boring white shirt and a boring blue tie. His hair was thinning a bit, but no more than that of any other man his agewhich Dixon gauged to be somewhere between forty and sixty. In fact, his boss looked like just about every man between the ages of forty and sixty. And he doubtless worked hard at looking average. It wasnt good to stand out when you were a big muckety-muck in a top-secret, bazooka-toting-secretaried organization.
Dixons superior looked at him through narrowed eyes. Ah, yes. Your code name is He halted before saying it, however, which made Dixon think he really had gotten a bad rep about that code-name business. Well, what name are you going by now? the man asked instead.
Dixon.
Right. So what do you have to report about Sorcerer?
Oh, yeah. He was supposed to be keeping tabs on Sorcerer, too, wasnt he? Dixon thought. Funny, but in the wake of Hurricane Avery, hed all but forgotten the son of a bitch whose ass he wanted to nail to the wall more than hed ever wanted anything in his life. How odd.
Actually, sir, there havent been any new developments with Sorcerer himself.
Meaning? his boss asked.
Dixon gazed at the other man blandly. Meaning there havent been any new developments with Sorcerer himself, he wanted to say. Jeez, not everything in the spy business had to be cloak-and-dagger. What I have to report is something about the woman Sorcerers been in contact with over the past month.
Ah. Daisy Miller.
Dixon wasnt surprised that his superior already knew about her. The Big Guy knew everything that went on in the organization. And anything that involved Sorcerer shot especially quickly to the top. Thats the one, he said.
What about her?
Dixon took a breath and wondered where to begin. Well, we have a name for her now. Avery Nesbitt.
His boss sat up stick-straight in his chair. Nesbitt? he asked.
Dixon nodded, puzzled by the reaction. His boss seemed to know the name well. Yeah he said.
Is her father Desmond Nesbitt?
Dixon nodded, too surprised to speak.
Of the East Hampton Nesbitts?
Well, yeah, she grew up in East Hampton, he said. But the family has a half dozen other residences, too, all over the world.
His boss nodded. I know. I know the family.
This time Dixon was the one to narrow his eyes. You know Avery Nesbitt?
Not so much her as her father. But yes, Ive met her. Years ago. She couldnt have even been in high school then. Scrawny kid. Long black hair. Big glasses.
It was an apt description for her now, Dixon thought, except for the size of the glasses, which were fashionably smaller. Well, sort of fashionably smaller. Okay, just smaller.
Youre sure Daisy Miller is Avery Nesbitt? his boss asked.
Positive.
The other man nodded again. Tell me what else you have on her.
Gee, sir, you may know more than I do, if you know the family.
The other man shook his head. No, as I said, its been years since Ive had any contact with them. Desmond and I were in the same college fraternity. I hear about him occasionally through mutual acquaintances. And of course, everyone heard about that business with Again he halted before finishing. Well, tell me what youve got.
Dixon nodded. Okay. Ill just hit on the highlights for now and give you my full report at the end of the day. Twenty-nine years old, never married, no kids. Born and raised in East Hampton, New York. Parents Desmond and Felicia Nesbitt. Youngest of three childrenshe has an older brother and an older sister. Educated at the finest schools money could buy, traveled extensively as a child and teenager. Was accepted to Wellesley College and declared a major in computer science. Attended for two and a half years, but her education was interrupted.
Right, his boss said.
But the way he said it made Dixon think the guy already knew what had interrupted young Averys studies. Then again, once Dixon had made the connection, he had remembered the incident himself.
She was always an exceptional student, he continued, gifted in both mathematics and language arts. Scored a perfect twenty-four hundred on her SAT, a perfect thirty-six on her ACT. Fluent in French, Spanish and German by the time she graduated high school. Mastered anything computer-related with little effort from an early age. Won a national award when she was fourteen for designing an e-mail program that was then purchased and produced by a company named CompuPax. A few minor behavioral problems in school, but nothing you wouldnt expect from any other exceptionally gifted kid. No black marks on her permanent record. From all accounts, she was the ideal student up until her junior year.
His boss studied him in silence, his fingers steepled together on his desk. Go on.
Taking a deep breath, Dixon continued, In her junior year in college, Avery Nesbitt, of the East Hampton Nesbitts, had her education interrupted. Because she earned herself a ten-year prison sentence instead.
CHAPTER THREE
DIXONS BOSS DIDNT SEEM surprised by the announcement. I remember that, he said. And I imagine you do, too. Its become one of those Where were you when things.
I remember it now, Dixon said. But I didnt make the connection at firstit was ten years ago, after all. I couldnt remember her name. But as soon as I read about her conviction, it all came together. I was twenty-nine when it happened and working in decryption. News of her arrest got a lot of buzz around the department. The virus she created was the stuff of legends, and she was just a kid. Even ten years later, no ones figured out how she did it.
Viral Avery. That was how the media had referred to her after the debacle, their too-clever spin on Typhoid Mary. But where an individual would have had to have personal contact with Mary to come down with the bug, Avery had taken out millions with the simple click of a mouse. The college junior had nearly shut down the planet with the computer virus shed sent out into the world.
At the time of her arrest, shed claimed it was an accident, that shed only created the program and sent it in retaliation to a boyfriend whod jilted her. Shed insisted shed only wanted to destroy his hard drive and nothing else and that shed had no idea shed leave businesses all over the world stalled, scores of governments deadlocked and the Vatican in the dark. For days. By the time it was finally contained, Averys virus had taken out big chunks of North, Central and South America, Greenland and a good part of Europe, including the Vatican. As for Asiaforget about it.
All told, Viral Avery had cost her fellow man roughly a gazillion dollars in lost revenues, and shed had people standing in line all along the equator who wanted to string her up for global target practice. Preferably with atomic warheads.
But theyd had to settle for seeing her get slapped with a ten-year prison sentence instead, something that had offended most people because theyd thought it too light a punishment. They were offended even more when two years later she was released on shock probation. Many suspected it had been more her fathers dollars and influence that had won her the release than any remorse or trauma on her part. Shed been painted in the media as a spoiled, privileged, snotty little geek who always got her way, thanks to family connections. Before, during and after her release, she was gleefully and thoroughly reviled.
Still, according to her prison records, she had been an exemplary inmate, living quietly and following the rules. And during her trial, the highlights of which Dixon also had studied, there really hadnt been much evidence to indicate she had acted in malice toward anyone other than the boyfriend.
But now she was building another virus, he reminded himself. Within weeks of making the acquaintance of Sorcerer. And wasnt that just the most interesting coincidence in the world?
Shes putting together another one, he told his boss.
The other mans eyebrows shot up at that. Shes what?
Shes building another virus, Dixon said. I saw part of it myself when I made contact last night. And just that little glimpse told me that its ten times worse than the one she sent out ten years ago. With technology being what it is now and with a million times more people being connected to the Internet than there were ten years ago
He left the comment unfinished, knowing his boss would comprehend the massive repercussions.
Weve got to stop her, the other man said. We still get calls from the Vatican. Not to mention Greenland.
Then we better hurry, Dixon said. Because she could be finished with this thing anytime.
Ill take care of the paperwork right now, his boss told him. Get your temporary partnerwhats his name?
Gillespie, Dixon said. Tanner Gillespie. Code name Cowboy.
Whens She-Wolf due back? his boss asked.
Shes had to take an indefinite leave of absence, Dixon said. Her mother passed away and she has some family matters to see to.
Right, the other man said. Well give her all the time she needs, of course.
Dixon couldnt imagine her needing much. One thing about She-Wolfshe never let life get in the way of her job, never let the personal overshadow the professional. She was a lot like him in that regard.
Collect Cowboy, his boss told him again, and bring in Avery Nesbitt today.
You sure we have enough on her?
We dont need much.
Which was true. Even before 9/11, OPUS had operated outside the rules set up for other government agencies. Since then, theyd been moved under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security, their worth reevaluated, their mission refined, their rules of operation revised. Dixons boss, he knew, wouldnt have any trouble getting papers signed that would bring Avery Nesbitt to heel.
Bring her in, the man told him. Now. Well have a room waiting for her when you get back.
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER deciding to send Andrew a farewell giftnot that she wanted him to fare well, of course, hence the farewell giftthings werent working out the way Avery had hoped. Shed been so sure she could create a virus that would turn his hard drive into tapiocaradioactive tapioca at thatbut shed hit a snag. And snags just didnt happen to her. Well, not since the one that had sent her to prison ten years ago, which, granted, had been a pret-ty ma-jor snag. Shed been extremely careful since then not to set herself up for another one. Then again, being genuinely phobic about leaving ones home did rather hinder one in getting oneself into trouble.
And that one major snag ten years ago had only come about because shed been driven by her emotions instead of her intellect. Shed just been too ambitious with this particular project, that was all. Vengefulness did that to a person sometimesmade them too ambitious. Now shed have to go back and start over with a virus that was less damaging.
Though this one was very intriguing.
Still, it wasnt as if she could send this thing out anyway. Just building another virus would get her in big trouble. If she actually sent it to Andrew, theyd toss her keister back in the slammer and throw away the key for good. Which was why Avery was building it on this particular laptopit had no communication function whatsoever. It was the laptop she used for off-line gaming. Which was what building this virus was to hera game. It was physically impossible for her to send it anywhere beyond her hard drive. Unless, you know, she moved it to another computer. Which, of course, she would never do.
But shed needed to do something to exorcise Andrew from her systemto serve him his just desserts, if only in her own mental bakery. And building him a virus, even one that would never go anywhere, made her feel vindicated. She was a woman scorned and all that, and you should never underestimate the power of one of those. Even the ones who had been effectively spayed in the ol revenge department.
She studied the lines of code again, backtracking to see where she might have gone wrong. She didnt want to abandon the project completely, because it really was a brilliant bit of work, if she did say so herself. But it wasnt going to function properly the way she had it set up, theoretically or realistically.
Lets see. If she dropped this command and added a different one insteadOr if she clarified that command a little betterHmm
What had she done wrong?
She squinted at the numbers and letters and symbols again, then removed her glasses to rub her eyes. Shed been up for thirty-six hours straight now, her mind completely engaged during the majority of them. She hadnt even stopped working long enough to eat anything since that last bowl of Cajun popcorn. Maybe she needed to take a break for a little while. Clear her head with a nice Starbucks double shot.
Yeah, thats the ticket.
She tossed her glasses onto the table and stood, reaching as high as she could above her head, arching her back to relieve the kinks that had set in. Oh, man, that felt good. The sudden activity stirred her cat, Skittles, who had curled herself into a meatloaf shape on one of the other dining room chairs. After mimicking Averys stretch with one of her own, she leaped down, curling her lithe silver-and-black-striped body around and between Averys calves. Avery smiled and bent to pick up the cat, cuddling her under her chin and calming immediately at the soft hum of the animals contented purr.
It was always good to have someone in your life you could count on, no matter what. Skittles was that for Avery. Shed shown up as a stray kitten outside the gates of the Rupert Halloran Womens Correctional Facility during the final month of Averys term, and after much urging and cajoling from the inmates, one of the guards had brought the scrawny little thing inside for the women to fuss over. Theyd decided whoever was the next released would take the kitten with her. Avery had been the winner. In more ways than one. Skittles had been with her ever since.
She strode, cradling Skittles, into the kitchen. It was still a mess, unfortunately. No friendly little house-cleaning brownies had come by while shed been working to clean the place up. Dang. Although, speaking of brownies, hadnt she put some Sara Lee brownies on her grocery list? she recalled now. She put down Skittles and padded in sock feet over to the counter, where she had at least cleared a place for the two sacks of groceries, even if she hadnt quite gotten around to unpacking them all yet. Well, shed needed the space on the dining room table to work and then shed been too preoccupied by that work to worry about putting away anything but the stuff that needed to be refrigerated.
She had dug out the brownie tin and peeled back the paper lid from the foiloh, boy, just the sight of all that icing was enough to send her into spasms of orgasmic chocolaty euphoriawhen there was a knock at her front door. She jerked up her head upon hearing it. Two visitors within a matter of hours was extraordinary. It was also very suspicious.
As quietly as she could, she made her way to the front door and leaned forward to peer through the peephole. When she saw who stood on the other side, her heart kicked up a ragged rhythm and heat flooded her belly. Because it was the delivery guy from Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market again, only this time he wasnt carrying groceries.
She told herself to ask him what he wanted but feared she already knew. Hey, a scrawny, ill-favored woman living all alone? Avery knew what an easy mark she was to creeps. Look at what had happened with Andrew. Even if this guy was here for a legitimate reason, Avery didnt feel like answering the door. She had everything she needed, thanks, and preferred to be left alone. She didnt like talking to strangers. She didnt like talking to anybody. She liked keeping to herself and hoping the worldand the grocery delivery guy it rode in onstayed away.
She started to move away from the peephole, pretending she wasnt home so hed leave. But he called out through the door, his words stopping her cold.
I wouldnt do that if I were you, Ms. Nesbitt.
It didnt surprise her that he knew her name. Mohammed would have told him who the delivery was for. But the very nature of her in-home business was to create online security systems for other people and businesses. Shed learned her trade by making her own systemher own lifesecure. Shed done everything she knew to do to keep herself safe. It always creeped her out whenever she was identified, regardless of how innocently that identification came. And the fact that the identifier now was standing on the other side of her front door, which was the only way inor outof her apartment, made her feel more than a little nauseous.
Pressing her eye to the peephole again, she asked, What do you want?
I want you to open the door, Ms. Nesbitt.
Yeah, shed just bet he did. Why?
Just open the door, please.
Oh, right. Shed just invite a sexual predator right into her home.
Not without a good reason, she told him, wondering why she was even bothering. She should be heading for the phone right now to call the cops. Still, she was safe enough behind the four dead bolts and chain. And there might be a chance the guy had come here for a perfectly legitimate reason. Maybe. Possibly. In an alternate universe someplace where women didnt have to be on guard about their personal safety twenty-four hours a day.
Because you and I need to have a little chat, he said.
Okay, so much for the Clever Banter portion of their program, Avery thought. Now it was time to move along to the ever-popular Alert the Authorities segment.
Thats not going to happen, she said. And if you dont leave right now, Ill call the police.
Peaches, I am the police, he said.
Oh. Well. That made a difference. Or rather, it would have made a difference. If he hadnt been lying through his teeth. And if he hadnt just called her Peaches, something that made her want to open the door just so she could smack him upside the head.
Just to be sure, though, she pressed her eye to the peephole again to see if maybe he was displaying a badge. He wasnt. He was just standing out there wearing the same clothes hed had on the last time shed seen himhow many hours ago? She performed some quick mental mathsix minus fourdrop the three, make it a twocarry the oneand that would beoh, bugger it, she was too tired for thislast night. His driving cap was still turned backward, his leather bomber jacket was still hanging open over a heavy sweater and blue jeans, and his hands were still stuffed into pockets that could hold anything from chloroform to an automatic weapon.
Policemen identify themselves right away, she said, still gazing through the peephole. And they carry badges. And ID. Now go away. Or Ill call the cops. The real cops.
His shoulders rose and fell then, as if he were sighing deeply, and he pulled one hand out of one pocket to flip something open. Whatever kind of identification he was trying to show her, it was in a folding case, with some kind of photo and writing on the left side and some kind of badgish-looking thing on the right. Shed have to open the door to get a better look at it. But she wasnt going to do that. Because even through the fish-eye she could tell it was phony as hell. Shed seen police ID before. Hell, shed seen federal ID before. Up close and personal, too, as a matter of fact. And whatever this guy was holding, it wasnt an ID for New Yorks finest or the feds.
Obviously thinking shed fall for it, however, he repeated crisply, Ms. Nesbitt, open the door.
How had he even gotten into the building? she wondered. Billy the doorman must be sleeping on the job. She made a mental note to ask him about it the next time she saw him, then, as quietly as she could, she pushed herself away from the door and took a giant step backward.
Only to hear the man on the other side of her door say, I wouldnt do that if I were you.
For a single moment Avery hesitated, numerous thoughts circling through her mind. Thought number one: how did he know she was doing anything at all when even she hadnt heard herself make a sound? Thought number two: how did he know she wasnt cooperating with his instruction, reaching for the dead bolts to open them, if he had heard her make a sound? Thought number three: had he threatened her?
Just as thought number three was forming, she heard the sound of something metallic click against something else metallic and instinctively, she took another quick step back from the door. Then, before she even had time to register what the sound might be, she saw one, two, three, four dead bolts twist open, so quickly that he might as well have had a key to each on the other side. So stunned was she by the sight that she didnt immediately move. Thankfully, though, the chain held the door closed when he pushed it open. Until a small pair of bolt cuttersthe perfect size to hide in a jacket pocketappeared and cut through it as if it was paper. And then the front door was thrown open wide, and the man who hours before had brought her sustenance necessary for life stood framed by the doorway, doubtless with the intention of making that life unlivable for a while.
Her heart pounding, her brain hurtling, Avery turned and ran toward her bedroom, assuring herself she had time to reach it and lock the door behind herself, knowing there was a phone in there she could use to dial 911. That was the only hope she had at the momentstaving off this psycho scumbag long enough for the police to arrive. She didnt expend any more energy to think further than that, channeled all her strength into running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
It was the couch that did her in. Later she would realize that she should have run around it instead of trying to scramble over it. Because the minute her foot hit the too-soft cushion, her leg buckled beneath her and her body crumpled. When her assailant landed on top of her, he turned her and pinned her effortlessly beneath him, her belly and face pressed into the sofa as he straddled her waist with powerful thighs. Almost casually he gripped both of her wrists in one big hand and shoved them firmly against the small of her back. Then he leaned forward and began totouch her.
Never in her life had Avery felt so surrounded. He seemed to be everywhere, his free hand moving briskly over her body, sometimes in places that were too intimate to think about. He began at the crown of her head and proceeded downward, over her neck, her shoulders, her back, even her bottom, then lower still when he reached behind himself to run his hand along first one leg, then the other, stretching back far enough to rove over both sock-covered feet. When he moved his hand back up again, over her thighs, he dipped between them, pressing his fingers for only a second against the feminine heart of her. Avery squeezed her eyes shut tight but couldnt quite stifle her gasp.
Gotta do it, Peaches, he said. Sorry about that.
And before she had a chance to comment, before she could even open her eyes, he was moving off her. But only long enough to flip her onto her back and straddle her again, this time jerking her hands up over her head. She opened her eyes wide then, ordering herself to catalogue his features, to note any distinguishing characteristics, to take a mental picture so that when this was over, shed be able to identify him and put his ass in jail. Because eventually this would be over, she told herself. And she would survive it. And then she would do everything she had to do to make him pay.
She had thought he would shy away from her scrutiny, if for no other reason than to prevent her from getting a good look at him. But his gaze met hers unflinchingly, his cold green eyes holding her in place almost as much as his big body did. Again he held both of her wrists firmly in one hand as his other went wandering, down both arms and over her ribs and then briefly but thoroughly over her breasts. Avery closed her eyes again when he touched her, swallowing hard, and she gritted her teeth as he reached behind himself to run his hand down the fronts of her legs this time. This time, though, he didnt venture between them, something that both relieved and puzzled her.
Still straddling her, still holding her wrists firmly above her head, he said ironically, I wont hurt you.
She snapped her eyes open and glared at him. Too angry to think about her own safety now, she spat out her response. You already have, you bastard.
Instead of provoking him, however, her charge seemed to deflate him some. His expression, which had been so intense a moment before, suddenly went soft, almost sad. And the hand that gripped her wrists so fiercely loosened a bit. Avery immediately took advantage to jerk one of her hands free, then doubled her fist and punched him in the nose as hard as she could. Taken abackand hopefully woundedhe released her other hand to bring both of his up to his nose, a gesture that also slackened the legs still encircling her waist.
For one scant, exhilarating second Avery thought she would evade him. She had pulled herself out from beneath him enough to turn her body and claw at the floor, and she was eyeing her escape routestraight for the front door, which, although pushed closed, would still be unlockedwhen he recovered himself and jerked her back up onto the couch again. This time when he restrained her, he did it thoroughly, covering her entire front with his own, so that his body pinned hers from shoulder to toe.
Maybe I should clarify that, he whispered roughly, his voice edged with steel. I wont hurt you unless you try to hurt me.
She hurt him? Oh, that was rich. In spite of her having gotten off a decent pop to his nose, he could snap her in two like a matchstick. She knew better than to struggle now. Not only would it be pointless, but it would probably only make him angry. Best-case scenario, he was one of those attackers who got off on a womans fear, and if she lay quietly and did her best not to show her own, hed lose interest and be unwilling or unable to perform. Or maybe when he realized why shed needed those tampons, hed be too grossed out to perform. Hey, it could happen. Worst-case scenario
Well. She decided not to think about that.
The best weapon she claimed was her brain, so she would use that. Let him think she was compliant, and when an opportunity presented itself, she would outwit and outmaneuver him and make her escape. She would not, however, succumb to him. She hadnt endured two years in prison without learning a thing or two about survival. Not because shed needed the skills to survive herselfprison had been surprisingly danger-free for herbut because so many of the other women had needed them before being incarcerated, and theyd shared their expertise with Avery in exchange for computer instruction and other such barterable things.
What do you want? she asked quietly, even though she knew perfectly well what he wanted.
Not what you think, he replied.
She kept her expression bland, determined to show no fear. If its not what I think, then let me get up.
He shook his head. Not yet, Peaches.
She gritted her teeth at the endearmentsuch as it was. When?
He smiled, but there was something strangely un-menacing about it. When Im comfortable, he told her.
She didnt want to know how he intended to achieve that.
He said nothing more for a moment, only gazed at her face as if he were the one now who wanted to catalogue features and note any distinguishing characteristics. Fat chance, Avery thought. She didnt have any distinguishing characteristics, and her features were in no way memorable. Unlike his own. Even had the situation not been so terrifying, she would remember him.
Now she found herself noticing things other than his looks. Like how he smelled faintly of coffee and exhaust fumes. And how his heart buffeted against her own in a totally calm, completely dispassionate way. She would have thought his pulse would be racing at the prospect of overpowering her and doing his dirty little deed. But he was completely cool and calm and collected. Somehow that only made him scarier.
You know, youre quite the mystery woman, Avery Nesbitt, he finally said, his voice a soft, velvety purr, his breath warm and damp as it stirred the hair at her temple.
Not really, she countered shallowly, a little breathlessly. With me, what you see is what you get.
And, oh, dammit, she wished she hadnt said that. If her brain was her fiercest weapon, she might as well concede defeat right now.
His smile told her he was thinking pretty much the same thing. Maybe, he said. But I didnt see you before last night. Even though Ive been watching you for a while now.
Okay, that really creeped her out. Avery knew about stalkers, of course. But shed never considered the possibility that shed be the target of one. How could she be? She never left home. It had been weeks, months even, since shed left the building, and her destination had been only four blocks away, to Skittless veterinarian. Theyd been gone less than an hour. And Avery hadnt noticed anyone noticing her. Of course, shed consumed a half-dozen shots of Johnnie Walker before heading out, so she was lucky to have even found the vets office, not to mention her way home. But Avery could tell when she was being watched. If this guy had been stalking her, she would have known.
How could you be watching me when I never go anywhere? she asked. Maybe if she got him talking, kept him talking, she could figure some way out of this.
Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own. And why is that? That you never go anywhere?
She wasnt about to tell him it was because she was afraid to leave her home. Show no fear, she commanded herself. Do not let him know your weaknesses. I dont have any reason to go anywhere, she said. I work at home and I work long hours. This is an especially busy time for me, and anything I need, I can have delivered. So I do.
What about socializing? he asked.
And she hated to think why. Because if he was thinking she might want to socialize with him, he had another think coming. And then he had a poke in the eye coming. And then a knee to the groin.
I dont socialize much, she said.
Peaches, you dont socialize at all, he rejoined. Unless you count all that bouncing around the Internet you do as socializing. And trust me, there are better ways to socialize than that.
She told herself he couldnt be stalking her on the Net. Not just because shed done nothing to attract a stalker, but because she had security measures in place on every system she owned that made it impossible for anyone to do that. He was bluffing. Or something. She just wished she knew what the hell was going on.
Who are you? she asked.
What? You dont remember me? he said. From the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market? After all those steamy looks you threw my way?
She squeezed her eyes shut tight at the reminder. Oh, God, how could she have ogled him the way she had? Naturally a psycho like him would misinterpret her simple appreciation of his physique as a blatant invitation to come back later and enjoy a slice of what she was clearly desperate to give him. It was almost funny. Shed been cloistered away from the world for a decadefirst through mandatory incarceration, then through voluntary seclusionhaving scarcely spoken a word to a member of the opposite sex. Now she was about to be violated in the most heinous way, thanks to some chance encounter with a delivery boy.
I thought youd be glad to see me again, he murmured. I thought maybe youd enjoy he grinned lasciviously socializing with a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood man for a change, instead of a cold, impersonal piece of machinery. And now youre saying you dont even know me? Avery, honey, youre breaking my heart.
And youre breaking my spine, she muttered, ignoring the first part of his remark. Please. I cant breathe, she added.
Something in her voice must have convinced him of her discomfortthough why a man like him would care about her comfort, she couldnt begin to imaginebecause although he didnt remove himself from atop her, he shifted his big body to the side some, alleviating the pressure of his weight a bit. In doing so, though, he wedged her body between his and the back of the sofa more firmly, keeping one of his legs draped over hers and one of his hands planted firmly on her hip, so that she was even more effectively pinned than before. Still, at least she could breathe now.
What do you want? she asked again.
He hesitated a moment, then told her, I want to keep you from making a terrible mistake.
Avery narrowed her eyes at him. What are you talking about?
That virus on your laptop, he said.
Her stomach pitched. What virus?
The one youre building, he said. The one I saw when I was here before. It could send you right back to the slammer, Peaches. Not to mention its powerful enough to take out half the galaxy.
Avery didnt know whether to feel relieved or more terrified. Maybe he wasnt here to physically assault her. But how did he know about her time in prison? And how did he know what shed been doing on her laptop unless he had some familiarity with computer viruses himself? And if he had that much familiarity with computer viruses, why was he working as a delivery guy for the Eastern Star Market?
Unless, gee, maybe he wasnt a delivery guy for the Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market at all. And if that was the case, then who the hell was he? Could his ID have actually been legit? Before Avery had a chance to ask him anything more, he began to speak again, saying things that made her even more confused.
And that bastard, Andrew Paddington? he added, sending more fire spilling through her belly. Hes not worth it, Avery. Trust me. That guy is a class-A prick who preys on people like you. Dont get involved in his schemes. Because youll end up right back in the Rupert Halloran Womens Correctional Facility. And next time not only will you do the full time, youll earn yourself a bonus stay. And Lana and Petrovsky and Mouse and all those other friends you had inside? Theyre not there anymore. Youll have to start from square one again, building your posse. And with your lack of people skills, Peaches, I dont think you want to have to do that.
With every new word he spoke Avery felt her panic rise, and it was through no small effort that she managed to tamp it back down again. The last thing she needed right now was to have a panic attack. God, she hadnt had one for monthsnot since that last time she took Skittles to the vet. Shed begun to think maybe she was coming out of all that. Even in this situation tonight, where panic would have been a perfectly logical and understandable response, shed managed to hang on and not succumb to an attack. And she wouldnt succumb now, she told herself. She wouldnt. She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it until the fear began to ease.
But how did he know all that stuff about her? she wondered as she opened her eyes againand immediately began to drown in the frozen green depths of his eyes. Certainly the news of her arrest and conviction was a matter of public record. Hell, itd been a media circus at the time. But that had been ten years ago. Few people talked about any of that anymore. Fewer still remembered her name. Virtually none of them knew how her life had been in prison or even to which facility shed been sent. Certainly none knew the names of her closest friends inside, as this man did. And how did he know about Andrew? Shed told no one about him. Shed had no one to tell about him.
Who are you? she asked again.
He smiled that sinister smile of his. Well, now, Peaches, if youd looked at my ID, you wouldnt have to ask that question.
Your ID looks like something that came out of a box of Capn Crunch, she told him, ignoring the nickname.
Oh, and youd know, since you pretty much live on stuff like Capn Crunch.
Who the hell are you? she demanded for a third time, more forcefully now. Her fear for her personal safety was quickly being usurped by her indignation at having her privacyand her personviolated. If it turned out this guy wasnt an actual threat to her physical well-being, she was going to bitch-slap him up one side of Park Avenue and down the other.
He eyed her thoughtfully for a moment, as if he were weighing several possible outcomes to the situation. As he did, Avery weighed an outcome he couldnt possibly be anticipating, no matter how much he thought he knew about her. And she was reasonably certain it would be the one outcome that ultimately occurred. For now, though, she contented herself in simply lying limp beneath him, hoping it might lull him into a false sense of security.
It did.
Because he told her, Im going to let you up, okay? And Im going to show you my ID again, and youre going to look at it. And then were going to have a little chat and then were going to take a little drive someplace, where you can chat with a few more people, too.
Oh, yeah. No worries here. Whoever this guy was, hed driven way past a false sense of security and was now touring the state of delusion. This was going to work even better than Avery had planned.
She nodded slowly and said, Okay.
Still obviously waryhe wasnt stupid, after allthe guy began to push himself off and away from her. She waited until he was seated beside her on the sofa, then carefully maneuvered herself into a sitting position, too, at the opposite end. She inhaled another deep breath and pushed both braids over her shoulders.
Okay, she said again. Let me see your ID.
He lifted his hands up in front of himself, palms out, keeping one that way while the other dipped beneath his open jacket to extract the leather case hed held up to the peephole. Gingerly he extended it toward her, and just as gingerly Avery accepted it, opening it to study the information inside.
The badgish-looking thing on the right was a rendition of a badge with a symbol on it, if not an actual badge itself, though it was one Avery had never seen before. And since her incarceration shed done a lot of research into the various law-enforcement fields of the American justice system. Hey, shed had some time on her hands. And shed figured thenjust as she did nowthat it was always good for one to know everything one could about ones enemies. As a result, she was familiar with some pretty obscure tactical outfits and task forces about which other people had heard very little, if anything at all.
But this badge and its symbol were like nothing shed ever seen. Although it had the traditional shield shape, there were few identifying marks on it. No numbers or letters at all. A border that resembled a heavy chain wound around the outer edge, surrounding what looked like a lance and a smaller shield at its center.
The left side of the case was considerably more revealing. Or it would have been had Avery believed a single word of the information recorded there. Which she didnt. According to this mans identification, his name was Santiago Dixon and he worked for something called the Office of Political Unity and Security, a bogus-sounding operation if ever there was one. Unless hed just sauntered shaken-not-stirred out of an Ian Fleming novel, she wasnt buying the name of him or his employer any more than she bought the part where it said his city of birth was Macon, Georgia.
She glanced up from his identification and smiled blandly. And the reason I should believe this is a legitimate document is because?
He smiled blandly back. Because its a legitimate document, he told her. Except for my name and birthplace, naturally. They never put any personal identification on our ID.
Then whats your real name? she asked.
He smiled his benign smile again. If I told you that, Peaches, Id have to kill you.
Right.
No, really, he said. In a way that made her think he wasnt kidding.
So Im supposed to believe that this she glanced at the ID again Office of Political Unity and Security is legitimate?
Doesnt matter if you believe it, he replied. Its legit.
How come Ive never heard of it?
Peaches, Ive never heard of jalape?o-and-Gorgonzola ice cream. That doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
Well, gosh, who could argue with reasoning like that?
Look, Santiago, she said.
Please, call me Dixon, he told her in a voice that was the picture of politeness. Everyone does. Well, for this assignment anyway.
Avery refrained from commenting on that. And before her life had a chance to slip any further into the surreal than it already had, she said, What do you want? Why are you here?
Ill be happy to answer both of those questions, he told her.
Good.
Once you and I are in a secure environment.
Meaning? she asked.
Meaning someplace other than here, he told her. Then, very graciously, he further offered, Ill drive.
Shed really been afraid he was going to say something like that at some point. It was what had caused her to picture the outcome to this situation that he couldnt be anticipating himself, what was going to ruin her day and her week and her month worse than anything else that had already happened tonight would. The only consolation she found in the realization was that it would ruin his day and his week and his month even more.
She folded his ID case and handed it back to him. Im afraid that wont be possible, she told him.
He accepted the case graciously and returned it to the inside pocket of his jacket. I cant wait to hear why.
Because Im not going anywhere with you, she said simply.
He expelled a sound that was a mixture of intention and resolution. Actually you are, he told her. I was hoping youd come along peacefully, but He shrugged. Guess itll just have to be against your will now, thats all.
Thats all? she echoed incredulously. Youre going to make me go with you? Against my will? Even though it will be a direct violation of my basic human rights, not to mention my civil rights, not to mention illegal?
It wont be illegal, he assured her with total confidence.
It will be if you dont have an arrest warrant.
An arrest warrant isnt necessary in these circumstances.
So then Im not under arrest?
Not exactly.
Then what exactly are the circumstances?
Well, for starters, its a matter of national security.
She almost laughed out loud at that. Almost. Until she got a good look at his expression and realized he was serious. In spite of that, she said softly, Youre joking.
Actually Im not.
She gaped at him. What right do you have to take me anywhere? she demanded. Im still not convinced that this organization you claim to work for even exists.
Youre just going to have to trust me on this one, Peaches. I have the jurisdiction and Im not afraid to use it.
You wouldnt dare, she said. But her actions belied her defiant words, because to punctuate the statement she dug her heels into the sofa cushions and crossed her arms over her midsection in a clear gesture of self-preservation.
In response to her actions, he stood, facing her. Avery cowered deeply into the sofa, but he made no further move. Yet. In fact, he kind of looked as if shed hurt his feelings by being scared of him.
Weird.
Avery Nesbitt, he said, his voice dripping with formality, youve been summoned to appear for questioning at the Office of Political Unity and Security.
Summoned? she repeated in a voice that was nowhere near as indignant as she had wanted it to be. By whom?
He ignored her question and continued in the same no-nonsense voice he had used before. Should you decline this summons to appear voluntarily, you will be found in violation of three different statutes
Oh, well, that sort of negates the whole voluntary thing, doesnt it? she said sarcastically.
and you will be brought in to the nearest OPUS office for questioning by an agent working for OPUS who is familiar with the charges against you.
Charges against me? Avery said indignantly. What charges? You said I wasnt under arrest! I want to see these alleged charges. In writing.
Again he ignored her and continued. And since I am such an agent
Says a piece of paper that could have come out of a box of Capn Crunch, she pointed out.
not to mention exceptionally good at bringing in people who violate statute he went on relentlessly.
Oh, no ego on you, pal, is there?
then that leaves me with no choice but to bring you in for questioning involuntarily.
I object! Avery shouted. Mostly because she had no idea what else to say.
Your objection is noted.
Oh, well, thank you so much for that measly considera
She was never able to finish what she had planned to say because Santiago Dixonor whoever the hell he wasstepped forward and curled his fingers easily around her upper arms. And that, if nothing hed said tonight, finally shut Avery up, because where she had expected roughness, he was gentle instead. When he pulled her to standing, it wasnt with animosity but with concern. And when he tugged her away from the couch, that was done gently, too.
And if she hadnt been silenced already, having her body pulled flush against his like that would for sure have done it. Because instead of manhandling her like a criminal, Santiago Dixon held her the same way he might have held a woman he intended to kiss. Her mouth went dry at the realization.
But she didnt have time to think about that. And she didnt have time to notice, either, the way his hard, muscular torso felt pressed against her own soft one or how upon contact her own traitorous body surged forward to meet his. Nor did she have time to marvel at how her struggles this evening with Santiago Dixon were the closest thing shed had to a sexual encounter for a decade. Her mind was too scrambled, because he wrapped his fingers firmlyintimately?around her waist. Then she couldnt think at all, because he lifted her off the ground and threw her over one shoulder. Then he started to walk toward the front door. Then he opened the front door. And then, with Avery still slung over his shoulder, he walked through it.
Or at least tried to.
But there was one potential outcome for the situation tonight that he hadnt considered, and that moment was when it kicked in.
Santiago Dixon hadnt counted on the fact that Avery Nesbitt was totally whack.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS ONLY ONCE THEY were over that Avery could really get a handle on what happened during her panic attacks. In the calm of the aftermath, she could recall the dizziness, the disorientation, the sheer, unmitigated terror. She could recall how her entire body trembled and perspired, could remember the paralysis of speech and interruption of breath. She could recollect the pain behind her eyes, the insensible workings of her brain, her certainty that she was going to die. Usually when she came out of an attack, she was curled into a fetal position on the floor of the shower stall or in the back of a closet, and she had a towel or article of clothing pressed hard against her mouth. That last, shed always figured, was an unconscious effort to keep the psychological screaming from escaping through actual cries from her mouth.
But this latest panic attack, she realized as she gradually emerged from the fog, had been different. For one thing, she couldnt remember ever fighting with corporeal monsters during one before. And she couldnt recall ever shouting aloud threats to faceless menaces. Nor had she ever come out of an attack lying spread-eagle on her back, on a bare cot beneath a stark white fluorescent light, her wrists and ankles wrapped in leather restraints. Nor had she ever found herself being stared at from above by someone like Santiago Dixon, who seemed to be as breathless, as terrified and as insensate as she.
So this was a definite first.
What happened? she asked when she was coherent enough to manage it.
Before the question even left her mouth, though, she knew. Vaguely she remembered pounding on Dixons back and yanking at his hair and screaming something about how she would place certain parts of his anatomy into a variety of equipment normally reserved for torture and/or food processing. And also something about lepers and gargoyles. That part wasnt too clear at the moment, so maybe he could help her fill in the blanks later.
But he didnt help her out at all, only gazed at her in wide-eyed silence, as if he couldnt quite figure out who or what she was. Then, What happened? he echoed incredulously.
She nodded weakly.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly, in clear disbelief. You just about beat the hell outta me, thats what happened. And you nearly gave my partner a concussion. He jutted a thumb over his shoulder and glared at her some more. And there are a couple of nurses out there filling out paperwork to enroll themselves in art school.
Oh, Avery said. Im sorry.
His lips parted marginally in surprise, but he said nothing more. His hat and jacket were gone, she noticed, and without them he seemed less menacing somehow. Until she bumped her gaze up to his face again and saw those cold green eyes and the jet-black hair spilling over his forehead. He seemed to be staring straight into her soul. And he seemed to not like what he saw there.
Really, she tried again. I am sorry. I dont usually attack people when that happens.
When what happens? he demanded gruffly. Just what the hell was that anyway? You were totally out of control.
She hesitated, not wanting to share any part of herself with a total stranger she didnt trust. Most especially she didnt want to share the damaged part. Not that there were many parts of Avery that werent at least a little impaired. But he wasnt the sort of person who would understand any of that. He was handsome, savvy, intelligent, confident. He wasnt damaged at all. To try and explain to someone like him what it meant to be terrified of what he would consider nothing would only make her look crazier than she must already seem.
Still, she supposed she owed him an explanation. If nothing else, it might make him stop looking at her as if she were some kind of freak.
It was a panic attack, she said softly.
A panic attack, he repeated evenly.
Again she nodded. But she said nothing to elaborate. What else was there for her to say?
He shifted his weight to one foot, hooked his hands on his hips in challenge and flattened his mouth into a tight line. Peaches, that was no panic attack. That was transglobal, thermodynamic warfare.
She made a face at him. Oh, stop it with the hyper-bole. Although, now that she studied him more closely, she realized there was a big red spot on his cheek. Look, I said I was sorry, she said again. Its not like its something I can control. And usually its not that bad.
Just what is it then?
She sighed. She wished she could tell him. At least in terms that wouldnt make her sound weak and timid and nuts. Unfortunately, over the past several years, Avery had pretty much come to the conclusion that she was weak and timid and nuts. Which made her even more reluctant to tell him the truth.
In spite of that, she told him, I wasnt trying to be coy or uncooperative earlier when I told you I couldnt go anywhere with you. I was telling you the truth. I cant leave my apartment. Not without some serious preparation first.
What, like you need to make sure you have your wallet and house keys and a token for the subway? he asked sarcastically.
No. I cant go out, because She sighed, resigned to revealing more of herself than she wanted him to know, because there was no other way to make him understand. Because I have agoraphobia.
He eyed her dubiously, Which is what? he asked. Fear of the outdoors, right? But you werent outside yet when you went psycho.
She tried to sit up, remembered that she was strapped down, so fell back against the cot with an exasperated sound. Honestly. Talk about overkill. So shed roughed him up and called him a leper. So shed nearly given someone a concussion. So shed taken a couple of nurses out of commission. Like that didnt happen every day in some boroughs of New York.
She tugged meaningfully at her restraints. Let me up, will you? she pleaded. Im fine now. I swear.
What you are is completely whack, he countered. Has anyone ever told you that?
Once or twice, she said softly. Then, more forcefully, Im fine, she repeated. She jerked at the restraints again. Get me out of these things. Let me up. Please.
Although he obviously didnt believe her, he bent over her and, after a moments hesitation, cautiously unfastened one of her wrist restraints. But he waited before loosening any more, apparently wanting to take this thing slowly, in case she was still a little, oh, homicidal. After another moment, evidently satisfied that she wasnt going to go all Hannibal Lecter on him againprobablyhe carefully freed one of the ankle restraints, too. Then the other. Then finally the last, on her other wrist. Then he took a giant step backward and positioned himself near the door.
Where was she anyway? she wondered as she folded herself into a sitting position on the edge of the cot. It wasnt quite a padded cell, but it was a tiny white room, empty save the cot on which she had been restrained, and there was a window in the door for observation from the other side. Hed mentioned nurses, so she must be in a hospital of some kind. God, she couldnt even remember how shed gotten here.
What time is it? she asked.
He flicked his wrist to glance at his watch, returning his attention to Avery in less than a nanosecond. Its ten after two.
A.m. or p.m.?
Its two-ten in the morning, he said. Youve been here for about an hour. But it took me and my partner almost an hour to get you here.
Avery nodded, waiting for the panic to rise again, because she wasnt in normal surroundings where she felt safe. Not that she ever really felt entirely safe in her normal surroundings. But nothing happened. She was a bit edgy, to be sure, but who wouldnt be upon ones discovery that one was in a strange place and couldnt remember how one had arrived there? Not to mention when there was a man like Santiago Dixon staring at one as if one had just emerged from a pea pod from outer space?
And just where is here? she asked.
Youre in an OPUS facility, he told her.
Well, at least it wasnt Bellevue.
An OPUS psychiatric facility, he clarified.
Oh. So it was Bellevue. Only without all the glamour and accountability.
She looked down at her attire, at the loud pajama bottoms and ragged purple sweatshirt. There was a rip in one sleeve that hadnt been there before. One of her socks was missing, and the toenails of her one bare foot were painted five different colors. No telling how that had happened. The lost sock, she meant, since she had painted her toenails herself. One of her braids had come almost completely frayed. She looked at Dixon again, at the mark on his face for which she was responsible. She was lucky theyd only put her in restraints. Any other place would have performed a full frontal lobotomy by now.
Still, she wasnt panicking here. The small, bare room didnt frighten her the way most new surroundings did. And neither did Dixons presence in it. That had to be significant somehow, but she was too exhausted at the moment to try and figure it out.
So tell me about this agoraphobia you have, he said.
Avery reached for the unraveling braid and freed what little of it was still intact, then finger-combed her hair as best she could before going about the motions of plaiting it again. Clinically, she said as she wove the strands back together and avoided his gaze, its defined as anxiety about being in a place or situation from which escape might be difficult or in which help may not be available in the event of having an unexpected panic attack or paniclike symptoms.
In laymans terms? he asked.
It means Im terrified of being someplace where I dont feel safe, she said simply. And the only place I feel safe is my home. So anytime I have to leave my home, I am literally crippled by fear.
What Avery didnt add was that her agoraphobia had appeared after her release from prison and was a direct result of her incarceration. As bad as it had been to have her freedom revoked, in prison, for the first time in her life, shed felt oddly safe. Strangely content. There was a strict system and regimen to life inside that had appealed to her. Everything was scheduled and everything went according to plan. Everyone was equal. The only thing that had been expected of her was that she stay out of trouble. And living in a place like that, Avery had felt no desire to get into trouble.
Not as she had growing up in East Hampton, where societys strict ruleswhich had never made any sense to herhad dictated she behave in ways she didnt want to behave. Growing up in the Hamptons, she had never felt like a worthwhile part of society, and because of that she had rebelled. Constantly. To her family she had always been a troublemaker. Behind bars, though
As crazy as it sounded, behind bars Avery had felt free for the first time. Free to be herself. Free to say and think and feel what she wanted. Her activities had been curtailed, to be sure. But her mind and her emotions had been liberated. No one had censored her for her feelings or her thoughts or her dreams or her desires. No one had been disappointed by what went on in her head or offended by the things that came out of her mouth. On the contrary, shed had friends inside, people who liked her because of who she was. And who she was was one of thema person who wanted the world to work the way it was supposed to, and who had been disappointed by the workings of the world.
Not that there hadnt been bad people in prison. Certainly there were a lot of women at Rupert Halloran who deserved to be behind bars and who were a genuine menace to society. But the ones to whom Avery had gravitated had been like hervictims of circumstance, women who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, women who had gotten involved with men they shouldnt have. Theyd understood Avery. Even when they discovered she came from a privileged background, they still understood her. And they liked her. And they considered her their equal. Prison was the only place where she had felt like a useful part of a meaningful society. Maybe it hadnt been the kind of society that society appreciated. But Avery had appreciated it. And shed been happy there.
Upon her release, though, once she returned to acceptable society, she discovered that where before she had felt uncomfortable, now she was genuinely frightened. In fact, she was terrified of acceptable society. Not just of all the rules, but of all the people, too. There were so many people on the outside, and there were so many different ways to go and be and live. Too many expectations on her. Too many societal dictates to follow. Too many choices. Too much freedom. Too much everything.
And Avery was completely alone in the world once she left prison. Her family had stopped speaking to her the minute they learned of her arrest, had turned their backs on her throughout her trial and incarceration. Theyd made it clearthrough their attorneysthat she would never, ever, have contact with them again. She was still entitled to her trust fundalas, there was nothing they could do about that, since Great-Grandfather Nesbitt had set it up in a way that no one but Avery could touch it after she turned eighteen. But she must take her money and run, her familys attorneys told her, and never return to her family. Because theyd made clear, too, that they werent her family anymore.
So she took her moneyall fifteen million dollars of itand ran to a condo on Central Park West. There, she could look out her window at society and observe it from a distance, where it was safe, and never have to be a part of it. Little by little, over the years that followed, Avery stopped leaving her apartment. Whenever she needed something, she shopped online and had things delivered. She called Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market, who happily brought her groceries to her front door. The only time she ventured out was if she or Skittles needed to see a doctor. But on those occasions, she began steeling herself for the torment days, even weeks, in advance, shoring herself up to face a ruthless, unforgiving populace, even if only for an hour or two. And then, just to be on the safe side, she got completely snookered before heading out the door. Because the outside world was much too scary, much too menacing. It wasnt safe, the way prison was.
Youre joking.
When she first heard him speak, Avery thought Dixon was reading her mind. Then she realized what he didnt believe was that she couldnt leave home without being incapacitated by fear. This from a man who sported an abraded cheeknever mind who had just released her from leather restraintsafter trying to take her for a little ride.
Now, she thought, might be a good time to change the subject.
Why am I here? she asked.
Dixon studied Avery Nesbitt in silence, wondering whether or not he should believe her about being terrified of reality. On one hand, she was just flaky enough that he could buy it. On the other hand, she had been corresponding with Sorcerer for a month, and God knew what hed put her up to.
Still, it was hard to fake the kind of mania that had consumed her when hed tried to carry her out of her apartment. Dixon was pissed off at himself for how hed handled that. Or rather, how he hadnt handled it. Not just that he hadnt tried any harder to talk to her and explain the situation before resorting to physical removal, but that hed been so unprepared when shed gone off the way she had.
But shed gone off so suddenly and so quickly and with such a powerful detonation, he hadnt known what to do. Nowhere in his investigation of her had he seen any evidence of her having been formally trained in martial arts. Even her prison file had no record of her ever having participated in any kind of altercation. But the minute hed tried to remove her from her home, shed attacked. Viciously.
And damn, she fought dirty.
Of course, hed eventually realized that she was too sloppy, chaotic and desperate to be trained in martial arts. But he hadnt been able to figure out what exactly she was doing. When Cowboy heard the commotion coming over his headset, hed responded to render aid. Between the two of them, theyd managed to wrestle her into a service elevator and then the surveillance van, which Cowboy had parked in the alley behind the building.
But no sooner had they slammed the door shut behind themselves than did Avery go limp in Dixons arms. Her eyes had remained open and she had been breathingthough rapidly enough that hed worried she might hyperventilatebut mentally shed completely checked out. It was spooky how she shut down the way she did.
Shed begun fighting again when hed tried to remove her from the van. Ultimately it had taken a half hourand a half dozen orderlies and nursesto get her into the restraints. Theyd said it was for her own safety, but Dixon suspected it was more for theirs. He hadnt left her side once since then. Hed been worried about her, something that frankly had surprised him. Hed wanted to be sure she was okay. That had surprised him, too. Now evidently she was okay. So why wasnt he relaxing?
Maybe, he thought, because he was beginning to realize that okay for Avery Nesbitt wasnt in any way okay.
He marveled at how anyone whod just kicked the shit out of him could look so fragile and reserved. Were it not for her ridiculous outfit, shed even look prim. But what amazed him even more was that he actually found her kind of attractive. In a weird, bohemian, I-really-need-to-be-evaluated kind of way. Though it wasnt necessarily Avery he was thinking needed the evaluation.
Nevertheless, even after all shed been through in the past few hours, she was surprisingly pretty. That first night hed been in her apartment, Dixon had thought her eyes only looked enormous because of her glasses. Nobody, hed thought, could have eyes that big or lashes that thick. But without the glasses her eyes were even larger. There had been times tonight when hed nearly lost himself in their bottomless blue depths. And when hed seen how that one braid had come unbound to leave her hair flowing over one shoulder like a shimmering, inky river, hed found himself wanting to touch it, to see if it was as silky as it looked. Now that shed rewoven her hair the way it belonged, he felt like a child denied his favorite plaything.
But Avery Nesbitt wasnt a plaything. Quite the contrary. If things turned out the way they were planning, she might be the most powerful weapon OPUS had at its disposal.
Judging by the restraints, she said, Im assuming that Im under arrest now.
She was perched on the very edge of the cot, her right hand massaging her left wrist where the restraints had been. A pang of guilt shot through Dixon. Seeing her like this, the thought of restraining her seemed silly. She looked like a delicate bird whod injured its wing, and he couldnt quite jibe the wounded chick with the raging terminator of a little while ago.
Agoraphobia. Thats what she said she had. Yet nowhere in his research of her had there been any mention of her suffering from such a condition. Not in her prison records, not in her medical records, nowhere. Either she was lying about it or else she was lying about it. Because OPUS didnt miss things like that. But if she was lying about being agoraphobic, then what had caused her to go off the way she had back at her place? And if she wasnt lying about being agoraphobic, why was she suddenly feeling okay again, even though she wasnt at home? Why wasnt she still throwing a fit or being catatonic or something?
Just what was the deal with Avery Nesbitt?
He waggled his head back and forth a little. Well, you are under arrest and you arent, he told her evasively.
She stopped rubbing her wrist and let both hands fall into her lap. If Im not under arrest, then I demand to be released immediately, she said levelly. And if I am under arrest, youll never make it stick, so I demand to be released immediately.
What makes you think we wont make it stick? he asked. Mostly because he was sure that whatever her argument was, it was bound to be entertaining.
You didnt read me my rights, she told him.
I dont have to, he told her right back.
Says who?
Says the agency I work for.
Which, as Ive saidseveral times, in factIm still not convinced exists anywhere outside your own delusions.
Look around you, Peaches, Dixon said. If OPUS doesnt exist, then where do you think you are?
I have no idea, she replied. Could be the renovated garage of some psychopath for all I know. Some psychopath likeoh, gee, who could I be thinking of?you.
He didnt rise to the bait. If youd studied my ID more closely, youd have realized its totally genuine.
She narrowed her eyes at him. You didnt give me much of a chance to make up my mind about it. You were too busy tackling, harassing and groping me.
Well, if youd been a better hostess, I wouldnt have had to tackle or harass you. The groping probably would have happened at some point, though, he added, trying not to sound too smug. Somehow it almost always comes to that. Whether Im working or not.
You searched me illegally, she continued, obviously thinking it best to not dwell on that groping business.
But it was fun, wasnt it? Dixon said. He rather liked the idea of keeping the groping topic alive. Though he hated to think why.
It was illegal, she said again.
Actually it wasnt, he assured her. Our rules of operation fall outside the traditional channels for most law-enforcement agencies. Probably because technically were not a law-enforcement agency.
You gained entry into my apartment unlawfully, she pointed out.
Its not unlawful when OPUS is doing it, Dixon told her. Those untraditional channels again.
She eyed him narrowly. Does the Libertarian Party know about your agency?
He shook his head. Only the people OPUS wants to know about it know about OPUS. Anyone else finds out, they dont live long enough to talk about it.
Im going to talk about it, she told him. Im going to tell everyone. Starting with the Libertarian Party.
You go ahead and do that, Dixon told her. And well make you look like a raving lunatic who doesnt know what shes talking about.
That wont be a problem for the Libertarian Party.
Well make it a problem for them.
Is that a threat?
Yep.
You cant threaten the Libertarian Party.
Peaches, we can threaten any party we like, be it Libertarian, Birthday, Tupperware or Slumber. And they all forget all about us when we do.
Her jaw set tight, she hissed, Fascist.
He smiled. Youre cute when youre angry, you know that?
This time her reply was a snarl. And he hated to say it, but she was even cuter when she did that.
A soft knock on the door made him turn around, and through the wire-reinforced window he saw the round, bland face of Mr. No-Name. Behind him was Tanner Gillespie, who still looked a little shaken from this evenings encounter.
The boss man pushed a series of numbers on a keypad below the doorknob, and the lock released with a soft click. The already small room shrank to microscopic when the two men entered, making Dixon feel crowded and uncomfortable. Avery seemed not to be bothered at all.
Agoraphobia. Right.
Ms. Nesbitt, Dixons boss said without awaiting an introduction.
She didnt reply at first, her attention flickering to Dixon instead. He wasnt sure what she wanted from him, so he only met her gaze in return. After a moment, she looked at No-Name again.
Do I know you? she asked.
No, he replied immediately.
You sure? You look familiar.
Im not.
But
Before she could say more, he hurried on, Youre a difficult woman to pin down, Ms. Nesbitt.
Not really, she said, still eyeing him with wary interest. I never go anywhere. Well, not usually, she added with a meaningful glance at Dixon. Then to his employer she continued, I do my best to keep a low profile, but anyone who really wants to find me can.
Is that why Adrian Padgett was able to find you?
Her expression turned puzzled at the question. Convincingly so, Dixon had to admit. His boss, on the other hand, looked convincingly skeptical.
Whos Adrian Padgett? she asked.
You might know him better as Andrew Paddington, No-Name said.
Avery glanced at Dixon again, obviously remembering that he had mentioned her online boyfriend earlier tonight, too. Whats Andrew got to do with any of this? she asked.
Now his boss turned to Dixon, too, giving him a look that let Dixon know the other man was deferring to him. But only because Dixon was more familiar with the particulars of the case. Under no other circumstances would his superior actually defer to anyone.
Dixon looked back at Avery. Where did you meet Andrew Paddington?
Of course, he already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted to see how honestly she would answer it.
Online, she told him, surprising him. He had been ready for her to challenge him again and not give him any information at all. In a Henry James chat room. Why?
So far, so good, Dixon thought. And how long have you been corresponding with him?
She hesitated. What business is that of yours?
Dixon ignored the question. Thanks to the OPUS techies at her apartment, who were currently combing through every computer she owned, it wouldnt be long before they knew every detail of her correspondence with and relationship to Sorcerer anyway. But he wanted her to talk about it, too, to see if her version corresponded to what the techies discovered.
He tried a different tack. Why were you building that virus?
Had it not been for the two bright spots of pink that appeared on her cheeks, Dixon would have thought she hadnt heard the question. Thats none of your business, either, she said softly.
It could send you back to prison, Peaches, he said. Its highly illegal. That makes it my business.
No, that makes it a matter for the feds, she said. She hesitated only a moment before adding, And stop calling me Peaches.
He bit back a smile. He honestly hadnt been aware he was calling her that. When its a matter of national security, it becomes a matter for OPUS, too.
That virus wasnt a matter of national security, she said.
It was last time you built one, Dixon reminded her. Hell, it was a matter of international security then. We still get calls from the Vatican.
Not to mention Greenland, his boss added.
Avery expelled a soft sound of capitulation and closed her eyes. Then she lifted a hand to her forehead and rubbed hard at a place just above her right eyebrow. Very wearily, very quietly, she said, If you want me to explain this, its going to take a while.
.
.
, (https://www.litres.ru/elizabeth-bevarly/you-ve-got-male/) .
Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, , , , PayPal, WebMoney, ., QIWI , .
Elizabeth Bevarly
Can you really find the perfect man online?Avery Nesbitt thought she might have struck online-dating goldAdrian was perfect onscreen. But as the adage goes, if something seems too good to be true. Before Avery knows it, a flesh-and-blood man calling himself Dixon breaks in to her home. Apparently she's been under surveillance by his agency for some time, and now she's in deep, deep trouble.Dixon has worked for OPUS for years, and he's wanted to get his hands on Adrian Padgett for most of them. He assumes that Avery is part of Adrian's criminal pursuits. But could she possibly be as innocent as she's claiming?One thing's for sureif Avery agrees to go undercover for OPUS, she and Dixon will be working in very close quarters.
The unthinkable was happening!
Andrewthe smart, witty, creative, articulate man with whom Avery had fallen passionately in lovewas cheating on her.
A month ago shed known their first encounter must have been destiny. Fate. Kismet. It was simply Meant To Be. What difference did it make if theyd never actually met in person? Who cared if theyd never actually spoken to each other? Their cyber relationship was a meeting of minds, a melding of souls, a blending of hearts.
Until now.
Now he was typing nauseating pop-culture-infested lines to some cheap bit of cyberfluff with the screen name Tinky Bell. A brainless ninny who said things like ur 2 kewl.
The hideous massacre of the English language aside, Avery couldnt believer her Andrew was talking about TV shows! He didnt even watch TV!
But the clincher was Andrew using with Tinky Bell the same words that won Averys heart.
Well, shed fix Andrew. Not only would she dump him, but shed give him something to remember her by. Oh, yes. Shed create just the right farewell giftone he and his precious computer system would never forget.
Youve Got Male
Elizabeth Bevarly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Mom, with love.
Because its been too long since I dedicated a book to you.
Thanks for so many things. Youre the best.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Acknowledgments
I have many people to thank for this one.
First, thanks to Liz Bemis of Bemis Web Design for helping me get all the technical jargon and equipment right, thereby enabling me to make Avery the computer whiz and Webhead that she is. Some of the technology and equipment that both OPUS and Avery use I made up myself, but its okay, because making up stuff is my job. If I did get anything wrong with the real stuff, its my fault, not Lizs.
Thanks to Wanda Ottewell, my fabulous editor, for helping me buff the rough spots and see the gaps, and make everything in the story nice and neat. Thanks to Tracy Farrell and HQN Books for giving this book such a wonderful home. Thanks to Steve Axelrod for helping me find that home.
Id also like to thank the incredibly nice, patient, generous David Dafoe, of Pro-Liquitech, whose lovely donation to Turning Point for Autism won him a brief appearance in the book. For more information about all the great things Turning Point does, visit their Web site at turningpoint1.com (dont forget the 1!). It was great fun being able to invite a real person to the party at the Nesbitt estate.
Thanks, too, to good friends (you know who you are) for daily support and camaraderie and laughter that goes above and beyond the call of friendship. Without you guys, Id be like Avery at the opening of chapter four.
And finally, as always, thanks to David and Eli, my lifelines. My life. Without you guys, Id be lost.
I love you both bunches. Hug. Kiss. Pat.
Youve Got Male
CHAPTER ONE
AVERY NESBITT WAS IN LOVE. Madly, passionately, wildly in love. She was besotted. She was bedazzled. She was befuddled. She was in love as shed never been in love before.
And it was with a man who went beyond dreamy. He was smart and witty. He was creative and articulate. He was handsome and sexy. He always said what she needed to hear, right when she needed to hear it. He knew her backward and forward, just as she knew him inside and out. And he loved her exactly the way she was. That, more than anything else, had sealed her fate and ensured that her love would last forever. Andrew Paddington made Avery feel as if nothing in her life would ever go wrong again. He was just perfect in every way.
The bastard.
Theirs had been a whirlwind courtship, had come at Avery out of nowhere and swept her into a fantasy worthy of an epic romance. Andrew was in her thoughts and her dreams, in her plans and her performance, in her ego and her id. He filled her days with delight and her nights with pleasure, imbued her with joy that made her downright giddy. And that was no small accomplishment for a woman who was normally pragmatic, cynical and down-to-earth. Although Avery had only met him a month ago, shed known after that first encounter that their meeting must have been destiny. Fate. Kismet. It was simply Meant To Be.
Bastard.
What difference did it make if theyd never actually met in person? Physical trappings werent what love was about. Love was a meeting of minds, a melding of souls, a blending of hearts. Besides, theyd exchanged photos, and the ones hed sent to her depicted him as a sandy-haired twentysomething with the eyes of a poet, the mouth of a troubadour, the hands of an artist and phenomenal pecs. He was an utter, unmitigated masterpiece.
Bastard, bastard, bastard.
Who cared if theyd never actually spoken to each other? Vocal avowals of devotion were as nebulous and inconstant as the wind. Avery had Andrews love for her in writing. In the loveliest prose shed ever read, wordsfeelingswrought so tenderly, they would move a despot to tears. After only four weeks, she had a file filled with his e-mails to her and shed logged every chat-room exchange theyd shared in a special folder titled Snookypie. On those nights when she was alone and feeling dreamy and lovey-dovey, she lit candles and opened a bottle of wine, then read over his words again and again, pretending he was right there in her Central Park West condo, murmuring them into her ear.
Bastard squared.
But now the unthinkable was happening. Andrew was cheating on her with another woman. And Avery was finding out about it just as women did on those bad made-for-cable movies. Shed walked in on him and found him in bed with another woman.
Well, okay, figuratively speaking. What had actually happened was that shed stumbled upon him online, blabbing away with some cheap bit of cyberfluff in, of all places, a Survivor: Mall of America chat room. This after Andrew had assured Avery that he loathed popular culture as much as she did. But what really toasted her melbas was that the cyberfluff he was chatting with, who went by the screen name ofAvery had to bite back her nausea when she saw itTinky Belle, was clearly an idiot. But Andrew was agreeing with her that the music of Clay Aiken could, if people would just open their eyes and ears and hearts to it, bring peace and harmony to the entire planet.
Bastard cubed.
Unable to believe her eyes, Avery felt around until she located the chair in front of her desk and clumsily pulled it out. Then she nearly missed the surface of her desk when she set her bowl of Cajun popcorn and the bottle of Wild Cherry Pepsi on top of it. She tugged at her electric-blue pajama pants spattered with images of French landmarks and numbly sat down, adjusting the oversize purple sweatshirt boasting Wellesley College as she did. Then she wiggled her toes in her fuzzy pink slippers to warm them, adjusted her little black-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose, pushed one of two long, thick black braids over her shoulder and studied the screen more closely.
Maybe she was wrong, she thought as she watched the rapid-fire exchange scroll by. She shouldnt jump to conclusions. Surely Andrew wasnt the only guy out there in cyberspace who used the handle Mad2Live. It was a phrase from On the Road, after all. And there were probably lots of Kerouac fans online. Andrew loved Avery. Hed told her so. He wouldnt cheat on her like this. Especially not with some brainless ninny who said things like, ur 2 kewl mad.
Please, people! she wanted to shout at the screen whenever she saw message-board shorthand. Speak English! Or Spanish! Or French! Or German! Or some legitimate language that indicates youre at least halfway literate! And capitalize where necessary! And for Gods sake, punctuate!
Even though she was a computer geek in the most extreme sense of the word, Avery couldnt bring herself to type in anything other than the language shed learned growing up in the Hamptons. Tony private schools could mess with you in a lot of ways, she knew, but at least they taught you to be well-spoken. That shouldnt change just because your language of choice was cyber-speak.
She watched Mad2Live and Tinky Bellegagswap warm fuzzies for as long as she could stomach it and ultimately decided there was no way that this Mad2Live could be Andrew. Andrew would never, ever concede that the Survivor series was, as Tinky Belle claimed, qualty educatnl programing u cn wach w/ the hole famly.
Oh, yes, Avery thought. Its definitely mus c tv.
She was about to leave the chat room to visit anothershe was, after all, supposed to be workingwhen Mad2Live posted something that made her fingers convulse on the mouse: You, Tinky Belle, are a dazzling blossom of hope burgeoning at the center of an unforgiving cultural wasteland.
Acid heat splashed through Averys belly when she read that. Because those were the exact words Andrew had used to describe her that first night they met in a Henry James chat room. Except for the Tinky Belle part, since Averys screen nameat least that nighthad been Daisy Miller. There was no way there could be two Mad2Lives on the Internet flirting with women by calling them dazzling blossoms of hope who burgeoned in cultural wastelands. That was Andrewher Andrewthrough and through.
After that it was impossible for Avery to ignore Tinky and Mads conversation. And as she watched the lines of dialogue on her screen roll past, she read more and more from Mad2Live that was pulled verbatim from some of the e-mails Andrew had sent to her. And she should know, since shed practically memorized some of them.
Had she mentioned he was a complete bastard?
Eventually Tinky bade farewell to Mad and evaporated from the chat room, and Avery watched in astonishment as he immediately began to flirt with another occupant, this one calling herself Deb2000. But Deb wasnt impressed by any of Mads cajoling, so, obviously disgruntled, Mad signed out of the chat room.
And Avery followed him.
Luckily she had dozens of screen names she used for her work and she could log in to rooms under several that Andrew would never recognize. And luckily, too, she knew the online community better than she knew even her own Manhattan neighborhood. Because the Internet was where Avery worked every single night. And it was where she played after she knocked off work. It was also where she shopped, where she learned and where she socialized. It was where she found her music, her books, her entertainment and her dinner selections. Hell, she pretty much lived on the Net. And she knew Andrew almost as well as she knew the online community.
Or at least shed thought she knew him that well. But now she was beginning to think him a complete stranger. Because he flitted from one chat room to another, all of them themed around shallow pop-culture subject mattereverything from Pilates to low-carb cuisineand in every one of them he waited long enough to identify which of the rooms inhabitants were female and which seemed to be the least, uh, bright. And then he chose one and began to work on her in exactly the way he had worked on Avery that first night hed encountered her. And shame boiled within her when she realized that she had capitulated to his pretty words as easily as had women who thought deep-fried pork flesh was an essential part of good nutrition.
How could he do this to her? How could he think she was stupid? She? Avery Nesbitt? She wasnt stupid. She was a criminal genius! Even Time magazine had said so! And even if the criminal part was debatable, once a genius, always a genius. How could he cheat on her this way? And be so obvious about it? He knew how good she was. He knew what she did for a living and how much time she spent online. He knew everything about her. Shed even told him about her past transgressions, and he hadnt flinched. Hed told her her past didnt matter, that anything that had happened before the day he met her wasnt important because he didnt start living until the day he met her.
Oh, he was such a bastard.
Well, shed fix Andrew. Not only would she dump him faster than you could say, Survivor: Up Yours, but shed give him something to remember her by, too. Shed blow off work and stay up all night if she had to to concoct just the right farewell gift.
Of course, being up all night wasnt exactly a sacrifice to Avery, since she pretty much lived her life at night anyway. Nighttime didnt have rules or expectations the way daytime hours did. So when most people were coming home from their jobs and starting to wind down, Avery was rising and revving to go. And when most peoples alarm clocks were going off and signaling the beginning of their workday, Avery was pouring herself a scotch and popping a DVD of a Cracker mystery into the player and trying to wind down. Unfortunately, shed never been as good at winding down as she was at revving up.
Because Avery Nesbitt was what some peoplethose who claimed an ounce or two of compassioncalled a bit neurotic. She was what other peoplethose who didnt give a damn about compassioncalled totally whack. Hey, what else could you call a woman who lived in her pajamas on the Internet and never left her apartment unless it was to take her cat to the vet, and even then had to load up on half a bottle of scotch just to get herself over the threshold? What else did you call a woman who bought into the tripe men like Andrew Paddington fed to unsuspecting morons?
But Avery didnt care what anyone thought about her these days, any more than shed cared when she was a kid. She especially didnt care tonight. Tonight and tomorrow nightand all the hours in betweenshe had other things on her mind. Her gift for Andrew would take the better part of the next forty-eight hours to create.
Fortunately for Avery, she was totally whack and had nowhere else to go.
HEY, HOWS IT FEELING OUT there, Dixon?
Like Antarctica. Only without all the warm toastiness.
Well, well see if we cant get you something closer to Greenland next time youre in the field.
How many times do I have to remind you peopleIm not supposed to be in the field!
Because the field was cold and harsh and unforgiving. Even with a laptop and a decent cup of coffee.
Dixon tugged the zipper of his leather jacket higher, curled his hands around a quickly cooling cup of espresso and pulled his backward-facing drivers cap farther down over inky black hair that was badly in need of a trim. But that did little to warm him below the waist, and faded blue jeans, though normally his favorite garment, werent all that effective in warding off the cold.
Even the cold found in the back of a van that was insulated with high-tech surveillance equipment.
He was infinitely more suited to the great indoors, he thought as he switched his attention from the laptop monitor to a television screen that offered a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the area outside the van. Yeah, indoors he could get a hot shower and a hot sandwich and some hot coffee. Life didnt get much better than that. Unless maybe you substituted warmed brandy for the hot coffee and added a hot woman with hot hands to the hot shower. Preferably one with a hot name like Lola or Mimi or Fritzi or
Dixon?
No, that wouldnt work. That was the name he was going by himself these days. It would get way too confusing. So maybe he could just call her
Dixon?
What? he said, grinding the words out irritably as his hot shower/hot woman fantasy receded to the back of his brain, leaving him even colder than before.
You need anything?
He bit back a grumble at the question that came through the earpiece of his headset. Hadnt he just been thinking about that when the other agent rudely interrupted him?
No, Gillespie, he muttered into the microphone below his chin to the newly minted OPUS agent whod been assigned to shadow himmore to keep Gillespie out of trouble than anything else, Dixon knew. I dont need anything. Except for his usual partner to get back from her leave of absence so she could go into the field instead of him, the way she was supposed to. That way Dixon could go back to collecting the information she sent him and find the missing pieces. Indoors. Where he normally worked. Where it was warm.
Because that was standard operating procedure at Dixons employer, the ultrasecret Office of Political Unity and Security. Agents worked in teams of two, with one in the field collecting information and the other behind the scenes analyzing it. Assimilate, evaluate, articulate. That was Dixons three-word job description. He was the one responsible for making sense of the intelligence, not the one who gathered it. He was the one who analyzed and scrutinized, calculated and estimated, and then put everything together. He wasnt the one who sat on his butt in a cold van waiting for something to happen. At least, he wasnt supposed to be.
Oh, there is one thing, Gillespie, he said, picturing the other agent in his head. Blond, Dixon recalled. Too blond to be taken seriously, really. His dark blue eyescool and sharp and distantwere the only thing that had kept the guy from looking like some gee-whiz, whats for-supper-Mom, all-American high school football hero.
Whats that? the other man asked.
Stop calling me Dixon, Dixon said. Thats not my name.
Gillespie snortedor somethingat the other end of the line. Yeah, well, my name isnt Gillespie, either, but you have to call me something.
Oh, stop making it so easy, Dixon thought. I keep forgetting your code name. What is it again?
Cowboy, the other man said.
Yee-haw, Dixon thought. He just hoped he could say it with a straight face.
Besides, Cowboy added, nobody at my level knows your name. Except for your code name. And you told me never to call you
Okay, Dixon is fine, Dixon hastily amended.
that, the other man finished at the same time. What? You thought I was going to say your code name out loud? Are you nuts? Im not nuts. From what I hear, the last guy who spoke your code name out loud is still in the hospital. Youre a dangerous man.
Damn straight, Dixon thought. And he wouldnt have it any other way. Except that hed be a dangerous man out of the cold. Literally if not figuratively.
The only thing worse than being in the fieldwhere he wasnt supposed to be anyway, in case he hadnt mentioned itwas being in the field in New York City. Mostly because there were no fields in New York City. Except for those in Central Park, which, okay, were very nice, but they were nothing compared to the rolling green hills surrounding the Virginia farm where hed grown up. And even though Dixon was currently parked right next to Central Park, he had to be focused on the big tidy building across from it instead. The big tidy building full of outrageously expensive condominiums that only people with more dollars than sense could afford to call their own.
The big tidy building where Daisy Miller lived.
Of course, her name was no more Daisy Miller than his was Dixon. But hed had to have something to call her, just as hed had to have something to put on his phony drivers license, in case one of New Yorks finest wandered by and wondered what a nondescript white van was doing parked in front of a Central Park West address for hours and hours and, oh, look, is that a dead debutante in the back the way there always is on Law & Order?
It was a pain in the ass trying to do surveillance in New York City. Yeah, he was good at what he didquite possibly the bestbut it would take an ?bergenius to clear up some of the audio crap hed been trying to weed through all evening. Between the lousy weatherwhich the first week of November was way too early forand the incessant cell phone use of millions of people and the twenty gazillion satellite channels beaming down from space and the simple proliferation of car and pedestrian traffic, listening in on Daisy Millers residence this week had been next to impossible. Though Dixon had gotten some decent info about a certain mutual fund when some stockbrokers cell phone conversation had overlapped with Daisys frantic call to the veterinarian about her cats digestive problems. Not to mention a very nice tip on the seventh race at Hialeah tomorrow from some guy named Sal who seemed to know what he was talking about.
Fortunately except for that call to the vet and a follow-up the next dayher cat, thank God, was just fine once it passed that buttonDaisys activity in her apartment was limited to the point of being nonexistent. But then, so was her activity out of her apartment. In fact, in the week that Dixon had been keeping an eye on the place, he was reasonably certain she hadnt left the building once. And that bothered him a lot on some level he couldnt even name. Yeah, there was a definite cold snap going on in the city, and lots of people worked at home these days, but to not leave ones house one single time in a full week? Not even to go to a movie or pick up a gallon of milk or buy a lottery ticket? That was justweird.
He wished he knew more about her. Which was a strange feeling for him, because anytime Dixonor anyone else he worked with at OPUShad wanted to know more about someone, it had taken less than a day to find out everything about that person. That was a big part of his job, after allto find out whatever he could about suspicious characters. And thanks to all the sophisticated equipment and arcane networks he had at his fingertipsnot to mention his superior brainDixon never had much trouble doing his job. With Daisy, though
She was good. Better than he was, Dixon had been forced to concede reluctantly. Not only did she have some kind of screening device on her phone he couldnt figure out, but she had a firewall on her computer unlike anything hed ever seen beforeboth of them homemade and high-tech and very, very effective. Hed managed to chip a few chinks in the firewall through the course of the week, but only enough to be able to keep track of her when she was online with her desktop. And even then it was more because hed been able to tap into her wireless server and track her from there. Her puter just thumbed its nose at his efforts. And her laptopforget about it. Luckily for him, she rarely used that. Even so, Dixon hadnt been able to fish any pertinent information out of her computer files. Not even her real name. He didnt even know which apartment in the building was hers, only that she did live in this building. And hed only been able to trace that much of her because, before this week, hed been surveilling her online boyfriend, Andrew Paddington, and had intercepted some of the e-mails hed sent to Daisy.
Not that Andrew Paddingtons name was really Andrew Paddington, either. Him, Dixon knew well. Too well. And he was a rank bastard. Of course, everyone at OPUS knew Andrew Paddington. Only they all knew him by his real name: Adrian Padgett. And they all thought he was a rank bastard, too. Because once upon a time theyd all believed Adrian was one of them and then had discovered, too late, that he was nobodys man but his own. And a very bad man, at that.
It had been years since theyd heard from Adrian after he went rogue from his position at the Office of Political Unity and Security with millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains and a formerly secret network hanging out to dry. Then suddenly a year and a half ago hed re-surfaced in, of all places, his hometown of Indianapolis. Hed been trying to pass himself off as a legitimate businessman by the name of Adrian Windsor, but there was nothing legitimate about Adrian. If hed surfaced after years of being underground, it could only be because he was up to no good. OPUS had discovered his activities and deterred him in time to prevent him from doing any real damage, but theyd never quite figured out what exactly his activities were leading to, and hed slipped away before theyd been able to find out. Something illegal, though, that was for damned sure. Because Adrian didnt know how to operate inside the law.
Theyd lost track of him for nine months after hed left Indianapolis, in spite of making him their number-one priority for apprehension. Finally, thanks in large part to the efforts of Dixon and his partner, OPUS had unearthed Adrian again a few months ago, living in New York Citywhere he seemed to be doing little more than joining online dating services and chatting up young women on the Internet.
Oh, he was definitely up to no good. The bastard. Dixon just wished he knew what it was.
But Adrians OPUS code name hadnt been Sorcerer for nothing. He could make magic when he wanted to. He could make himself invisible. He could make himself be anyoneor anythinghe wanted. And he could mesmerize other peopleordinary, decent, moral peopleinto thinking they were doing the right thing by helping him out. Other people like, ohDixon didnt knowDaisy Miller.
Who the hell was she anyway?
Not that she seemed ordinary in any way. Or decent, considering what Dixon had read in some of the snippets hed been able to decrypt from her e-mails to Andrew/Adrian/Sorcerer. As for moral, wellthe jury was still out on that. Could be she was just another one of Sorcerers clueless pawns. Or she might be someone as illicitly inclined as he was. Whoever she was, Dixon could see why Sorcerer wanted her. Not just because if she was living here, she had a bundle of money, but if her homemade phone screen and firewall were anything to go by, she also knew a thing or two about communication technology and software. And since Sorcerers last incarnation had been as a high-level executive for a computer software company in Indianapolis, it was a safe bet that whatever he was up to had something to do with that particular medium.
Although Dixon was fully prepared, and able, to break into Daisys apartment and bug the hell out of the place if she ever left long enough for him to manage itand if, you know, he ever found ithe hadnt had the opportunity to do so because she never went anywhere. So hed had to make do with industrial-strength microphones that caught every other damned thing in a half-mile radius, too, and try to filter out what he could. And hed had to intercept what he could of her online activity through the airwaves. But her firewall made even that hard to do.
Tonight Daisy seemed to be especially active, darting from one chat room to another without even posting in any of them. Not that that was so unusual, since she seemed to be following Sorcerer. Plus, she just spent a lot of time in chat roomsenough so that Dixon suspected she was a bit neurotic.
But what hed come to view as her regular haunts were a lot more esoteric than the ones she was visiting tonight. In addition to the Henry James site, she liked the Libertarian Party home page, the Ruth Gordon Fan Club, the Mo Rocca is a Total Babe site, one headed up by the words Love Animals Dont Cut Them into Pieces and Ingest Them, several Magic: the Gathering sites and the Cracker Mysteries site.
That last was where she had declared on the message board that she wanted to have Robbie Coltranes love child and name it Clem. Dixon had tried to reassure himself that she must have been drinking pretty heavily that night. Somehow, though, that had brought little reassurance. All in all, had he met Daisy Miller at a cocktail party, he could safely say hed want to keep his distance.
Nevertheless, she was very intriguing. And he couldnt say he hadnt enjoyed some parts of this week. Just not tonight, since it was so friggin cold and her activity online was so friggin weird. He was supposed to be on duty until daybreak, when Daisys activity generally started to ebb, whereupon hed be relieved by another agent, whose job would be even more boring than his was, because the daylight hours seemed to be the time when Daisy shutdown.
He was about to contact Cowboy and tell the other man he was calling it a night when suddenly, out of nowhere, Dixon got his big break. Because right when he was thinking this was pointless and he might as well pack it in, Daisy Miller picked up her phone and made a call. When he picked up the sound of a mans voice evidently answering the phone at the other end of the line with a cheery, Hello, Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market, he quickly looked up the address on his laptop and saw that it was an all-night market three blocks away.
More satisfying than that, though, was when he heard Daisywhose voice was very familiar by nowsay, Hi, Mohammed, this is Avery Nesbitt. I need some things delivered.
Dixon picked up one of the more primitive tools he had at his fingertipsa pad and penciland listened as Avery Nesbitt, aka Daisy Miller, ticked off a list of essentials that she needed delivered to the very building where Dixon had parked his van. And then Mohammed confirmed that those should go to apartment numberOh, yes, there is a God7B, right? Yes, thanks, Mohammed, and please charge it to my account, as usual. And add fifteen percent for the delivery boy, twenty if he can deliver it tonight, cause Im really running low on milk. He can? Great. Thanks again, Mohammed, youre the best.
Avery Nesbitt. Dixon smiled at the words hed scrawled on the pad of paper before him. Not Daisy Miller. And this week, from the market, Avery Nesbitt needed coffee, bread, peanut butterthe biggest jar you have, please, MohammedFroot Loops, Capn Crunch, a box of Chicken in a Biskit crackers, a six-pack of Wild Cherry Pepsi, some of those red-chili pistachios, a mondo bag of M&Ms, Sausalito cookies, tampons (shed said that without an ounce of hesitation) and lots and lots of other stuff that had the nutritional equivalent of a big bag of lint.
Awful lot of caffeine and sugar on her list, Dixon reflected as he read his hastily jotted notes. Evidently Avery Nesbitt lived on nothing but carbohydrates. Which went a long way toward explaining why she stayed up all night, every night, the way she always did. And he found himself wondering what a woman could possibly have to do all night when she was home alone.
Not playin Parcheesi, thats for sure, he muttered to himself.
And then he came to the last notation hed made: Delivery tonight. That meant some guy would be bopping down the street very soon with a couple of big grocery sacks from the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market destined for Ms. Avery Nesbitt of apartment 7B.
Which gave Dixon an idea he really had no business entertaining.
He contacted Cowboy again, but this time it wasnt to tell the man he was calling it a night. No, this time what Dixon told Cowboy was
Im going in.
What? the other man said.
Im going in, he repeated.
Youre coming in? Cowboy asked. Its that boring?
Not coming in, Dixon corrected him, going in.
You mean going in as ingoing in?
Dixon smiled. Yeah. I just a got a nice bit of intelligence and I want to follow up on it.
So youre going inwhere?
Dixon rolled his eyes. Newbies. To meet our girl, he said.
She-Wolf is back? Cowboy asked, voicing the code name of Dixons regular partner and sounding very confused. Whats she doing in New York? I thought she went home to Las Vegas to see her mother.
Not She-Wolf, Dixon said. Our other girl. Sorcerers contact.
Daisy Miller?
Thats the one.
But you cant, Cowboy said. You dont even know which apartment shes in.
I do now. I told you. I just received some very nice intelligence. And its from an excellent source. Himself. What better source could there be?
Then you pass the intelligence along to me, Dixon, Cowboy instructed. And I figure out what to do with it. Assimilate, evaluate, articulatethats my job. And you dont go in until I say its safe. Hell, you dont go in, period, unless youre the field agent.
But I am the field agent, he reminded the other man, suddenly grateful for that anomaly.
But youre not supposed to be in the field, Cowboy reminded him right back.
Hey, I didnt ask for this assignment, Dixon said with all the mock innocence he could muster. But you know how conscientious I am about doing my work the right way.
The hell you are. Youre as conscientious about that as I am.
And I want to make sure this job gets done right.
No, Dixon, you
So Im going in to make contact, he told the other man finally. Ill let you know what happens when I get back. He smiled to himself. No reason not to mess with the newbie a little. It was so much fun to hear them shriek. If I come back alive, I mean.
What? Cowboy shrieked.
Wish me luck, he said into the microphone before removing the headset altogether.
Not that that prevented him from hearing more shrieking.
This is nuts, Dixon, Cowboy told him. Dont go in there if its dangerous. Youre not even a field agent. Youre supposed to monitor the machines and analyze the data, like me. If anyone goes in to make contact, it should be She-Wolf. Wait for her before proceeding any further. Shell be back in a couple of weeks. Shes the field agent. You dont know what to do. You dont know proper procedure.
Oh, the hell he didnt. Hed helped write the proper procedure. Hed been an OPUS agent when Cowboy was still fine-tuning his small motor skills.
Dixon, Im begging you, Cowboy implored him. But he sounded resigned now. You cant go in. Please. You dont have permission.
Dixon chuckled as he flipped up the collar of his leather jacket and reached for the handle of the vans side door.
No permission. Right. As if that had ever stopped him before.
CHAPTER TWO
AVERY WAS TOTALLY IMMERSED in creating the code to make her farewell gift to Andrew especially noxious when the doorbell rang and blew her concentration. When she glanced at the clock in the corner of her laptop computer screen, she saw that it was 4:08 a.m. Who on earth came calling at 4:08 in the morning? For that matter, who came calling at all? She hadnt had any visitors to her apartment sincenever. That was one of the things that happened whencue the dramatic music in a minor keydebutantes go bad.
Then she remembered the groceries shed ordered earlier. Duh. She really needed those tampons.
Saving the work shed completed to her hard drive, Avery rose and made her way to the front door, switching on lights as she went, because she normally worked in the dark. She also launched herself into a full-body stretch, wondering how long she had been sitting still. It hadnt been midnight yet when shed started working, so more than four hours. Still, shed gotten a lot done. In fact, she was doing a better job than she usually did for something like this, despite the fact that it had been years since shed put one of these things together. Funny how productive you could be when someone pissed you off real bad.
Before opening the front door, she peeked through the peephole, frowning when the guy on the other side turned out to be neither Eddie, the usual night delivery guy, nor Mohammed, who from time to time made deliveries himself. Nor did the man out there look like someone who would make his living delivering groceries in the first place. No, thanks to his enormous sizealthough he was distorted by the fish-eye, he was clearly bigger than the average national monumenthe seemed more like the kind of guy who would make his living as a longshoreman. Or a bouncer. Or a wrestler. Or a Mack truck.
Wow, just how bad was the economy, she wondered, if guys who looked like him were reduced to delivering groceries? Maybe she should start visiting CNN.com from time to time and see what was going on outside the walls of her apartment. Not that she really cared, quite frankly, but she was still a citizen of this state, even if she would have preferred to live in a different one. Like maybe the state of altered consciousness. Nice scenery there.
In spite of her misgivings about the delivery guy, Avery figured he must be legit because he was toting two brown grocery sacks with the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market logo on them. Pulling herself back from the peephole, she unfastened the four dead bolts and chain that she routinely kept locked in place, then dragged her front door open.
Holy cow. He was even bigger without the distortion of the fish-eye, she saw when she glimpsed the man in person. And now he really didnt seem like someone who would be delivering groceries for a living. Once she got a better look at his face, Avery decided he was more the kind of guy whose job would involve being onstage somewhereprobably stripping down to his altogether while hundreds of screaming, frantic women stuffed their grocery money into his G-string. He was staggeringly handsome, from his finely wrought mouth to his ruggedly chiseled cheekbones to his aristocratic nose to his oh-my-God eyes.
But somehow Avery suspected the harshness of his features belied good breeding, since she had more than a nodding acquaintance with thatboth good breeding and harshness. In spite of his tattered attire, he held himself as if he were someone who knew the rules and regulations of proper dresshe just chose not to abide by them. There was a strange mixture of majesty and menace about him, as if he would have been equally comfortable wielding a martini at a high-society function or breaking someones knuckles as an enforcer for the mob.
It was his eyes, though, that she found most unsettling. An icy, almost opaque green, they made her think of the deepest part of the oceanwhere swam the most mysterious, dangerous creaturesfrozen over. Instead of repelling her, however, the look in his eyes made her want to draw closer to him. But it wasnt just his good looks that generated such a response in her. It simply had been so long since Avery had experienced the simple pleasure of being close to a man physically. Especially one who looked like him.
Where do you want these? he asked without preamble.
Automatically she jutted a thumb over her shoulder. In the kitchen. Please, she added as an afterthought, nearly forgetting the good manners that had been hammered into her during her years of after-school etiquette and deportment classes at Madame Yvettes School for Genteel Young Ladies in East Hampton. Thanks, she added with some distraction. Wow. His eyes really were amazing. And the overly long black hair spilling out from beneath the driving cap hed turned backward on his head only made their color seem that much lighterand that much darker, too.
But the guy didnt follow her instructions, only stood on the other side of the door gazing back at her. Incisively enough that she began to feel disconcerted, a feeling she really hated. In fact, it had been years since she had felt disconcerted, and shed almost convinced herself she was incapable of feeling that anymore. Along with discomfort and shame and humiliation and all those other things that had once been her constant companions. The realization that this man, simply by showing up at her front door, could rouse even one of themand so quickly, too, damn himbothered her a lot.
She was about to snap another order at him when he inclined his head forward and said, Do you mind?
Mind what? she asked.
Uh, stepping aside? he told her. So I can get through.
Only then did Avery realize that he hadnt come forward because she was blocking his way by standing there stupidly ogling him. Gee, had she felt disconcerted before? That was nothing compared to the mortification she felt now. Especially since she was leering at him again, thanks to the velvety pitch of his voice, a sound that skimmed over her like rough-calloused fingertips on naked flesh.
Oh, yeah. Shed definitely gone too long without physical closeness to the opposite sex if she was thinking a mans request for her to step aside was the equivalent of foreplay. Good foreplay, at that.
Oh. Im sorry, she apologized, moving to the side. IYoull have to excuse me. I was working. My mind is still elsewhere. Like on how the sound of your voice was making me orgasmic. The kitchen is through there, she added, pointing in that direction.
He sauntered past her, and she pushed the front door closed before following. As nice as his front side had been, Avery had to admit that the view from the rearespecially of his rearwas almost nicer. The faded jeans hugged his taut buttocks as snugly as Saran wrapwould that they were as transparent, tooswathing his lean thighs and calves. The leather of his jacket was cracked white in enough places to give it character, his shoulders broad and strong and hard-looking beneath it.
She bit back an involuntary sigh. Shed always loved a mans back more than any other feature, liked how the muscles there were dense and plentiful and elegant and how the skin was smooth and warm and fine. She could have been perfectly content for days lying next to a naked man doing little more than running her open palm over his back. This mans naked back, she was certain, would be spectacular.
When they entered her kitchen, she marveled at how much the room seemed to shrink with his presence. Funny, but shed always considered the room to be larger than what most apartments in the city claimed. Unfortunately it was also messier than most apartments in the city, cluttered with empty cereal boxes and crumbled pretzel and potato-chip bags and dirty dishes that she hadnt gotten around to putting into the dishwasher. Mostly because she hadnt taken the clean dishes out.
Well, shed been busy. Working. She had lots of work to do these days. Not to mention she was inherently lazy. In any event, there wasnt even enough clear counter space for him to set down the groceries, so she muttered another apology and waved him toward the door that led to the dining room.
Just put them on the table in there, she said as she watched him head that way.
Where, she recalled belatedly, she had been working on Andrews gift, which was still sitting out in the open, where anybody could see it and get her into big, big trouble.
She started to call him back, then decided that if he was delivering groceries for a living, there was little chance hed recognize what she was putting together on her laptop. So she let him go, crossing her arms over her midsection as she waited for him to return.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally Avery took a few steps toward the other door and called out, Is there something wrong?
When she heard what sounded like the shuffling of paper, she bolted toward the dining room in a panic. She halted at the door, however, when she saw the delivery guy down on all fours, scooping up a sheaf of papers that hed evidently spilled to the floor when hed set the groceries down on the table.
Oh, man, Im sorry, he said as he tried to straighten one piece of paper on top of another. I knocked this stuff off when I set down one of the sacks. I hope I didnt mess up anything you were working on.
Only when her heart stopped slamming against her rib cage did Avery realize just how hard it had been pounding. Enough to make her light-headed. Though, truth be told, that might have been due to the fact that the delivery guys adorable butt was facing her, and bent over the way he was, she had an almost uncontrollable urge to go over there and sink her teeth into it.
Hoo-boy, she had to get out and meet some flesh-and-blood men. Though that might be a little difficult, since she was overcome with terror every time she even stepped out into the hallway. As it was, she tipped Billy the doorman to bring her mail up to her every day.
She gave herself a minute to calm down, then joined the delivery guy on the floor, gathering the papers closest to her. Dont worry about it, she told him. I was finished with that pile.
It became clearer to Avery why he was working in the job he was as he tried to help her clean up. For every piece of paper she collected, he seemed to lose three, and although he tried to keep them in order as he gathered them, he kept turning them first one way, then another, as if he couldnt tell which way they were supposed to go.
Here, she said gently, taking pity on him. Thats okay. Ill do it.
He threw her a grateful smile and stood up, and within a few moments Avery had taken care of the mess herself. When she stood, the delivery guy was staring at her laptop, frowning at the lines of code that would be incoherent gibberish to anyone who wasnt familiar with computer programming. He looked over at her and shrugged, smiling an Oh, well kind of smile.
You must be one a them computer programmers, he said.
Kind of, she told him evasively.
I dont know nothin bout computers myself. Cept how to send e-mail. And even then, a lotta times Ill screw it up.
She tried to smile reassuringly. Well, thats true for a lot of people. It can be confusing.
He nodded enthusiastically. Sure can. He looked at the screen again, then thrust his chin toward it. Just whatre you doin there anyway? he asked.
Instinctively Avery moved to the laptop to protect her work, and even though her visitor clearly couldnt find his megabyte from a hole in the ground, something told her to close the lid and hurry him on his way. Why was he hanging around anyway? she wondered. Hed get his tip from Mohammed when he returned, and shed be billed for it. That was the way it always worked. Maybe Mohammed hadnt explained that to him yet. This guy was probably new to the job, since Avery had never seen him before.
Uh, its just something Im working on for someone, she hedged, pushing the top down on the computer as unobtrusively as she could. Look, I told Mohammed to add your tip to the bill, since I dont keep any money in the house, she added.
The comment seemed to invite mischief, and Avery wanted more than ever to get the guy out of her apartment. He seemed nice enough, and Mohammed always did a thorough background check on his employees, but even guys who were easy on the eye could turn out to be anything but easy.
Thanks for making the delivery so late, she added, hoping that might spur him on.
But he didnt take the hint, only stood on the other side of the table gazing at her, as if she were something worth gazing at. Which was the most alarming thing of all, because dressed as she was, in her obnoxious pajamas and her least attractive glasses, with her hair in two long braids, she looked like Pippi Longstocking on crystal meth. If he was staring at her, it wasnt because he liked what he saw.
Thanks again, she said a little less amiably. I appreciate it. When he still made no move to leave, she added, Ill see you out.
Then she turned to make her way back to the front door, completing the journey without looking back once, and was relieved when the delivery guy followed her. But his pace was slow and relaxed, as if he were in no hurry, and somehow that made Avery want to hurry even more. Although his hands were shoved carelessly into the pockets of his jacket, she couldnt help worrying that there might be something else in those pockets that could be potentially harmful to her. Like, ohshe didnt knowa gun, perhaps. Or a knife. Some rope, maybe. Or duct tape.
Amazing all the dangerous things that would fit easily into a mans jacket pocket, she marveled. Though somehow she suspected his hands would be the most dangerous weapon of all.
He was starting to look menacing again, and it occurred to her how truly isolated she was in her life. She didnt know any of her neighbors and honestly wasnt sure if any of them would respond to an anguished cry in the night. Not that theyd even hear an anguished cry this time of night, because they were probably all asleep, as normal people were at four-something in the morning.
And if something terrible did happen to her, who would she turn to in the fallout? Avery hadnt spoken to anyone in her family for nearly a decade, and she didnt kid herself that something like an assault or molestation on her part would change that. On the contrary, were her person to be violated, it would just make the rest of the family that much more determined to avoid her. The Nesbitts of East Hampton were still trying to rebuild their social standing in the wake of their youngest childs exploits. She doubted theyd even send flowers to her funeral.
Her mouth went dry at the thought of her funeral. Or maybe it was because her visitor came to a halt in front of her with scarcely a breath of air separating them. If he did decide to be menacing instead of majestic, he could easily overpower her and no one would be the wiser.
Oh, who was she kidding? He could choose to be majestic, too, and shed still end up a puddle of ruined womanhood at his feet.
Her heart was hammering hard in her chest again, but surprisingly it wasnt because she felt threatened by him. No, what Avery was feeling was infinitely more dangerous and more potent than fear. What she was feeling was hunger, plain and simple. And it wasnt for the bags of groceries this guy had just delivered. It was for an altogether different sort of package that he had.
Without thinking, she dropped her gaze to the package in question and saw that his jeans hugged him there as intimately as they did elsewhere. And it was a very nice package indeed. When she realized what she was doing, she snatched her gaze back up again, forcing herself to look at his face. But he was smiling at her in a way that told her he knew exactly what shed been looking at. Worse, he knew she liked what she saw.
Thanks again, she said as she pulled the front door open and moved behind it. But the words came out sounding breathless and needy and in no way grateful.
Anytime, he told her as he took a few steps forward. But he halted at the threshold and turned to look at her one last time. Then he lifted a hand to his forehead in something of a salute and smiled at her. And, sweetheart, I do mean anytime, he said before leaving.
Avery slammed the door closed behind him with no attempt to be subtle about it, thrusting all four dead bolts into place as quickly as she could and hooking the chain back tight. Then she leaned against it, her arms thrown wide over it, as if her too-slim, one-hundred-and-twenty-pound body could actually hold back two hundred towering pounds of solidly packed male.
Strangely, though, she hadnt taken those precautions because she feared he might come back and ravish her. It was because she was afraid shed run after him and beg for it.
SHE SMELLED LIKE PEACHES.
That was the thought circling with the most frequency around Dixons brain thirty minutes after meeting Avery Nesbitt in the flesh. Not the fact that her attire was the sort of thing normally worn by people whod sustained a severe head trauma. Nor that she hadnt had a qualm about inviting a total stranger into her apartment, never mind that the stranger was carrying groceries shed orderedhell, any Tom, Dixon or Harry could have slipped the real delivery boy a Benjamin out on the street and intercepted those groceries to gain entry into her apartment for nefarious purposes. Nor had Dixon been thinking about what a major slob she was. Or about how shed actually seemed kind of nice, taking pity on the clumsy delivery boy the way she had and cleaning up the guys mess.
He wasnt even thinking most about how, judging by the collection of letters and numbers and symbols hed seen on her laptop screen, she was trying to take over the world. No, what Dixon was thinking about most was that Avery Nesbitt smelled like peaches.
And, hey, she might not have been trying to take over the entire world. Maybe what she was working on up there was just a sinister little hobby of hers, something shed keep to herself and not unleash on an unsuspecting planet.
But she was building a monster up there.
And not one of those lame rubber-suited monsters that stomps all over Tokyo, either. No, the beast Avery was building could potentially wipe out life as they knew it from Alaska to Zambia.
Damn, she really was good, he thought as he sat in the darkened van and reviewed the episode in her apartment one more time. And now he could really see why Sorcerer wanted to hook up with her. If not sexuallythere was still that small matter of her wardrobethen certainly in a way that was even more useful to Sorcerer.
Dixon hadnt been able to see a lot of what was on the laptop before hed heard her approaching the dining room and knocked the papers to the floor in an effort to hide his snooping. But even the quick glimpse hed been able to steal had told him a lot. What Avery Nesbitt was doing in the privacy of her own home was something that could potentially have worldwide repercussions. Because Avery Nesbitt was creating a virus. Not some cute little virus that spread from person to person with a simple achoo, but a fast-traveling and highly contagious computer virus that could wipe out any PC it came into contact with.
Even from the little Dixon had seen, there was nothing to rival it. Unless he sat down to dissect and analyze it, he wasnt sure there would be a cure for it. Hed practically fallen in love with her on the spot, so massive was his admiration for her skill. Until hed remembered that she was a menace to society, wherein his ardor had quickly cooled.
But it had risen to the fore again during that last odd exchange theyd shared just before hed left her apartment. Okay, so she wasnt what any man in his right mind would call beautiful. In those ridiculous pajama bottoms and that shapeless sweatshirt, he hadnt been able to discern a single feminine attribute. Although she appeared to have a thick, glossy mane of blue-black hair, shed been wearing it in a style he hadnt seen on any female over the age of twelve. And shed seemed to select her glasses frames for the sole purpose of birth control. But the eyes behind those glasses
Oh, baby.
Huge and round and bluer than the sky above. And hungry. Theyd been hungry eyes and theyd raked over Dixon as if he were a surf and turf carried to a death-row inmate the night before her execution. Hed nearly burst into flame when shed looked at him the way she had. It had been all he could do not to respond to that look, just to see if maybe peaches were as sweet in the dead of winter as they were during the torrid heat of summer. One touch, hed figured. That was all it would have taken. If hed touched her one time, the right way, in the right place, Avery Nesbitt would have been his for the night.
Because damn, Dixon was good, too.
He figured she would need at least another day to finish what she was working on, and even then he really did have no evidence to suggest she was planning to put it into circulation. Could be she just had a really bizarre, twisted hobby building computer viruses and then sitting back to admire them.
But he doubted it.
In his experience, people who made viruses only did so for one reason: to send them out into the world and laugh hysterically at all the damage they wrought. And if Avery Nesbitt was involved with Sorcerer, that only made the threat ten times more menacing.
So Dixon had less than a day to find out everything he could about Avery Nesbitt and do whatever he had to do to stop her. He wasnt going to waste a moment of it hanging around outside her apartment building doing surveillance. Not when hed learned enough about her tonight to uncover everything about her. But he needed to be at OPUS to do that, with his computer and his networks and his contacts.
He climbed into the front of the van and turned the key and thought again about the peachy scent of Avery Nesbitt. Then he threw the vehicle into gear and drove away. He glanced once into the rearview mirror as he waited for a signal at the corner to change, at the pale blue glow from a computer screen that was barely visible in the window of what he now knew was Avery Nesbitts dining room.
She was still at work on her monster. And Dixon was quite possibly the only human being who knew how to stop her.
IT WAS PAST HIS LUNCH hour when he finally took a break, if for no other reason than that he needed to refuel before taking his findings to his superior or hed get woozy from sheer exhilaration. If Dixon didnt get a major promotion out of thisto nothing less than Exalted Supreme Sovereign of Every Damned Thing There Isthen there was no justice in the world.
Avery Nesbitt was going to be quite a catch.
And Dixon was going to be the one to catch her.
His head swam with his findings as he blindly selected food from the company cafeteria and paid for it. The headquarters for the Office of Political Unity and Security were in Washington, D.C., but the organization had field offices in a handful of major cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami. Dixon normally worked out of D.C., but his search for Sorcerer had taken him and his partner She-Wolf to a half-dozen cities in the past year. He was no stranger to New York, though, having earned his masters degree from Columbia University. Nevertheless, hed had little opportunity to enjoy himself since his return.
Yeah, he was going to enjoy bringing in Avery Nesbitt for questioning, even if he had to bring her in kicking and screaming.
As he ate his lunch without tasting a bite of it, Dixon connected and divided and reconnected all his discoveries in his brain. She was a fascinating piece of work. But as much as hed learned about her over the past several hours, he still couldnt get to the core of herher motivation. Everybody was motivated by something. Something that had happened to them, or something that they wanted or something that they needed. Motivation defined who a person was. Dixon was no different. He understood his motivation perfectly. But Avery Nesbitt
He couldnt figure her out.
There had to be a reason for why she had done the things shed done and there had to be a reason for why she lived the way she did nowwhich was an odd way to live indeed. But there was nothing in her background that even hinted at what motivated her. It had only made her that much more intriguing to Dixon.
Pushing his tray away with the plate still half-full, he rose and returned to his office to gather up his notes and printouts. He reviewed them one last time to make sure he was prepared, then took the elevator down to the basement, to the office of his most superior superior, the One Whose Name Nobody Dared Saymostly because Dixon didnt know what his name was. OPUS was, after all, a top-secret organization within a top-secret organization, and everything everyone knew was strictly on a need-to-know basis. But very few knew who needed to know what, including Dixon. There were times when he wondered if the One Whose Name Nobody Dared Say even knew what his own name was.
Usually No-Name stayed nameless in Washington, D.C., since that was where the most superior superiors of OPUS dwelled. But since Sorcerer had been spied in New York, Mr. No-Name had been spending a lot of his time here with the senior agent of the New York office, Another One Whose Name Nobody Dared Say Because Nobody Knew What It Was Either. Or, as Dixon liked to think of her, Ms. No-Name.
Right now, though, he was going to go straight to the top, to the Big Guy himself. He was greeted by Mr. No-Names secretary, an efficient-looking, white-haired woman dressed in gray flannel, whose name Dixon also didnt knowdid she even know the Big Guys name?and politely requested an audience with the Great and Powerful Oz. She glanced at her appointment calendar, picked up the phone, murmured a few words into it, then smiled.
He says you can go right in, she told Dixon before pressing her finger to a buzzer under the desk.
Dixon smiled in return as he passed her, knowing her own warm, outgoing demeanor was strictly for show. If she was like half the secretaries at OPUS, in addition to having a top-secret button under her top-secret desk that opened top-secret doors, she also had a bazooka under there. Maybe a flamethrower. Or even a surface-to-air missile. And, like the other secretaries there, she wasnt afraid to use it and probably had on more than one occasion.
Sir, Dixon greeted the man sitting behind the big government-issue desk as he entered.
Mr. No-Name was about as remarkable as an insurance claims adjuster would be, wearing a boring gray suit, a boring white shirt and a boring blue tie. His hair was thinning a bit, but no more than that of any other man his agewhich Dixon gauged to be somewhere between forty and sixty. In fact, his boss looked like just about every man between the ages of forty and sixty. And he doubtless worked hard at looking average. It wasnt good to stand out when you were a big muckety-muck in a top-secret, bazooka-toting-secretaried organization.
Dixons superior looked at him through narrowed eyes. Ah, yes. Your code name is He halted before saying it, however, which made Dixon think he really had gotten a bad rep about that code-name business. Well, what name are you going by now? the man asked instead.
Dixon.
Right. So what do you have to report about Sorcerer?
Oh, yeah. He was supposed to be keeping tabs on Sorcerer, too, wasnt he? Dixon thought. Funny, but in the wake of Hurricane Avery, hed all but forgotten the son of a bitch whose ass he wanted to nail to the wall more than hed ever wanted anything in his life. How odd.
Actually, sir, there havent been any new developments with Sorcerer himself.
Meaning? his boss asked.
Dixon gazed at the other man blandly. Meaning there havent been any new developments with Sorcerer himself, he wanted to say. Jeez, not everything in the spy business had to be cloak-and-dagger. What I have to report is something about the woman Sorcerers been in contact with over the past month.
Ah. Daisy Miller.
Dixon wasnt surprised that his superior already knew about her. The Big Guy knew everything that went on in the organization. And anything that involved Sorcerer shot especially quickly to the top. Thats the one, he said.
What about her?
Dixon took a breath and wondered where to begin. Well, we have a name for her now. Avery Nesbitt.
His boss sat up stick-straight in his chair. Nesbitt? he asked.
Dixon nodded, puzzled by the reaction. His boss seemed to know the name well. Yeah he said.
Is her father Desmond Nesbitt?
Dixon nodded, too surprised to speak.
Of the East Hampton Nesbitts?
Well, yeah, she grew up in East Hampton, he said. But the family has a half dozen other residences, too, all over the world.
His boss nodded. I know. I know the family.
This time Dixon was the one to narrow his eyes. You know Avery Nesbitt?
Not so much her as her father. But yes, Ive met her. Years ago. She couldnt have even been in high school then. Scrawny kid. Long black hair. Big glasses.
It was an apt description for her now, Dixon thought, except for the size of the glasses, which were fashionably smaller. Well, sort of fashionably smaller. Okay, just smaller.
Youre sure Daisy Miller is Avery Nesbitt? his boss asked.
Positive.
The other man nodded again. Tell me what else you have on her.
Gee, sir, you may know more than I do, if you know the family.
The other man shook his head. No, as I said, its been years since Ive had any contact with them. Desmond and I were in the same college fraternity. I hear about him occasionally through mutual acquaintances. And of course, everyone heard about that business with Again he halted before finishing. Well, tell me what youve got.
Dixon nodded. Okay. Ill just hit on the highlights for now and give you my full report at the end of the day. Twenty-nine years old, never married, no kids. Born and raised in East Hampton, New York. Parents Desmond and Felicia Nesbitt. Youngest of three childrenshe has an older brother and an older sister. Educated at the finest schools money could buy, traveled extensively as a child and teenager. Was accepted to Wellesley College and declared a major in computer science. Attended for two and a half years, but her education was interrupted.
Right, his boss said.
But the way he said it made Dixon think the guy already knew what had interrupted young Averys studies. Then again, once Dixon had made the connection, he had remembered the incident himself.
She was always an exceptional student, he continued, gifted in both mathematics and language arts. Scored a perfect twenty-four hundred on her SAT, a perfect thirty-six on her ACT. Fluent in French, Spanish and German by the time she graduated high school. Mastered anything computer-related with little effort from an early age. Won a national award when she was fourteen for designing an e-mail program that was then purchased and produced by a company named CompuPax. A few minor behavioral problems in school, but nothing you wouldnt expect from any other exceptionally gifted kid. No black marks on her permanent record. From all accounts, she was the ideal student up until her junior year.
His boss studied him in silence, his fingers steepled together on his desk. Go on.
Taking a deep breath, Dixon continued, In her junior year in college, Avery Nesbitt, of the East Hampton Nesbitts, had her education interrupted. Because she earned herself a ten-year prison sentence instead.
CHAPTER THREE
DIXONS BOSS DIDNT SEEM surprised by the announcement. I remember that, he said. And I imagine you do, too. Its become one of those Where were you when things.
I remember it now, Dixon said. But I didnt make the connection at firstit was ten years ago, after all. I couldnt remember her name. But as soon as I read about her conviction, it all came together. I was twenty-nine when it happened and working in decryption. News of her arrest got a lot of buzz around the department. The virus she created was the stuff of legends, and she was just a kid. Even ten years later, no ones figured out how she did it.
Viral Avery. That was how the media had referred to her after the debacle, their too-clever spin on Typhoid Mary. But where an individual would have had to have personal contact with Mary to come down with the bug, Avery had taken out millions with the simple click of a mouse. The college junior had nearly shut down the planet with the computer virus shed sent out into the world.
At the time of her arrest, shed claimed it was an accident, that shed only created the program and sent it in retaliation to a boyfriend whod jilted her. Shed insisted shed only wanted to destroy his hard drive and nothing else and that shed had no idea shed leave businesses all over the world stalled, scores of governments deadlocked and the Vatican in the dark. For days. By the time it was finally contained, Averys virus had taken out big chunks of North, Central and South America, Greenland and a good part of Europe, including the Vatican. As for Asiaforget about it.
All told, Viral Avery had cost her fellow man roughly a gazillion dollars in lost revenues, and shed had people standing in line all along the equator who wanted to string her up for global target practice. Preferably with atomic warheads.
But theyd had to settle for seeing her get slapped with a ten-year prison sentence instead, something that had offended most people because theyd thought it too light a punishment. They were offended even more when two years later she was released on shock probation. Many suspected it had been more her fathers dollars and influence that had won her the release than any remorse or trauma on her part. Shed been painted in the media as a spoiled, privileged, snotty little geek who always got her way, thanks to family connections. Before, during and after her release, she was gleefully and thoroughly reviled.
Still, according to her prison records, she had been an exemplary inmate, living quietly and following the rules. And during her trial, the highlights of which Dixon also had studied, there really hadnt been much evidence to indicate she had acted in malice toward anyone other than the boyfriend.
But now she was building another virus, he reminded himself. Within weeks of making the acquaintance of Sorcerer. And wasnt that just the most interesting coincidence in the world?
Shes putting together another one, he told his boss.
The other mans eyebrows shot up at that. Shes what?
Shes building another virus, Dixon said. I saw part of it myself when I made contact last night. And just that little glimpse told me that its ten times worse than the one she sent out ten years ago. With technology being what it is now and with a million times more people being connected to the Internet than there were ten years ago
He left the comment unfinished, knowing his boss would comprehend the massive repercussions.
Weve got to stop her, the other man said. We still get calls from the Vatican. Not to mention Greenland.
Then we better hurry, Dixon said. Because she could be finished with this thing anytime.
Ill take care of the paperwork right now, his boss told him. Get your temporary partnerwhats his name?
Gillespie, Dixon said. Tanner Gillespie. Code name Cowboy.
Whens She-Wolf due back? his boss asked.
Shes had to take an indefinite leave of absence, Dixon said. Her mother passed away and she has some family matters to see to.
Right, the other man said. Well give her all the time she needs, of course.
Dixon couldnt imagine her needing much. One thing about She-Wolfshe never let life get in the way of her job, never let the personal overshadow the professional. She was a lot like him in that regard.
Collect Cowboy, his boss told him again, and bring in Avery Nesbitt today.
You sure we have enough on her?
We dont need much.
Which was true. Even before 9/11, OPUS had operated outside the rules set up for other government agencies. Since then, theyd been moved under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security, their worth reevaluated, their mission refined, their rules of operation revised. Dixons boss, he knew, wouldnt have any trouble getting papers signed that would bring Avery Nesbitt to heel.
Bring her in, the man told him. Now. Well have a room waiting for her when you get back.
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER deciding to send Andrew a farewell giftnot that she wanted him to fare well, of course, hence the farewell giftthings werent working out the way Avery had hoped. Shed been so sure she could create a virus that would turn his hard drive into tapiocaradioactive tapioca at thatbut shed hit a snag. And snags just didnt happen to her. Well, not since the one that had sent her to prison ten years ago, which, granted, had been a pret-ty ma-jor snag. Shed been extremely careful since then not to set herself up for another one. Then again, being genuinely phobic about leaving ones home did rather hinder one in getting oneself into trouble.
And that one major snag ten years ago had only come about because shed been driven by her emotions instead of her intellect. Shed just been too ambitious with this particular project, that was all. Vengefulness did that to a person sometimesmade them too ambitious. Now shed have to go back and start over with a virus that was less damaging.
Though this one was very intriguing.
Still, it wasnt as if she could send this thing out anyway. Just building another virus would get her in big trouble. If she actually sent it to Andrew, theyd toss her keister back in the slammer and throw away the key for good. Which was why Avery was building it on this particular laptopit had no communication function whatsoever. It was the laptop she used for off-line gaming. Which was what building this virus was to hera game. It was physically impossible for her to send it anywhere beyond her hard drive. Unless, you know, she moved it to another computer. Which, of course, she would never do.
But shed needed to do something to exorcise Andrew from her systemto serve him his just desserts, if only in her own mental bakery. And building him a virus, even one that would never go anywhere, made her feel vindicated. She was a woman scorned and all that, and you should never underestimate the power of one of those. Even the ones who had been effectively spayed in the ol revenge department.
She studied the lines of code again, backtracking to see where she might have gone wrong. She didnt want to abandon the project completely, because it really was a brilliant bit of work, if she did say so herself. But it wasnt going to function properly the way she had it set up, theoretically or realistically.
Lets see. If she dropped this command and added a different one insteadOr if she clarified that command a little betterHmm
What had she done wrong?
She squinted at the numbers and letters and symbols again, then removed her glasses to rub her eyes. Shed been up for thirty-six hours straight now, her mind completely engaged during the majority of them. She hadnt even stopped working long enough to eat anything since that last bowl of Cajun popcorn. Maybe she needed to take a break for a little while. Clear her head with a nice Starbucks double shot.
Yeah, thats the ticket.
She tossed her glasses onto the table and stood, reaching as high as she could above her head, arching her back to relieve the kinks that had set in. Oh, man, that felt good. The sudden activity stirred her cat, Skittles, who had curled herself into a meatloaf shape on one of the other dining room chairs. After mimicking Averys stretch with one of her own, she leaped down, curling her lithe silver-and-black-striped body around and between Averys calves. Avery smiled and bent to pick up the cat, cuddling her under her chin and calming immediately at the soft hum of the animals contented purr.
It was always good to have someone in your life you could count on, no matter what. Skittles was that for Avery. Shed shown up as a stray kitten outside the gates of the Rupert Halloran Womens Correctional Facility during the final month of Averys term, and after much urging and cajoling from the inmates, one of the guards had brought the scrawny little thing inside for the women to fuss over. Theyd decided whoever was the next released would take the kitten with her. Avery had been the winner. In more ways than one. Skittles had been with her ever since.
She strode, cradling Skittles, into the kitchen. It was still a mess, unfortunately. No friendly little house-cleaning brownies had come by while shed been working to clean the place up. Dang. Although, speaking of brownies, hadnt she put some Sara Lee brownies on her grocery list? she recalled now. She put down Skittles and padded in sock feet over to the counter, where she had at least cleared a place for the two sacks of groceries, even if she hadnt quite gotten around to unpacking them all yet. Well, shed needed the space on the dining room table to work and then shed been too preoccupied by that work to worry about putting away anything but the stuff that needed to be refrigerated.
She had dug out the brownie tin and peeled back the paper lid from the foiloh, boy, just the sight of all that icing was enough to send her into spasms of orgasmic chocolaty euphoriawhen there was a knock at her front door. She jerked up her head upon hearing it. Two visitors within a matter of hours was extraordinary. It was also very suspicious.
As quietly as she could, she made her way to the front door and leaned forward to peer through the peephole. When she saw who stood on the other side, her heart kicked up a ragged rhythm and heat flooded her belly. Because it was the delivery guy from Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market again, only this time he wasnt carrying groceries.
She told herself to ask him what he wanted but feared she already knew. Hey, a scrawny, ill-favored woman living all alone? Avery knew what an easy mark she was to creeps. Look at what had happened with Andrew. Even if this guy was here for a legitimate reason, Avery didnt feel like answering the door. She had everything she needed, thanks, and preferred to be left alone. She didnt like talking to strangers. She didnt like talking to anybody. She liked keeping to herself and hoping the worldand the grocery delivery guy it rode in onstayed away.
She started to move away from the peephole, pretending she wasnt home so hed leave. But he called out through the door, his words stopping her cold.
I wouldnt do that if I were you, Ms. Nesbitt.
It didnt surprise her that he knew her name. Mohammed would have told him who the delivery was for. But the very nature of her in-home business was to create online security systems for other people and businesses. Shed learned her trade by making her own systemher own lifesecure. Shed done everything she knew to do to keep herself safe. It always creeped her out whenever she was identified, regardless of how innocently that identification came. And the fact that the identifier now was standing on the other side of her front door, which was the only way inor outof her apartment, made her feel more than a little nauseous.
Pressing her eye to the peephole again, she asked, What do you want?
I want you to open the door, Ms. Nesbitt.
Yeah, shed just bet he did. Why?
Just open the door, please.
Oh, right. Shed just invite a sexual predator right into her home.
Not without a good reason, she told him, wondering why she was even bothering. She should be heading for the phone right now to call the cops. Still, she was safe enough behind the four dead bolts and chain. And there might be a chance the guy had come here for a perfectly legitimate reason. Maybe. Possibly. In an alternate universe someplace where women didnt have to be on guard about their personal safety twenty-four hours a day.
Because you and I need to have a little chat, he said.
Okay, so much for the Clever Banter portion of their program, Avery thought. Now it was time to move along to the ever-popular Alert the Authorities segment.
Thats not going to happen, she said. And if you dont leave right now, Ill call the police.
Peaches, I am the police, he said.
Oh. Well. That made a difference. Or rather, it would have made a difference. If he hadnt been lying through his teeth. And if he hadnt just called her Peaches, something that made her want to open the door just so she could smack him upside the head.
Just to be sure, though, she pressed her eye to the peephole again to see if maybe he was displaying a badge. He wasnt. He was just standing out there wearing the same clothes hed had on the last time shed seen himhow many hours ago? She performed some quick mental mathsix minus fourdrop the three, make it a twocarry the oneand that would beoh, bugger it, she was too tired for thislast night. His driving cap was still turned backward, his leather bomber jacket was still hanging open over a heavy sweater and blue jeans, and his hands were still stuffed into pockets that could hold anything from chloroform to an automatic weapon.
Policemen identify themselves right away, she said, still gazing through the peephole. And they carry badges. And ID. Now go away. Or Ill call the cops. The real cops.
His shoulders rose and fell then, as if he were sighing deeply, and he pulled one hand out of one pocket to flip something open. Whatever kind of identification he was trying to show her, it was in a folding case, with some kind of photo and writing on the left side and some kind of badgish-looking thing on the right. Shed have to open the door to get a better look at it. But she wasnt going to do that. Because even through the fish-eye she could tell it was phony as hell. Shed seen police ID before. Hell, shed seen federal ID before. Up close and personal, too, as a matter of fact. And whatever this guy was holding, it wasnt an ID for New Yorks finest or the feds.
Obviously thinking shed fall for it, however, he repeated crisply, Ms. Nesbitt, open the door.
How had he even gotten into the building? she wondered. Billy the doorman must be sleeping on the job. She made a mental note to ask him about it the next time she saw him, then, as quietly as she could, she pushed herself away from the door and took a giant step backward.
Only to hear the man on the other side of her door say, I wouldnt do that if I were you.
For a single moment Avery hesitated, numerous thoughts circling through her mind. Thought number one: how did he know she was doing anything at all when even she hadnt heard herself make a sound? Thought number two: how did he know she wasnt cooperating with his instruction, reaching for the dead bolts to open them, if he had heard her make a sound? Thought number three: had he threatened her?
Just as thought number three was forming, she heard the sound of something metallic click against something else metallic and instinctively, she took another quick step back from the door. Then, before she even had time to register what the sound might be, she saw one, two, three, four dead bolts twist open, so quickly that he might as well have had a key to each on the other side. So stunned was she by the sight that she didnt immediately move. Thankfully, though, the chain held the door closed when he pushed it open. Until a small pair of bolt cuttersthe perfect size to hide in a jacket pocketappeared and cut through it as if it was paper. And then the front door was thrown open wide, and the man who hours before had brought her sustenance necessary for life stood framed by the doorway, doubtless with the intention of making that life unlivable for a while.
Her heart pounding, her brain hurtling, Avery turned and ran toward her bedroom, assuring herself she had time to reach it and lock the door behind herself, knowing there was a phone in there she could use to dial 911. That was the only hope she had at the momentstaving off this psycho scumbag long enough for the police to arrive. She didnt expend any more energy to think further than that, channeled all her strength into running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
It was the couch that did her in. Later she would realize that she should have run around it instead of trying to scramble over it. Because the minute her foot hit the too-soft cushion, her leg buckled beneath her and her body crumpled. When her assailant landed on top of her, he turned her and pinned her effortlessly beneath him, her belly and face pressed into the sofa as he straddled her waist with powerful thighs. Almost casually he gripped both of her wrists in one big hand and shoved them firmly against the small of her back. Then he leaned forward and began totouch her.
Never in her life had Avery felt so surrounded. He seemed to be everywhere, his free hand moving briskly over her body, sometimes in places that were too intimate to think about. He began at the crown of her head and proceeded downward, over her neck, her shoulders, her back, even her bottom, then lower still when he reached behind himself to run his hand along first one leg, then the other, stretching back far enough to rove over both sock-covered feet. When he moved his hand back up again, over her thighs, he dipped between them, pressing his fingers for only a second against the feminine heart of her. Avery squeezed her eyes shut tight but couldnt quite stifle her gasp.
Gotta do it, Peaches, he said. Sorry about that.
And before she had a chance to comment, before she could even open her eyes, he was moving off her. But only long enough to flip her onto her back and straddle her again, this time jerking her hands up over her head. She opened her eyes wide then, ordering herself to catalogue his features, to note any distinguishing characteristics, to take a mental picture so that when this was over, shed be able to identify him and put his ass in jail. Because eventually this would be over, she told herself. And she would survive it. And then she would do everything she had to do to make him pay.
She had thought he would shy away from her scrutiny, if for no other reason than to prevent her from getting a good look at him. But his gaze met hers unflinchingly, his cold green eyes holding her in place almost as much as his big body did. Again he held both of her wrists firmly in one hand as his other went wandering, down both arms and over her ribs and then briefly but thoroughly over her breasts. Avery closed her eyes again when he touched her, swallowing hard, and she gritted her teeth as he reached behind himself to run his hand down the fronts of her legs this time. This time, though, he didnt venture between them, something that both relieved and puzzled her.
Still straddling her, still holding her wrists firmly above her head, he said ironically, I wont hurt you.
She snapped her eyes open and glared at him. Too angry to think about her own safety now, she spat out her response. You already have, you bastard.
Instead of provoking him, however, her charge seemed to deflate him some. His expression, which had been so intense a moment before, suddenly went soft, almost sad. And the hand that gripped her wrists so fiercely loosened a bit. Avery immediately took advantage to jerk one of her hands free, then doubled her fist and punched him in the nose as hard as she could. Taken abackand hopefully woundedhe released her other hand to bring both of his up to his nose, a gesture that also slackened the legs still encircling her waist.
For one scant, exhilarating second Avery thought she would evade him. She had pulled herself out from beneath him enough to turn her body and claw at the floor, and she was eyeing her escape routestraight for the front door, which, although pushed closed, would still be unlockedwhen he recovered himself and jerked her back up onto the couch again. This time when he restrained her, he did it thoroughly, covering her entire front with his own, so that his body pinned hers from shoulder to toe.
Maybe I should clarify that, he whispered roughly, his voice edged with steel. I wont hurt you unless you try to hurt me.
She hurt him? Oh, that was rich. In spite of her having gotten off a decent pop to his nose, he could snap her in two like a matchstick. She knew better than to struggle now. Not only would it be pointless, but it would probably only make him angry. Best-case scenario, he was one of those attackers who got off on a womans fear, and if she lay quietly and did her best not to show her own, hed lose interest and be unwilling or unable to perform. Or maybe when he realized why shed needed those tampons, hed be too grossed out to perform. Hey, it could happen. Worst-case scenario
Well. She decided not to think about that.
The best weapon she claimed was her brain, so she would use that. Let him think she was compliant, and when an opportunity presented itself, she would outwit and outmaneuver him and make her escape. She would not, however, succumb to him. She hadnt endured two years in prison without learning a thing or two about survival. Not because shed needed the skills to survive herselfprison had been surprisingly danger-free for herbut because so many of the other women had needed them before being incarcerated, and theyd shared their expertise with Avery in exchange for computer instruction and other such barterable things.
What do you want? she asked quietly, even though she knew perfectly well what he wanted.
Not what you think, he replied.
She kept her expression bland, determined to show no fear. If its not what I think, then let me get up.
He shook his head. Not yet, Peaches.
She gritted her teeth at the endearmentsuch as it was. When?
He smiled, but there was something strangely un-menacing about it. When Im comfortable, he told her.
She didnt want to know how he intended to achieve that.
He said nothing more for a moment, only gazed at her face as if he were the one now who wanted to catalogue features and note any distinguishing characteristics. Fat chance, Avery thought. She didnt have any distinguishing characteristics, and her features were in no way memorable. Unlike his own. Even had the situation not been so terrifying, she would remember him.
Now she found herself noticing things other than his looks. Like how he smelled faintly of coffee and exhaust fumes. And how his heart buffeted against her own in a totally calm, completely dispassionate way. She would have thought his pulse would be racing at the prospect of overpowering her and doing his dirty little deed. But he was completely cool and calm and collected. Somehow that only made him scarier.
You know, youre quite the mystery woman, Avery Nesbitt, he finally said, his voice a soft, velvety purr, his breath warm and damp as it stirred the hair at her temple.
Not really, she countered shallowly, a little breathlessly. With me, what you see is what you get.
And, oh, dammit, she wished she hadnt said that. If her brain was her fiercest weapon, she might as well concede defeat right now.
His smile told her he was thinking pretty much the same thing. Maybe, he said. But I didnt see you before last night. Even though Ive been watching you for a while now.
Okay, that really creeped her out. Avery knew about stalkers, of course. But shed never considered the possibility that shed be the target of one. How could she be? She never left home. It had been weeks, months even, since shed left the building, and her destination had been only four blocks away, to Skittless veterinarian. Theyd been gone less than an hour. And Avery hadnt noticed anyone noticing her. Of course, shed consumed a half-dozen shots of Johnnie Walker before heading out, so she was lucky to have even found the vets office, not to mention her way home. But Avery could tell when she was being watched. If this guy had been stalking her, she would have known.
How could you be watching me when I never go anywhere? she asked. Maybe if she got him talking, kept him talking, she could figure some way out of this.
Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own. And why is that? That you never go anywhere?
She wasnt about to tell him it was because she was afraid to leave her home. Show no fear, she commanded herself. Do not let him know your weaknesses. I dont have any reason to go anywhere, she said. I work at home and I work long hours. This is an especially busy time for me, and anything I need, I can have delivered. So I do.
What about socializing? he asked.
And she hated to think why. Because if he was thinking she might want to socialize with him, he had another think coming. And then he had a poke in the eye coming. And then a knee to the groin.
I dont socialize much, she said.
Peaches, you dont socialize at all, he rejoined. Unless you count all that bouncing around the Internet you do as socializing. And trust me, there are better ways to socialize than that.
She told herself he couldnt be stalking her on the Net. Not just because shed done nothing to attract a stalker, but because she had security measures in place on every system she owned that made it impossible for anyone to do that. He was bluffing. Or something. She just wished she knew what the hell was going on.
Who are you? she asked.
What? You dont remember me? he said. From the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market? After all those steamy looks you threw my way?
She squeezed her eyes shut tight at the reminder. Oh, God, how could she have ogled him the way she had? Naturally a psycho like him would misinterpret her simple appreciation of his physique as a blatant invitation to come back later and enjoy a slice of what she was clearly desperate to give him. It was almost funny. Shed been cloistered away from the world for a decadefirst through mandatory incarceration, then through voluntary seclusionhaving scarcely spoken a word to a member of the opposite sex. Now she was about to be violated in the most heinous way, thanks to some chance encounter with a delivery boy.
I thought youd be glad to see me again, he murmured. I thought maybe youd enjoy he grinned lasciviously socializing with a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood man for a change, instead of a cold, impersonal piece of machinery. And now youre saying you dont even know me? Avery, honey, youre breaking my heart.
And youre breaking my spine, she muttered, ignoring the first part of his remark. Please. I cant breathe, she added.
Something in her voice must have convinced him of her discomfortthough why a man like him would care about her comfort, she couldnt begin to imaginebecause although he didnt remove himself from atop her, he shifted his big body to the side some, alleviating the pressure of his weight a bit. In doing so, though, he wedged her body between his and the back of the sofa more firmly, keeping one of his legs draped over hers and one of his hands planted firmly on her hip, so that she was even more effectively pinned than before. Still, at least she could breathe now.
What do you want? she asked again.
He hesitated a moment, then told her, I want to keep you from making a terrible mistake.
Avery narrowed her eyes at him. What are you talking about?
That virus on your laptop, he said.
Her stomach pitched. What virus?
The one youre building, he said. The one I saw when I was here before. It could send you right back to the slammer, Peaches. Not to mention its powerful enough to take out half the galaxy.
Avery didnt know whether to feel relieved or more terrified. Maybe he wasnt here to physically assault her. But how did he know about her time in prison? And how did he know what shed been doing on her laptop unless he had some familiarity with computer viruses himself? And if he had that much familiarity with computer viruses, why was he working as a delivery guy for the Eastern Star Market?
Unless, gee, maybe he wasnt a delivery guy for the Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market at all. And if that was the case, then who the hell was he? Could his ID have actually been legit? Before Avery had a chance to ask him anything more, he began to speak again, saying things that made her even more confused.
And that bastard, Andrew Paddington? he added, sending more fire spilling through her belly. Hes not worth it, Avery. Trust me. That guy is a class-A prick who preys on people like you. Dont get involved in his schemes. Because youll end up right back in the Rupert Halloran Womens Correctional Facility. And next time not only will you do the full time, youll earn yourself a bonus stay. And Lana and Petrovsky and Mouse and all those other friends you had inside? Theyre not there anymore. Youll have to start from square one again, building your posse. And with your lack of people skills, Peaches, I dont think you want to have to do that.
With every new word he spoke Avery felt her panic rise, and it was through no small effort that she managed to tamp it back down again. The last thing she needed right now was to have a panic attack. God, she hadnt had one for monthsnot since that last time she took Skittles to the vet. Shed begun to think maybe she was coming out of all that. Even in this situation tonight, where panic would have been a perfectly logical and understandable response, shed managed to hang on and not succumb to an attack. And she wouldnt succumb now, she told herself. She wouldnt. She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it until the fear began to ease.
But how did he know all that stuff about her? she wondered as she opened her eyes againand immediately began to drown in the frozen green depths of his eyes. Certainly the news of her arrest and conviction was a matter of public record. Hell, itd been a media circus at the time. But that had been ten years ago. Few people talked about any of that anymore. Fewer still remembered her name. Virtually none of them knew how her life had been in prison or even to which facility shed been sent. Certainly none knew the names of her closest friends inside, as this man did. And how did he know about Andrew? Shed told no one about him. Shed had no one to tell about him.
Who are you? she asked again.
He smiled that sinister smile of his. Well, now, Peaches, if youd looked at my ID, you wouldnt have to ask that question.
Your ID looks like something that came out of a box of Capn Crunch, she told him, ignoring the nickname.
Oh, and youd know, since you pretty much live on stuff like Capn Crunch.
Who the hell are you? she demanded for a third time, more forcefully now. Her fear for her personal safety was quickly being usurped by her indignation at having her privacyand her personviolated. If it turned out this guy wasnt an actual threat to her physical well-being, she was going to bitch-slap him up one side of Park Avenue and down the other.
He eyed her thoughtfully for a moment, as if he were weighing several possible outcomes to the situation. As he did, Avery weighed an outcome he couldnt possibly be anticipating, no matter how much he thought he knew about her. And she was reasonably certain it would be the one outcome that ultimately occurred. For now, though, she contented herself in simply lying limp beneath him, hoping it might lull him into a false sense of security.
It did.
Because he told her, Im going to let you up, okay? And Im going to show you my ID again, and youre going to look at it. And then were going to have a little chat and then were going to take a little drive someplace, where you can chat with a few more people, too.
Oh, yeah. No worries here. Whoever this guy was, hed driven way past a false sense of security and was now touring the state of delusion. This was going to work even better than Avery had planned.
She nodded slowly and said, Okay.
Still obviously waryhe wasnt stupid, after allthe guy began to push himself off and away from her. She waited until he was seated beside her on the sofa, then carefully maneuvered herself into a sitting position, too, at the opposite end. She inhaled another deep breath and pushed both braids over her shoulders.
Okay, she said again. Let me see your ID.
He lifted his hands up in front of himself, palms out, keeping one that way while the other dipped beneath his open jacket to extract the leather case hed held up to the peephole. Gingerly he extended it toward her, and just as gingerly Avery accepted it, opening it to study the information inside.
The badgish-looking thing on the right was a rendition of a badge with a symbol on it, if not an actual badge itself, though it was one Avery had never seen before. And since her incarceration shed done a lot of research into the various law-enforcement fields of the American justice system. Hey, shed had some time on her hands. And shed figured thenjust as she did nowthat it was always good for one to know everything one could about ones enemies. As a result, she was familiar with some pretty obscure tactical outfits and task forces about which other people had heard very little, if anything at all.
But this badge and its symbol were like nothing shed ever seen. Although it had the traditional shield shape, there were few identifying marks on it. No numbers or letters at all. A border that resembled a heavy chain wound around the outer edge, surrounding what looked like a lance and a smaller shield at its center.
The left side of the case was considerably more revealing. Or it would have been had Avery believed a single word of the information recorded there. Which she didnt. According to this mans identification, his name was Santiago Dixon and he worked for something called the Office of Political Unity and Security, a bogus-sounding operation if ever there was one. Unless hed just sauntered shaken-not-stirred out of an Ian Fleming novel, she wasnt buying the name of him or his employer any more than she bought the part where it said his city of birth was Macon, Georgia.
She glanced up from his identification and smiled blandly. And the reason I should believe this is a legitimate document is because?
He smiled blandly back. Because its a legitimate document, he told her. Except for my name and birthplace, naturally. They never put any personal identification on our ID.
Then whats your real name? she asked.
He smiled his benign smile again. If I told you that, Peaches, Id have to kill you.
Right.
No, really, he said. In a way that made her think he wasnt kidding.
So Im supposed to believe that this she glanced at the ID again Office of Political Unity and Security is legitimate?
Doesnt matter if you believe it, he replied. Its legit.
How come Ive never heard of it?
Peaches, Ive never heard of jalape?o-and-Gorgonzola ice cream. That doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
Well, gosh, who could argue with reasoning like that?
Look, Santiago, she said.
Please, call me Dixon, he told her in a voice that was the picture of politeness. Everyone does. Well, for this assignment anyway.
Avery refrained from commenting on that. And before her life had a chance to slip any further into the surreal than it already had, she said, What do you want? Why are you here?
Ill be happy to answer both of those questions, he told her.
Good.
Once you and I are in a secure environment.
Meaning? she asked.
Meaning someplace other than here, he told her. Then, very graciously, he further offered, Ill drive.
Shed really been afraid he was going to say something like that at some point. It was what had caused her to picture the outcome to this situation that he couldnt be anticipating himself, what was going to ruin her day and her week and her month worse than anything else that had already happened tonight would. The only consolation she found in the realization was that it would ruin his day and his week and his month even more.
She folded his ID case and handed it back to him. Im afraid that wont be possible, she told him.
He accepted the case graciously and returned it to the inside pocket of his jacket. I cant wait to hear why.
Because Im not going anywhere with you, she said simply.
He expelled a sound that was a mixture of intention and resolution. Actually you are, he told her. I was hoping youd come along peacefully, but He shrugged. Guess itll just have to be against your will now, thats all.
Thats all? she echoed incredulously. Youre going to make me go with you? Against my will? Even though it will be a direct violation of my basic human rights, not to mention my civil rights, not to mention illegal?
It wont be illegal, he assured her with total confidence.
It will be if you dont have an arrest warrant.
An arrest warrant isnt necessary in these circumstances.
So then Im not under arrest?
Not exactly.
Then what exactly are the circumstances?
Well, for starters, its a matter of national security.
She almost laughed out loud at that. Almost. Until she got a good look at his expression and realized he was serious. In spite of that, she said softly, Youre joking.
Actually Im not.
She gaped at him. What right do you have to take me anywhere? she demanded. Im still not convinced that this organization you claim to work for even exists.
Youre just going to have to trust me on this one, Peaches. I have the jurisdiction and Im not afraid to use it.
You wouldnt dare, she said. But her actions belied her defiant words, because to punctuate the statement she dug her heels into the sofa cushions and crossed her arms over her midsection in a clear gesture of self-preservation.
In response to her actions, he stood, facing her. Avery cowered deeply into the sofa, but he made no further move. Yet. In fact, he kind of looked as if shed hurt his feelings by being scared of him.
Weird.
Avery Nesbitt, he said, his voice dripping with formality, youve been summoned to appear for questioning at the Office of Political Unity and Security.
Summoned? she repeated in a voice that was nowhere near as indignant as she had wanted it to be. By whom?
He ignored her question and continued in the same no-nonsense voice he had used before. Should you decline this summons to appear voluntarily, you will be found in violation of three different statutes
Oh, well, that sort of negates the whole voluntary thing, doesnt it? she said sarcastically.
and you will be brought in to the nearest OPUS office for questioning by an agent working for OPUS who is familiar with the charges against you.
Charges against me? Avery said indignantly. What charges? You said I wasnt under arrest! I want to see these alleged charges. In writing.
Again he ignored her and continued. And since I am such an agent
Says a piece of paper that could have come out of a box of Capn Crunch, she pointed out.
not to mention exceptionally good at bringing in people who violate statute he went on relentlessly.
Oh, no ego on you, pal, is there?
then that leaves me with no choice but to bring you in for questioning involuntarily.
I object! Avery shouted. Mostly because she had no idea what else to say.
Your objection is noted.
Oh, well, thank you so much for that measly considera
She was never able to finish what she had planned to say because Santiago Dixonor whoever the hell he wasstepped forward and curled his fingers easily around her upper arms. And that, if nothing hed said tonight, finally shut Avery up, because where she had expected roughness, he was gentle instead. When he pulled her to standing, it wasnt with animosity but with concern. And when he tugged her away from the couch, that was done gently, too.
And if she hadnt been silenced already, having her body pulled flush against his like that would for sure have done it. Because instead of manhandling her like a criminal, Santiago Dixon held her the same way he might have held a woman he intended to kiss. Her mouth went dry at the realization.
But she didnt have time to think about that. And she didnt have time to notice, either, the way his hard, muscular torso felt pressed against her own soft one or how upon contact her own traitorous body surged forward to meet his. Nor did she have time to marvel at how her struggles this evening with Santiago Dixon were the closest thing shed had to a sexual encounter for a decade. Her mind was too scrambled, because he wrapped his fingers firmlyintimately?around her waist. Then she couldnt think at all, because he lifted her off the ground and threw her over one shoulder. Then he started to walk toward the front door. Then he opened the front door. And then, with Avery still slung over his shoulder, he walked through it.
Or at least tried to.
But there was one potential outcome for the situation tonight that he hadnt considered, and that moment was when it kicked in.
Santiago Dixon hadnt counted on the fact that Avery Nesbitt was totally whack.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS ONLY ONCE THEY were over that Avery could really get a handle on what happened during her panic attacks. In the calm of the aftermath, she could recall the dizziness, the disorientation, the sheer, unmitigated terror. She could recall how her entire body trembled and perspired, could remember the paralysis of speech and interruption of breath. She could recollect the pain behind her eyes, the insensible workings of her brain, her certainty that she was going to die. Usually when she came out of an attack, she was curled into a fetal position on the floor of the shower stall or in the back of a closet, and she had a towel or article of clothing pressed hard against her mouth. That last, shed always figured, was an unconscious effort to keep the psychological screaming from escaping through actual cries from her mouth.
But this latest panic attack, she realized as she gradually emerged from the fog, had been different. For one thing, she couldnt remember ever fighting with corporeal monsters during one before. And she couldnt recall ever shouting aloud threats to faceless menaces. Nor had she ever come out of an attack lying spread-eagle on her back, on a bare cot beneath a stark white fluorescent light, her wrists and ankles wrapped in leather restraints. Nor had she ever found herself being stared at from above by someone like Santiago Dixon, who seemed to be as breathless, as terrified and as insensate as she.
So this was a definite first.
What happened? she asked when she was coherent enough to manage it.
Before the question even left her mouth, though, she knew. Vaguely she remembered pounding on Dixons back and yanking at his hair and screaming something about how she would place certain parts of his anatomy into a variety of equipment normally reserved for torture and/or food processing. And also something about lepers and gargoyles. That part wasnt too clear at the moment, so maybe he could help her fill in the blanks later.
But he didnt help her out at all, only gazed at her in wide-eyed silence, as if he couldnt quite figure out who or what she was. Then, What happened? he echoed incredulously.
She nodded weakly.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly, in clear disbelief. You just about beat the hell outta me, thats what happened. And you nearly gave my partner a concussion. He jutted a thumb over his shoulder and glared at her some more. And there are a couple of nurses out there filling out paperwork to enroll themselves in art school.
Oh, Avery said. Im sorry.
His lips parted marginally in surprise, but he said nothing more. His hat and jacket were gone, she noticed, and without them he seemed less menacing somehow. Until she bumped her gaze up to his face again and saw those cold green eyes and the jet-black hair spilling over his forehead. He seemed to be staring straight into her soul. And he seemed to not like what he saw there.
Really, she tried again. I am sorry. I dont usually attack people when that happens.
When what happens? he demanded gruffly. Just what the hell was that anyway? You were totally out of control.
She hesitated, not wanting to share any part of herself with a total stranger she didnt trust. Most especially she didnt want to share the damaged part. Not that there were many parts of Avery that werent at least a little impaired. But he wasnt the sort of person who would understand any of that. He was handsome, savvy, intelligent, confident. He wasnt damaged at all. To try and explain to someone like him what it meant to be terrified of what he would consider nothing would only make her look crazier than she must already seem.
Still, she supposed she owed him an explanation. If nothing else, it might make him stop looking at her as if she were some kind of freak.
It was a panic attack, she said softly.
A panic attack, he repeated evenly.
Again she nodded. But she said nothing to elaborate. What else was there for her to say?
He shifted his weight to one foot, hooked his hands on his hips in challenge and flattened his mouth into a tight line. Peaches, that was no panic attack. That was transglobal, thermodynamic warfare.
She made a face at him. Oh, stop it with the hyper-bole. Although, now that she studied him more closely, she realized there was a big red spot on his cheek. Look, I said I was sorry, she said again. Its not like its something I can control. And usually its not that bad.
Just what is it then?
She sighed. She wished she could tell him. At least in terms that wouldnt make her sound weak and timid and nuts. Unfortunately, over the past several years, Avery had pretty much come to the conclusion that she was weak and timid and nuts. Which made her even more reluctant to tell him the truth.
In spite of that, she told him, I wasnt trying to be coy or uncooperative earlier when I told you I couldnt go anywhere with you. I was telling you the truth. I cant leave my apartment. Not without some serious preparation first.
What, like you need to make sure you have your wallet and house keys and a token for the subway? he asked sarcastically.
No. I cant go out, because She sighed, resigned to revealing more of herself than she wanted him to know, because there was no other way to make him understand. Because I have agoraphobia.
He eyed her dubiously, Which is what? he asked. Fear of the outdoors, right? But you werent outside yet when you went psycho.
She tried to sit up, remembered that she was strapped down, so fell back against the cot with an exasperated sound. Honestly. Talk about overkill. So shed roughed him up and called him a leper. So shed nearly given someone a concussion. So shed taken a couple of nurses out of commission. Like that didnt happen every day in some boroughs of New York.
She tugged meaningfully at her restraints. Let me up, will you? she pleaded. Im fine now. I swear.
What you are is completely whack, he countered. Has anyone ever told you that?
Once or twice, she said softly. Then, more forcefully, Im fine, she repeated. She jerked at the restraints again. Get me out of these things. Let me up. Please.
Although he obviously didnt believe her, he bent over her and, after a moments hesitation, cautiously unfastened one of her wrist restraints. But he waited before loosening any more, apparently wanting to take this thing slowly, in case she was still a little, oh, homicidal. After another moment, evidently satisfied that she wasnt going to go all Hannibal Lecter on him againprobablyhe carefully freed one of the ankle restraints, too. Then the other. Then finally the last, on her other wrist. Then he took a giant step backward and positioned himself near the door.
Where was she anyway? she wondered as she folded herself into a sitting position on the edge of the cot. It wasnt quite a padded cell, but it was a tiny white room, empty save the cot on which she had been restrained, and there was a window in the door for observation from the other side. Hed mentioned nurses, so she must be in a hospital of some kind. God, she couldnt even remember how shed gotten here.
What time is it? she asked.
He flicked his wrist to glance at his watch, returning his attention to Avery in less than a nanosecond. Its ten after two.
A.m. or p.m.?
Its two-ten in the morning, he said. Youve been here for about an hour. But it took me and my partner almost an hour to get you here.
Avery nodded, waiting for the panic to rise again, because she wasnt in normal surroundings where she felt safe. Not that she ever really felt entirely safe in her normal surroundings. But nothing happened. She was a bit edgy, to be sure, but who wouldnt be upon ones discovery that one was in a strange place and couldnt remember how one had arrived there? Not to mention when there was a man like Santiago Dixon staring at one as if one had just emerged from a pea pod from outer space?
And just where is here? she asked.
Youre in an OPUS facility, he told her.
Well, at least it wasnt Bellevue.
An OPUS psychiatric facility, he clarified.
Oh. So it was Bellevue. Only without all the glamour and accountability.
She looked down at her attire, at the loud pajama bottoms and ragged purple sweatshirt. There was a rip in one sleeve that hadnt been there before. One of her socks was missing, and the toenails of her one bare foot were painted five different colors. No telling how that had happened. The lost sock, she meant, since she had painted her toenails herself. One of her braids had come almost completely frayed. She looked at Dixon again, at the mark on his face for which she was responsible. She was lucky theyd only put her in restraints. Any other place would have performed a full frontal lobotomy by now.
Still, she wasnt panicking here. The small, bare room didnt frighten her the way most new surroundings did. And neither did Dixons presence in it. That had to be significant somehow, but she was too exhausted at the moment to try and figure it out.
So tell me about this agoraphobia you have, he said.
Avery reached for the unraveling braid and freed what little of it was still intact, then finger-combed her hair as best she could before going about the motions of plaiting it again. Clinically, she said as she wove the strands back together and avoided his gaze, its defined as anxiety about being in a place or situation from which escape might be difficult or in which help may not be available in the event of having an unexpected panic attack or paniclike symptoms.
In laymans terms? he asked.
It means Im terrified of being someplace where I dont feel safe, she said simply. And the only place I feel safe is my home. So anytime I have to leave my home, I am literally crippled by fear.
What Avery didnt add was that her agoraphobia had appeared after her release from prison and was a direct result of her incarceration. As bad as it had been to have her freedom revoked, in prison, for the first time in her life, shed felt oddly safe. Strangely content. There was a strict system and regimen to life inside that had appealed to her. Everything was scheduled and everything went according to plan. Everyone was equal. The only thing that had been expected of her was that she stay out of trouble. And living in a place like that, Avery had felt no desire to get into trouble.
Not as she had growing up in East Hampton, where societys strict ruleswhich had never made any sense to herhad dictated she behave in ways she didnt want to behave. Growing up in the Hamptons, she had never felt like a worthwhile part of society, and because of that she had rebelled. Constantly. To her family she had always been a troublemaker. Behind bars, though
As crazy as it sounded, behind bars Avery had felt free for the first time. Free to be herself. Free to say and think and feel what she wanted. Her activities had been curtailed, to be sure. But her mind and her emotions had been liberated. No one had censored her for her feelings or her thoughts or her dreams or her desires. No one had been disappointed by what went on in her head or offended by the things that came out of her mouth. On the contrary, shed had friends inside, people who liked her because of who she was. And who she was was one of thema person who wanted the world to work the way it was supposed to, and who had been disappointed by the workings of the world.
Not that there hadnt been bad people in prison. Certainly there were a lot of women at Rupert Halloran who deserved to be behind bars and who were a genuine menace to society. But the ones to whom Avery had gravitated had been like hervictims of circumstance, women who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, women who had gotten involved with men they shouldnt have. Theyd understood Avery. Even when they discovered she came from a privileged background, they still understood her. And they liked her. And they considered her their equal. Prison was the only place where she had felt like a useful part of a meaningful society. Maybe it hadnt been the kind of society that society appreciated. But Avery had appreciated it. And shed been happy there.
Upon her release, though, once she returned to acceptable society, she discovered that where before she had felt uncomfortable, now she was genuinely frightened. In fact, she was terrified of acceptable society. Not just of all the rules, but of all the people, too. There were so many people on the outside, and there were so many different ways to go and be and live. Too many expectations on her. Too many societal dictates to follow. Too many choices. Too much freedom. Too much everything.
And Avery was completely alone in the world once she left prison. Her family had stopped speaking to her the minute they learned of her arrest, had turned their backs on her throughout her trial and incarceration. Theyd made it clearthrough their attorneysthat she would never, ever, have contact with them again. She was still entitled to her trust fundalas, there was nothing they could do about that, since Great-Grandfather Nesbitt had set it up in a way that no one but Avery could touch it after she turned eighteen. But she must take her money and run, her familys attorneys told her, and never return to her family. Because theyd made clear, too, that they werent her family anymore.
So she took her moneyall fifteen million dollars of itand ran to a condo on Central Park West. There, she could look out her window at society and observe it from a distance, where it was safe, and never have to be a part of it. Little by little, over the years that followed, Avery stopped leaving her apartment. Whenever she needed something, she shopped online and had things delivered. She called Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market, who happily brought her groceries to her front door. The only time she ventured out was if she or Skittles needed to see a doctor. But on those occasions, she began steeling herself for the torment days, even weeks, in advance, shoring herself up to face a ruthless, unforgiving populace, even if only for an hour or two. And then, just to be on the safe side, she got completely snookered before heading out the door. Because the outside world was much too scary, much too menacing. It wasnt safe, the way prison was.
Youre joking.
When she first heard him speak, Avery thought Dixon was reading her mind. Then she realized what he didnt believe was that she couldnt leave home without being incapacitated by fear. This from a man who sported an abraded cheeknever mind who had just released her from leather restraintsafter trying to take her for a little ride.
Now, she thought, might be a good time to change the subject.
Why am I here? she asked.
Dixon studied Avery Nesbitt in silence, wondering whether or not he should believe her about being terrified of reality. On one hand, she was just flaky enough that he could buy it. On the other hand, she had been corresponding with Sorcerer for a month, and God knew what hed put her up to.
Still, it was hard to fake the kind of mania that had consumed her when hed tried to carry her out of her apartment. Dixon was pissed off at himself for how hed handled that. Or rather, how he hadnt handled it. Not just that he hadnt tried any harder to talk to her and explain the situation before resorting to physical removal, but that hed been so unprepared when shed gone off the way she had.
But shed gone off so suddenly and so quickly and with such a powerful detonation, he hadnt known what to do. Nowhere in his investigation of her had he seen any evidence of her having been formally trained in martial arts. Even her prison file had no record of her ever having participated in any kind of altercation. But the minute hed tried to remove her from her home, shed attacked. Viciously.
And damn, she fought dirty.
Of course, hed eventually realized that she was too sloppy, chaotic and desperate to be trained in martial arts. But he hadnt been able to figure out what exactly she was doing. When Cowboy heard the commotion coming over his headset, hed responded to render aid. Between the two of them, theyd managed to wrestle her into a service elevator and then the surveillance van, which Cowboy had parked in the alley behind the building.
But no sooner had they slammed the door shut behind themselves than did Avery go limp in Dixons arms. Her eyes had remained open and she had been breathingthough rapidly enough that hed worried she might hyperventilatebut mentally shed completely checked out. It was spooky how she shut down the way she did.
Shed begun fighting again when hed tried to remove her from the van. Ultimately it had taken a half hourand a half dozen orderlies and nursesto get her into the restraints. Theyd said it was for her own safety, but Dixon suspected it was more for theirs. He hadnt left her side once since then. Hed been worried about her, something that frankly had surprised him. Hed wanted to be sure she was okay. That had surprised him, too. Now evidently she was okay. So why wasnt he relaxing?
Maybe, he thought, because he was beginning to realize that okay for Avery Nesbitt wasnt in any way okay.
He marveled at how anyone whod just kicked the shit out of him could look so fragile and reserved. Were it not for her ridiculous outfit, shed even look prim. But what amazed him even more was that he actually found her kind of attractive. In a weird, bohemian, I-really-need-to-be-evaluated kind of way. Though it wasnt necessarily Avery he was thinking needed the evaluation.
Nevertheless, even after all shed been through in the past few hours, she was surprisingly pretty. That first night hed been in her apartment, Dixon had thought her eyes only looked enormous because of her glasses. Nobody, hed thought, could have eyes that big or lashes that thick. But without the glasses her eyes were even larger. There had been times tonight when hed nearly lost himself in their bottomless blue depths. And when hed seen how that one braid had come unbound to leave her hair flowing over one shoulder like a shimmering, inky river, hed found himself wanting to touch it, to see if it was as silky as it looked. Now that shed rewoven her hair the way it belonged, he felt like a child denied his favorite plaything.
But Avery Nesbitt wasnt a plaything. Quite the contrary. If things turned out the way they were planning, she might be the most powerful weapon OPUS had at its disposal.
Judging by the restraints, she said, Im assuming that Im under arrest now.
She was perched on the very edge of the cot, her right hand massaging her left wrist where the restraints had been. A pang of guilt shot through Dixon. Seeing her like this, the thought of restraining her seemed silly. She looked like a delicate bird whod injured its wing, and he couldnt quite jibe the wounded chick with the raging terminator of a little while ago.
Agoraphobia. Thats what she said she had. Yet nowhere in his research of her had there been any mention of her suffering from such a condition. Not in her prison records, not in her medical records, nowhere. Either she was lying about it or else she was lying about it. Because OPUS didnt miss things like that. But if she was lying about being agoraphobic, then what had caused her to go off the way she had back at her place? And if she wasnt lying about being agoraphobic, why was she suddenly feeling okay again, even though she wasnt at home? Why wasnt she still throwing a fit or being catatonic or something?
Just what was the deal with Avery Nesbitt?
He waggled his head back and forth a little. Well, you are under arrest and you arent, he told her evasively.
She stopped rubbing her wrist and let both hands fall into her lap. If Im not under arrest, then I demand to be released immediately, she said levelly. And if I am under arrest, youll never make it stick, so I demand to be released immediately.
What makes you think we wont make it stick? he asked. Mostly because he was sure that whatever her argument was, it was bound to be entertaining.
You didnt read me my rights, she told him.
I dont have to, he told her right back.
Says who?
Says the agency I work for.
Which, as Ive saidseveral times, in factIm still not convinced exists anywhere outside your own delusions.
Look around you, Peaches, Dixon said. If OPUS doesnt exist, then where do you think you are?
I have no idea, she replied. Could be the renovated garage of some psychopath for all I know. Some psychopath likeoh, gee, who could I be thinking of?you.
He didnt rise to the bait. If youd studied my ID more closely, youd have realized its totally genuine.
She narrowed her eyes at him. You didnt give me much of a chance to make up my mind about it. You were too busy tackling, harassing and groping me.
Well, if youd been a better hostess, I wouldnt have had to tackle or harass you. The groping probably would have happened at some point, though, he added, trying not to sound too smug. Somehow it almost always comes to that. Whether Im working or not.
You searched me illegally, she continued, obviously thinking it best to not dwell on that groping business.
But it was fun, wasnt it? Dixon said. He rather liked the idea of keeping the groping topic alive. Though he hated to think why.
It was illegal, she said again.
Actually it wasnt, he assured her. Our rules of operation fall outside the traditional channels for most law-enforcement agencies. Probably because technically were not a law-enforcement agency.
You gained entry into my apartment unlawfully, she pointed out.
Its not unlawful when OPUS is doing it, Dixon told her. Those untraditional channels again.
She eyed him narrowly. Does the Libertarian Party know about your agency?
He shook his head. Only the people OPUS wants to know about it know about OPUS. Anyone else finds out, they dont live long enough to talk about it.
Im going to talk about it, she told him. Im going to tell everyone. Starting with the Libertarian Party.
You go ahead and do that, Dixon told her. And well make you look like a raving lunatic who doesnt know what shes talking about.
That wont be a problem for the Libertarian Party.
Well make it a problem for them.
Is that a threat?
Yep.
You cant threaten the Libertarian Party.
Peaches, we can threaten any party we like, be it Libertarian, Birthday, Tupperware or Slumber. And they all forget all about us when we do.
Her jaw set tight, she hissed, Fascist.
He smiled. Youre cute when youre angry, you know that?
This time her reply was a snarl. And he hated to say it, but she was even cuter when she did that.
A soft knock on the door made him turn around, and through the wire-reinforced window he saw the round, bland face of Mr. No-Name. Behind him was Tanner Gillespie, who still looked a little shaken from this evenings encounter.
The boss man pushed a series of numbers on a keypad below the doorknob, and the lock released with a soft click. The already small room shrank to microscopic when the two men entered, making Dixon feel crowded and uncomfortable. Avery seemed not to be bothered at all.
Agoraphobia. Right.
Ms. Nesbitt, Dixons boss said without awaiting an introduction.
She didnt reply at first, her attention flickering to Dixon instead. He wasnt sure what she wanted from him, so he only met her gaze in return. After a moment, she looked at No-Name again.
Do I know you? she asked.
No, he replied immediately.
You sure? You look familiar.
Im not.
But
Before she could say more, he hurried on, Youre a difficult woman to pin down, Ms. Nesbitt.
Not really, she said, still eyeing him with wary interest. I never go anywhere. Well, not usually, she added with a meaningful glance at Dixon. Then to his employer she continued, I do my best to keep a low profile, but anyone who really wants to find me can.
Is that why Adrian Padgett was able to find you?
Her expression turned puzzled at the question. Convincingly so, Dixon had to admit. His boss, on the other hand, looked convincingly skeptical.
Whos Adrian Padgett? she asked.
You might know him better as Andrew Paddington, No-Name said.
Avery glanced at Dixon again, obviously remembering that he had mentioned her online boyfriend earlier tonight, too. Whats Andrew got to do with any of this? she asked.
Now his boss turned to Dixon, too, giving him a look that let Dixon know the other man was deferring to him. But only because Dixon was more familiar with the particulars of the case. Under no other circumstances would his superior actually defer to anyone.
Dixon looked back at Avery. Where did you meet Andrew Paddington?
Of course, he already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted to see how honestly she would answer it.
Online, she told him, surprising him. He had been ready for her to challenge him again and not give him any information at all. In a Henry James chat room. Why?
So far, so good, Dixon thought. And how long have you been corresponding with him?
She hesitated. What business is that of yours?
Dixon ignored the question. Thanks to the OPUS techies at her apartment, who were currently combing through every computer she owned, it wouldnt be long before they knew every detail of her correspondence with and relationship to Sorcerer anyway. But he wanted her to talk about it, too, to see if her version corresponded to what the techies discovered.
He tried a different tack. Why were you building that virus?
Had it not been for the two bright spots of pink that appeared on her cheeks, Dixon would have thought she hadnt heard the question. Thats none of your business, either, she said softly.
It could send you back to prison, Peaches, he said. Its highly illegal. That makes it my business.
No, that makes it a matter for the feds, she said. She hesitated only a moment before adding, And stop calling me Peaches.
He bit back a smile. He honestly hadnt been aware he was calling her that. When its a matter of national security, it becomes a matter for OPUS, too.
That virus wasnt a matter of national security, she said.
It was last time you built one, Dixon reminded her. Hell, it was a matter of international security then. We still get calls from the Vatican.
Not to mention Greenland, his boss added.
Avery expelled a soft sound of capitulation and closed her eyes. Then she lifted a hand to her forehead and rubbed hard at a place just above her right eyebrow. Very wearily, very quietly, she said, If you want me to explain this, its going to take a while.
.
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