Saving Mr. Perfect Read online

  “Now that’s interesting,” Simon says, his lips thinning in a poor attempt at a smile. “I’d have taken you for a Lamborghini sort of guy.”

  “Or a Bentley,” Justin puts in.

  Before they launch into a list of all the traditional status cars, Christopher shakes his head. “Nah. My dad always had a thing for the classics.”

  This time, glancing at Simon isn’t optional. I’m fairly sure I’ve said that exact same sentence before. Granted, I never knew my father, given that he bailed on me and my mom when I was five years old, but pieces of memory remain. One such piece includes the glossy black ’69 Camaro SS he always dreamed of having.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck.

  “Do you want a lift?” Christopher asks me with a tilt of his head. I’m tempted to say yes, but Simon clears his throat significantly, stopping me short.

  I’m grateful for his intervention. I don’t think of myself as an overly sentimental man or even that much of a car guy anymore, but seeing that model up close and personal hits me harder than I expect. It’s too strong a reminder that relationships end and people leave, regardless of who gets hurt in the process.

  Sometimes, three thousand pounds of steel is all that’s left behind.

  “No, thanks,” I say and turn away from the car. “I’ll head back to the office in a few.”

  The agent who offered free overtime gladly claims my spot. I try not to watch as Christopher revs the engine before lurching into traffic, but I can’t seem to help myself. He cuts off at least three cabs in a cloud of exhaust. I’m left with my memories and, as much as I hate to admit it, a healthy twinge of jealousy.

  Damn. Maybe taking up a life of crime isn’t such a bad idea after all.

  “Emerson.” Simon’s voice indicates he knows what I’m thinking.

  “What? I was just looking.”

  “Emerson.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I don’t think you do know.” His voice drops to a hiss. “This is fucked up. That’s your car he’s driving away in—the one you used to talk about, the one you’ve always wanted. You never told him about that, did you?”

  “I mentioned the car in passing once.” More to convince myself than Simon, I add, “It could just be a coincidence.”

  “And you don’t have that stuff about your dad written down anywhere?”

  “What, like in my diary?” I tap my temple. “No, Sterling. I keep my feelings locked up in here.”

  “Joke all you want, but I smell something off. Between the way he’s been gunning for your cases and his obsession with Penelope…”

  “What about her?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Simon says. “Only that Christopher Leon seems to be trying to take over your life, one detail at a time. I hate to say it, man, but I think you’re being single white femaled.”

  My first reaction is to laugh—a person doesn’t just take over someone else’s life. Especially not when one of them is well armed and good with his fists.

  But a feeling of cold anxiety builds in my gut as the clues line up. Christopher’s questions and constant interest in what I’m doing. The way he always pops up when he should be handling his own shit. His refusal to accept that I neither need nor want him around. It was weird before, but this car thing pushes it into out-and-out batshit territory.

  “He wouldn’t dare,” I say.

  “You said that exact thing when he tried to toe in on your Warren Blue case. You also said it when the order came in for me to step off the Peep-Toe investigation. And God knows he’s always been a little too interested in your wife. Not a good track record, wouldn’t you say?”

  It’s a terrible track record, and if I didn’t think it would get me kicked out of the Bureau, I’d say it to anyone willing to listen. Unfortunately, all I have to go on so far are theories and suspicions. Proof, that ever-elusive mistress, is nowhere to be seen.

  Or is she? As my success record with the Bureau attests, proof is usually just several hundred man-hours of due diligence away. My mistake has been shouldering those man-hours on my own. Two things I’ve learned from tracking my wife’s brilliant but less-than-ethical career: one, blithe unconcern for your own safety is a must, and two, the real secret to success is having a strong team at your back.

  “You’re right.” I make a decision on the spot. “I’ve had just about enough of this bullshit.”

  “Wait, where are you going?” Simon asks, his tone worried.

  “I’m tired of letting a few bureaucratic reprimands stop me from figuring out what that man’s up to,” I say. That overeager desire to please, the systematic theft of cases from more experienced agents, hell, even trying to arrest Penelope so he can pretend he actually solved a crime on his own—I understand them all. I don’t like them, but I can understand them.

  This, however? Single white-femaling my life? My wife?

  “I’m heading back to the office,” I say. “I’ve got someone I need to talk to.”

  “Emerson…” Simon calls after me, but there’s nothing he can say at this point to stop me. I’m already out the door.

  * * *

  “You’re sure about that? Leon has no personal data listed whatsoever?”

  I don’t move from my position behind No-Aim Mariah, who’s in her element hunched behind a panel of flat, glowing screens. It’s not the wisest place for me to stand, since peering at a tech expert’s monitor and questioning her findings is like holding a field agent’s gun for them to make sure it’s steady, but there’s nowhere for me to sit. Mariah doesn’t like people hanging around while she works, a circumstance she avoids by refusing to keep any chairs in her office.

  It’s not a bad idea. The spiky-haired computing genius might not be able to hit moving targets, but she’s not without her insights.

  “Well, the basics are here, of course. Date of birth, height, weight, the usual. But it’s wiped of any personality, which is odd.”

  “Since when does an employee database have personality?”

  “I’m not saying the FBI includes biography-level insight, but they tend to keep pretty close tabs on their people. Want to see yours?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  She ignores me with the rapid-fire movement of her fingers over the keyboard, and I use the moment to gently shut her door. The information she’s digging up for me isn’t illegal, per se, but her backdoor access to it is.

  Her fingers stop, and she leans close to the screen for a few seconds before releasing a low whistle. “Damn, Emerson. You’ve been busy.”

  “I told you not to look at my page.”

  “Pages.”

  “What?”

  “Pages. Plural.” She angles the screen so I can get a better view. I try not to look, but the word Blue pops up enough times that my profile looks like it belongs to a Smurf. “Hot damn. Did you really threaten to bury all your case notes and contacts if they gave Warren Blue to another agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that worked?”

  “I was very convincing.”

  Her shoulders shake with laughter. “I’m guessing these marksmanship scores had something to do with that. You have some interesting skills listed here. I’m a little scared to be looking at this right now.”

  “Liar. You love this. It makes you feel alive.”

  Mariah was a hacker before switching teams, which makes her an invaluable—if sketchy—asset in the Bureau. She’s also a hell of a personal liability, since I’m the one who got her the job after I busted her for breaking into the servers at the Treasury.

  I have what some people have called a bad habit of transforming the criminal world’s sketchy assets into my own sketchy assets. Personally, I find it to be a great habit. The best people I know are the ones who have to make a conscious decision every day to do the right thing. Give me someone
capable of evil but willing to toe the line over someone inherently good every time.

  I don’t trust inherent goodness. I never have. Until someone knows what it’s like to walk on the dark side, has faced the blackest temptation and emerged triumphant, it’s impossible to learn the true measure of their soul.

  I’ve measured a lot of souls in my lifetime, and few of them are as blindingly brilliant as the one belonging to my wife. I’d do anything for her, even—especially—risk my job by investigating the FBI’s inexplicable golden boy.

  “Could he have wiped his own profile?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but he wouldn’t have made it this clean. Not unless he wanted to be caught.”

  “So someone else has to have been in on it? Someone higher up?”

  “You mean, like part of a government conspiracy? Sure.” Mariah shrugs. “But I doubt it’s the case here—cool things like uncovering a ring of high-ranking officials working together to overthrow the government never happen to me. Chances are your man is either boring as toast or he’s got a dark past someone buried in the name of the greater good.”

  Oh, he’s no piece of toast. There was yet another Penelope summons from him in my inbox when I returned to the office, this time with the ADD on copy and a thinly veiled warning that the next request will be an order. It’s just like the man to go over my head instead of confronting me with the message face-to-face.

  “What would it take to have you run a few off-the-books scans into his background?” I ask, thinking of both that email and the car, of the increasing suspicion that Christopher isn’t a man I should underestimate. “Hypothetically speaking?”

  “You want me to illegally investigate a fellow agent, thereby jeopardizing my entire career and my position as a law-abiding, free-to-roam U.S. citizen?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She laughs so hard, it’s a cackle. “Only for you, Emerson. And only if you promise to introduce me to that wife of yours when I’m done. Cheryl says she gives the best Christmas presents.”

  I groan. The last thing I need right now is those two women in a room together. I can all too easily imagine Penelope wrapping Mariah around her little finger the same way she does everyone else, calling her up for a chat and a quick hack into the White House mainframe. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  “Maybe, but it just so happens I love terrible ideas. Do we have a deal?”

  I don’t see any way around it, so I stick out my hand with a sigh. “Fine. But I’d really like to know why all the women in my life have to turn everything into a twisted game.”

  She pumps my hand once and turns her focus back to the screen. “That’s easy. It’s because you make it such a joy to win.”

  I stare at the back of her head, seeing but not seeing the dark strands of her hair. “That was supposed to be a rhetorical question.”

  She looks over her shoulder long enough to laugh at my expression. “Only because you didn’t realize the answer was right there. I’m sorry to admit it, Emerson, but most days, beating you at your own game is the only fun to be had around here. Nothing keeps a girl on her toes like a good challenge and an even better adversary.”

  “A good challenge and an even better adversary,” I echo. That sounds an awful lot like Penelope’s idea of heaven. In fact, it’s the only way I got her to go out with me in the first place. She never would have given me the time of day if I hadn’t turned our courtship into a dare. I can still see her standing on the sidewalk, laughter in her sparkling blue eyes as she wove an intricate web of lies and truth to ensnare me.

  As if I ever had a chance of escaping. As if I wasn’t hers the moment she tossed down the gauntlet.

  Mariah’s head bobs in a nod. “If you ask me, those are getting harder and harder to find these days. You’re a diamond in the rough, boss man. No wonder we criminals flock to you.”

  13

  THE LUNCHEON

  In the end, I decide it’s best not to tell Grant about my plans to infiltrate the Upper East Side.

  “You look awfully fancy today,” he says as I root through the closet in nothing but a black pencil skirt and my new bioluminescent bra. As my wardrobe is ninety percent cat-burglar chic, the glow-in-the-dark flashes of my breasts are the only color to be seen.

  “That’s because I’m having lunch with my grandmother. Aha!” I hold up a not-black tank top in triumph. It’s dark gray, but it still counts. “Do you know if Café Boulud has a dress code?”

  Grant doesn’t answer right away. Thinking he’s left the room, I turn around to find him standing with his arms crossed and a darkly suspicious look on his face.

  “They do, don’t they?” I sigh. “Great. I knew I should have tried to talk her into ordering pizza instead.”

  “Good try. Where are you going?”

  “Um. I just said. Café Boulud. Not my choice, in case it gives you ideas about where to take me for our next anniversary.”

  He continues that disconcerting stare.

  “What?” I ask. “You know how awkward I get at those fancy places.”

  He clears his throat. “The last time you said you were having lunch with your grandmother, you broke about fifteen federal laws.”

  I don’t manage to suppress the laughter that bubbles in my throat. I’d already forgotten about my cover story the day of the FBI break-in—my conscience never holds on to things for long. It’s an occupational necessity.

  “I know, but I mean it this time.”

  I saunter over to him and run my hands up his sides, slipping them under his suit jacket to finger the outline of his holster. There’s leather and metal and cotton and skin—all of it warm to the touch and capable of sending my pulse skittering. It’s perverse to find the law-abiding side of him so attractive, but I can’t help myself. The man knows his way around a pair of handcuffs.

  “Penelope…” he warns.

  “It’s true!” I protest even as I continue fingering his badge. “I don’t make enough of an effort. I want to start trying harder to get to know her.”

  He hesitates but lets the lie pass. I suspect the only reason I get away with it is because it technically isn’t a lie. When I first discovered I had a grandmother—an event that not-so-coincidentally aligned with the rediscovery of my father—I’d been elated to think I had a maternal relative within city limits. My emotional world was suddenly full of possibilities. The two of us could hang out, catch up on our lives, and, most importantly, talk about my mother. There were so many things I wanted to know about the woman who gave her life to bring me into this world and so few people willing or able to tell me.

  Unfortunately, Grandma Dupont—or Erica, as she demands I call her—was another dead end. No sooner would I mention my mother’s name than she’d ask me where I picked up so much street slang or command me to adjust my posture.

  “She seemed really surprised to hear from me when I called,” I add. “She also offered me money, which is weird. Is she afraid I’m going to rob her if she doesn’t pay me off ahead of time?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what does it mean?” I wrinkle my nose, remembering the way she’d couched the offer, without kindness or preamble. Okay, Penelope. How much do you need? “It almost felt like she was bribing me to go away.”

  Grant’s expression gentles. “I’m sure that wasn’t her intention.”

  “Then what was?”

  “My guess?” He lifts a hand to my face and runs the back of his fingers against my cheek. It’s a tender gesture at odds with his words. “You scare the shit out of her.”

  I’m startled into another laugh, though this one feels rougher around the edges. “Very funny. The only thing that woman is scared of is her accountant. Well, and maybe the lady who cleans her house. I bet she knows where all the expensive stuff is hidden.”

  He presses a soft kiss to my forehead. �
��You have no idea, do you?”

  “You think she keeps her valuables somewhere else? That’s smart, given that the Blue Fox is her son-in-law. It can’t be easy, marrying into my family.”

  “Truer words have never been spoken, but that’s not what I meant,” he says. Taking the gray tank top from my hand, he motions for me to lift my arms. With painstaking care, he slips the fabric over my head and shoulders, taking his time as he tucks it into place. If he were serious about seduction, he’d caress the swell of my breasts and grip the curve of my waist, his fingers pressing a familiar pattern.

  This morning, however, his thoughts are elsewhere. Instead of taking my arched back as an invitation to linger, he trails his fingers up the line of my spine and pulls me into his embrace. He dips his head to kiss the sensitive spot below my ear, his lips moving against my skin as he adds, “You scare the shit out of everyone.”

  A shiver runs through me. “That’s not true.”

  He pauses, as if choosing his next words carefully. “She offered you money because she doesn’t know what else to do.”

  “That’s not true,” I protest again. “She probably offers everyone money. That way she can yell at them to sit up straighter, and they can’t complain.”

  “Or—and I’m just throwing this out there—she doesn’t know what else she can give you. She wants to make up for the past, and she wants you to feel supported, but trying to do anything for someone as willfully self-sufficient as you requires three layers of armor and a nerve of iron.”

  I strongly suspect him of mocking me. “A Hallmark card would do the trick.”

  “Only if she held it against your neck and threatened to slit your throat with it.” He releases his grip on me, his gaze clouded as his eyes meet mine. “You don’t make it easy, Penelope. You know that, right?”