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12
Annie
Mark called.
The job hadn't gone away in the least for me. I might not be currently working, not have infiltrated any special group, but I had the same mindset and definitely my circumstances were weird enough to fit in with my usual undercover life.
So when the phone rang, I froze, terrified it would be my mother. It could be PD, telling me all was forgiven and to come back early and we'd kiss and make up and they'd give me a new assignment. Stranger things happen.
Or it could be PD saying they'd actually been reviewing my case while I was on extended leave – which I wasn't, not quite yet, but I only had another couple days – and they'd decided it would be most expedient just to let me go before I came back. Why wait? They were going to can my ass anyway.
But the real fear was that it was my mother. That my father had relapsed. Had another heart attack. Was already gone. Was trembling on the edge and the entire family was waiting for me and where the hell was I this time? What was wrong with me?
The last of those questions might have been more my own interpretation of my life than anyone else's but I didn't think so. My sisters certainly thought that, but my sisters didn't have this number.
Neither did Mark. So when I picked up the phone and saw his number on the screen, fear turned to rage. Wherever he’d got it, someone somewhere had put a whole lot of people's lives on the line.
The fact that they hadn't, the fact that in reality I wasn't on assignment and just out of touch, didn't matter. If they did it now, they could do it when I was undercover.
It's not his fault.
Only it kind of was. Back when I first went under I told Mark I'd be out of touch. He didn't get it. The questions he asked proved he didn't get it. We operated in two very different worlds.
"But if I need to reach you, who do I call?" he'd asked.
You don't.
"But what if there's an emergency?"
I didn't have an answer for that. He could go to PD and ask my commanding officer to get a message to me but chances were slim the CO really would. Because that put everybody at risk and that was the thing I couldn't get across to Mark or to my mother.
If they compromised my cover, they put a whole boatload of men and women in blue at risk. Not just me.
And while we were on that subject, what exactly were they going to be relating that was so important that they had to put my life at risk? Not that it wasn't already, but when you're neck-deep in alligators, it's not helpful to have somebody toss a running chainsaw into the swamp with you.
"Mark. How did you get this number?"
There was a pause and I thought he might hang up. I thought that would be the best for everyone concerned, actually. I loved him, even though it probably didn't seem like it. But we weren't right for each other.
We weren't ever going to be.
"Mark?"
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded. "I came home and found you gone. It's been a week and a half and there's been zero from you."
I took a deep breath and looked out the window at the Vegas Strip. The far end of it, but still. "Did you call just to ask me that?"
"No. Do you love me at all?"
The question wasn't unexpected but it still threw me. "I love you. I have always loved you. I still love you."
"Then why – " he started and I cut him off.
"But you don't seem to get it. I tell you when I'm undercover you're not going to hear from me and if the operation takes six months, you might only see me once or twice and that's a huge risk right there and you say, 'Uh huh, got it, how often are you going to come spend the night? And where do I call you if I can't find the peanut butter?'"
"That's not fair." There was heat behind his words.
"No, it's not. To either of us. And maybe I exaggerated, but it's like that. I tell you that by contacting me you'd put me in danger and you act like it's impossible for us to survive without daily contact and that if I just think it through, I'll find a way. I purposefully don't give you my number and you got it from – who?" Not the police. They knew what I was doing. Samuels might have, but he was gone, and anyway, he'd been the one to sell me to Cole.
