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I closed the folder and slid it his way.
He stood. “You can keep that, and I’m putting the Hanson team on this to see if they can come up with anything more. As far as the police are concerned, I’m afraid that folder is all that we’re likely to get.”
Cartwright targeting me still struck me as absurd, but I didn’t have anything better to offer.
He stopped at the door. “Can I tell your mother you’ll be careful?” He had to be very worried to pull that trick out.
“Absolutely.”
After he left, I turned to face the window. Somewhere out there was Josh’s attacker. I quickly discarded the idea of verifying Cartwright’s whereabouts Saturday night after I realized Dad could be on the right track. I hadn’t met Cartwright, but I doubted he was personally brave enough to carry out what had happened to Josh. But I couldn’t rule out his hiring somebody. That scenario upped the odds that Dad was right.
* * *
Jennifer
Dennis had droppedme off at home early this morning.
Ramona was herding her son toward the door when I came in.
Billy rushed to hug my legs. “I missed you.”
I hugged him back. “And I missed you too.”
Ramona arched a brow. “You look tired. You’ll have to tell me all about it later.”
I shot her my best evil eye. “Later.”
She opened the door. “Come on, we gotta get you to school.”
Billy let go of me, and in a moment I was alone.
The apartment looked different, a little more drab, like my life before this weekend—plain vanilla, safe and drab instead of dangerous and interesting. Brushing aside the useless thoughts, I hurried to get ready for work—the work where I’d be back with Dennis, but with everybody else around we be required to abstain from any public displays of affection.
I hadn’t talked to him about avoiding PDA—a pretty big oversight. But I decided our weekend would be my little secret until we talked, althoughlittledidn’t describe it very well. Spending the weekend with the CEO sounded wrong. Had it been merely a hookup, or time with my new boyfriend?
I started changing and smiled as the word rolled around in my head.Boyfriendsounded good. We hadn’t discussed anything. Was I getting ahead of myself by assuming we’d get together again? I mean it had only been a weekend.
By the time I was ready to leave, I’d talked myself out ofboyfriend, but still didn’t likehookup.
Why was I overanalyzing this? It was what it was—fun, interesting, exciting, and soothing at the same time. It wouldn’t be right to categorize it yet. It had been something completely outside my previous experience—not just the sex, but the way he talked to me, and the way he looked at me.
Out of habit I checked my email. I smiled when I didn’t find anything from Hydra.
I closed and locked the door and started counting.
One hundred and three, when I reached my parking space. I had a habit of counting the steps to my car in the morning as a way of clearing my mind for the day ahead. It was always one hundred and nine or ten.
It had only been a day, and already things were different.
Jennifer has gone from Kansas to Oz.
* * *
I might have taken fewersteps to my car, but the elevator was just as slow and just as hot this morning on its trip to the top floor.
Once inside my office, I busied myself. Ignoring the temptation to wander down to Dennis’s office was like staring at a piece of chocolate cake just out of reach after a long fast. The strain interfered with my concentration, and I ended up having to reread sections of the report I was studying. My legs were covering more ground this morning, but my eyes weren’t.
After an hour I’d reached my limit with the endless Stoner documents and turned to face the expansive window. The coastline lay in the distance.
