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Uncle Jack had been the lead agent on the case, something I hadn’t known.
That he could have been on the case wasn’t surprising in itself, as he’d been on a lot of cases in Phoenix before transferring to New York. What was curious, though, was that neither Uncle Jack nor Dad had ever mentioned it.
The stink of it had been that he’d screwed up big time on something and been run out of Phoenix, although I’d never gotten the details. Then, to add to his legacy, he’d been outed during his undercover with the New York mob. That wasn’t the entire problem, though. Two other undercover agents had died the same week, and the Bureau’s determination had been that Uncle Jack had talked, and his loose tongue had gotten the others killed.
Neither of the other agents had known about other undercover assets, which is how it was supposed to be, but Uncle Jack had researched the other cases before going in. He shouldn’t have volunteered for the undercover. The rule was always to compartmentalize, so one agent couldn’t compromise another.
He’d knowingly broken the rule, and that was why my family name was mud in the Bureau. Two agents down, and both of them his fault.
As I started reading the case file, I envisioned the five-year-old Benson girl, abducted, scared out of her wits. The image made my gut clench. But the face I saw wasn’t what I expected. The face my mind put on that little girl was Kelly’s. I blinked it away, but returning to the words on the page brought a younger version of my current protectee to mind.
She is just my current protectee, isn’t she?
I closed the laptop and went back to my boring street surveillance. The thought of Kelly being abducted threatened to make me puke.
The file could wait.
Chapter 17
Kelly
Adam kissedmy lips when I arrived at the curb.
This time I didn’t resist, but wrapped my free arm around him and gave him more than a peck.
His arms tightened around me.
Being held close to him soothed my worries. If this is what I could look forward to with a real man for a boyfriend, I needed to get more serious about finding one after this was over.
Adam’s hand ran up my side, and his thumb traced the underside of my breast. He held the kiss longer than yesterday—much longer as his thumb moved to circle my nipple.
A shiver of nervous excitement ran through me at the touch. I pulled myself closer and shifted to the side to rub my hip against his crotch. My heart thundered with the sheer naughtiness of doing this in public.
Serena’s comment about running with the leader of the pack came back to me.
The boys at school had never made me feel like this. It was always just a hug and a kiss, and never in public. Kelly Benson had always been a proper girl, and proper girls controlled themselves. The guys I went out with had understood the meaning ofreservedand acted accordingly. None of them had been leader-of-the-pack types.
If this was the most risqué I’d ever been in public. Maybe I deserved what Adam had accused me of in the shower.
He released me and opened the car door.
I slid in and closed my eyes to catch my breath, searching my memory for any time I’d done something as dangerous before. When I couldn’t come up with anything, my eyes opened to the realization of how pathetically boring and safe my life had been up until now. Getting felt up in public didn’t sound super risky, but it had felt that way to me.
I noticed Adam scanning the crowd as he walked around to the driver’s side.
“Was that better?” I asked after he’d shut the door. I almost asked why he’d stopped. I hadn’t wanted it to end. There was a feeling of safety in his arms that I couldn’t quite figure out.
The smile Adam wore was contagious. “Much better, Sugarbear.”
He nodded almost imperceptibly toward the Metro entrance. “The same girl is watching us. Do you think she bought it?” I still couldn’t yet tell if he was acting, or if he felt what I did.
I glanced over in time to catch Kirby turning down the street. “She’s not looking our way.”
“She was.” He pulled into traffic.
He turned north toward the Mall. “Anything new in the email account?”
“No. I checked before leaving.”
