Page 82 of The Pleasure of Panic

“I thought you weren’t allowed to talk about it?”

“Well, fuck that NDA. I’ll take my chances. Because he knows more about this shit than he’s saying. I might not know everything, but I know when someone’s feeding me bullshit to evade the topic.”

“What?” I ask, smiling down at her. Looking into her blue eyes. Soul to soul. Because she knows I’m doing the same thing. “What did he tell you?”

She looks at me, but doesn’t smile. “He said… some people like a panic game. That’s what my friend signed me up for. A panic game. And that could mean a lot of things. Strangulation was one of them.”

“Jesus.” I laugh. “Do you like that shit?”

“Um…” She giggles. “I mean, maybe. It was pretty hot when you had your hand around my throat, but that’s not the point. It was just one option of the panic game.”

“OK, so what were the other options?”

“Submission, because I’m a control freak. So he said some women like me crave submission. But that’s not what we settled on when all was said and done. We settled on chaos. The kind of panic that comes with chaos because I’m so rigid, I guess. So controlling. So orderly. I need everything to go a certain way because that’s what keeps me sane. It was just a guess, and he happened to guess right. But it was only a guess until I thought about it more. Jordan Wells might think he knows me, but he doesn’t. Me, or at least the real me, was never written down in a file somewhere. They’re not locked away in some sealed juvenile record, they’re not on any social media, and there’s no photo album to find in an attic one day by accident. The most important parts of me, the things that make me me, are all in my head. They’re memories. So all the things that make you you, they’re up here, Finn.”

She taps my head with her finger.

“They’re not what you did. They’re not what you’re doing. And they’re certainly not where you’re going, because that hasn’t happened yet. They’re just… a stack of memories and nothing else.”

I nod, getting it.

“So forget about what life looks like if you come with me and tell me what life looks like now.”

And here it is, the moment of truth. Because she has now spelled it out for me. And I have a choice. I can tell her or not. But if I don’t tell her, then she’s not gonna stick around. That’s the part I get.

“They’re gonna miss me,” I admit.

“Why? Because you’re an invaluable FBI agent?”

I almost snort.

“Because you know too much about the Mob?”

I shake my head. “No. Neither of those things. I hate being an FBI agent. I mean it was the only thing I wanted to be until my father gave me that phone. But every moment after that one was tainted by corruption. So I’m not some integral part of their team. I’m a fucked-up partner, I have no good insight into their mission, and I have no promising future with them. Even if things go my way out here in Denver, it’s over. It’s been over since the day it started.”

I know she’s got lots of questions about that, but she’s patient with me and lets it go.

“And no, I’m not part of the Mob, either. I have ties, for sure. But they can’t trust me. No one trusts me, Issy. No one until you, and that’s probably just me making a lot of assumptions.” I’m still looking at her. I search her eyes for some kind of sign of what she’s thinking, but find nothing.

“So why would they miss you?”

“Because… I do actually have another reason for coming to Denver.”

“And that’s because…?”

“That’s hidden behind a well-written NDA.”

“Ah,” she says. “And you’re not willing to break it, even if it does involve a crime.”

“I can’t. Not yet, anyway. But the way things are going, that could change very fast.”

“How?” But then she sighs. “Never mind. I understand.”

She says she does, and maybe she thinks she does, but she doesn’t understand. And she’s not giving me a pass. And this isn’t over.

She’s just being… agreeable.

I don’t want her to be agreeable, so I need to tell her something true. Something real. Something more.