Is he the assassin that put Eric’s father in the hospital?
I force myself to inhale deeply and reach deep to a lesson that my father taught me about calming myself and making rational decisions. I ground myself by focusing on the mundane details around me, rather than my death. The first thought I have is that the cafeteria smells of pizza. The man in front of me like coffee, the way I smell when I sit in a Starbucks for hours to catch up on work. These random observations work, as they always did in my professional life. My pulse steadies. My gaze sharpens on the man.
“Who are you?”
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he replies, and it’s not a question. It’s an order.
Now that he’s spoken again, I’m hyper-focused on him, just him, and I drink in every detail I can. The fine lines by his eyes aging him to early forties. His beard neatly trimmed. His cheekbones high, a scar across the right side of his face. His eyes a teal blue. He towers over me a good twelve inches. He’s in a black designer leather jacket, wearing black jeans. I don’t know what’s on his feet because I’m not looking down and giving him the chance to come at me. Voices sound to the left, and the tension in my spine eases ever so slightly. He can’t kill me here. And would an assassin walk up to me like this?
No.
That’s illogical.
Isn’t it?
“Who are you and what do you want?” I ask, wishing like hell the coffee cups in my hands didn’t have lids on them.
“Excuse me,” a female voice says to my left. “Do you mind if I grab a napkin?”
I’m standing in front of the condiments and supply area. It’s a good public place to be but I can’t block the path to others using the area. I step slightly to the right, in front of the creamer, giving the woman room to grab her napkin, but I don’t look at her. I’m not leaving our public location. I’m not giving him a chance to grab me.
The woman moves closer and she messes with the napkins and doesn’t seem in a hurry to leave. It’s odd and I have this sense that she’s listening in, that she’s intentionally crowding us but I’m pretty okay with that right about now.
The man steps with me, maintaining a position that is far too close to me and directly in my path. “Who are you and what do you want?” I repeat softly. “Answer now or I’ll start screaming.”
“Is that the typical way you respond to people who wish to speak to you? Screaming?”
“You have ten seconds,” I say. “Ten. Nine—”
“Detective Wright,” he says. “Consultant for the FBI.”
I don’t even know what that means but I’m pretty sure it means he’s a liar. “Badge,” I order.
“Consultant,” he repeats, and reaches in his pocket to offer me a card. “That’s all you get.” My hands are full and he holds it up for me to eye.
“It looks real, but anyone can make a business card.”
“Call it in,” he says. “But do it after we talk because we’re stripped of our privacy.” He reaches down and takes my cups, walking to the trash and dumping them. He returns and hands me the card. “Do you know what you’re in the middle of, Harper?”
Harper.
The way he uses my first name bothers me. Don’t FBI agents usually use your surname? “If you’re in a rush to talk to me in private,” I say, that very idea setting off warnings, “don’t waste time speaking in code.”
“Everything is not what it seems and if you don’t open your eyes, and see with them, your stepfather won’t be the only one in the hospital.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fact and a warning. Open your eyes. Look beyond the obvious. Your time is up.”
Male voices sound and one of them is Eric’s. “Eric!” I call out, and the man in front of me growls low, guttural. He grabs my arm and pulls me to him. “Bitch, you should have waited to hear me out. You should have let me help you. You should have fucking listened to me. Now there’s a price to pay.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Harper
“There’s a price to pay,” the bearded man rasps at me again.
“Let her go,” a female voice hisses, grabbing his arm. The same female who’d crowded me by the supplies. “We have to go,” she adds urgently.