Her Dark Web Defender

Kelly scooted behind him and started back to her own desk. He stood at the doorway, watching her. Near the nameplate that had been added to the bracket outside her cubicle wall, she stopped.

“And Agent Lazzaro, thanks for all your help.”

“Don’t thank me. If I was thinking about your well-being, I would tell you to get out of here right now.”

Chapter 4 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)

Kelly couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted as she tromped inside her apartment and dumped her heavy purse on the floor by the door. It was still daylight outside. She barely recognized the place, with light streaming in between the blind slats and dust motes waltzing toward her coffee table. Usually working afternoons did that to a person. Even on her days off, she was too busy catching up on errands to notice.

Now she was too…something else. Tired. Keyed up. Annoyed. Anything but intrigued by some jaded FBI agent.

After locking the door, she crossed into her bedroom, already unbuttoning her shirt. Her uniform had nearly smothered her all afternoon in that stifling office, but she hadn’t even loosened her tie. Special Agent Lazzaro would have perceived that as weakness. She’d refused to give him the chance after all the potshots he’d lobbed at her.

Now she couldn’t shed the layers fast enough. If only yanking on her old cross-country shorts and pulling on a sports bra and tank top could help her put the day’s events out of her mind. Even after she’d worked with him all day, Tony still didn’t want her to be there.

Of all his rude comments, the last one kept replaying in her thoughts. If I was thinking about your well-being… Had he been trying to tell her what the assignment had done to him? After the way he’d treated her today, she shouldn’t care, but she couldn’t help it. He seemed miserable there, which made no sense.

Her cell phone rang, and for once, she considered letting it go to voice mail. Her couch was calling her, as well. But guilt won as it always did, and she hurried to the door and dug around in her purse until her fingers connected with it. She refused to acknowledge that blip of disappointment at seeing Nick Sanchez’s name on the screen.

Had she hoped Tony—make that Special Agent Lazzaro—would call to say he was sorry? Even if he had her number, which he wouldn’t, he didn’t seem like the type of guy who ever apologized. Anyway, if the Brighton Post’s current calendar model was calling her, there had to be an emergency. She tapped the button to accept the call.

“Is everything all right, Nick?”

“Sure. It’s fine.”

“Then why are you calling?”

“You try to do something nice for a person and—”

“Nice? How?” Had they missed her so much at the post that they were resorting to phone pranks?

“I only wanted to see how your first day with the task force went.”

“Oh. Okay, I guess.”

“And how was it to drive a desk instead of a patrol car?”

He chuckled this time. Someone else laughed in the background.

“Dion Carson, is that you? Are you two together, even on your day off?”

The laughter became a chorus.

“Can we help it if we’re the two coolest people around?” Dion asked.

“Yeah, can we?” Nick piped.

“I hate to interrupt your mutual-admiration society, but is there a point to this call? Other than to torture me?”

Nick harrumphed. “We were going to tell you that we’re standing right outside your building, with pizzas, but since you’re being so unwelcoming—”

“Did you say pizzas?”

She pushed the buzzer to allow them inside and threw open her apartment door. Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and then they both appeared in her open doorway. Nick had a pizza in each hand, and Dion carried two-liter pop bottles under both arms.

Dion shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Now is that a way for a woman to let someone inside her place? You don’t know who could be out there.”

“But I already knew—”

Both men laughed again, and she gave them a dirty look. These were her friends, the closest people to her in the world. She would take a bullet for any of them, but sometimes—like now—she wanted to pistol-whip them instead.

“You missed us. Admit it,” Nick said with his perfect, toothy grin.

Kelly shook her head. Though she couldn’t have found two more attractive males to show up in her living room—one tawny skinned with dimples, the other with sepia skin and sultry eyes—neither Nick nor Dion had ever been swooning material for her. But the barely-still-thirtysomething Italian-American she’d met earlier, the one with crinkles around his eyes and a five o’clock shadow before noon? She couldn’t allow herself to think about that guy.

“Earth to Kelly.” Nick lifted and lowered the boxes a few times. “Where do you want me to put these?”

“Anywhere is fine.”

She followed his gaze around the room. There were only three places where guests could put a pizza that didn’t involve getting crumbs in her bed: her dinette with two chairs, the coffee table or the living room floor. Nick went for the coffee table, pausing to note the scratches before setting the warm boxes directly on the wood.

Kelly could admit that the place wasn’t fancy. More like minimalism on steroids. It was like the task force office she’d spent the day in. Necessities and nothing more. Would Tony have something to say about that, too?

She pushed the thought aside and hurried to the kitchen for plates, napkins and cups.

Soon the three of them sat shoulder to shoulder on the cramped sofa, munching pizza and sipping pop in the awkward silence.

Dion set his plate on top of the box. “So really, how was your first day?”

“I told you it was okay.” Sitting between them, she could feel their skeptical glances coming from both sides. “All right, it stank. It was like starting all over as a brand-new trooper.”

“I bet it did stink.” Nick took another bite and then talked around it. “It’s hard working with cops from different agencies, when everyone’s as cocky as you are.”

“Are the cowboys from the FBI treating you like a rookie?” Dion asked.

Having just grabbed another piece of pizza, she took an angry bite. “Just one. Special Agent Lazzaro. You’d think he’d never met a female police officer before. Mansplained like I was an idiot. He thinks he knows danger when he’s probably not been more than ten feet away from a computer screen his whole career.”

“That so?”

Dion had opened the pizza box again, but he stopped without lifting a slice. She glanced from one police officer to the other.

“What?”

Nick leaned forward so he and Dion could exchange a look. “I think she doth protest too much.”

“This…Lazzaro,” Dion said, “is he a sexy Valentino type?”

Kelly came to her feet. “He’s just another jerk male officer. You two would probably be fast friends with him. Is everything a big joke for you guys?”