Page 14 of Nothing to No One

And no one knew about her… their… Did it class as a hookup when they hadn’t completed the transaction? Sad as it was, she would’ve done it. She’d have given herself to him right there on the floor. What a hussy.

Was she that sex deprived? Dating hadn’t been high on her priority list. Maybe that should change. Until him, sexual frustration wasn’t on her radar, now the two words went together like peaches and cream. Shit, did she have to go there?

The phone woke her up. No amount of stuffing the pillow over her head would shut it up. Damn thing.

As soon as it stopped, it started again. Over and over.

Growling through gritted teeth, she tossed the pillow behind her when she leaped out of bed and stomped across the room.

The phone stopped ringing, damn, just missed it. Pounding on her front door brought her around; the phone started again, then her cell buzzed in the bedroom.

“What the hell is going on?” she said, frozen by decision paralysis.

Had she won the lottery or something? More likely the building was about to explode. Wouldn’t it just be her luck to besmack bang in the middle of a terror plot? Maybe LA wasn’t so great after all.

Focus. Which should she answer first? The cell? The door?

“Miss Bennett!”

Hollering in the hallway wouldn’t be appreciated by her neighbors. Priorities clicked into place and she rushed to open it.

Three men stood on the threshold. Strangers. Serious, but not in uniform. Good. Getting arrested would be a crappy start to any day.

“Who are—”

“Miss Bennett, my name is Magnus Anders,” he said. “Would you come with me, please?”

Wearing an oversized button-down nightshirt, last night’s smudged makeup and her hair all over the place, she had to look like she’d just rolled out of bed because, well, she had.

“You… who are you?”

“Magnus Anders,” he said again and shifted back a step. “I’m Roman Lowe’s representative.”

Oh… Big, huge oh.

Throat clear, she could handle this. “Oh.” With that out there, the hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Uh… look, I won’t cause any trouble. If there’s an issue with the technical problems last night, my superior—”

“Forgive me, but do you have a computer?”

“A… a what?”

“A computer,” he said. “A laptop?”

Phones still droned in the background, though he didn’t react to their insistence.

“Yes, why—”

“Search last night’s event on Huddle Hunt,” he said.

“Huddle—”

“It’s a search engine.”

“I know what it is.”

She was from Washington, not Mars.

“Search,” he said and stepped back, straightening his cuffs. “We’ll wait.”

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