Page 33 of The Mouse and the Maestro
“Good, then I’ll sleep in there.”
“Go, but Jane, when you wake up, we need to have another conversation,” he said, his tone serious.
“’Kay,” she murmured, easing past him to slip into her room. It smelled like paint and something she couldn’t identify, but she didn’t care. She crawled into bed, curled into a ball, and fell promptly asleep.
When she woke several hours later, her head felt clearer, her heart lighter. The reality was that she never had to see Blue again. Her work with him and his team was voluntary. She would simply call Ridge and tell him she couldn’t continue. She would give him the name of a couple of possible replacements. She had already identified two forged artifacts for him; howmuch more could they need from her? The realization brought her a mingled sense of relief and sadness. She had enjoyed working with the government on a secret project. Most of her work was meaningful to her but could never be considered interesting by most of the rest of the world. But working with spies had been exciting no matter who was doing the looking. Now that it was over, Jane felt as if she were returning to the real world. And then there was Blue.
For a moment, she’d thought maybe they had something, some spark, some connection. She was attracted to him, both physically and emotionally. He was funny, intelligent, and kind. And he had almost seemed to feel the same about her at some moments, especially when they were kissing. In reality, he was suspicious of her, distrustful. To feel that way about her, he must have kept himself emotionally unavailable and remote. Whatever she had sensed between them had either been one sided or a surface physical attraction. To be fair, she had practically thrown herself at him, had made the first move and kissed him. How many men wouldn’t respond to that, if given the chance? She was disappointed and hurt, but she would move on. As long as she never, ever had to see him again. And why would she? Their worlds didn’t intersect on a regular basis and likely never would again.
She showered, put on a pair of comfortable pants and hoodie and went into the living room. Nick was still there, sitting on the couch, staring at nothing.
“No Emily?” she asked.
“She’s going out or something. Can’t remember. Either way she won’t be here,” Nick replied.
“What are you doing?’ Jane asked.
“Thinking about things,” Nick said.
“What kind of things?” Jane asked. She curled her feet beneath her and sank onto the couch beside him.
“Big, important things,” he replied.
“Like what big, important things?” Jane asked.
“Like how I hurt you, let you down, messed everything up.”
“Oh, those are big things. But they’re in the past. We’ve moved on,” she assured him.
He swiped his hands over his face. “But that’s the thing, Jane. I don’t want to move on. I want to move forward.”
“We’ve been over this,” Jane said.
“There’s one thing we haven’t discussed,” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked, smiling.
In answer, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a little box, and opened it to reveal a diamond resting on a plush bed of satin. “Marry me.”
Before Jane could summon a response, the door burst open and Blue was there. He looked flustered, distressed, panicked. His eyes scanned the room and landed on Jane.
“Get your things, you’re coming with me.”
Chapter 16
Blue arrived home a few hours after Jane but similarly exhausted. He turned on his computer and reached for a box of cereal, a bowl, and milk while it warmed up. After demolishing half a box of cereal, he would want nothing more than sleep, but he couldn’t do that until he checked in with work and eased his mind about the encrypted message he’d seen on the dark web about Jane.
The dark web was a hacker’s paradise, untraceable, easy to encrypt, the perfect place to buy and sell anything illegal. He found the site that mentioned Jane and plugged in his decryption key. It would take a while, given the innumerable possibilities. He ate a couple of bowls of cereal and pushed back in his chair, resting his feet on the desk. He would close his eyes while the decryption key did its thing.
Forty minutes later, the computer chimed, letting him know his program had hit on the correct combination to unlock the site. Blue sat up, yawning as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. He woke his monitor and leaned in to see what he’d uncovered and then his feet hit the floor with a bang.
He leaned in, practically pressing his nose to the monitor. Someone had ordered Jane’s kidnapping, dead or alive butpreferably alive. The fee was a hundred thousand dollars with a ten thousand dollar bonus if she was kept alive. Last night’s kidnapping really had been about her and not him, but why? Was their case enough to put her life in so much danger? Whoever was doing the forgeries had to be making a killing, and somehow that money was being funneled into terror cells bent on wreaking havoc on the United States. Jane was one of the only people who could detect the forgeries and had, in fact, already detected two of them. She could put a serious dent in the operation, perhaps even bring it to a standstill. Of course she was a high value target. Now she was at her house, alone and unprotected. And Blue was the only person who knew how much danger she was in.
He dashed to his feet and grabbed his phone, but it was dead. He was supposed to charge it when he got home, but he fell asleep first. No matter, there was no time to call anyone besides Jane, and she certainly wouldn’t take his call. Instead of worrying about his phone, he dashed to his room, unlocked his safe, and reached for his gun and holster.
The holster was something he’d bought on a whim, almost as a joke. At the time, he hadn’t been able to imagine a situation he would need to use it. Now as he attempted to put it on over his t-shirt, he realized he had no idea how to wear it. Feeling like the world’s worst secret agent, he returned to his computer and Googled, “How to fasten a holster.” Once it was fastened, he added a hoodie over it to conceal it and then reached for his gun. He took two steps toward the door and remembered his gun wasn’t loaded. Pivoting back to the safe, he grabbed the ammo, loaded the gun, and slid it back in the holster. Being a spy was exhausting. He had no idea how Ridge and Ethan made it look so easy. And he had never seen either of them hide a gun under a hoodie.
Once he was armed, he plugged his phone into the car charger and took off, double parked outside Jane’s house, and sprinted up to her apartment. The one spy-tech gadget at his ready disposal was a computerized lock pick, something he could plug in and open any electronic lock. Jane had such a lock, he had absently noted on his first visit. He plugged his device in the keyhole, pushed a button, and the lock easily sprang open. Taking a breath to prep himself for whatever he might find inside, he pushed open the door.
