Page 17 of Hidden

“Same place as the cab in front of us.”

“Are you serious right now? Why didn’t you guys just share a cab?”

Carrie panicked for a moment, as she searched for a good cover story. “Ugh. Divorce. He won’t share anything with me anymore, including a cab. He sure didn’t mind sharing his dick with another woman though.” The driver just stared at her.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. But we’re meeting our attorneys, so please, just follow that cab.”

Her lie must have been convincing, because her driver didn’t ask anymore questions, just shrugged and pulled into traffic.

Carrie sat back with a smug grin. Peter Mercer could be an ally if he knew what the director of the CIA was actually up to. Of course, this entire plan could backfire, and she could wind up in jail for stalking, but Carrie chose not to focus on that little detail. Instead, she made some notes on her phone and tried to think of what the hell she was going to say when she got to Peter’s place.

***

Peter gave the driver his address and pulled out his phone to look into Carrie Davenport. He’d already ordered a preliminary background report to be sent to his phone. He was just doing his job and making sure she wasn’t a threat to his protectee. He wasn’t curious about her at all. At least that’s what he told himself. A quick search told him she’d never been arrested before and for some reason that surprised him. She was a spitfire and had to have pissed somebody off enough to slap cuffs on her. That thought brought up images of the petite woman in handcuffs, and now it disappointed him that he hadn’t been the one to arrest her that afternoon.

Damn it. There he went, having inappropriate thoughts about her again.

He stared out the window and watched the city fly by. He hadn’t intended to settle in D.C. after the CIA, but he’d come to view it as home. The job with the Secret Service landed in his lap after a particularly harrowing mission, and he had been ready to leave the company. Especially after his confrontation with Corbit Upwood. He knew the man was ambitious, but he’d never expected him to become director of the CIA.

Peter shook off the thoughts and went back to the background report. He wondered how quickly he could get more information on her from the Internet. Then he remembered her bragging about bylines from the Post.

Within minutes, he had her bio pulled up. She’d graduated with honors and had a degree in journalism and political science. She’d started as an intern for a local news station and had worked in journalism since. A simple browser search for Carrie Davenport Journalist brought up even more results. She had seen some things.

He clicked through article after article. Corruption, crime, sexual assault. She’d reported on everything and just from a glance she wasn’t kidding when she said she didn’t print lies. Her stories seemed balanced but hard hitting and backed with solid facts and evidence.

Holy shit.His eyes went wide as he read an article she had done on a drug cartel. Attached to the piece was a video of her at the Mexican border talking to undocumented immigrants waiting to cross, one of whom turned out to be a wanted drug runner. Crazy woman could have gotten herself killed.

The girl definitely took risks and didn’t take no for an answer. Her article catalog read like the diary of an adrenaline junkie. No wonder she drank so much coffee. Now he wondered if the purple eye shadow was part of some investigation she was working on. At a strip club, maybe? It was right up her alley and it would make her question to Upwood make sense.

Half a dozen articles later, his pulse sped up. If he was reading this article right, she was in Afghanistan at the same time he was. And Iraq. She’d done a piece on sexual assault in the military and actually traveled to war zones to speak to female soldiers. A lot of anonymous sources. One of them sounded familiar, and he grimaced as he thought of walking in on Corbit Upwood with the soldier he’d befriended. Now he wondered if she was one of Carrie’s sources.

Peter hadn’t been in Afghanistan much longer after that, and after a few more assignments with the agency, he had transitioned to the Secret Service.

It had been a good decision on his part to leave the CIA. He enjoyed being in the Secret Service and hoped to move up the ranks. Being named director was the goal, but that was a political appointment that could be hard to get depending on who the president was. But he had powerful friends with ambitions for the White House, so it was possible. For now, he just wanted to get his own field office.

Thoughts of Upwood reminded him of Carrie’s question this afternoon. If she was digging into Upwood, why was it important to know if he had been at a high-end strip club? Now he was curious. He scrolled the article he had pulled up and a smile spread across his face at a picture of the tiny woman in a helmet and bullet-proof vest somewhere in the Middle East. Damn if she didn’t look cute as hell.

Curiosity got the better of him and he clicked on the twitter icon at the end of her article. Pithy and sarcastic described most of it. His heart skipped a beat when he scrolled past a photo of her in a cocktail dress. She had morphed from cute to fucking gorgeous in a single photo. Her blond hair fell in soft curls around her shoulders and he could see subtle hints of pink throughout it. Her smile was infectious, and he wanted to know more about her. But she was still a journalist, and that was a strike against her. The fact that she likely didn’t share his… proclivities was strike two. Still, her blue eyes stared at him through the screen and he couldn’t help but hope there was no strike three.

They sat at a red light and he glanced in the cab’s side mirror.“That crazy woman is following me.” Definitely strike three. He considered getting out of the cab and getting into hers, but decided to let her think she was getting away with something. Maybe he would get the pleasure of cuffing her himself after all. Not that handcuffs were really his thing, he much preferred rope.

“Damn it, Peter. Get it together.”

The cabbie looked at him in the mirror. “You all right back there?”

Peter shook the visions of Carrie in his rope out of his head and gave him a terse nod then looked in the side-view mirror at the cab behind them.

“Do me a favor and stick around when you drop me off. I have a feeling someone is going to need a ride.”

5

PETER waited until Carrie was out of her cab to step out of his.

“You must really enjoy being in handcuffs, Miss Davenport. Too bad I don’t have mine with me.”

“I’m sure you have a gun.”

His eyebrows shot up. That was the last thing he expected to hear out of her mouth. “I’ve heard of kinky, but that takes the cake. You want me to shoot you?”

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