Page 27 of Kiss Me if You Can
Oh, this is making my head hurt. “The news,” I mutter. “You put an APB out on me. Why did you say I was dangerous?”
“People pay better attention to stuff like that.” Van Park says it like it should be obvious. “They wouldn’t care if we told them you wereindanger. For the record, we only said that youmightbe dangerous. Not that you are.”
“But calling me a cyber terrorist?”
He lets out a wheezy laugh. “That was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Someone looked deeper and found that piece of your history. They’re not running the story anymore, if you’d care to know, though there’s only so much we can do about anyone who has shared that info.”
“Yes, that makes me feelsomuch better,” I growl, rising to my feet. Now that the truth is starting to sink in, my misery is turning into frustration. “You let me run around the city thinking my freedom and my life were in danger, and you couldn’t find a way to tell me that you were just trying to keep me safe?”
I hate that Van Park isn’t fazed by my anger in the slightest. “How would you have liked me to get in touch with you?” he says lightly. “Your credit card slip up at that pawn shop was the only reason we knew which area to start looking.”
Okay, he makes a good point there.
“And in all reality, youwerea cyber terrorist.”
I groan. “You were just waiting to say that, weren’t you?”
“We all know you’ve turned your life around, Moody, though we’re still going to be wary of you for a while. Honestly, we never would have found Hadley without your help, so that has earned you some points. Plus, now we know how to find you.”
Something I’m not especially fond of.
“So can I go?” If I’m lucky, Isla hasn’t left town yet, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to get past her bodyguards even if she is still in Sun City. I have no idea who those men were, but they clearly care about her. Even if I have to fight my way through them, it would be worth it for a chance to hold Isla in my arms again.
“About that,” Van Park says, preemptively flinching as if he knows I’m not going to like what he’s about to say. “We need to keep you in custody for a few days. Maybe a week.”
“A week? But you said—”
“I didn’t say anything about letting you go, Moody. You didn’t follow orders, and you caused a whole lot of trouble with your disappearing act today.”
“Tell me what crime I committed, and we can talk about custody,” I snarl, slamming my hands on the table.
Van Park doesn’t move. Apparently his momentary fear of me was just that. Momentary. “Then there’s the matter of Hadley’s associates. We can’t in good conscience let you out there without knowing how many there are and if they’re going to be after you.”
Yesterday, I would have told him I couldn’t care less about the danger, but today I keep my mouth shut. If something happens to me, it’ll affect Isla too. I’m not so vain to think she’s in love with me, but I know she’d be hurt if something happened to me. She cares. I don’t know to what degree, but she feels something between us just like I do. I can’t bear to risk that.
“A week?” I repeat, slowly sinking into the other chair.
He nods. “Give us that, and then we’ll talk.”
It’s a week that I’ll have to wait to get a bus ticket to go see Isla in Diamond Springs, but as long as I can explain the situation, I hope she can be patient. Now that I’m not on the run—now that a future together isn’t out of the question—we need to have a conversation.
“Can I—”
“No.” Van Park shakes his head. “No contact with the outside world. We need Hadley’s associates to think you’re truly in custody, or they’ll disappear for good. You found them once; you could find them again.” Before I can argue that that’s a great reason to give me access to the internet, he grunts and rises to his feet. “I know it sucks, Moody, but we’ve had to pivot from the original plan after the way things went down this morning. It’s just the way it is.”
“A week?” I say one more time, feeling more desperate now.
He frowns as he heads for the door. “Then we’ll talk.”
I really don’t like the sound of that.
Chapter Eleven
Isla
July 13
“Are you sure you’vepacked everything you need?”
