Page 23 of The Hacker
“He wouldn’t mean to hurt you. He just wouldn’t know.” Natalie went still. “Unless you plan to tell him.”
“No, God, no! We aren’t close like that.” Dawn didn’t want the straightforward attraction she felt for Leland tainted by her history.
“Be careful, then.”
Shewascareful. All the time. Her vigilance and caution helped, but they didn’t erase the fear or the shame. Leland made her want more than the circumscribed life she lived now. Her profession demanded that she listen to her body, so she paid attention to the intense physical reaction he evoked in her. He made her want to blast her demons into oblivion so she could feel and act normal again.
But Natalie was right. Wanting to be healed didn’t mean she was. Diving into the deep end with a man like Leland wasn’t smart. She needed to be able to touch the bottom of the pool at all times for her own sanity. He would sweep her in over her head.
Natalie reached across the table to squeeze Dawn’s hand. “Don’t look so down. I’m not saying to give him up. I’m glad you feel so strongly about a man for a change. It’s a good sign. Just be aware of who you’re dealing with.”
“You really don’t think he’s too smart for me?” Dawn wasn’t being snarky now.
Natalie rolled her eyes. “How many times do we have to go through this?”
“I know, I know. Being a college dropout does not make me stupid.” But it made her uneducated. Whereas Leland was the product of some very fancy schools, according to the bio on KRG’s website. Yes, she’d looked him up. Studied the few photos she’d found on the internet, mostly of Leland speaking at tech conferences, a jacket thrown on over his T-shirt. She liked that he refused to wear a suit and tie even then.
“You asked me what I think is behind Leland’s facade,” Natalie said. “I think he hasn’t had such an easy life, despite what it looks like.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because no one works as hard as he does unless he has something to prove. To himself, to the world, to someone important to him. I don’t know which.”
Dawn digested that. “Maybe we really are kindred spirits in some way. Maybe that’s why I’m not afraid of him.”
“Kindred spirits?”
Dawn hadn’t meant to say that out loud and she flushed. “He said that in an email. I didn’t believe it at the time.”
Natalie gave her a searching look. “You need to beverycareful.”
Dawn stayed up later than usual that night. First, she reviewed all the possible suspects she and Natalie had talked about and tried to figure out what any of them would want with the dark web. She sat cross-legged on her sofa and listed the names in order of probability on her laptop. She still couldn’t bring herself to put Ramón anywhere near the top of the list, but she went ahead with Vicky’s name in the number-two slot. She’d never been a huge fan of the Vickster on a personal level. Chad sat at the top of the list, even though Dawn couldn’t see him as anything more than a has-been jock reliving his glory days with his clients.
But that was all a pretext for waiting to see if Leland emailed her. There was no reason for him to do so because they would see each other the next day for a training session. Tomorrow was a Friday, which meant most of her clients took the evening off from exercise, heading for bars and other entertainment instead. Evidently, Leland didn’t drink or go to movies or sporting events, so he’d taken the six o’clock slot.
By the time her list was finished, she still hadn’t heard from him. At eleven thirty, she closed her laptop and drummed her fingers on top of it. He’d turned down stretching with her and left immediately after swimming. She had been with a client by then so she didn’t expect him to say goodbye, but he might have given her a wave or something. Now no email. What was going on?
Something Natalie had said nagged at the back of her mind. Her friend had reminded her that at some point very soon, they would call in a law enforcement agency—whether the police or the FBI—and then the project would be taken out of her hands, removing the need for Leland to train with her. He would go back to his corner office in Manhattan and she would be left at the gym in New Jersey. The hollow feeling that left her with made her reopen her laptop.
Maybe Leland was wrong for her, but his presence made her body thrum like a perfectly tuned treadmill going at high speed. Even an email from him sent a thrill of endorphins rippling through her. Honestly, she’d been afraid shecouldn’tfeel this way about a man ever again.
She needed to see where this could go while she had the chance.
After typing a brief email to him, she hit “send” and shut down the laptop immediately.
The next morning she braced herself for disappointment before she opened her laptop to check for new email messages. And there it was.
She checked the time it had come in and her breath hitched. One minute after she’d sent hers. He’d made up his mind fast. Was that good or bad? Clicking on the email, she actually closed her eyes before it popped up on the screen. Turning her head, she squinted at it sideways, afraid to see what his reaction had been.
It was brief but sent a shock of delight through her. All he had said was:Yes.
She floated through the morning, often having to force her wandering mind back to whatever client she was training. For her lunch break, she took her quinoa bowl out to the picnic table Ramón had set up for the staff in a little patch of grass behind the gym. Her buoyant mood made her want to bask in the gentle caress of the autumn sun.
“There you are!”
Dawn jumped as Vicky’s voice broke in on her fantasy about Leland and her in the swimming pool. Naked. “Yup, getting a dose of vitamin D. You should try it. It’s good for your health.”
Vicky slid onto the bench opposite Dawn.Could this woman be running an illegal operation out of the gym?It was hard to believe when you looked at the fake eyelashes, the tan produced by a salon bed, and the fingernails decorated with, yes, leopard spots and rhinestones.
