matter how you looked at it, he hadn’t been some Robin Hood do-gooder, damn it.
He yanked open his duffel bag full of uniforms and underwear, trying to keep his eyes off the small mirror on his locker. His shaved head might reflect the light and blind him. And since rumor had it half the guys here had also struck deals, he needed to watch his back and recon until he figured out what each of them had done to land here.
If only he had his computer. He wasn’t so good at face-to-face reads. The court-appointed shrink that evaluated him for trial said he had trouble connecting with people and lost himself in the cyberworld as a replacement. The Freud wannabe had been right.
And now he was stuck in a freaking barracks full of people. Definitely his idea of hell.
He hadn’t even been able to access a computer to research the criminal losers stuck here with him. Thanks to the judge, he was limited to supervised use of the internet for schoolwork only—in spite of the fact he could handle the academics with his eyes closed.
Boring.
He dropped down to sit beside his bag. There had to be a way out of this place. The swinging foot slowed and a hand slid down.
Mr. Wall Street Journal held a portable video game.
It wasn’t a computer, but thank God it was electronic. Something to calm the part of him that was totally freaking over being unplugged. Troy didn’t even have to think twice. He palmed the game and kicked back in his bunk. Mr. Wall Street Hughes stayed quiet, no gloating. The guy might actually be legit. No agenda.
For now, Troy had found a way through the monotony. Not just because of the video game. But because there was someone else not all wrapped up tight in the rules.
Maybe his fellow juvie refugees might turn out to be not so bad after all. And if he was wrong—his thumbs flew across the keyboard, blasting through to the next level—at least he had a distraction from his first day in hell.
One
Present Day
Hillary Wright seriously needed a distraction during her flight from D.C. to Chicago. But not if it meant sitting behind a newlywed couple intent on joining the Mile High Club.
Her cheeks puffed with a big blast of recycled air as she dropped into her window seat and made fast work of hooking up the headset. She would have preferred to watch a movie or even sitcom reruns, but that would mean keeping her eyes open with the risk of seeing the duo in front of her making out under a blanket. She just wanted to get to Chicago, where she could finally put the worst mistake of her life behind her.
Hillary switched from the best of Kenny G before it put her to sleep, clicking through the stations until she settled on a Broadway channel piping in “The Sound of Music.” Passengers pushed down the aisle, a family with a baby and a toddler, then a handful of businessmen and women, all moving past her to the cheap seats where she usually sat. But not today. Today, her first-class seat had been purchased for her by the CIA. And how crazy was that? Until this month, her knowledge of the CIA only came from television shows. Now she had to help them in order to clear her name and stay out of jail.
A moan drifted from the brand-new Mrs. Somebody in front of her.
Oh God, Hillary sagged back into her seat, covering her eyes with her arm. She was so nervous she couldn’t even enjoy her first visit to Chicago. She’d dreamed about getting out of her small Vermont hometown. Her job as an event planner in D.C. had seemed like a godsend at first. She met the exciting people she would have only read about in the news otherwise—politicians, movie stars, even royalty.
She’d been starstruck by her wealthy boyfriend’s lifestyle. Stupidly so. Until she allowed herself to be blinded to Barry’s real intentions in managing philanthropic donations, his lack of a moral compass.
Now she had to dig herself out from under the mess she’d made of her life by trusting the wrong guy, by believing his do-gooder act of tricking rich associates into donating large sums of money to bogus charities, then funneling the money overseas into a Swiss bank account. She’d proven herself to be every bit the gullible, smalltown girl she’d wanted to leave behind.
As of today, her blinders were off.
A flash of skin and pink bra showed between the seats.
She squeezed her eyes shut and lost herself in the do-re-mi refrain even as people bumped past. Focus. Will away the nerves. Get through the weekend.
She would identify her scumbag ex-boyfriend’s crooked banking acquaintance at the Chicago shindig. Give her official statement to Interpol so they could stop the international money-laundering scheme. Then she could have her life back and save her job.
Once she was back in her boss’s good graces, she would again be throwing the kinds of parties she’d wanted to oversee when she’d first become an event planner. Her career would skyrocket with her parties featured in the social section of all major newspapers. Her loser ex would read about her in tabloid magazines in prison and realize how she’d moved on, baby. Maybe she would even appear in some of those photos looking so damn hot Barry would suffer in his celibate cell.
The jackass.
She pinched the bridge of her nose against the welling of tears.
A tap on her shoulder forced her out of her silly self-pity. She tugged off an earbud and looked over at a … suit. A dark blue suit, with a Hugo Boss tie and a vintage tie clip.
“Excuse me, ma’am. You’re in my seat.”
A low voice, nice, and not cranky-sounding like some travelers could be. His face was shadowed, the sunlight streaking through the small window behind him. She could just make out his dark brown hair, which was long enough to brush his ears and the top of his collar. From the Patek Philippe watch to his edgy Caraceni suit—all name brands she wouldn’t have heard of, much less recognized, before her work with high-end D.C. clients.
And she was in his seat.
Wincing, she pretended to look at her ticket even though she already knew what it read. God, she hated the aisle and she’d prayed she would luck out and have an empty next to her. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“You know what?” He rested a hand on the back of the empty seat. “If you prefer the window, that’s cool by me. I’ll sit here instead.”
“I don’t want to take advantage.” Take advantage? The cheesy double entendre made her wince. A moan from the lovebirds a row ahead only made it worse.
“No worries.” He stowed his briefcase in the overhead before sidling in to sit down.
Then he turned to her, the light above bringing him fully into focus— And holy cows on her hometown Vermont farm, he was hot. Angular. But with long lashes that kept drawing her gaze back to his green eyes. He was probably in his early thirties, gauging from the creases when he smiled with the open kind of grin that made him more approachable.
She tilted her head to the side, studying him more closely. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him…. She shook off the feeling. She’d met so many people at the parties she’d planned in D.C. They could have crossed paths at any number of places. Although, she must have seen him from a distance, because if they’d met up close, she definitely wouldn’t have forgotten him.
His seat belt clicked as the plane began taxiing. “You don’t like flying.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You want the window seat, but have the shade closed. You’ve already plugged into the radio. And you’ve got the armrest in a death grip.”
Handsome and observant. Hmm …
Better to claim fear of flying than to go into the whole embarrassing mess she’d made of her life. “Busted. You caught me.” She nodded toward the row in front of her just as one of the seats reclined providing