Kissed By Moonlight

by Adrianne Brooks

“Why would someone want you dead, Miss Conners?”

  I groaned against the surface of the interrogation table and tried not to start cursing. They’d asked the same question more than a dozen times now, but my answer had yet to change.

  “I don’t know? My charm? Good looks? Winning personality? The possibilities are endless.”

  The Agent sitting on the other side of the table put his hands up in a show of surrender.

  “No need for snark, love. I’m just trying to get the full picture. This was a professional job. They had the money and the training-”

  “But not the aim,” I interrupted lightly.

  The Agent grinned and his fingers intertwined as he leaned towards me.

  “Maybe he had the aim,” he said, voice as low as if we were co-conspirators. “Maybe he had the shot, but never took it. Maybe, the only reason you’re still alive is because they have a reason to keep you that way.”

  I leaned across the table as well, my own voice lowering to match his. “Then I guess the question you should be asking is why would someone want me alive but scared?”

  “That,” he sat back, “is an excellent point.” Picking up his pen, he began to twirl it between his fingers. For the first time since the two agents had brought me in, the questions took a significant change.

  “How do you like working for Gabriel Evans, Miss Conners?”

  I stiffened, but answered easily enough. “Don’t know yet, it’s only my first day.”

  “Only your first day and yet you’ve already met the CEO and President of A.I.” His brow quirked. “That’s pretty impressive for a newbie.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I bit my bottom lip and shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “I think it’s a little bit more than that.”

  I glared at the agent, displeased with where all of this was going. I’d come to the police station because I hadn’t known what else to do. I’d expected to have to make a statement to a police officer, and that had indeed been the case. I hadn’t expected to be detained by the same men who’d given me a ride in the first place.

  It was nice getting to know the agents who had been watching me since the car bomb, but I would have appreciated a full night’s sleep much more. Especially since I had work in the morning.

  The man in question had been the first agent. He was as tall as his partner was short, and he was blessed with ink-black hair that seemed to fall in perfect waves. It matched his Arabian good looks. There was something about him that seemed out of character with the severely starched lines of his suit and easy manner.

  His partner was a lot older. A sour-faced man with gray hair and glasses that seemed too large for his thinly jawed face. He was just as carefully dressed, but he seemed stiff and uncomfortable in his clothes. As if he would rather been in jeans and an old t-shirt than a tie and pressed slacks. I would have felt sorry for him, but personally I was comfortable in my nightshirt, no bra, and police issued sweats.

  “Am I being charged with anything?” I asked.

  The first man, Agent Liam, shook his head. “We’re not detaining you, Miss Conners.”

  “Really? Because it sure as hell feels like it.”

  “Do you have anywhere else to be? It’s not like you can go back home? The police have cordoned it off.”

  “It’s called a hotel.”

  His partner, Agent Benson, tsked, his head shaking from side to side at such naiveté. “You’re smarter than that, Conners. What if your new friends decide they want to do more than scare you? They’ve already proven that they can get to you at home, a hotel would be a walk in the park.”

  I could see where all of this was going. If I didn’t have somewhere “safe” to go, the agents could keep me here all night. Simply by claiming that they couldn’t, in good conscious, let me leave when my life was in danger. I did not feel like sleeping in an interrogation room.

  “I need to make a phone call.”