Sabotage

by Jessica Linden

  Abbie returned to Jonathan, who was chatting with Director Oliver.

  “Selvak has been located,” Oliver said. “A team is bringing him in as we speak.”

  “That’s something, at least,” Abbie said, wishing she could be the one to take him down. She wouldn’t have minded roughing him up a little. She knew how to deal with criminals like him.

  It would be a small comfort to Hurst to know that her undercover work would result in taking Selvak off the streets.

  “Is there a Miss Whitmore here?” A deliveryman holding a large bouquet of roses stood in the doorway.

  “Here,” Abbie said.

  The man crossed to her and handed over the flowers. “Please sign.”

  Abbie frowned, but handed the flowers to Jonathan and took the pen. “There must be a mistake. These are probably for Deandra Hurst.”

  The man checked his list. “Abigail Whitmore?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “No mistake. They’re for you. Your name’s on the card and everything.”

  As Abbie scrawled her signature, the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. She remembered her earlier comment to Sophie: It’s a mind game.

  She plucked the card out of the flowers and turned her back to the room, taking a deep breath before opening it.

  It read: My deepest condolences. I’ll be seeing you soon.

  Chapter 26

  Abbie had prepared herself accordingly: yoga pants and a giant mug of coffee. The yoga pants were needed to provide comfort for the duration of the mission and the coffee was to keep her awake.

  The mission? Binge watching the three original Star Wars movies. God help her.

  Jonathan had insisted she needed to see episodes four, five, and six before he would let her watch one, two, and three, which didn’t make any sense to her. Why not watch the story in order? Apparently, there were two schools of thought on this, and Jonathan fell in the camp of watching the originals first, even though that meant watching them out of sequential order. Then to make things even more confusing, Jonathan wanted to watch episode seven after they finished episode three.

  Whatever. Too much brainpower had already been spent on determining the correct viewing order. Besides, she had her laptop and was conveniently sitting next to an outlet. She’d pay just enough attention to make Jonathan happy, but she had some serious work to do.

  Sophie had taken pity on her and given her a list of internet forums to troll, looking for signs of their hacker. Abbie had thought Sophie was crazy to think he would mess up like that, but Sophie insisted that a lot of hackers got caught by outing themselves on forums.

  Abbie was willing to try, and a Star Wars marathon seemed like the perfect companion activity for diving into the online world of hackers.

  Jonathan walked into the room, laptop under his arm.

  Abbie nodded at it. “I see you’ll be multitasking as well.”

  He tossed the computer onto the couch. “Sadly.” He felt around the couch cushions, looking for the remote.

  The man was more organized and detailed than anyone she’d ever met. His closet was even arranged by color. But he could never keep track of the damn remote control. Lucky for him, she’d already located it when she sat directly on it.

  “I’ve got it.” She held it up and hit the On button.

  “Great.” He picked up his laptop, then put it down again. “Shit. I forgot my power cord. Hold on.”

  She settled back and turned on her computer. While she waited for it to boot up and for Jonathan to return, she flipped through the channels, landing on the local news station and grimacing when she saw a story on Jonathan.

  Shit. She couldn’t wait until she no longer had to cringe when he came on screen. Given the nature of his job, he’d likely always be in the media, but usually, it was no big deal. Usually it was a source of pride. Not so much these days. And it wasn’t even his fault.

  Her finger hovered over the channel button until a clip of the two of them at the last charity dinner they attended flashed on-screen. It was followed in quick succession by pictures of him over the years with various other women.

  She ground her teeth. Most of the women were friendly acquaintances, but some were past romantic involvements. Jealousy and anger burned inside her. Jealousy for obvious reasons, and anger because he didn’t deserve this. Hell, they didn’t deserve this. The media had apparently grown bored with the lack of updates on the embezzlement scandal, so they felt the need to create drama where none existed. Having their relationship dissected right in front of her made her feel like she was back in high school.

  And she was sitting here watching this trash.

  She’d never again pick up a gossip magazine while waiting in line at the grocery store. Celebrities had her sudden and unexpected sympathy. What was next? Would they put her on baby bump watch?

  The thought of it made her shudder. It was a valid point to consider, though. Jonathan had an air of celebrity that most politicians didn’t have. The media would always be interested in him. And her, for as long as she was with him.

  She pointed the remote at the TV, but again, she paused. Now there were clips of Jonathan at the gym. What the hell? It looked like he was sparring.

  Huh. Maybe the media had finally hit on something worthwhile, because this exposé was news to her. Since when was Jonathan a fighter? As far as she knew, he was a treadmill and weights kind of guy.

  He came back into the room and seeing the screen, a scowl formed on his face. “What the hell?”

  “My thoughts exactly. Since when did you start sparring? And isn’t that…” She peered at the screen. “That’s an FBI agent! What the hell, Jonathan?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been training with Steve.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t think my workout schedule was important to you.”

  Abbie glanced back at the screen, which now showed a blurry picture of Jonathan at a shooting range. She pointed to the picture. “That’s not working out.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “No one said you were.” Abbie battled down the anger that was surfacing. “I’m just surprised you didn’t tell me. We barely spend time together as it is. I could have trained you.”

  “I don’t need you to train me.”

  Abbie stared at him, shocked and a little hurt. She easily could have taught him anything he was learning from his FBI friend, and it would have allowed them more time together.

  “That’s not what this is about,” Abbie said, trying to maintain a calm tone. “I don’t like learning things like this from a news program. Don’t you think you could have mentioned it to me at some point?”

  “I don’t know where that footage came from. If I’d have known they had it, I would have warned you.”

  Abbie stood. “Damn it, Jonathan! That’s not what this is about! It seems like you’ve been putting a lot of time into this, which means it’s important to you, and you didn’t even tell me. You kept it a secret. Why?”

  What else didn’t she know about him?

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “What don’t I get?”

  She started to pace. “Normally the media loves you. But not lately. And a second ago, they were flashing pictures of us and you with other women. They were dissecting our relationship in the news. In the news! I get that you’re a media darling, and I understood that when I signed up for this relationship, but if we’re going to do this, we need to have a united front. I can’t learn your secrets from the news.”

  “It wasn’t a secret.”

  For the first time since she’d met him, she wanted to punch him. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He had infuriated her when she first started working with him on the Hak Tanir case. But she’d never wanted to deck him like she wanted to now.

  Love and hate were two sides of a very slippery coin.

  He was nor
mally so rational. But he was totally missing the mark here.

  So perhaps she’d use a different tactic this time. She took a deep breath. “I’m simply trying to understand why you wanted to train like that. That’s all.”

  “I can’t always depend on you to defend me. If the need arises, I want to be able to protect myself.”

  Abbie frowned. “That was part of my job.”

  “Not anymore.” His eyes were hard, his tone intense.

  What the hell? Was he threatened by her job? She didn’t need this right now. They didn’t need this right now.

  “I’m going to say one more thing, and then let’s drop it before we both say things we’ll regret. If you are in danger, I will protect you. I will not ignore my skillset so you can keep your man card intact.”

  Jonathan’s steely gaze met hers, but he didn’t say anything, which was very, very wise of him.

  Abbie lowered herself to the couch and put her laptop in her lap. She pounded in the URL for the first nerd forum. “Now start the damn movie.”

  Chapter 27

  Seated next to Jonathan in the back of his town car, Abbie crossed her legs, dislodging his hand that had been resting on her knee. Perhaps it was petty, but she was still pissed at him. And here she was on the way to an event with him where she’d have to put on a nice show and smile for the media who would surely be present.

  She’d forgotten all about this luncheon until her Google calendar had reminded her. She hadn’t wanted to go in the first place and certainly didn’t want to tag along now, since the timing was especially poor. She was eager to get back to the case, especially since last night’s attempt at wading through the online hacker forums yielded no results.

  It was maddening.

  Several hours of her day would be sucked away by the Fairfax County Educators Luncheon. It was a good cause, but damn, they were all good causes. She didn’t know how Jonathan got anything done in between all of his various engagements. Seriously, how had he even had time for training with his FBI buddy?

  Abbie closed her eyes and allowed herself to fume for a few seconds. She wasn’t even angry so much as she was hurt.

  But focusing on it was counterproductive. She had too much shit to do.

  Abbie scrolled through her e-mails on her phone, quickly deleting, replying, and forwarding. She opened the last one, and the first few words on the screen had her sitting up straight.

  “Cleaver is out?” she whispered.

  She racked her brain trying to remember the details of the case involving Scott Cleaver. He was a hacker who’d leaked the financial records of several CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. At his trial, he’d given a long diatribe about how the public deserved to know the information. He considered himself some sort of data-spewing Robin Hood. It didn’t take long for the jury to convict him.

  His case had been relatively inconsequential. Abbie had been a junior member on the team assigned to take him in, and the only reason she even remembered the case so clearly was because it was her first arrest.

  The case certainly wasn’t inconsequential now. Could he be responsible for the current mess? It was entirely possible.

  They pulled to a stop in front of the convention center, and she reluctantly tucked her phone away. She smiled and stood at Jonathan’s side while he fielded questions and cameras flashed. But the second they were past the media circus, she excused herself.

  A quick call to Cleaver’s parole officer and she learned he’d been the model ex-con—showing up early to all his appointments and already making progress toward finding a job. He was a regular reformed member of society now.

  Abbie snorted. She’d see about that.

  Throughout the luncheon as she listened to anecdotes from retired teachers, her mind whirled. Cleaver’s current residence was in Manassas, a ten-minute drive from here. Shit—she wished she’d driven her own car. She did not want to drag Jonathan into this any further. Maybe she’d take a damn Uber.

  It might be prudent to go later with backup, but she didn’t want to wait. Not when she could interview him now and possibly end this. It had gotten too damn personal for him to be able to hide his rancor toward her. She’d know within a minute of being in his presence if he was their hacker. God, she hoped he was.

  Chapter 28

  “Hell, no.”

  Abbie was crazy if she thought she was going to “interview” this man by herself.

  At the luncheon she’d been even more fidgety than normal, so Jonathan had known something was up. He also knew she was still pissed at him, which was why she didn’t immediately tell him what was going on.

  “I’m not asking your permission,” she snapped.

  He ignored her tone since he probably deserved it. “At least wait for backup.”

  She crossed her arms and tapped her toe. “He’s a damn hacker, not a UFC fighter. I’ll be fine. I’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

  She had a point there. She’d faced down much more dangerous individuals and there were no doubts in his mind she could handle herself. But any situation could turn deadly in an instant. A hacker could fire a gun as easily as the next person.

  “Let’s go, then,” Jonathan said, heading toward the car where his driver was waiting.

  “You’re not going with me.”

  He stopped and spun. “You’re pissed. I get it. I shouldn’t have withheld information from you. But you said it yourself—we’re wasting time. And I’m not letting you go there alone.”

  She pursed her lips, probably perturbed that now he was the one with the point. And he was sure she noticed his choice of words. But damn it, he didn’t lie to her. Omission wasn’t the same as lying.

  Said like a damn politician.

  Christ, he hated himself a little bit right now.

  “Fine,” she said, brushing past him on the way to the car. “But you do not engage. In fact, you can wait in the car.”

  Like hell. He didn’t bother responding. No need to fuel the fire. But she had another thing coming if she thought he would stay tucked away in the car, like a damn dog in its kennel.

  She gave the driver the address and, once they arrived, instructed him to park around the block. The neighborhood was slightly run-down, filled with apartment complexes and rows of town houses.

  When Jonathan got out of the car with her, she shot him a scathing look but said nothing. He buttoned his suit jacket and followed her to a brick town house in the middle of a row.

  As she pressed the doorbell, she hissed under her breath, “Say nothing.”

  A thin woman wearing shorts and a tank top even though it was the end of winter answered the door. “Hey, babe,” she called over her shoulder, “we got us a politician at our door.”

  Except she pronounced it like poly-tician, holding the y an extra-long time.

  Abbie spared Jonathan a glance before speaking. “Ma’am, we’re actually looking for—”

  “Bitch! You ruined my life! What the fuck are you at my door for?” A man wearing a flannel shirt pushed past the woman, going toward Abbie.

  When Jonathan saw the look in the man’s eyes, he didn’t think—he just reacted, putting himself between the man and Abbie. The man swung, landing a blow on Jonathan’s shoulder instead of Abbie’s face. Jonathan slammed him against the brick side of the house.

  Chapter 29

  Shit. Abbie lunged herself in between Jonathan and Cleaver.

  “Scott!” the woman shrieked, and then when she turned to Abbie, her eyes widened in recognition. “You,” she sneered.

  Before Abbie could separate the two men, the woman came at her with a knife she’d seemingly pulled out of thin air.

  Wrong move.

  Abbie easily blocked the first swipe and grabbed hold of the woman’s wrist, banging it against the porch rail until the knife fell from her hand, clattering on the ground. Then she twisted her arm behind her back and pressed her over the guardrail.

  “Jonathan,” Abbie said calmly, not taking her eye
s off the woman and somehow keeping her voice calm. “Status.”

  “He’s subdued,” Jonathan said.

  Abbie tightened her grip on the woman with one hand and retrieved her bag from where it had fallen to pull out handcuffs. She never left home without them.

  Once the woman was secure, she took control of the man from Jonathan. “Call the cops,” she said. She only had one pair of handcuffs.

  The whole incident had taken under a minute, from the time she rang the doorbell to now.

  No words were spoken in the few minutes it took for the police to arrive. These were seasoned criminals who knew better than to run their mouths—anything they said could and would be used against them.

  Though Cleaver definitely hated her, it was an old hatred. And his years in prison had made him soft—she could tell from a single glance he was no longer the sharp tech-savvy man from years ago.

  Abbie’s heart sank and her gut filled with disappointment.

  It wasn’t him.

  Chapter 30

  It took less than an hour for Jonathan’s role in the skirmish to be all over social media. Somehow, someone had filmed the whole damn incident.

  The size of Jonathan’s fan club on Facebook nearly tripled.

  As soon as the locals had the situation under control, Abbie whisked Jonathan out of there. He didn’t complain, but it looked like he’d taken a hit to his left eye. If they didn’t get ice on that soon, it would leave quite a shiner.

  “Pull off here,” Abbie instructed the driver.

  Jonathan looked over to the fast food restaurant. “Why? Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head. “Ice.”

  “Well, get me a damn milk shake while you’re in there.”

  Abbie didn’t bother to suppress her smile. Five minutes later, she was back with two chocolate milk shakes and a bag of ice.