Seduced by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  “What extra mile?”

  “Invitations not sent via text.”

  “This guy must be seriously cute,” I said. Veronica tended to let the men come to her.

  “Oh, he is.” And she launched into a discussion of his attributes that had me laughing and cringing for the poor guy’s honor.

  Even though I was paying attention, part of my mind had wandered to Corbin, of course. I needed answers. I deserved them.

  And I was going to get them as soon as it was dark enough to sneak out.

  ~~~

  “Front door or back?” Rob asked as I zipped up my coat. He was sitting on the couch, still wearing his gym shorts and a faded robot-themed tee. “Back door,” he supplied when he noticed the bag at my feet.

  I nodded.

  He went into the kitchen and returned with two cherry freeze pops and handed me one.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m trying to pretend it’s already summer.” He pulled off the white wrapper. “Do I want to know where you’re going?”

  “Looking for Corbin.” Rob knew about Corbin, who and what he was. He also knew Corbin had disappeared. His advice had initially been to give it some time.

  He frowned when I handed back the cherry freeze pop. “Be careful,” he said.

  I nodded and headed out.

  I blasted angry rock music and sang along to it as I drove, trying to hype myself up for what I might encounter in the mountain house. As I screamed along with an early U2 song, I realized I was secretly hoping Corbin wouldn’t be there.

  Apparently my totem animal was an ostrich, head stuck deep in the sand, ass in prime position to get screwed, and not in a fun way.

  Well, no more. For better or for worse, I would know something.

  That didn’t stop me from driving under the speed limit as I neared the house. A lump formed in my throat as I passed the spot where I’d had the accident. Each mile was more difficult, and when it came time to make the final turn down Corbin’s long and meandering driveway, I hesitated.

  If he was watching, he already knew I was coming. He had a ten-minute lead due to all the surveillance. He might ignore me, leave me banging on the front door. But I didn’t think so. He would be so furious that he would have to react.

  The radio had been playing advertisements, but that old song, “500 Miles,” by The Proclaimers started playing. I wasn’t one to read signs into songs, but the theme of making a difficult journey did seem fitting.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t a man, so technically, the lyrics already required some interpretation.

  I turned up the volume and stepped on the accelerator. I could hear the rush of my blood in my ears, could feel it where my fingers strangled the steering wheel, where the backs of my thighs touched the seat.

  Unfortunately, the song didn’t last long enough, and the following song was, of course, “Die Another Day.” I knew it from one of the James Bond movies. And if I wanted guidance from that, it meant I needed to be turning around.

  My guardian angel sucked.

  When the house came into view, I saw the first floor was lit up. “Well,” I said aloud. “Guess we’re going to have it out.” Adrenaline was the only thing that got me out of the car and walking to the door. That, and anger. There was a sea of hurt and betrayal just underneath, so deep that I knew it would swallow me up later.

  No matter what Corbin’s excuse was, I knew it wouldn’t be so easy to forgive him. Though Corbin was obviously past giving a shit about what I thought.

  This was such a bad idea. But he surely knew I was there. Too late to turn back. I wiped my palms, which had passed from damp to soggy, on my jeans and felt the wet heat of them on my legs.

  I pushed the doorbell.

  I didn’t hear it ring, but the house was so soundproof that it wasn’t a surprise. After a minute, I wondered if the bell was broken, and I was about to pound with my fist when the door opened.

  A young woman with dark skin and manga-sized eyes stared at me. She wore an apron, and she was wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  “Can I help you?” Despite her obvious shock at finding me on her doorstep, her voice was warm.

  Of all the possible situations I’d imagined, this wasn’t one I’d prepared for. I stared at her, at a loss for words.

  “Who is it?” came a man’s voice from another room. Not Corbin’s voice, I didn’t think… but it had been some time, and I had never heard him yell politely from another room.

  “Hi,” I said, scrambling for a good cover story. “I’m a real estate agent with Acme Realty.” It was the first name that came to me, and I cringed.

  Footsteps approached, and a tall, slender man came up behind the woman. He rested his hands on her shoulders.

  “Forgive me,” I said. I decided to go all in. “I might have the wrong address. Is this house still for sale?” What was the name the house was registered under? John something… “Are you John Browning?”

  “No,” the man said. “We’re house sitting, but I don’t think John is selling.”

  “He did a huge renovation about a year ago,” the woman said. “I’m sure he’s not selling. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Pity. I have a very motivated buyer,” I said. I couldn’t think of a way to get additional information out of them, but I wasn’t prepared to walk away empty-handed. “The next time you talk to him, could you let him know that Audrey from Acme Realty was here.” I smiled, hoping that hours of faking it hadn’t damaged my facial muscles too badly. “Maybe he was just putting out feelers, but I think he’d be sad to miss this opportunity. Do you think you could call him now? I don’t mind waiting.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” the man said. There was something about him, about them both, actually… They looked like a nice, normal, happily married couple, but I knew they were probably spies or something.

  “Or Corbin,” I said, trying to look past them without being obvious. “Is Corbin here?”

  They both frowned. The woman turned those huge eyes of hers up toward her partner’s. He shook his head. “We don’t know anyone named Corbin,” he said.

  Well, crap. What was my next move? I really couldn’t get a read on these two, couldn’t tell if they were civilians or what. I decided to go for broke. “What does John look like? If he’s a tall guy with dark hair and freaky eyes, that’s Corbin, and I know he wants to hear from me.”

  They stared at me blankly.

  “Tell him Audrey needs to speak to him. It’s extremely urgent.” Maybe he didn’t think our relationship was important, but I sure did.

  Now they looked at me as if I were insane.

  As I got into the SUV and started backing out, I noticed a tricycle on its side underneath the evergreen bushes. Kids? Seemed like quite an elaborate cover.

  Maybe they weren’t undercover. In which case, I’d just given two nice people a shock for no reason.

  But somehow, I doubted anyone camping out in Corbin’s secret lair could be all that in the dark. Even if they didn’t know his name.

  I wished the house weren’t set up in such a private way. I longed to look inside, to see if the furniture had changed. And I kind of wanted to throw a brick through a window. That would get his attention.

  It wasn’t until I was back on the highway that I realized I’d forgotten to remove my wig and glasses.

  ~~~

  The overwhelming need for answers had forced me into this undertaking, and instead of getting them, I’d been left even more confused. I disliked uncertainty, disliked not having control over such a huge part of my life.

  Might as well check the cabin. It wasn’t like I could feel any worse.

  It was unlit, as always. I walked in, a curse on my lips, murder on my mind, hot anger threatening to blister my skin.

  There wasn’t any point to closing the door, so I left it open while I did my inspection.

  No Corbin. Not on the couch, not hiding under the bed or stuffed into the clo
sets. Not even on the roof.

  It was like he’d never existed. “Fuck this,” I said. Just as I was about to leave, I realized something was different. The letter I’d left the day that I came out of hiding had moved. It was still on the table, but it was noticeably closer to the edge.

  A gust of wind swept in, and the paper’s edge fluttered. It was like it was taunting me with my previous optimism. When I’d written it, I had believed that he would come back, that he was the one. Idiot.

  I grabbed the paper, angrily balled it up and shoved it deep into my coat pocket.

  Slamming the door hard behind me didn’t do a damned thing to make me feel better.

  ~~~

  I was out of options. Everything in my life sucked, and I blamed Corbin for all of it. It was said that the opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. Well, I hated Corbin. I wanted bad things to happen to him.

  He had promised to be fair to me, to respect me, and then he’d done this. That he had left me without any answers was unforgivable.

  By the time I returned to Rob’s, my fury hadn’t abated in the least. Rob must have seen it on my face, because his eyes went wary.

  “He wasn’t there,” I said before Rob could ask. “He’s nowhere, like a damned ghost. Now I know why they call them spooks. Spies, killers, crossing guards. Everyone sucks.”

  “That’s hardly true,” Rob said, guarded.

  I reversed direction and went downstairs, to the door that connected the condo to Rob’s garage. I pushed through and turned on the overhead light. Blue plastic boxes full of my belongings were neatly assembled in one corner, stacked all the way up to the ceiling, leaving room for Rob’s car. Corbin’s hit man moving crew had been very considerate.

  They had been meticulous, too. The boxes were numbered, and there was a manifest of sorts, outlining which boxes corresponded to which areas of my apartment. Unfortunately, I’d gotten a little scattered with my organization. Unless I was looking for kitchen, bathroom, or clothing, I always needed to do a bit of digging to find what I wanted. It was a hassle, so I made do with very little. It turned out that I didn’t even need most of my possessions.

  I dug into the mountain. The physical act of pulling the boxes down, digging through them, then whipping them around to form a new pile behind me was distracting enough to calm my jangled nerves.

  Finally I reached a box labeled “bedroom, miscellany” and decided that would be a good place to start.

  I rifled through nail polish, much of it so old that the tops were welded onto the bottles. I’d thought I’d tossed many of them during a cleaning spree at the end of the previous summer, but apparently not. There were several pink-haired trolls from my childhood collection. They were so ugly, yet strangely compelling. This was stuff from the bottom drawer of my dresser, I realized. I sniffed one of the trolls. It smelled faintly of the drugstore perfume that Veronica and I used to wear. We’d thought it was so sophisticated.

  We wouldn’t be caught dead in it now.

  There were stacks of old photos that I had completely forgotten about. They dated back to when Smile, one of my dad’s friends who was a photographer—the one who had spied on me and Rob at Dad’s behest—had encouraged me to give it a shot. I wasn’t talented, but I’d spent a lot of time and money trying.

  I opened one of the envelopes. It was our high school trip to a water park that had been sponsored by the physics department. Theoretically, we were supposed to have been doing equations, but our group of friends divvied up the problems on the worksheet, got them worked out before noon, and spent the rest of the day goofing off.

  That evening, I had hooked up with Marcus Hustle. Despite his porny name, he’d been a surprisingly horrible kisser. And to think I’d wasted most of senior year trying to get his attention. I set the photos aside.

  I rooted around through pencil stubs and filthy erasers. I was pretty sure I’d stashed some of my gadgets in that drawer, but nothing turned up.

  I looked at the manifest and located the number of the box containing things from my nightstand drawers. It was buried all the way in the back and at the bottom of the stack—not near the other bedroom stuff. It figured.

  And there it was, thousands of dollars of amateur spy equipment. All of it… even the sound amplification device I had used the night I tracked Corbin. I was beyond certain that it had been in the drawer of my foyer table.

  I wondered if Corbin had told the guys to bury anything that looked like it might make me go Nancy Drew. Well, his plan had failed.

  “What’s that?” Rob asked as I lugged the box into the living room.

  “Scooch over,” I said. He moved, and I used my foot to shove his glass coffee table out of the way, then I dropped the box in its place and collapsed onto the couch. After I caught my breath, I flipped the lid off the box. It somersaulted nicely.

  “Check these out,” I said, handing Rob the photos, which I had stuck in the box before coming up.

  “Holy crap,” he said. “Back when life was easy.”

  I pulled out the eavesdropper and wiggled it into my ear. Nothing. I tapped it, and it came to life with a high-pitched squeak that probably caused permanent hearing damage.

  There wasn’t much to listen to… just the whoosh of water in the pipes; the neighbor on the left was taking a shower.

  There was a gurgling noise. “Is that your stomach?” I asked Rob.

  “Ordered Chinese for dinner,” he said. “Might have been a little dodgy.” His voice was so loud in my ear that I winced. I stood, feeling like a movie with bad audio—I could hear the squeaking of the couch, the slippery slide of my socks on the carpet.

  I eased up to the window and peered out. Henry was sitting across the street in the boxy sedan I had come to despise. “Can you call Henry?”

  “Why?”

  “Ask him if he has time to discuss the contract with you tomorrow or something. Just do it. And don’t mutter under your breath because I can hear everything.”

  “Can you hear this?”

  Frowning, I turned to see my brother’s middle finger extended. But he was reaching for his phone with the other hand.

  I heard the ringing of the phone through Rob’s speaker. Henry answered with a grunt. “You gonna invite me up for a drink?” Henry asked.

  I caught all of the conversation, but only through Rob’s phone. Not surprising given that Henry was across the street and in a car.

  Motioning for Rob to keep him on the phone, I cut across the living room, ran downstairs and hurried to the front door.

  The moment I opened the door, I remembered why I’d given up on the eavesdropper. Only the faintest breeze stirred the night air, but a hurricane raged in my right ear.

  Henry hadn’t noticed I was outside. Bracing myself against the steady roar, I walked across the street to the passenger side of my car and opened the door.

  I could hear Henry then. Not well, but I was able to make out some words. “… All… have to sacrifice… meeting with everyone.”

  There was a crumpled bag from the diner on my floor—I often bought muffins at the end of my shift. Food was discounted for staff. I puffed out the bag to make it look full and closed my car door. The sound resonated in my skull for several long seconds, then the eavesdropper started making strange beeps.

  I shot a look at Henry’s car. He had definitely spotted me and was watching distrustfully. Probably thought Rob had set him up so I could sneak away.

  But I gave him the middle finger—pass it on, right?—and went back inside.

  I peeled the bud out of my ear before I shut the door and went back upstairs. Rob was still on the phone. “She’s right here,” he said. He held the phone out. “Henry wants to talk to you.”

  “Tell him I’m not in.” I sat back on the couch and returned the eavesdropper to its small pouch. I set it aside. Maybe it just needed to be calibrated.

  Many of my other contraptions were more vanity than anything. Even though I had wasted far too
much money on these things, I’d never been able to afford the really high-quality stuff. There was a ballpoint pen that recorded grainy video. It also took photos. It had only cost $99. The reviews for it in my amateur spy forums, which I hadn’t visited in an eternity, were solid, but everyone had recommended upgrading to the better version. Well, better than nothing. I set it aside.

  There were zip tie handcuffs. Technically, they belonged to Stroop Finders, which I guess meant I had stolen them. It just made sense to have some at home, some in the car… I hadn’t always had time to stop by the office before going to pick someone up.

  “Part of my severance package,” I said to Rob as I tossed the zip ties onto my small pile. He had gotten off the phone soon after my refusal to talk to Henry, and he was now watching with open fascination.

  “They’re hardly expensive. What the hell are you doing?”

  “Preparing for the end of the world,” I said.

  He ran a hand through his straight red hair, pushing it out of his face. The moment he removed his hand, the hair fell back into his eyes. “Can you be more specific?”

  I considered him. Rob was in this mess pretty deep. He had an interest in helping me with Henry. So I decided to tell him the plan that I hadn’t even fully admitted to myself until then. “I’m going after Henry.”

  “Going after him where?” His confusion was so total, his expression so startled, that I laughed.

  “Where he lives,” I said. “I’m not following him. I’m taking him down.”

  Rob’s brown eyes narrowed into slits.

  “Don’t look at me like that!”

  “Look at you like what?”

  “Like that,” I said, diving back into the box. I pulled out the pieces of my elementary and unreliable motion detector system. Oh, I’d had such high hopes for that one. I had chosen it for two reasons: price and environmental soundness. The second reason might have been influenced by budget, too, to be fair. Many of the systems ran on batteries, but this one had built-in rechargeables.