Page 88 of Protecting You
She turned back to face Callan, who watched intently.
“You won’t ask me to work for you again?” she clarified.
“I won’t. But I need the information by the end of the day Sunday.”
“Sunday?”
Callan mouthed,more time.
“I have plans all weekend, so I’m not sure?—”
“Sunday, Alyssa. I trust you can make it work.”
She shook her head at Callan.
He held her eye contact a moment, then shrugged, telling her to say whatever she had to say.
“I’ll do my best.”
Callan lifted his phone and shook it, reminding her…
“Would you do me a favor, though? Would you have our phones and suitcases delivered to my fiancé’s office?” She didn’t know if Charles would do it, but under normal circumstances, a person would ask about their things. “I can reimburse you for the cost.”
“The cost is minimal. I’ll have your items delivered to where you are now, if you’d like.”
“That’s okay. We won’t be here much longer, and we’ll only be at his parents’ house overnight. And then?—”
“Tell me where you’ll be tomorrow.”
He probably already knew her parents’ address, but she wasn’t about to give it to him if he didn’t. “We have everything we need for the weekend. Just have our stuff delivered to his office.” She grabbed the paper where Callan had written the address of an office where Caleb Thompson rented space. “You can just have the driver leave the things with the receptionist in the lobby.”
“I will have it done this afternoon. Meanwhile, you will work on your assignments. I look forward to hearing from you by Sunday night.”
She hung up the phone and then plopped on the bed, exhausted.
They had two days to ferret out Ghazi’s plan and bring him down.
She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she failed.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
It was late afternoon by the time Callan and Alyssa reached the outskirts of Augusta. Callan aimed for a bookstore that had an attached coffee shop. The rain that followed them north had finally tapered off, and sunshine peeked through the thick clouds, sparkling against the wet pavement.
“You sure you don’t want to come shopping with me?” Callan asked. “You could work later, whenever we get to the hotel.” Alyssa had reserved adjoining rooms for them while he'd driven.
“Hmm… My choices are to use my strengths to try to protect my family or shop for boring men’s clothes. What do you think?”
He shouldn’t have bothered asking. Of course she wouldn’t reconsider, even if the thought of leaving her on her own twisted something in his gut.
Callan was more impressed with this analyst-turned-cyber-investigator all the time. She had zero field experience, yet she’d played Ghazi like a cello, using both fear and frustration to cover for the lies she told.
Whether Ghazi truly believed her remained to be seen, but if he didn’t, that would be the result of a suspicious nature, not any shortcomings on Alyssa’s part.
Her father had been a top-notch spook in his day, and though she looked nothing like the dark-haired man Callan had only seen in photos, in other ways, the apple hadn’t rolled far from the tree.
He and Alyssa only had two days to figure out what Ghazi was up to before he’d expect information from her. And if she didn’t provide it…
Malcolm was working on figuring out how the Russian played into Ghazi’s plans.
