"What, why?"
"Because mine got ripped."
"How?"
Probably I'd said too much already. "Oh, the usual way."
In a tight voice, she said, "Thereisno usual way."
"All right, fine," I said. "There was this little altercation with these two girls, but it was nothing, so don't worry."
"But—"
"Forget that," I said. "Jack should be back any minute." In reality, heshould'vebeen back a while ago. But that wasn't worth mentioning, so I cut to the chase. "Why would you warn me not to work for him?" I tried to laugh. "Don't tell me he's a serial killer or something."
But my sisterwasn'tlaughing. "If he were, I'd be flying up there to get you myself."
Knowing my sister, she probably would. Still, I didn't get why she was so concerned. "Okay, so what's wrong with him?"
"Nothing'swrongwith him," she said. "But he'sreallysecretive."
"Yeah. No kidding." On our way to Atlanta, I'd spent nearly three hours alone with him on his private jet, and he hadn't said more than a dozen words to me the whole time.
In cheerier news, he'd lookedverygood doing it.
On the phone, my sister was saying, "I think he might've been a spy or something. Or maybe he still is."
Now I couldn't help but laugh. Normally my sister was one of the most sensible people I knew. This wasnotone of those times. "Oh, stop it."
"I'm not kidding," she said. "He broke into Flynn's house."
I stopped laughing. "Really? So he stole stuff?"
"No. It was more like a game."
"What kind of game?"
"Well…Flynn has this amazing security system.No onecan get past it." After a dramatic pause, she added, "Except for Jack. I saw it myself."
I envisioned Flynn's estate. Even the yard was practically a fortress. "So he got past the gate?"
"Not just the gate," she said. "The house, too, meaning theinside."
I tried to think. "Well, maybe Flynn gave him a key. After all, you gavemeone."
"That's not it," she said. "Trust me. Jack has nothing – no remote to the gate, no key to the house, and no alarm code either."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. Flynn told me so himself."
"So…Is Jackstillbreaking in?"
"No. Not since the engagement, anyway."
"I can see why," I said. "He probably doesn't want to scare the pants off you."
"Yeah, but it's still kind of scary. Like, how does he do that?"
