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Finally, when she felt like she could speak without sounding as though she hadn’t drawn breath in twenty minutes, she said, “I could probably use something to eat now, if that’s okay.”

He nodded, glad for the distraction. “Yeah, sure. Check out the room service menu.” Glancing at his watch, he added, “Maybe we should order something for Lily, too.”

“Do you think she’ll be back so soon? What if this creep shows up and wants to talk?”

Alec, who had walked to the desk to retrieve a leather-encased room service menu, tilted his head in confusion. “What creep?”

“This pedophile she’s after.”

He still appeared puzzled.

“I guess it’s another case you guys are working on? She said she was going into a chat room posing as a little girl to try to lure a pedophile.”

With a frown, he admitted, “Doesn’t sound like something Blackstone’s team is supposed to be dealing with.”

“Don’t you mean your team?”

Sheepish, he nodded. “Right. I guess I’m just not used to that yet.”

Again, she wondered about the reason for his transfer. He had never come out and said exactly why he had taken it, but from the few things he had let drop, and Lily’s brief comments earlier tonight, she sensed the topic was a sticky one.

Things had been sticky enough tonight. So she avoided even going there.

“Why wouldn’t your group work on a pedophile case? Isn’t that exactly what the Cyber Action Teams do?”

“Not this one. Their-our focus is a little narrower. We look at murders with an Internet connection.”

“Oh.” She blew out a soft breath. “Then this pedophile, he must be someone who…”

“Yeah, he must.”

Though the idea that a sick degenerate was out there trying to find a child to molest and kill filled her with revulsion, Sam didn’t ask any more questions. She was in an odd position: a civilian, yet so wrapped up in an investigation she’d started feeling right at home with the investigators. She wasn’t one of them, however, and had no business being inquisitive.

Nor was she sure she really wanted to know any additional details. The one ugly corner of the world she had been sucked into was enough. She didn’t want to visit any more of them if she could help it.

Taking the menu, she glanced over it, told Alec what she wanted, and watched him call in an order. The tension eased, the simple act of deciding on dinner cutting through some of the physical awareness. It wasn’t gone, merely banked for now, set aside to deal with at a more appropriate time.

And that turned out to be a good thing. Because their evening together stretched out a lot longer than either of them had anticipated. A whole lot longer.

“It’s eleven o’clock; where the hell is she?” Alec asked later that night. They had expected to see Agent Fletcher back by nine and had easily filled the first couple of hours with dinner and some casual conversation, back-and-forth chitchat more appropriate to a first date than a night at a safe house.

Of course, given the tension simmering between them, they had moved far beyond first-date territory. At least, her first-date territory, though it had been so long since she’d had any kind of date, she couldn’t be sure.

“Isn’t this good news? I mean, doesn’t it mean she was successful in trying to get the guy she’s after to talk to her?”

“I suppose,” he said, not sounding convinced. The tension that had slipped away over the last couple of hours had eased back, evidenced by the tense set of his jaw and the stiffness of his shoulders.

“Still no answer on her cell phone?” she asked as she watched him try to call again, then slam the phone shut.

“No.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t like this.”

“I’m okay staying by myself, really.”

He looked at her as if she’d said something utterly ridiculous. “I mean, I’m worried about Fletcher.”

“Oh.” Noting the lines on his brow as his frown deepened, she knew he meant it. He wasn’t frustrated about having to sit here with her and pretend they hadn’t kissed a couple of hours ago. He was genuinely concerned about his colleague. Which increased her concern about the other woman, too.

“This pedophile investigation, what else did she say about it?”

“Nothing more than I already told you.” She racked her brain, trying to recall every word. “She got a call, said she couldn’t help out with it because she had to babysit me; then you showed up and she realized she could go after all.”

“Who called?”

Sam closed her eyes to concentrate.

“Taggert and Mulrooney were with me all day; Jackie went home to her kids. Was it Brandon? Wyatt?”

She shook her head. “No. I would have remembered if she had said one of their names. It was something else-Anderson? Wait, I think she said Anspaugh.”

“There’s nobody named Anspaugh on our team.”

“Well, she certainly didn’t sound like she was making it up,” Sam said, truly confused.

About to go on asking why another agent would conceal her investigation from her own coworkers, she was interrupted by a brief knock on the door. As Lily had before him, Alec approached it carefully, flinging it open only after he peered out and obviously recognized whoever was on the other side of it.

“I’m so sorry,” Lily Fletcher said as she pushed past him into the room.

“Where the hell have you been?”

The blonde’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t mean to inconvenience you…”

“It’s not the inconvenience. It’s you dropping off the face of the earth, not answering your phone. And a pedophile investigation? Why haven’t I heard about it? What is going on?”

Lily looked back and forth between Sam and Alec. The other woman certainly hadn’t asked Sam not to say anything about the mysterious errand she had to run, yet Sam still felt a little embarrassed, as if she’d betrayed a trust.

“I’m helping another CAT, trying to track a pedophile who operated at Satan’s Playground. He slipped through the cracks then; we think we have a line on him now.”

Alec crossed his arms and leaned against the small kitchen counter. “Why did you say you could cover Jackie’s assignment here, then? Wyatt could have called one of us back sooner.”

Seeing a slight flush in Lily’s cheeks, Sam suddenly rose. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, heading into the bedroom. The aura of secrecy surrounding Agent Fletcher was undeniable. The other woman’s color was high, her eyes bright. Excitement and nervousness had wafted off her from the minute she’d returned, and, though they were close to the elevator, she had been out of breath, as if her heart were racing after a run.

Oh, yes. The agent was hiding something.

Sam shut the door behind her and stayed in the bedroom, trying not to hear the voices. It wasn’t difficult; there was just a low, dull hum, indistinguishable as anything more than brief conversation.

Then Alec’s voice grew a lot louder. “You mean Wyatt doesn’t know? He didn’t approve this? Damn it, Lily!”

More mumbling. Sam winced, feeling sorry for Lily. Because as intimidating as Alec probably was right now at having been kept out of the loop, their boss, Wyatt Blackstone, would be much worse. Sam found his very presence intimidating. Strong and intense, serious and intuitive, he didn’t look like someone who even knew how to crack a joke. She suspected a mind like his was always going, always working. As if he could read the thoughts of everyone around him, anticipate their actions.

Well, one thing was sure: He hadn’t known what Lily Fletcher was thinking, and he apparently hadn’t anticipated her actions.

Which, she suspected, meant some very serious trouble was heading straight at the pretty young agent.

Though there were three state penitentiaries in Maryland, James T. Flynt was incarcerated in the closest, in a town just south of Baltimore. Since they didn’t have to leave too early for their one p.m. meeting, or allow much time for the drive, Alec spent much of the morning planning his interview with the convicted felon.