Page 48 of Stuart Woods' Golden Hour

“Tommy something, right?”

“Teddy.”

“Right. Teddy…”

“Fay.”

“Yes! Teddy Fay.” She looked happy at making the connection, but her smile waned as Billy continued to stare at her. “What?”

“Nice to meet you, Stacy. I’m Teddy Fay.”

She laughed. “Right. The one thing I do remember is that Teddy Fay is dead.” When she noticed no one else was laughing with her, she said, “He is dead, isn’t he?”

“He is not,” Peter said, shaking his head.

“Billy’s Teddy Fay?”

“He is,” Tessa said.

“How long have you two known?”

“Since about the same time we came to Hollywood,” Tessa said.

“He saved our lives, too,” Peter said.

She looked back at her boss. “If you’re Teddy Fay, why aren’t you in prison?”

“Another excellent question,” Billy said. “I’m pretty good at hiding, but more importantly, I have a presidential pardon.”

“You have a pardon?”

“I’d show it to you, but as you probably can imagine, I don’t carry it around with me.”

“So, the guy who grabbed me…?”

“Was sent to kill the man with whom I was going to meet.”

“And that man was the other dead guy,” she guessed.

“Correct.”

“Why were you meeting him?”

“Because I’m doing something for the CIA.”

She stared at him. “TheCIA? The same agency you went rogue from?”

“I’m certainly not talking about the Culinary Institute of America.” Billy motioned at the door. “There’s a team of agents in the hallway right now cleaning everything up.”

She narrowed her eyes for a moment. Then she moved to the window and pulled the curtain away enough to peek into the corridor. “My God. You weren’t lying.”

“I haven’t lied about anything.”

She turned back to him. “You mean you haven’t since we started this conversation. Because clearly—”

Billy held up a hand, stopping her. “Yes. As of this conversation.”

“And if I hadn’t seen what happened, I’d still be in the dark, wouldn’t I?”

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