Page 1 of Dangerous Mission

Terri

Terri Fugate stareddown the six-foot Secret Service agent, who was dressed in a standard-issue black suit. She couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark glasses, but she assumed he was glaring right back at her. Not many of the agents liked her, but the feeling was mutual.

When she was young, her mom and dad had sat her down and explained that her father wanted to do good in the world, and the whole family would support his endeavor. No matter how much Terri didn’t want to be in the public eye, she didn’t have a choice. Lucky for her, growing up, she’d had Axel.

For a second, her mind went blank. She hadn’t thought about him in years. Well, that was a partial lie. She thought about him each time his sisters were in a new blockbuster movie or when she visited military bases, wondering whether he was in the crowd.

She took a deep breath and cleared her thoughts. Axel was in her past, and she couldn’t do anything to change what had happened seventeen years ago. But she could ditch her security and help the woman in danger. Her father had upped her detail, which made escaping from their watch harder.

Terri was the face of a program combating human trafficking but nothing more. Her father and the director of the FBI had made that choice. The FBI ran the program she’d spent years putting into place. After the funding was passed, the National Security Administration had picked up an increased number of death and kidnapping threats against her. Those kinds of messages toward her and her siblings weren’t uncommon. The only difference was that her brother and sister listened to everything dear old Dad said. Terri, on the other hand, loved to march to her own beat.

The agent cleared his throat, drawing her back to the fact he was glued to her ass.

Agent Growly and Agent Grunt were new to her. Her last agents had helped in her journey to do good, but they were reassigned after her father found out she’d manipulated them. The new guys didn’t allow her out of their sight and insisted she not get involved in matters they felt were dangerous. So she had to ditch them, because she wanted to check out a tip she’d gotten in a DM from a person on TikTok.

Terri had gotten tips like that before. Every time, the information she was given was spot on. So Operation Ditch the Secret Service needed to happen.

“You’re not coming into the dressing room with me.” Terri stood with one hand on her hip. In her other hand, she held three bras and see-through lingerie.Who knew a woman’s store would make the Secret Service agent uncomfortable?Well, Terri did.

“Orders are not to leave you alone.”

“Well,hedidn’t come in.” She pointed at the second bodyguard, who stood outside the door with a scowl on his face. She hadn’t even learned the new guy’s name, hence the nickname Agent Grunt.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Let me check the back room, then you can try those things on. Once in the dressing room, you have five minutes to come back out, or I’ll come see what’s taking so long.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer and stepped past her and into the back area. The sales associates watched the interaction. Most people knew of her simply because she was the president’s daughter, but the younger generation followed her social media platform. Terri had created it as an outlet where she discussed the dangers of human trafficking. She wanted to bring awareness to how easily people were taken from clubs.

Being the president’s daughter, she saw things that haunted her dreams. She’d lost a close friend to human trafficking when she was in college. Terri blamed herself for the night her friend disappeared from the club. They’d both drunk too much and found a group of guys. At the time, her father wasn’t president, and she didn’t have security. Lila, her friend, went to the bathroom and never came back. Terri used every contact she had and still never found her.

Her father had supported her when she worked to create the human trafficking task force, but he didn’t want her too deeply involved. When she’d sat down with the director of the FBI and talked about trafficking, he told her to leave those worries to them. Nobody took her seriously because of the years she’d spent partying and not growing up. Or it was because she looked like a Victoria's Secret model. Her long blond hair, blue eyes, and size-zero waist made her stand out. Her mom had pushed her into the fashion industry, which she’d done for one year out of high school, but she knew it wasn’t for her and had gone to college.

Agent Growly walked out of the back room and told her it was clear. She waved the young woman over. “Can you come with me to try these on?” Whenever she walked into a store, associates got excited because they knew she would spend a lot of money.

The woman nodded and followed her to the back room.

Before the door had even clicked closed, she turned to the sales associate. “I need you to help me escape.” Terri shoved her hand into her large Hermes bag and pulled out three hundred dollars. “All I need you to do is stay next to me for five minutes then press the alarm on the back door. I’m going to hide in the dressing room. When they run outside, I’ll leave.” Terri set a five-minute timer on her phone.

A smile spread across the woman’s face. “I would do this for free.” She shoved the money back toward her. “Something’s off with the agent standing out there. My mom always told me to trust my gut, and my gut says he’s no good, which should be insane since he’s Secret Service. He probably had his whole life dug into.”

Terri wouldn’t go into detail about how bad guys still made it into the Secret Service. “Keep the money. Buy yourself something nice. He’s on edge because they expect me to run. I’m sorry—I didn’t catch your name.”

“Jamie Miles.” She chewed on her lip for a second. “Are you sure you should run? I thought they were there to protect you and do what you want. What could you possibly be doing that they couldn’t come along for?”

“Theyareput in place for my protection, but sometimes it’s nice to escape the added security. I want to spend my day at the park. As long as they’re with me, I can’t get any peace.” She didn’t want to tell the woman the real reason for her escape. Inside she felt bad for the white lie about wanting to spend time at the park, but she had to get away from them.

The agents did make it harder to hide from the world. Also, her face gracing the cover of many magazines over the years—another thing her father wanted—didn’t help. Every story was about the family's charity work helping the homeless. She loved doing that, but the more popular her dad got, the less they let her volunteer at any shelters, which in turn made it harder to find information on missing teenagers and women.

“I understand.” Jamie’s button nose scrunched. “Well, I don’t completely understand, but I assume your life isn’t what everyone thinks.”

“No, it’s not.” Her timer buzzed. “It’s go time. Find me on TikTok and send me a private message. I owe you more than you can imagine.”

Terri stepped into the changing room and stood behind the doors. Her heart raced as the alarm sounded in the back room.

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before the door to the back area burst open. “Where is she?” Agent Growly yelled.

“She pushed me down and ran out the back door.” Jamie’s voice shook as she spoke.

If I could see her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had tears in her eyes.

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