Page 21 of Hot Pursuit
@TheGourmetGoddess: If you need a recipe for a great ebony fondant, let me know. I have two go-to formulas, one using cocoa powder for a chocolate flavor, and one for vanilla that uses a perfect ratio of different dyes to get a deep, rich color.
@Sprinkle-Ella: Please send! The struggle is real. My boss said I needed to step out of my comfort zone. But I ask you, what is wrong with sugar flowers, lace piping, fondant ribbons, and a gold accent here and there? Nothing! Nothing!!
@TheGourmetGoddess: Relax, killer. Don’t bust a tiara…
Jo snorted at McKenzie’s comment and popped the last bite of macaroon through her lips, sighing with satisfaction as the nutty almond and sweet coconut flavors exploded in her mouth, perfectly accented by the hints of lavender in the jelly. Her food tour of Greenwich Village had not disappointed. She was high on the sugar, her stomach ached from being too full, and every calorie had been absolutely worth it. With all four of the bakeries she’d wanted to visit crossed off her list, it was time to get to work. She was supposed to meet Thad in forty-five minutes, which left just enough time to lose her tail and catch a subway uptown.
Jo turned to glance over her shoulder.
Agents Parker and Alvarez were parked three cars back at the other end of the street. She waved. Nathaniel dropped the binoculars, and even from this distance, Jo thought she noticed a frown across his alluring lips. At first, she’d been toying with him for the fun of it, for the entertainment and the challenge. But Jo had to admit, she almost respected his steadfast loyalty to the rules. There was something admirable in it. Something undeniably charming, almost sexy, in the way he refused to give in to her taunts, to her game. Something—
Jo shook her head and turned back around.Something I shouldn’t be feeling or thinking about. Not now. Not ever.
She took a deep breath and grabbed her bag, then stood, reluctant to leave the peaceful spot where she’d been sitting for the past twenty minutes—a chair outside of a small coffee shop, situated directly in the warm sun, right next to a little park. Nothing went better with macaroons than a fresh latte. This was New York City at its best.
Now I’ve got to be me, at my worst.
Jo stepped back through the glass door to the café, making for the bathroom. Once inside, she let her bag slip to the floor and crouched, searching through her things for the small set of precision screwdrivers she kept with her at all times—meant for making jewelry, but they worked perfectly for picking locks, or in this case, popping her cell phone casing open. Jo kept the device for purely personal reasons—social media for her baking blog, chatting with her friends. But she wasn’t a fool. She knew the FBI could track her location—heck, could probably see everything she was doing, maybe even record her voice through the microphone if she wasn’t careful. So before meeting Thad, it had to be off. Not just turned off, but battery-out off. Completely dead and undetectable. A turn of the screwdriver, a pop, a twist, a quick unplug, and she was good to go.
Jo walked out of the bathroom, keeping an eye on the man in the corner who’d been working on his laptop—an undercover agent, she suspected, judging by the way his hoodie was pulled up to cover his ears and the casual glances he’d been sending her way.
They made eye contact briefly.
Yup. Definitely undercover. And probably just alerted that my cell phone went offline.Jo didn’t stand down. She held his gaze, waiting for him to look away, and then smirked.Well, boys. Let the games begin.
Jo cut through the back hallway, past the kitchen, not caring as a voice called that she wasn’t supposed to be back there, that it was for staff only. She’d looked the building plans up a few days ago and picked this bakery as her last one specifically because it had a back door that opened to a small side street, close to the West Fourth subway station, which had enough platforms and enough staircases to lose the Feds.
Jo slipped through the door and into the street, then shifted into an all-out sprint. Turning one corner. Then another. The streets were smaller down here than they were in midtown where the city was mostly in a grid, which gave her the advantage. Within two minutes, she was running down the subway steps, taking them two at a time. The Feds followed her, she was sure. She hadn’t lost them yet, but she just needed to stay one step ahead, and she’d be fine.
After paying for the ride, she followed two more sets of steps down until she reached the bottom level of tracks, and then slipped around to the back side of a staircase, pressing herself against the concrete wall, which was wide enough to hide four of her.
Because it was New York, no one stared as she pulled a black wig from her bag and slipped it carefully over her bun, pressing any straying auburn strands under the edge. Then she pulled a brown dress over her head, tugged the cotton sleeves all the way down to her wrists, and spread the black hair over her shoulders to hide any bits of blue from sight. Large black-rimmed glasses with rose-tinted lenses went over her eyes. And then she opened a compact and held it around the bend, looking into the reflection to see if any bodies came running down the steps after her.
Two men in street clothes barreled through the crowd. Jo shut her mirror and dropped it back into her bag, the only thing she hadn’t camouflaged. But it was beige, hardly enough to stand out, and she kept it by her knees just in case.
Two minutes went by, during which Jo stepped far enough away from the concrete steps to not be so obviously hiding behind them, but close enough to still have cover. The agents split. One ran right by her as she kept her chin ducked, pretending to play with the dead phone in her hands. A train finally came. The agent within sight stepped on, bringing a smile to her lips as Jo joined the line of people exiting the train, molding to the crowd and following the pack back up the stairs where she’d come. Jo cut her way across the station to a different platform and got there right as an uptown train came to a stop.
Easy-peasy.
No more Feds.
Twenty minutes later, she found Thad sitting on a bench in Central Park wearing a blond wig and a tailored gray suit, with a sandwich foil open on his lap—the image of an unconcerned businessman taking his lunch break. If not for the telltale dimples digging into his cheeks, she might not have noticed him right away.
“You got away no problem?” he asked as she sat down on the other end of the bench.
Jo smiled. “Obviously. You?”
“No problem.” He took a bite and paused to chew, keeping his eyes on the field spread out before them, searching for anyone who might be glancing their way. “They had undercover agents parked outside the museum, the auction house, and the townhome. I took a long walk, letting them see me go by each one, not stopping long enough to take note of anything of importance. Then I lost my tail, got in disguise, and circled back to the target. There are two traffic cameras that might have the front door of the house within view, and another where we’re planning the getaway, not to mention the private security we already know about.”
Jo shrugged. “Easy enough to deal with.”
“My thought too,” he said with a nod and took another bite. “There were trucks parked outside, starting to set up for the gala. I pretended one of the movers bumped into me and started an argument on the street, behind the side of the truck where the street cams couldn’t see. In the commotion, I slipped the router you wanted me to plant onto the underside of one of the tables.”
“Good.”
The device wasn’t a router, per se. That was just the easiest way she’d been able to explain it to Thad and her father. In reality, it sent out a signal only her computer could detect, allowing her to easily hack her way through the firewalls by turning her foreign device into one recognized as internal by the system. Highly illegal. But what else was new? When she got back to her hotel, she’d have access to the house’s internet, which should let her go into the security system without detection. From there, she could do pretty much whatever she wanted.
“That agent still on your ass?” Thad murmured, recapturing her attention. Jo grinned. She’d told him about her antics with Agent Parker, and suffice it to say, Thad had not been amused.
