Page 61 of Love Undercover
They both crouched to clean up the items that had escaped.
“Kyle headed out, and I wanted to make sure we were all set and ready to leave.”
“Right.” Her stomach flipped as she scooped the random knick-knacks that had no business being in her purse back into it. She really needed to clean it out. It was a little ridiculous to find the still in-package toothbrush she’d gotten at her last dentist appointment almost four months ago and, not one, but two half-filled boxes of crayons.
At least she’d found her lip balm. Her fingers closed over it and something else that had skittered under the bed, and she pulled it out while Chase shoved the rest of her spilled stuff into the purse.
She palmed the lip balm and held up the other object to get a good look in case it was more nonsense or something she could throw out.
A flash drive? Tipping her head to the side, she tried to remember when the last time she’d used a flash drive was. Her new laptop didn’t even have a port for one.
Every muscle in her body snapped tight as she sucked in a breath. Chase must have thought she was in pain or something because he reached out like he was going to yank her to him.
She just shook her head to ward him off and held up the innocuous-looking flash drive for him to see.
His brow wrinkled. “What?”
“This isn’t mine.” Her pulse throbbed in her ears.
She thought about the people who were looking for her, the feds who’d questioned her, and the way Greg had acted when they’d run into each other that day. He’d been nervous. But he’d also been uncharacteristically friendly without asking a thing of her. And he’d given her that really awkward hug.
“Sadie, what are you saying?” Chase’s voice was edged with apprehension, cracking on the air.
She cringed as it bit through the slowly building panic stirring in her chest. “I-I don’t know. I just. . . It’s not mine. And Greg hugged me that day.” Her shoulders inched upward at the memory. “Like, wrapped his arms around me so oddly.”
They both lifted their eyes, green locking with hazel, and she felt a twang down to her toes.
He snatched the drive and slipped a hand under her arm to help her to her feet. “You got everything?”
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her, his mind already turning things around. The vibration of energy rolling off him as he turned toward the door was palpable, and she hurried to follow him out to the living room.
He yanked his duffel from behind the dilapidated couch, sliding out a bulky, black laptop, different than the one he’d used before. This one was heavy-duty.
He sat on the couch, looking up at her with a quirk of his brows like a question, as if he were asking if she was joining, and she sat, his hand going to her thigh for the briefest of reassuring touches. A spot in her middle warmed to have him take the time despite the circumstances and his tension.
One of his fingers tapped against the edge of the computer screen, which was the only real indication that he was anxious about what they might find on the flash drive. His expression remained unreadable otherwise.
She felt her own stress inside, but it bubbled and simmered down deep because she still didn’t know the depth of the implications associated with it. Her job—her life—didn’t depend on it.
Or maybe they did because that was the whole reason she was here, forever changed after a chance encounter with an ex she’d had no intention of ever talking to again. He’d pulled her intothis with his idiotic attempts to get ahead in life. It made her angry that even though she’d wasted all that time with him, shehadcut ties. And still he’d pulled her back in, put her in danger. He’d specifically chosen to go to her apartment, intentionally putting that target on her back. He’d waited for her at the coffee shop, one he’d scorned in the past. It wasn’t a chance encounter. Fiona had been right.
She shoved the anger down as Chase plugged the drive into the port and a file appeared on his desktop, popping up brazenly like it wasn’t possibly life-changing for both of them—the reason for the tangled situation they were in.
It was in slow motion that he moved the mouse to click on it. And when it opened, none of the letters formed comprehensible words. Then she realized it was a list of names, though none of them meant anything to her. At first.
And then she started to recognize some of them. Names that sent darts of shock through her. Seeing these people who shouldn’t have been on a list that belonged to a corrupt white-collar criminal hammered her with dread and fear.
She glanced at Chase, and the speed with which he was reading through the names concerned her. Especially because of the way his muscles bunched and tightened.
Then he abruptly stood from the couch, setting the laptop on the coffee table. He stared at the screen, breathing hard, his fists clenching and unclenching.
She leaned forward. “What is it?”
He spared her the briefest of glances before he turned to his duffel bag, pulling out his gun and checking for ammo.
His reaction scared her. But so did the stiffness in his body, his silence, the length of the list on the screen.
Obviously she didn’t know every name on it, but the ones she saw, the ones that shocked her, gave her a small inkling of what they might be dealing with. A district attorney she’d met once,a couple of judges who’d presided over some major cases she’d heard about in the news.
