“It’s late,” she said, trying to stick to the script.
Nick stuck his head out the door, doing a quick canvass of the area, then grabbed her arm. “Come inside before anyone sees you.”
And then she was inside.
He was wearing his athletic clothes, and his hair was damp, giving her the impression that he’d just returned from a late-night run. He smelled like cinnamon—Old Spice.
“McDonald case,” she said, the words coming back to her now. Why did he make her so nervous? Pyro didn’t make her nervous, with his bravado and cheesy one-liners. That, Teddy knew how to handle. But Nick? “I wanted to finish the paperwork for the case while it was still fresh in my mind. I—”
Nick turned to organize the files that were spread out along his coffee table. As he did, his T-shirt rose to reveal a stretch of smooth, muscular skin. His back was paler than she’d thought it would be, considering they lived in California. He probably worked too much to go to the beach. The illicitness of viewing skin she wasn’t supposed to see, and discovering something personal about him, stopped her in her tracks. “I misplaced my copy of the forensics report.” She paused as he turned to face her. “Do you have a copy?”
Nick came back toward Teddy. “You walked all the way down here to ask about a file?” He looked at his watch. “At eleven o’clock at night?”
“Yes?” Teddy said. Even she was unsure about it now. It had seemed logical before.
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Wh-what?” No, she didn’t want a drink. She wanted the report. He was supposed to go get the report. She was supposed to find the laptop, use Molly’s USB drive.
“A drink.” He went into a kitchenette tucked into the corner. Teddy took the minute to study her surroundings. Atop a narrow desk, pushed against one wall, was Nick’s laptop, on and open. She let out a breath. This could actually still work.
“Don’t worry, nothing alcoholic. Water, coffee, juice?” he said.
“What kind of juice?” She looked around the rest of the apartment. Behind a door that was slightly ajar, she glimpsed a bed, neatly made with a navy blue comforter. A second door was closed. A few clean plates sat in a drying rack next to the sink. A coffee cup sat next to the paperwork table. The television was broadcasting an NBA game.
“Orange.”
“Okay, sure.” Pyro had never offered her juice. She’d never given him the chance. Nick was her teacher. Yet here she was in his apartment.
He went to the fridge, took out a Golden State Warriors mug, and filled it with OJ. Their fingers brushed as she reached for it. “Thanks,” she said.
“So why are you really here, Teddy?”
She looked around the apartment. The laptop. That’s why she was really here. But she couldn’t say that. “McDonald’s forensics report.”
“And when I get it,” he said, “you’ll go?”
“Yes.” Teddy said.
“You didn’t come here because you wanted to talk about what happened today? Between you and McDonald?” His brown eyes searched hers. She knew he wanted her to share. To say that she felt shaken by Corey’s confession. But it wasn’t Corey’s confession that was rattling her.
“I came for the paperwork, Nick.”
“I’ll get it for you, then. I’ve got copies in my office. I should probably change my shirt, too.” He smiled. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
This was actually going to work. Her heart thudded in her chest, but she forced a smile. “Thanks.”
Nick walked toward the second door.
Don’t look at his ass. Focus, Cannon.
The moment the door closed behind him, she raced toward his laptop. She dug Molly’s flash drive from her pocket and plugged it in. The screensaver on Nick’s computer sputtered, flickered on and off, then went black. The machine gave a whirling, fluttery noise, as if an internal fan had clicked on high. Molly’s code flooded the screen—page after page of what looked like pure binary nonsense—as a million windows came up. For a moment, Teddy wondered if maybe the drive was a virus and not a clone. Then a progress bar popped up on the screen, showing Stavros Hard Drive. Molly hadn’t been playing her. Teddy’s heart sped right along with the little wheel as she strained to hear the sound of Nick’s return.
She clicked through prompt after prompt. Please, she thought, let him have trouble finding the papers. Finally, the progress bar reached 100 percent. Teddy jerked the flash drive from the port and thrust it back in her pocket. The door swung open behind her.
“Got the report.” He threw the paperwork down on the coffee table. He had pulled on a worn FBI sweatshirt, frayed around the cuffs. No skin to be seen.
Teddy stuffed her hands in her pockets, ran her thumb over the USB drive. “Thanks. Guess I better be going.”
She watched the muscles in his jaw work. He looked down at his hands, avoiding her gaze. “What if we met under different circumstances? What if I really was plain ol’ Nick?”
“And my name really was TeAnne?”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” she said. “But I’m not TeAnne. I’m Teddy Cannon, student at the Whitfield Institute for Law Enforcement Training and Development.”
“You could have waited until morning for that report.”
Her mission was done. She should be out the door. Back to her dorm room, on Molly’s blackmail-borrowed laptop, sifting through the files to find the one that proved Yates’s innocence. Instead, she asked: “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Nick said, taking a step closer, so close that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted to, “that I wish it were different. Don’t you?”
Yes, of course she did. In that moment, more than anything, Teddy wanted things to be different. She wished that Nick really were plain. Or old. But he had the ass of a minor Greek god, and she felt safe in his arms. He’d been with her that morning when she’d seen Corey McDonald take Marlena Hyden’s life.
