She was supposed to meet Nick in the lobby. She’d received those instructions from the secretary in the front office before she’d left campus that morning with her day pass. Teddy was sure Nick would’ve liked to tell her directly, but she had avoided being alone with him since That Night.
Because she felt bad. For manipulating him, yes. But mostly because she’d gotten something she’d wanted for all the wrong reasons. She now sounded like a story in Chicken Soup for the Messed-up Millennial Psychic Soul. Once Teddy would have written it off. Given herself props for bagging a guy like Nick.
She smiled when she looked up to see Nick waiting by the reception desk, dressed in the standard FBI suit.
“You’re here,” he said, the left corner of his mouth ticking up slightly. God, she wanted to kiss him right there. But that wasn’t part of the plan.
She took out the piece of paper with the note from the secretary. “As directed.”
Nick cleared his throat, shifted on the balls of his feet. All tells, Teddy knew. He was nervous. “I was thinking maybe we could talk before we start?”
Teddy sucked in a breath. They couldn’t talk. If they talked, Teddy wasn’t sure she could go through with this, as much as she wanted one more moment with plain ol’ Nick. She looked around the lobby, playing up the nerves she was already feeling. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Nick followed Teddy’s gaze. “I guess you’re right.” He reached for her hand, then stopped himself. “If you’ll follow me, Ms. Cannon.”
They checked in with a security guard, who scanned her ID, snapped her photo, and issued a visitor’s pass. The security guard waved Nick ahead and directed Teddy through a metal detector. No problem there. She wasn’t carrying a weapon.
Next, however, came the X-ray machine. This was where things could get sticky. Teddy knew that visitors were not permitted to bring cell phones or other electronic devices into the building. This would be her first test. Teddy placed her clutch on the moving belt and braced herself.
“Hey, Nick!” a man called over from the elevators a few feet away. “Did you hear we finally got a call from Lambert?”
Nick turned to Teddy. “One second,” he said.
She couldn’t have asked for better timing.
Teddy watched as the security guard flicked the button to pause the belt once her purse was inside the scanner. Fixing an expression of polite interest on her face, she reached out to his mind. Nothing here, she said. Scan clear. Move on.
When someone fought against her influence, she felt like she was swimming against a current. The inky darkness of the security guard’s mind churned like an ocean before a storm. He was resisting her command. She swallowed the taste of bile.
Nothing here. Scan clear. Move on.
The last wave crashed and the ocean settled, now smooth as glass. The security guard’s face slackened, and his pupils expanded. He flicked the button again, sending her purse out the other end of the X-ray machine. Teddy watched his pupils return to their normal size.
“Thanks,” she said as she walked slowly toward Nick. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the security guard rub his temple as if he had a headache.
Check.
She joined Nick at the elevator, still uneasy from the effort. Teddy toyed with her clutch, her fingers tracing the outline of her cell phone.
“I thought we’d start at the crime lab,” he said. “That’s probably the most interesting place here.”
As much as Teddy actually wanted to see forensic equipment, she had a mission, and time was running out. “We could start with your office,” she said. She chewed her bottom lip. There were only so many moves she could make. “I was thinking about what you said earlier. Maybe we should talk.”
He stared at her. Two minutes ago, she’d been trying to keep it professional. And now . . . if she were a guy, she’d think girls were crazy, too.
“What changed in the two minutes since I went to talk to Bradley?”
She sighed. “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know, I’ve never done this before.”
“Done what before?” Nick asked.
A bell pinged and the elevator door slid open. Teddy stepped inside, her hand hovering at the number pad. “Gone on a tour of the FBI? Tried a relationship with someone I actually liked?”
“So you like cops now, huh?” The left side of Nick’s mouth curved up again. He followed her into the elevator. “Sixth floor.”
Luckily, she was saved from any further awkward conversation as two other people entered the elevator. When the doors opened on the sixth floor, she followed Nick down the hall. He ushered her inside his office, his hand barely grazing the small of her back. As soon as the door was closed, Teddy crossed the room to Nick’s desk. She casually set down her clutch. All she had to do was insert the flash drive in his computer and upload the malware.
But now that she was actually in Nick’s office, Teddy understood that this would be harder than she had thought. She would have to convince Nick to leave her alone in the room—either by means of her own wiles or by mental influence.
“So, you want to explain what this is all about?” he asked. He took his suit jacket off and hung it on a peg behind his door. He crossed his arms over his chest, causing his shirt to bunch over his biceps.
Teddy’s stomach lurched. Carefully, she said, “What do you mean?”
“They teach us stuff at Quantico, you know. But I don’t have to be an FBI agent to see that you’re scared.”
Of course she was scared. She was scared this whole thing would backfire at any second, in the dozens of ways she had imagined and the millions of ways she could never anticipate. Teddy took a deep breath. If she was going to influence him, the time
