Chapter 3 #2
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.” She opened the glove box, set her personal phone to airplane mode and deposited it inside. “Toss yours in there too?”
When they’d first started dating, she’d explained that she couldn’t take her phone into work for security reasons.
True, but not because of the bullshit she’d fed him about being discreet on behalf of their clients.
Intelligence agencies didn’t permit recording devices through the door.
No phones, cameras, smart watches… Hell, even Furbys were banned.
John added his phone to the box.
By the time they reached the entrance to her office suite, the pit in her stomach had grown to a house-swallowing sinkhole. Oh great, now her hands were shaking. She should have had a better grip on her biometric stress responses.
“I’ve got a visitor,” she said to Lawrence, the security guard who regularly worked weekends, as she laid her badge against the sensor. “Lots of people here?”
Hopefully not. She didn’t want everyone to crowd John.
She passed through the metal detector. No beep.
“Not today.” Lawrence flipped through the list of expected visitors. “Vacation season. ID?”
John handed Lawrence his passport. The security guard looked at it, then at John. After doing this twice more, he scanned John’s passport into the system.
“Pockets?” Lawrence asked.
John dropped his wallet, Zippo and a flash drive into the waiting plastic basket, then stepped through the metal detector at Lawrence’s signal.
Vivian widened her eyes. What the fuck was he doing with a drive?
While the security guard was busy with John, she palmed the drive and shoved it into her tote.
Recording devices were problematic; tools for copying gigs of data were treasonous.
“Boss said you’re in room five,” Lawrence said. “Please escort your guest.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Follow me, John.”
Their footsteps echoed as she led him to the room.
John caught her hand. “So this is your home away from home?”
Her stomach’s sinkhole grew to an abyss. She’d been an excellent secret-keeper her whole life. First for herself, then for the agency and her country. Revealing the truth, however, was new territory.
She’d start simple.
“Yes,” she answered. “When I’m not traveling or curating exhibits, I’m here.”
“Huh. I expected to see your clients’ work.” He gestured to a hastily framed John Singer Sargent print a GS-4 staffer had bought at IKEA. “Not art posters.”
“It sells fast,” she said.
That was a half truth. Her clients’ work never lasted long in a gallery. But he was right to question the decor of a supposed art brokerage firm. On the off-off-off chance civilians gained unescorted access to their suite, they’d lightly camouflaged their satellite office’s hallways.
Not enough, apparently.
“Here we are.” She opened the interrogation room’s door.
This was it. Inside the room were a big wall mirror, a table on which the polygraph machine rested, and two chairs. What was he thinking? Nerves pinballed inside her harder than they had during weapons training at the Farm.
“Whoa.” John entered. “Is this a conceptual piece?”
Oh God. This sweet, innocent man thought the polygraph machine was art.
“No.” Fear clogged her throat.
If she didn’t tell him the truth, she couldn’t marry him. By telling him, she might lose him. Rock and a hard place? This was more like that Star Wars trash compactor thing, closing in on her from all sides.
Get it to-fucking-gether, Flint.
She cleared her throat. “You should sit, John.”
The hitch in her voice caught his attention. “What’s wrong, Gorgeous?”
Oh, nothing. I’m on the precipice of my life drastically changing, and there’s nothing I can do about it except take a swan dive.
“I’ll tell you after you sit.”
“Okay.” Warmth lingered after he dropped into the interview chair. “What’s up? Are you sick? Married? About to break up with me?”
“What? No, never.” She took a deep breath and notched her fists on her hips. Superhero pose, which should have boosted her confidence.
It did not.
“I don’t know how to break this to you gently.” She blew out her lips. “So I’m ripping off the bandage. My real name is Vivian Flint. I’m an intelligence officer for the CIA.”
The color drained from John’s face. Nope, wait—some color stayed. Greenish yellow. Sort of a puce, edged in white.
“Am I under investigation?”
“No.” She crouched in front of him and wrapped her hands around his. “Officers are instructed not to disclose their agency attachment until a relationship gets serious, and—”
“Gets serious?” John withdrew his hands. “We’ve been serious. At least, I’ve been.”
She was fucking this up.
“Me too, but John, I couldn’t figure out when I should—”
He pushed back in his chair. “Wait. You’ve been lying to me for a year, Jane?”
“Vivian. And it wasn’t my choice.” She backed up, allowing him room to pace, his preferred method of blowing off steam.
“I was following protocol. Some people don’t even tell their kids.
But before we can get married, you need to submit to a polygraph.
It’s the final part of the background check the agency initiated when we started dating. ”
He shook his head. “What else don’t I know about you?”
Her engagement ring bit into her knotted fingers.
“I’m from Baltimore, not Denver.” With the floodgates opened, truth spilled from her faster than a swollen river.
“My parents are alive. My mom’s a bank teller.
My dad’s an HVAC installer. I’m one of five kids—two older brothers and two younger sisters, all overachievers.
But you know lots about me. My favorite movies, my favorite paintings and my game night dominance—those are all real.
And I’m really dyslexic, hate heights and can hold my breath for five minutes. ”
The wall clock’s hands ticked like a bomb.
After the longest minute of her life, he blinked.
“I can’t say it’s nice to meet you, Vivian Flint.” John’s clouded expression was new to her. “Unlike you, I don’t lie.”
She couldn’t breathe.