Chapter 1 #2
“Anderson Holt pocketed his phone and approached me with his deceptively lazy stride, his inscrutable and bottomless dark brown eyes assessing me head to toe and back up, like a walking CT scan.” Alice sidled closer to her purse.
If she could get a call into the school office…
Or should she go straight for 911? She kept her eyes on the man, who was reading aloud from his phone.
“I half-expected to hear beeping as he analyzed me and computed my disheveled appearance and what it might mean. A Navy SEAL turned CIA case officer, Holt was legendarily sharp. The guy picked up languages like regular people picked up takeout. I didn’t know if he’d ever worked as a honeypot—a ‘raven’ in his case, being male—but I was pretty sure he could reel in anyone: male, female or other; gay, straight or other. He had that much allure.”
Alice slid a hand into her purse, feeling her way. Tissues. Deodorant. Lip gloss. She risked a glance but—yeah—a black phone in a black-lined purse? How many times had she vowed to buy a bright cover?
“Not a man to be underestimated,” he continued, still focused on the ebook, “no matter how carefully he cultivated that laid-back, unshaven, fresh-from-the-beach appearance.”
Alice’s little finger brushed the phone screen.
She inched it out. Holding it low, she thumbed through her contacts, her breath catching.
In her peripheral vision, she caught movement—the garbage guy vaulting clean over her desk.
She spun away and pressed “call” on the first school number she saw: the dance teacher.
Before it could dial, he caught her from behind and whisked away the phone and scissors.
He ended the call and released her. She made a break for the door but he got there first, with time to spare.
“You’re a regular Flash Gordon,” she said breathlessly.
He gave an abrupt laugh and eyed her curiously for several seconds longer than was socially acceptable before leaning back on the door and scrolling through her contacts.
“A body like that was ninety-nine percent deterrent,” he recited.
“I’d rarely seen him use it to get his way. Possessing it was enough.”
She backed toward her desk. “You memorized that line?”
“I remember most things I read, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.
You know me, Alice.” He met her eyes again, raising an eyebrow, and again it was just a beat longer than was comfortable to be stared at by a guy like that.
“Surprisingly well. Here, have these back, in case they make you feel more secure.” He tossed the scissors.
By the clatter, she guessed they’d landed on her desk behind her.
His gaze looped across the windows again.
She checked over her shoulder. What was he looking for?
There were just kids shooting hoops, the thunk-thunk-thunk-bang echoing around the horseshoe of classrooms. Was it time to scream yet?
“Relax. I have no intention of hurting you. I need your help.” He said the last bit like he was annoyed about it.
“You still haven’t told me who you are.”
He slipped her phone into a pocket and resumed reading from the book.
“I was a gray agent, so plain and unremarkable that people looked right through me and didn’t remember me from one day to the next.
But Holt? I don’t know how he got away with being so striking, working in clandestine ops, though his record spoke for itself.
Maybe he used his memorability like I used my anonymity.
” The guy pushed off the door and rolled his shoulders. “Kinda liking this version of me.”
Whoa.
Rewind…
He thought he was Anderson Holt?
An obsessed fan? Alice’s butt touched her desk and she flailed behind her for the scissors.
No surprise that he’d taken a liking to the character—even she had a crush on her super-spy antihero.
And the way he read it, with a growly nonchalance that reverberated right into her chest…
But she wasn’t nearly famous enough to have fans, regular or obsessed.
Last she checked, the ebook had sold seventy-three copies, mostly to her sister Kimberly’s clients, each sale no doubt secured under duress. No need to slap an injunction on it.
She sneaked a look at the clock. Twenty minutes until bell time, when the student cavalry would drag themselves through the door and her world would realign.
If she could keep him talking, stall for time…
Shit, could he be armed? Holt didn’t usually carry a gun, but he certainly knew how to use one.
This guy is not Anderson Holt.
“You know Anderson Holt is a fictional character?” she said.
Was everyone crazy today? “Wait, this is a prank. For a second there I totally bought it. Which means this…” She gestured at the summons on her desk.
“This is too.” A triple whammy of pranks, served up within a quarter of an hour and each one outstanding.
Could she sue the school for the stress inflicted?
“Did you move my car as well?” He could probably tuck it under one arm.
“Who made up the name?” he said, bending slightly to check the hallway through the window inset into the door. “You or Nika?”
“Nika?” Her stomach flip-flopped. How did he know her co-writer’s nickname? A lucky guess?
“Anderson Holt,” he said, rolling the name around in his mouth. “Did she make up the name or did you?”
“I did. Well, I picked the names from a random name generator on the internet.”
“Smart. Meant she couldn’t subconsciously give the real identities away—those she knew.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Our book is fiction. You know, a novel? I can’t believe I’m having to explain this twice in one day. And, uh, can you please leave now?”
“But why did she then go and put her real name on the book?” He rapped the backs of his fingers on his phone. “Which effectively identifies everyone in it. I didn’t think she was even living in the U.S. under that name.”
“Annika Vasnetsova, you mean? It’s not Nika’s real name. It’s a pen name.”
“It’s her real name.”
“I’ve seen her passport. It’s not her real name. She chose it because ‘Annika’ isn’t so far away from ‘Veronika’—her real name. And Vasnetsova was a total fabrication.”
“She took a new identity when she arrived in the U.S.—Veronika. Annika Vasnetsova was her birth name.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“No, it wasn’t. She used the pen name—Annika—because she didn’t want the attention, the publicity. She didn’t feel strong enough to deal with it. I was reasonably sure the book wouldn’t get any attention at all, but… Of course, she died before we finished it, so it became a moot point.”
“Didn’t feel strong enough? Pretty sure Nika could deal with a nuclear holocaust without breaking a heel.”
That did sound like Nika. Alice sat heavily on her chair. It felt like it was spinning. She was ninety percent sure it wasn’t. “I meant she couldn’t cope physically, with the cancer.”
The skin around his eyes flinched. His inscrutable and bottomless dark brown eyes… deeply set and skirted with dark circles, as if he nursed a permanent headache.
Just like Holt.
The mouth. Holt’s mouth was distinctive: dark pink lips, with deep creases on either side that lent them a contoured, elongated appearance. His mouth was slightly asymmetrical and he moved it sparingly, seldom showing his upper teeth as he spoke, smiling with his lips together.
Just like this guy.
Maybe she was hallucinating this entire conversation.
Holt had always felt weirdly lifelike, and she’d had some intensely realistic dreams about him.
Not to mention some wide-awake fantasies that were a dirty little secret all her own.
Was this apparition a logical extension?
She’d always escaped into her imagination at stressful times.
Yes. It seemed far more likely that she’d simply gone mad at the end of a school year than her fictional antihero was standing in front of her.
Though he’d certainly felt real a few minutes ago when he’d caught her from behind.
Extremely solid. Could she have fallen asleep at her desk and dreamed the entire sequence—the car, being served, this?
Would she wake any second and get that warming wave of relief that it was all a nightmare?
Though, to be fair, she wouldn’t mind if this part of the dream continued just a little longer, preferably with a change of clothes on his part.
Or a discarding of clothes. And surely this kind of overthinking didn’t happen in dreams. Also, weren’t you supposed to have no sense of smell?
She blinked hard several times and jammed a fingernail into her thigh, through the fabric of her capris.
He didn’t vanish, and the pain was real.
How would she explain to the guy in front of her that he didn’t exist?
And once she did, would he dissolve, right before her eyes?
She had a weird urge to touch him again before that happened.
He raised his chin and assessed her for a few long seconds, as if she were the mystery here. Head to toe and back up, like a walking CT scan.
No! This guy was abso-freaking-lutely not Anderson Holt. No one was. Anderson Holt was a book character she and Nika had invented.
Hadn’t they?