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about me, every detail of my life. I hadn’t thought about that until this moment, not all the way.
    He reached out to touch my cheek and I flinched. He frowned. “Maggie…I’m sorry. I wish we’d met the normal way.”
    “Normal. I don’t think I’d recognize normal if it walked up and introduced itself.”
    He reached for me again, slower this time. I stayed still, but his touch felt different somehow. “When this is all over I want to take you out on a real date.”
    I sat up, easing out of his reach, and fashioned the sheet so that only my head was uncovered. “Yeah, I think we might have jumped the shark here.”
    He leaned up on an elbow. “What exactly are you saying?”
    I tried to look at him, but all I saw was how stupid and impulsive I’d been. I knew nothing about this guy, and he knew everything about me. If I lived a thousand years I’d never learn all of the things about him that he’d known about me for months now. I didn’t have the staff, resources or access the FBI did.
    I rose from the bed, gathering the sheet tight. “I think you should leave.”

Chapter Seven
    Alone in my apartment, I tried to watch a movie, then read a book, then twelve other things that didn’t take my mind off Super Agent. In the end, I gathered up the spent condom wrappers, stripped the sheets from the bed, stuffed them in the hamper and had myself a good long cry in the shower.
    Some people might have wondered why I’d stayed so long in my unusual relationship with Chuck Puckett. The thing was, it was easy. He was easy, predicable as sunrise. I was happy. Mostly. He treated me well, took me places, made me feel special. He was my best friend. I could tell him anything, and I never doubted myself with him. Well, not until that night anyway. The illusions it had shattered still dotted my life, like shards of broken glass.
    Had I jumped so quickly into bed with Super Agent to make myself feel sexy and desirable again, or were my feelings for him real? I couldn’t be sure. It was all so tangled and twisted.
    A knock at my door startled me. I tossed the magazine I wasn’t reading aside and went to the door. Super Agent looked small and ordinary through the peephole, nothing like he was in reality.
    He knocked again. “Maggie. Let me in. I need to talk to you about something.”
    I hesitated, my hand hovering over the knob.
    “Maggie, please. It’s important.”
    I pulled open the door, and we stared at each other for a moment, neither really sure of where we stood or what effort to put forth.
    “Can I come in?”
    I stepped back and he slid past me into the room, giving me a wide berth. I closed the door but kept my hand on the doorknob.
    “That tip from your friend paid off. We think we’ve found the real identity of the senator’s killer.”
    He didn’t say her name. I gave him points for that.
    “I have a photo I want you to look at.” That was when I noticed the manila envelope he was holding. “It’s a little grainy.” He slid out an eight-by-ten photo and extended it to me.
    Hesitant and uncertain, I stepped closer and took the picture from him. Our gazes locked. I could tell he wanted to tell me something. He looked pointedly at the photo. Whatever he had to say would wait.
    The image in the photograph was as confusing and unexpected as everything else that had happened to me over the past few weeks. “It’s a man.”
    “Look closely.”
    I studied the features, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the mole under his right eye. The mole. Bringing it closer, my nose nearly touching it, I went over the features again.
    “Oh my god. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.” I dropped the photo and backed away from it, wrapping my arms tightly around myself.
    Super Agent picked it up and slid it back into the envelope out of my sight. “His name is Thai Dinh, a Vietnamese national. He’s been on our watch list for a couple of years. Professional hits, terrorist activities—you name it, he’s had his