Girl Undercover 1, 2 & 3: Three-Part Bundle Page 8

  A slight smile spread across his lips as I was only three feet away from him. I prepared to speak when I heard my name called out behind me.

  “Jamie! There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around to face the owner to that male voice. Behind me was Rolf, hurrying down the stairs.

  “Hey, Rolf,” I said in response.

  Rolf descended onto the café floor and strode up to me.

  “There’s a member who wants to train with you. Come with me and I’ll give you his information.”

  I wanted to tell Rolf that I couldn’t come right now because I was busy. I was about to finally figure out what the blond mystery man wanted out of me; I couldn’t lose this opportunity.

  But as I took in the expression on my fitness manager’s face, I knew I had no choice but follow him to where he wanted to go and give me the information to the member who wanted my services. Refusing would be weird as well as inexplicable—why would I reject my manager when he wanted to hand me a client when that’s what I was at the club to get?

  So I joined Rolf as he pointed toward the membership service office and walked in that direction. Soon we were behind the glass doors to that office and talking to one of the membership directors.

  I tried my best to look grateful as the overly muscular membership director with the tiny head handed me a sheet of member information.

  “This guy saw you on the floor and requested to train with you,” he said. “He bought twenty sessions. Please call him immediately to schedule the first session. He’s expecting your call.”

  “Thanks so much,” I responded mechanically and took the sheet. “I’ll call him as soon as we’re done here.”

  “Please do. He’s eager to get started.”

  “Okay, see you guys later then,” I said and raised the sheet in a gesture of goodbye to both men. If I hurried back out, I should be able to catch Mystery Man and talk to him at last.

  I walked as quickly as I could out of the membership office toward the cafeteria. I soon spotted the table the man had occupied, but, once again, he was gone.

  I clenched my teeth in frustration. Just my luck.

  I hung around the café a couple minutes in the hopes that he would appear again, having maybe just gone to the bathroom. But he didn’t.

  When I spotted my manager about to exit the membership office, I swiveled around and dashed up the stairs to the gym floors. I didn’t want Rolf spotting me hanging around the café when I was supposed to be contacting this new member who was so eager to work with me.

  As I reached the fourth floor where the fitness desk was with the employee phones, I was breathing shallowly having moved so fast. I tried to cheer myself with the knowledge that it should only be a matter of time before I saw the mystery man again. The fact that he had appeared twice in two days—once late in the evening—told me he must be a member, not a guest after all.

  I just needed to keep my eyes open and I’d finally get to connect with him.

  I went up to one of the employee phones on the counter that made up the fitness desk and dialed the member who wanted to train with me. His name was Ian Amory. A voice recording relating the phone number I had dialed picked up instead of a human being. I left a message, telling him who I was and how to get in touch with me.

  It was past nine o’clock now, which meant my shift was over, so I went into the trainers’ lounge and clocked out. Then I grabbed my jacket and purse. I would go out running instead of lifting weights tonight; it was a nice evening and I preferred being outside working out whenever possible.

  I kept my eyes open for the mystery man as I walked back down to the health club exit and crossed the café. But of course I didn’t spot him again.

  I jogged home to get rid of my bag and switch into running gear. It was still pleasant out from earlier in the day, when temperatures had risen to an unusual seventy-three degrees. I couldn’t wait until I got going with my run. Sprinting as fast as I could through Central Park at this time of night when few people crowded it would clear my head and give me a good sweat, both things I could use.

  Making sure my iPod was securely clipped onto the sports bra under my sweater and the earbuds in my ear, I began jogging along 70th street. Within short I was inside the big park. As expected, few people were here this late in the evening, so I could run undisturbed.

  Warmed up now, I ran faster and had soon covered the bend that made up the lower part of the park and was heading north. The next song on my playlist had a faster beat, urging me to take longer, quicker strides. Soon I was flying over the asphalted road and the sweat trickled down the sides of my ribcage. I passed every runner ahead of me and zipped by ones I met.

  When I had nearly covered the length of the loop and was heading back south, I spotted hardly anyone and it was so dark out I only saw the person if the light from the streetlamps caught him or her.

  As I was at the final stretch of my six-mile run, I found myself completely alone. It was exhilarating but also somewhat unsettling, so I was glad I had my Glock in a holster at the back of my hip. I would never had dared blasting the music so loudly in my ears if I wasn’t armed.

  I didn’t get a chance to reach for my gun, however, the powerful arms were around me so unexpectedly. They had come up from behind, out of nowhere. A hand was over my mouth before I could scream. At the same time I felt something cold and hard shoved into my side—what could only be the muzzle of a gun.

  “Go over into the trees,” a smoky male voice hissed into my ear and pushed me sideways, forcing me to move. Holding me in an iron grip, the two of us moved like crabs toward the cluster of trees and bushes that grew right beside the road.

  I tried not to panic as we kept moving and instead focus on how to get away. It seemed he was alone and, if I was lucky, he didn’t realize I was armed.

  As soon as he let me go, I’d pull my gun on him. I hoped the gun that was pushed into my side would be gone when he got me where he wanted.

  It didn’t take long before we were off the road and passing the first tree.

  When we were farther in, safely hidden from the road and any people who might be coming by, the man removed the gun from my side and loosened his grip around me, just like I had hoped. Unfortunately, he was standing before me in no-time and had his gun pointed straight at me, so I didn’t dare what I had planned to do next—kick him in the groin and then find my weapon.

  “If you scream or try something, I’ll shoot you,” he hissed in my face.

  He was dark-haired and Caucasian, of medium size and build. I couldn’t determine his ethnicity in the dark, only that he was quite pale. He didn’t have an accent, so I assumed he must be American.

  Not taking his eyes off me, he pulled out a piece of white cloth from a pocket in his dark jacket. Because of the light the full moon cast I could see his fleshy mouth turn into a close-lipped little grin, his eyes gleaming crazily. He placed the muzzle of his gun to my forehead.

  “Don’t do anything stupid now or you’re dead,” he murmured. “Open your mouth.”

  Frantically, I thought of something to do, of how to get out of this rapidly escalating situation. I needed to do something.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noted that the road I had been running on was deadly quiet. What had I been thinking blasting the music so loudly? This was how he had managed to approach me without me noticing.

  “Open your mouth!” the man repeated, his face going dark and the gun pressing harder against my head. I didn’t know what else to do but what he wanted.

  He reached his hand with the cloth toward my mouth, but before he could insert it, he paused. “Do you have any last wishes? Anything you want to say before you die?”

  Suddenly the sound of a firecracker shot through the air and the man jerked. Falling like a tree hard on the ground, blood poured out of the side of his head, looking like black ink on white paper in the moonlight.

  I was
momentarily stunned. Who had shot the man on the ground? Was I next?

  Grabbing my gun, I slipped behind a large tree trunk in case the shooter was about to take me down too. If I was running, I’d be a much easier target. Even if the secret gunman had saved me for some reason, I couldn’t count on him being my friend.

  The world was full of psychos.

  Since I couldn’t see the person, I tried to make myself as small as possible by crouching down and my back facing west. The shot that took down the man on the ground had come from the east, which told me the shooter must be somewhere in that direction.

  The sound of soft footsteps reached my ears then and I saw a man approaching from the area I had estimated the shooter to be in. He was too far away for me to be able to make out what he looked like. My hand tightened around my gun and I held my breath as he came closer, my heart hammering.

  He was only a few steps from the dead man on the ground now, who was about four yards away from me. My savior was definitely a man and a fairly big one too. He was holding what could only be a gun in his hand, close to his chin. The moonlight hit his face then, giving me a good look. I silenced the gasp that was about to escape me.

  It was the mystery man from Nikkei.

  Had he been the one who’d saved me? It had to be. How big was the chance another person was walking around with a gun right then, right in that area?

  I pressed myself to the trunk, not sure what to do next. Why had he saved me?

  “Gabi, where are you?” I heard him say then.

  I closed my eyes as I kept pressing myself against the tree trunk. How did he know who I was?

  “Please don’t be scared,” he continued quietly. He was standing right in front of the tree where I was hiding. “I’m not going to hurt you. Would I have shot that guy if I wanted to hurt you?” He spoke with a slight British accent.

  I tried to decide what to do, if I believed him. I had no idea what was going on. How he could possibly know my real identity.

  “Please come out, Gabi.” There was a pleading tone to his voice now. “I won’t leave until you do.”

  With the gun next to my face, both of my hands grasping it, I slowly walked around the tree trunk. As our eyes met, I directed my gun at him and said, “Drop the gun or I’ll shoot you right now. Drop it and hold up your hands!”

  He did as I said and raised his arms into the air.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked him quietly, standing only three yards away from him. “Who are you?”

  He smiled at me, a warm smile. “How about we go somewhere and I’ll tell you everything from the beginning? Somewhere where we don’t have to worry about being overheard?”

  I ignored his request and instead lightly kicked the man on the ground. “Do you know this man? Why he attacked me?”

  “That I don’t know. I have no idea who he is. But we could start by checking his ID.”

  He nodded with his head to the body between us.

  “Why don’t you do it for me?” I demanded.

  “Sure.” He squatted next to the man and rolled the body so that it faced the ground. He stuck his hand into back pocket of the man’s pants and pulled out a wallet. Opening the wallet, he peered into it.

  “Who is he?” I asked, still pointing my gun at the blond man.

  He gazed up at me. “It’s too dark in here to be able to tell. Let’s go somewhere and take a look at it. That way we can also talk. I can tell you who I am and why I know who you are. Please believe that I’m your friend, Gabi. That’s why I saved you.”

  “Give me your gun and then we’ll go,” I said. “Kick it over to me.”

  He did as I wanted and I picked it up and tucked it into my waistband.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said.

  Chapter 8

  We entered a quiet bar on the Upper West Side not far from the park. My companion found us a bar table in a corner at a comfortable distance from other people in the bar.

  “What would you like to drink?” he asked me.

  “A large Coke and some water, please,” I told him. After forty minutes of hard running, my throat was parched.

  “Coming right up.” He walked up to the bar counter. As I watched him order our drinks, I thought about how he was the person who had purchased that twenty-pack to train with me. His name was Ian Armory and he was a naturalized Englishman, born and raised in London, hence the slight accent. He’d told me all this on our way over to the bar.

  I had begun to believe he wanted me to stay alive. I couldn’t wait to hear more about who he was and how he knew my real identity.

  He returned to the narrow bar table with three large glasses in his hands—water, Coke, and a foaming beer. He placed the water and the Coke before me and kept the beer.

  “Thanks,” I said and chugged all of the big water. As I lowered the glass and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand in an unladylike manner, I caught him staring at me, amused.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Thirsty much?”

  I just looked at him. “Not anymore.”

  He chuckled. “That’s good.” He took a seat on the stool opposite me. He rested both his elbows on the table top and kept gazing at me, covering the lower part of his face with his hands. The thin beard was gone, which made him look less rugged and more polished. I noted that he had interesting eyes, a mixture of greys, blues, and greens.

  “I’m all ears,” I said when he didn’t speak. What was he waiting for?

  He lowered his hands and shook his head, seeming almost embarrassed. “Sorry. Yes, of course. I’m just amazed that I’m finally about to talk to you.”

  I frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve been wanting to connect with you for the longest time. I’m a fan of yours. Ever since your work taking down Cardoza.”

  I sat up straighter in my chair. “How do you know about that?” I leaned closer to him. “Should I know who you are?”

  “Not really. I used to be an FBI Special Agent and for the last eight years I was stationed in different cities in Europe, doing undercover work. You have no reason to be familiar with my work the way I’m with yours. I happened to be in New York when the sting operation involving the coke delivery and Southeast Airlines took place, so I was called in to be part of it. That’s how I know who you are. I watched you shoot that thug who was threatening to shoot Angela.” He smiled and his eyes glittered. “Your aim’s great.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anyway, I’ve been following your career since that day. Like I said, I’m something of a fan of yours. You’re a very, very good cop. Someone I wanted to get in contact with.”

  “Uh-huh. Just how much have you been wanting to get in contact with me?” I narrowed my eyes at him, not sure I was liking the turn this conversation was taking. Had he been stalking me? It was beginning to sound like that.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker.” He patted my arm. “I can tell from the way you’re looking at me this is what you’re wondering right now. I’ve only been following your career from afar, reading about your quick rise within the LAPD. It’s unprecedented.”

  I drank some of my soda. “Yes, I know. So if you’re not a stalker, how come you showed up at Nikkei and stared at me? Twice. And looking like you were royally pissed off with me for some inexplicable reason the first time.”