The Fixer (Games People Play #1)
Helenkay Dimon
CHAPTER 1
Emery’s mind kept wandering no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on her skim vanilla latte. She tapped the coffee stirrer against the side of her cup and stared out the large window to the busy Washington, DC, street outside. The sun beat down as the late August humidity trapped passersby in a frizzy-hair, clothing-sticking haze of discomfort.
She enjoyed the air-conditioning of The Beanery. An unfortunate name for the perfect spot. The shop sat right on the edge of Foggy Bottom. Businessmen and students filed in and out, past the wall of bags filled with exotic beans and decorated mugs. The proximity to her house just down the street made the place a convenient stop for quick visits before heading into the office.
At ten o’clock on a Monday she usually sat at her desk. Today she needed room, space to think about the best way to track down the one man she needed to see and couldn’t find. Endless computer searches had failed. She’d looked through property records and tried different search engines. Next she’d call in every favor and ask a work contact to check driver’s license records. She was that desperate.
She didn’t hear footsteps or see a shadow until the legs of the chair on the other side of the café table screeched against the tile floor and a man sat down across from her. Strike that, not just a man. Not part of the usual striped-tie, navy-suit business crowd she waded through each day. This one had a lethal look to him. Dark hair with an even darker sense of danger wrapping around him.
He didn’t smile or frown while his gaze searched her face. Broad shoulders filled out every inch of the jacket of his expensive black suit. Those bright green eyes matched his tie and provided a shock of color to the whole Tall, Dark and Deadly look he had going on.
He managed to telegraph power without saying a word as a hum of energy pulsed around him. She fought off a shiver and reached for her spoon. Hardly a weapon, but something about this guy made her insides bounce and the blood leave her head, and she had no idea why.
“Excuse me?” She used a tone that let him know just sitting down without asking was not okay. Some women might like the commanding, takeover type of guy who assumed his presence was welcome everywhere. Not her.
“We need to come to an understanding.”
The voice, deep and husky with an edge of gravelly heat, skidded across her senses. She felt it as much as she heard it. The tone struck her, held her mesmerized, before the meaning behind the words hit her. “Uh-huh, well, maybe we should understand that seat is already taken,” she said.
“By?”
“Literally anyone else who wants it.” She looked down, making a show of taking the lid off her cup and stirring the few inches of coffee left inside. That struck her as the universal not-interested signal.
She waited for him to grumble or call her a name and scamper off. She had issued a dismissal after all. But his presence loomed and she glanced up again.
“Emery Finn.” Her name rolled off his tongue.
That shiver moving through her turned into a full body shake. “Wait, do we know each other?”
“You’ve been making inquiries.”
It was the way he said it as much as what he said. How he sat there without moving. Perfect posture and laser-like focus that stayed on her face, never wavering even as a pretty woman openly gawked at him as she passed by.
The surreal scene had Emery grabbing on to her cup with both hands. “It sounds like you’re reading from a really bad screenplay.”
“This isn’t fiction.”
“Uh-huh. You know what it also isn’t? Interesting.” She waved him off. “Go away.”
“You need to stop searching for information.” He finally blinked. “No more questions. No more inquiries through back channels at government agencies.”
In her line of work she sometimes angered people. Never on purpose, because ticked-off people tended not to open up and share. “I research for a living. If I’ve somehow upset you or—”
“This is personal, not business.”
That sounded . . . not good. Like, time-to-call-the-police not good. “Who are you?”
He continued to stare. He didn’t move or threaten her, not directly, but his presence filled the space in front of her. The noise of the café faded into the background. A loud male voice a few tables away flattened to a mumble and the people shuffling by blurred.
“Someone who is trying to help you.”
That sounded like something a serial killer might say right before he lured some poor woman into his white van. Yeah, no thanks.
She curled her fingers around the spoon just in case. “Maybe you’re unclear about the meaning of ‘go away,’ but I can start screaming and I’m sure someone will explain it to you. Maybe a police officer.”