A Date with Danger Page 6

  Damon leans toward me, his expression earnest. He’s got brown eyes, I notice. You don’t see many blonds with brown eyes. “Jack,” he says. “I know you have reservations. That’s normal. But we need you.”

  “But I—”

  “Please,” he interrupts. “Hear me out. Like I said, the clock’s ticking on this. Ordinarily the FBI wouldn’t even touch this case. There’s reason to suspect kidnapping, but it involves an adult, and there’s no indication that she’s been taken across state lines. I act as a liaison between the FBI and state police when the Bureau has interest in a local case. The only reason I’ve been cleared to create this task force is because the state police have no leads and the operation I’ve proposed costs very little. If I don’t have you, I don’t have an operation.

  “I want to find Natalie if we can, and I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. You’re our very best chance for getting this done. This guy might run, and we’ll have lost our window. If that happens, we’ll probably never find him or discover what happened to her.”

  He taps lightly on Natalie’s picture. Reluctantly I pick it up again and study her face. She’s beautiful and carefree. The smile goes all the way to her eyes. I feel a sudden tightness in my chest. “Did you say she has family?” I ask.

  “Yes. And they deserve to know what happened to her, whatever the answer is.”

  My eyes prickle with unexpected tears, and I push the picture away. “I don’t—”

  “Please.” Damon touches my hand briefly, his voice gentler now. “You’re right that I can’t guarantee your protection, but I promise to personally do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

  I blink rapidly, beginning to waver.

  Damon swallows. “Please.”

  I’m imagining my own parents. What would it do to them if I was missing or Jen or Delia? If my sister had been taken, wouldn’t I want the person who could help to say yes?

  I lean back, slowly blowing out my breath. “What the heck? I go on lousy dates all the time. Might as well get paid.”

  7

  I’ve agreed to go undercover for the FBI.

  I’m like a female James Bond!

  Diet Coke. Shaken, not stirred.

  “. . . any sort of personal information that might give us a better feel for them psychologically.”

  I’m sitting in a briefing room with Damon and Agent Jane Clemens—a woman with a severe brown bun and the unsmiling face to match. She’s showing me files for each of the eight suspects and giving me a rundown on what I’m supposed to be accomplishing on these dates.

  Despite feeling sick at what I’ve agreed to, I have the urge to take a quick selfie on my phone. It would be great for my scrapbook: Me being briefed for my first big case! I could decorate the page with little magnifying-glass stickers.

  “Some of these guys may require looking at a second time,” Clemens is saying. Jane is far too fluffy a name for her. Even her own parents probably call her by her last name. “So you want to connect with them enough to get asked out a second time. That’s very important. Along with finding out personal information, securing a second date is your primary objective.”

  “So, like a regular date,” I venture.

  Damon gives a small cough, and Clemens purses her lips. “Indeed. Although the cursory first-date chitchat will not suffice. We won’t glean much useful information from learning his favorite color and his major.”

  “I don’t know how often you’ve dated Mormon boys,” I say. “But I pretty much try to have an earth-shattering spiritual and emotional experience right out of the gate. It’s the only way to stand out. Believe me, I’ve been training for this kind of thing my entire adult life.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Clemens continues. “We’re taking a serious risk putting you in this situation. If you can’t get what we need or you blow your cover, you won’t just have wasted precious time, you may have let a kidnapper walk.”

  “It’s good to start with low expectations,” I say, nettled. “Really helps with morale.”

  She crosses her arms and perches on the edge of the table. “This is no joke, Miss Wyatt. It’s not some fun little anecdote to tweet your friends about. There is a woman missing. By agreeing to this, you’re agreeing to take her life into your hands. Are you prepared for that kind of responsibility?”

  I glower at her. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

  “Good. I have personal doubts about the validity of this exercise, but as long as you’re costing the Bureau money, I’ll see to it that you’re effective.”

  “You don’t think this mission is a good idea?”

  Clemens straightens her suit. “My personal opinion is that Natalie Paul walked away from her life. I find it careless to waste resources on a grown woman who’s probably on a beach somewhere.”

  “She was on her way to becoming a doctor,” I say.

  “Exactly. So she’s been pushed to excel her whole life, and she was locked into a future that guaranteed more of the same. More than one person has taken the option to just pick up and start over when faced with that kind of pressure.”

  “Then why is the mission happening?”

  She glances toward Damon without actually looking at him. “Agent Wade has made the argument that if there’s a predator selecting his victims via this website, the case falls under the realm of cybercrime. Which is something we are interested in.”

  Clemens stands again and points a remote at a projector screen, changing the image to another guy. Heavyset with dark hair and a puppy-dog face. “Skyler Randolf,” she says. “He’s one who has yet to contact you. We will take the liberty of e-mailing him on your account and see if he responds.”

  “You’ll do that?” I ask. “Shouldn’t I?”

  “Skilled as you claim to be at the art of dating, we have people trained to make connections with other people. It’s best to leave it to them.”

  “All due respect, but these guys didn’t reach out to every girl on the site. Besides Natalie, more of them responded to me than to anyone else. Sure, Jen made my profile, but she used facts about me. There must be something similar about me and Natalie that these guys are drawn to.”

  Clemens muses, “Natalie was premed and an athlete. You work retail. I see very little similarity.”

  Ignoring the insult, I say, “Guys usually have a type. So if one of them fixated on Natalie, the person with the best chance of getting a comparable connection is me.”

  “I think she may be right on this,” Damon breaks in from where he’s lounging against the table, consulting a file. “If we’re going to trust her with this, we need to trust her with all of it.”

  Clemens briskly straightens her suit again. “Fine.” She clicks onto a new picture. “This is the other suspect you need to contact. Ralph Timen. He’s in advertising at an agency in Salt Lake.”

  And waaay out of my league, I think. Ralph is dark haired, dark eyed, and has the kind of dazzling smile that belongs on a bus ad. I’m suddenly rethinking my insistence to write the e-mail myself. Maybe a professional flirter should do it—someone who can be witty or compose poetry or something.

  But I just nod and say, “No problem.”

  Clemens drops the fat file into my lap. “Here’s the extended dossier on each of the eight suspects. Get familiar with them and their backgrounds.”

  I pick up the file, as thick as a textbook. Truth is, these days I’ve perfected a method of reading as little as possible and still be able to write a paper. It’s the only way I’ve survived the thousand-page-a-week reading quota. With this much information on top of my schoolwork, I’m already in over my head.

  But again I just say, “No problem.” I tuck the file into my overstuffed bag, bending the corners slightly to make it fit.

  Clemens is talking again. “The one piece of evidence that indicates there may ha
ve been premeditated action is the letter.”

  “What letter?”

  She points the remote at the screen, and my blood goes cold. A paper has appeared with scraps of words from magazines. In disjointed, borrowed letters it reads:

  I could be your great adventure.

  “This was found in a desk drawer in Natalie’s apartment along with the torn envelope it came in. We believe it may have been sent by whoever took her. If, in fact, she was taken.”

  Hands shaking, I hug my bag to my chest and glare at Damon. “Well, I can see why you left this out when you were selling me on doing this.”

  “I didn’t sell you,” he counters. “Just told you the facts.”

  “But you conveniently left out the stalker note! This is a whole different thing!—It’s like ‘Puts the lotion on its skin’ crap—which is from a movie I’ve never seen, but I think the reference is accurate.” Panic is making me babble again. I take a breath. “With something this creepy at her house, what makes you think it was one of the Internet guys?”

  “The word choice.” Clemens changes the screen to an e-mail. “Natalie sent the same response to every man who contacted her through Eter-knit-ty. She closed the e-mail with the phrase ‘I’m looking for a little adventure.’”

  “Could be coincidence.”

  “Absolutely. But it could also be evidence.” Clemens surveys me. “Does this mean you’re out?”

  “Well, I—I don’t know,” I stammer. “This all just got super real.”

  “The sooner you accept the full reality, the better,” Clemens says. “I don’t believe Natalie was taken, but if she was, the one who took her is a very dangerous man. You’re putting yourself on the radar of a hostile individual by doing this. There’s no way around that.”

  I nod slowly, my trembling hands making the buckles on my bag rattle.

  “Now,” she continues, “can you handle it or not?”

  My gaze flicks to Damon settled so casually on the edge of the table, and some wild spite boils up in my stomach. I clench my jaw and say, “I can handle it.”

  “Good.” Clemens brushes back an invisible flyaway. “I’ll leave you with Agent Wade. He’ll be your handler during this exercise.”

  “Oh, good,” I mutter.

  “Remember,” Clemens says, crossing to the door, “Agent Wade has only been granted a ten-day window in which to conduct this exercise, and if you fail, there’s not another chance. So don’t screw up.” The click of her heels is like gunfire as she goes into the hall.

  “She should be a motivational speaker,” I say.

  “She’s tightly wound,” Damon agrees, standing. “The job will do that to you.”

  “So . . .” I give an uneasy smile. “You’re my handler?”

  “I’m in charge of the exercise. The task force I’ve assembled is made up of both agents and state police, and running that kind of task force is what I do. Plus they thought I could understand the culture.”

  “Culture?”

  “LDS culture.”

  “LD—oh!” I’m surprised. “You’re—”

  “I was,” he says. “I was raised in the Church.”

  I can’t help pressing, “And now?”

  “Not active.” He nods once as if that’s all to be said about it.

  “All right, then.” I tap a rhythm on the table, not sure how to fill the awkward silence.

  “So . . .” He interlaces his fingers and sits on the edge of the table right in front of me—a little too close. “Operating procedures.”

  I sit up straighter, feeling a tiny pulse of excitement. “Yes?”

  “As Clemens stated, I only have ten days to prove there’s some connection between the dating site and Natalie’s disappearance. So we want to get this thing rolling as soon as possible. We’ll have you start e-mailing these guys and set up dates right away. As early as this evening, if you can.”

  “Tonight? That’s fast.”

  “Well, time’s not on our side. If you can even arrange for two or three dates in a day, that’s better. The faster we do it, the faster we find Natalie. Arrange to meet them only at the sanctioned locations we’ll give you. Never agree to be picked up. You will be driven to the location, and I’ll position myself close by so I’m never out of earshot. Another agent will be on the entrance and one on the exit so there’s no way for you to be hustled out of there. You and I will have a safe word to indicate you feel threatened, and if anything goes sideways, I step in.”

  “A code word?” That’s unbelievably cool. “What—like ‘purple hippo’ or ‘stampeding rhinos’?”

  This time I’m sure his cough is a smothered laugh. “Let’s keep it simple—something that’s easy to work into the conversation if necessary. Since you’ll probably be eating on these dates, let’s say ‘paprika.’ Then you can say something like ‘There’s a lot of paprika in this.’”

  “Paprika. Okay.’ It’s no purple hippo. “I say ‘paprika,’ and you neutralize him.”

  He coughs. “Exactly.”

  “And will I be, like, wearing a wire?”

  “Not if we can help it. Wires can be compromised by technology in the surrounding area. It’s also dangerous if you get spilled on, and it can spark suspicion. People tend to act very strange when they’re bugged.”

  Not me, I think. Two semesters of drama in high school. But I keep this to myself.

  Damon continues, “When you’re not on a date, you’ll be under protective surveillance by two agents at a time around the clock.”

  “You think that’s necessary?”

  “Probably not.” He takes a swig of what smells like coffee. “But once you respond to these guys we don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Better safe than a skin suit,” I agree.

  Damon chokes on his drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re resilient—to have a sense of humor about it.”

  “Either that or be scared out of my mind.”

  “We’ve notified your employer that you’re helping local law enforcement with some clerking projects, but it’s important that you tell no one about this.”

  “Not even my parents?”

  “Not even them. We can’t afford this getting out, or we lose our small advantage.”

  In Relief Society they start out with a good-news minute. Girls are always like, “I just got a scholarship!” Or “I just got engaged!” I never have anything worth sharing. Now I imagine standing up next Sunday and saying, “I’m a spy for the FBI. Top that!”

  That would be awesome . . .

  “I won’t say anything.” I sigh. “No one would believe me anyway.”

  “Assets tend to find it harder to lie to their loved ones than they first anticipate. You need to tell me now if that’s going to be a problem.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I already have to edit the goings-on in my life to keep my parents from discovering how hopeless I am. This’ll just be one more thing not to mention.

  Another guy in a suit—everyone wears suits around here, even the women—comes in with a small metal case.

  “This is for you,” Damon says, accepting the case from the guy and setting it on the table. I jump up, eager to see what gadgets they have for me. I am so the female James Bond! Only not English. Maybe I could adopt a fake English accent. Be a little exotic—

  He lifts the lid and—

  It’s a phone.

  A very ordinary smart phone is nestled into a Styrofoam notch. True, it’s all white and silver and gleaming, more high tech than any phone I’ve ever had. But it’s still just a phone.

  “Your contacts and photos have already been transferred from your old device. You know, the techs were particularly interested in this one.” He taps the screen, and the photo that pops up as my screensaver—Uggg—is of me and Bridget. We’re wear
ing pajamas, my hair is in pigtails, and we each have about half a tube of frosting smeared on our dopily smiling faces.

  I told her we shouldn’t have taken a picture.

  “Bad breakup,” I say, trying not to blush. “It’s a girl thing.”

  He purses his lips and nods, his eyes crinkled at the edges. “I’m programmed in as speed dial 2. Speed dial 3 is Agent Terigan, my second over your protective watch. Speed dial 1 is a panic button. You push it, and it automatically calls emergency response that will follow the GPS tracker on the device.”

  “Speed dial 1 is usually voice mail,” I say. “I’ll have to be careful not to mix that up.”

  “Other than that, it’s the newest model with all the latest technology.”

  He hands it to me, and I smooth the screen, saying, “Great.”

  He cocks his head. “You seem disappointed.”

  I shrug. “I was just hoping it did something else like turn into a switchblade or a parachute. Or, like, an emergency bomb I could detonate by voice command.”

  Damon’s mouth twitches. “We’re pretty picky about who we hand out emergency bombs to.”

  “Sure.” I sigh and put the phone in the front pocket of my bag.

  “You’ll need that to e-mail the guys.”

  “Oh, right.” I tug open the zipper and retrieve the phone. “I can e-mail on here? That’s nifty.”

  “We cloned the phone so we’ll be able to see and hear all your communications.”

  “Well, that’s unsettling.” I scroll through the touch screen and suddenly shriek, “Plants vs. Zombies?! Best phone ever!”

  I send a mass message to the guys who’ve already contacted me, trying to sound nonchalant but urgent, and give my number. Almost instantly I get a text from Charles Windle. He’s “excited I finally wrote back” and would like to meet at six at P.F. Chang’s, which is on the approved locations list. With that quick a response time, I’m thinking this online dating thing might actually be smart.

  If the guys weren’t potential killers, that is.

  It’s four p.m. now, so Damon hands me off to Agent Terigan to take me home so I can get ready. “I have to finish prepping things here, but I’ll be waiting for you at the restaurant,” Damon says. “Good work so far.”