ouellen Jones?” Ric had to laugh as he searched for the switch that would turn on the headlights in Annie’s car. He was driving so she could sit with needy little Pierre in her lap.

She reached across him, around the steering wheel, her shoulder brushing his chest as she flipped the lights on. “Go ahead and mock me, Dick Tracy. So I panicked and made up a name. I also got the job done.”

“Maybe,” Ric pointed out. “There’s no guarantee that Brenda still lives in Palm Gardens. It’s a pretty high-end address for an exotic dancer. Particularly one who’s out of work.”

Annie flipped open her little leather-bound pad, pushing on the overhead light so she could read her notes. “The manager—her name was Mary Allen—she told me that Brenda was given a severance package—of sorts—after her ex-boyfriend showed up at the strip club, looking for her. Apparently, he and his friends tore the place up. Brenda injured her back in the melee—” She glanced up. “That’s a direct quote from Mary, and apparently it was quite the mother of all bar fights. When the dust settled, Brenda signed off on some kind of ‘I will not sue’ agreement, which included a financial incentive—and a provision that neither Brenda nor her ex ever again darken Screech’s door.”

“Mary give you the name of the ex?” Ric asked, signaling to make a left turn.

“Nope,” Annie reported, clicking off the light. “When I asked, she said Satan. I said, seriously… But then my phone rang, and she used that as an excuse to end our conversation.”

It was Ric who’d called her, interrupting her interview. “Sorry. You were in there so long, Pierre was getting anxious.”

She kissed the top of her dog’s tiny head. “Poor baby. But I always come back. Don’t I? Yes, I do.” She glanced at Ric. “I should probably get him his own cell phone so you don’t have to use up your minutes making calls for him.”

“Obviously,” Ric said, “I was worried, too. Annie, really, you’ve had no training—”

“So train me.” She turned in her seat, toward him. “Please, Ric. You don’t even have to pay me while you’re doing it. I’ve got some money saved.”

“Annie,” he started, but she cut him off.

“I’m good at this. I actually had fun tonight. More fun that I’ve had since Pam died, if you want to know the truth.”

Annie Dugan had been a master manipulator back when she was eleven years old. The fact that she was out here tonight, working this case with him, was proof that she hadn’t yet lost her skill. Back in his office, when she’d gotten those tears in her eyes…Ric had known right then that he was screwed. Whatever she asked for, he’d try to deliver. And sure enough, here they were.

But now, with her face lit by the headlights of the oncoming traffic, her gray eyes were wide and guileless.

She had done a good job tonight. Although…

“So you just walked into Screech’s, walked up to Mary Allen, and she just…willingly answered your questions?” Ric asked her.

“Yup,” Annie said.

He glanced at her and the guilelessness was gone from her eyes. Yeah, there was a little more to the story than she was telling him. “After you gave her…how much? A hundred bucks?”

“Are you kidding?” she scoffed. “That would be, oh, let’s see if I can figure out that math—a hundred percent of our take for this entire case? Not too smart a move. No, she obviously wanted to talk to me about Brenda—I don’t think she liked her very much. A twenty gave her reason enough to vent.”

So okay. Annie was thrifty as well as smart. And as long as he limited her to the easy cases—the ones where she couldn’t possibly get hurt…Man, was he really considering doing this?

“Plus, she seemed to like me,” Annie continued. “We bonded. So if you decide that today’s just a fluke, and that from now on you’re going to chain me to the reception desk, I’ve always got an in at Screech’s. Who knew? Apparently there’s a place there for dancers who are zaftig.”

“Zaftig,” Ric repeated. No way.

“That’s a polite way of saying larger,” she told him.

“I know what it means.” Apparently his definition of zaftig was different from Mary’s. “I wouldn’t call you zaftig. You’re…” Damn. Now that he’d started that sentence, he had to finish it. “Nicely put together.”

Thankfully, they had arrived at Palm Gardens, so he focused on pulling into the private drive for the apartment complex, pausing at the signs just inside the front gate.

“Building five,” Annie told him, consulting her pad in the street light. “Mary said Brenda’s apartment number is 508C.”

A sign for buildings three, four, and five pointed him around to the right, back toward the lake with the fountains. He slowly headed over the speed-bump-laden route.

The complex was set up in a series of three-story-buildings with outside stairways going up to balcony-style walkways, which led to the various apartments. A place like this, though, had to have elevators, too—probably in some sort of central lobby.

As they passed buildings three and four, Ric saw that C meant a third-floor unit. The penthouse, so to speak.

Annie was silent, looking around, no doubt taking note of the expensive cars in the lot. The grounds were well groomed, the swimming pool enormous. A sign pointed the way to the tennis courts and clubhouse. There was no doubt about it. Money lived here.

As if a punctuation mark to that fact, a sleek black limo was idling near building five, in a no-standing zone.

It wasn’t until Ric parked and they got out of the car, leaving the windows open for Pierre, that Annie spoke.

“Nicely put together,” she mused, and Ric realized his earlier relief had been premature. “Generally, people say that when they don’t want to be mean. When they can’t think of anything positive to say without lying. It’s the equivalent of saying You looked like you were having fun up there to a friend who was in a show that you thought sucked.”

“Third floor,” Ric told her. “Door closest to us. Don’t look straight at it.”

The door was clearly marked 508C, with ornate gold numbers and letters. The windows surrounding it were brightly lit, but just at that moment, the lights went out and the door opened. Someone was coming out.

Three someones. One of them was female and blond.

The limo moved closer, surely not by accident as Annie exclaimed, “Would you look at that moon?”

“Looks like Brenda’s got herself a sugar daddy,” Ric murmured, pulling Annie against him, her back pressed to his front, his arms encircling her.

“Are you sure it’s her?” she whispered, playing along, covering his arms with her own, leaning her head against his shoulder, as if they were lovers looking at the stars.

Well, okay, so this was Florida and the haze factor usually eliminated most starlight. Tonight was no exception. They were lucky, though. The moon was shining through the clouds.

“No,” he whispered back. He wasn’t sure it was Brenda—she was still too far away. And yeah, Annie was a solid, comfortable armful, but zaftig? Come on. “Let’s let her come closer.” They were standing on the path, directly between the exit from the building and the limo. She’d have to go right past them.

Assuming that this was her gentleman friend’s limo.

Except, up on the third floor, the trio had turned around and trooped back to the apartment.

One of the men unlocked the door, and the blonde went back inside.

“Hurry the fuck up,” a disgruntled male voice carried down to them.

“Charming as well as wealthy,” Annie murmured. “How long can we get away with standing here like a pair of idiots?”

As if on cue, the moon disappeared behind a cloud, leaving them staring up into the nothingness of the night sky.

“Uh-oh,” Annie said.

On the third floor, the two men lit cigarettes, leaning against the railing, still waiting for the blonde.

Their options were pretty limited; still, Ric ran through them in his mind. They could do this overtly—just walk up those stairs, approach the two men, inquire as to whether Brenda Quinn lived in apartment 508C.

That approach was simple and to the point, and would be easier than this undercover investigation they were attempting.

Problem was, every instinct he had was screaming that there would be trouble if Brenda and Co. found out they were looking for her. Keeping this covert seemed ridiculously important.

Of course, maybe he just wanted an excuse to kiss his best friend’s little sister.

Annie turned in his arms to face him. “Maybe we could pretend we’re reciting poetry to each other. ‘There once was a girl from France, who wanted to learn how to dance…’”

Ric laughed. “That’s not poetry.”

“Cut me some slack. I’m thinking on my feet here. I don’t see you doing much of anything—”

He kissed her.

He felt her surprise for only a fraction of a second before she caught on, and she kissed him back. Man, she was good at making it look real—anyone watching them would have to look away to avoid getting scorched from the emanating heat.

Her mouth was as sweet as he’d always imagined, her body as soft, as she molded herself against him. Her hands were in his hair, down his back, and—Mother of God—cupping his ass, pulling him closer. She angled her head to kiss him more deeply, going so far as to wrap one leg around him, shifting her hips until her heat was rubbing him and there was no way she could miss knowing that he was already inappropriately aroused.

Although, damn. It was surely more inappropriate not to get turned on while getting dry-humped by a sexy woman who had her tongue in his mouth and her hands all over his butt. And okay, if she touched him there again, he was going to embarrass himself.

He grabbed her hands and pulled away and found himself staring down at her upturned face, into her amazing-colored eyes.

“Here they come,” she whispered, and for several endless seconds, he had absolutely no clue what she meant. And then he remembered.

Brenda Quinn.

Right.

Annie was breathing as hard as he was, but she still managed to speak. “They’ve locked the door and they’re heading for the stairs,” she told him, her hands back in his hair. “We just need to stall for a few more seconds…”

No way was he kissing her again, but she was up on her toes, pulling his head down to her mouth.

Ric knew only one definite way to stop her. “We’re going to do this on a trial basis,” he said. His voice sounded raspy, thick, and he had to clear his throat. “This training thing, okay? I’ll continue to pay your salary and you’ll continue to do the secretarial work that I need done. You won’t get to work on everything. If I say it’s too dangerous, you don’t argue. If I tell you to duck, you duck and you ask any questions later. I’ll test you constantly, and if you fail, just once, the deal’s off—are we clear?”

She nodded, her eyes wide.

“Good,” he said. “And this—you know—kind of thing…That we’re doing here? It won’t happen again. Because it’s just…too weird.”

But Annie’s attention was over his shoulder. “I’m not sure if it’s her,” she whispered, and he turned just as she called out, “Excuse me…”

If this was Brenda, she’d cut her hair Halle Berry short. She was much skinnier than the girl in Lillian’s photos, too. Any chance of IDing her via her tattoos was eliminated by the jacket she wore, despite the heat of the night.

Heroin addict, anyone?

She was walking just behind the two men, both of whom were young—maybe midtwenties—and white, with shaved heads and a variety of tats and piercings. They both moved as if their balls were too big for their pants. The shorter one wore a T-shirt that bore the number 88. The other had on a leather jacket. He kept his left arm slightly out from his side—which was a pretty sure sign that he was carrying a weapon.

Annie, of course, didn’t know that, and when the blonde didn’t slow down, she tried to follow.

Ric grabbed her hand, but he couldn’t muzzle her without drawing undue attention, and she called out again. “Excuse me. Hi. I’m Louellen, 408C? I think I got a package of yours. Are you Brenda?”

All three of them turned, and it was then that Ric saw her—a slight figure, moving toward them across the grass, in a dark raincoat with a grim-reaper-deep hood that covered the wearer’s hair and concealed her face.

Most of the time.

The woman—and it had to be a woman with that shape and height—seemed to look right at him. It was when she turned away—exactly as a car approached, headlights flashing across them all—that he caught a glimpse of her face.

It was none other than Lillian Lavelle.

She must’ve come from the parking lot. He hadn’t seen her approach, but then again, he hadn’t seen much of anything with his eyes closed as he’d attempted to touch Annie’s tonsils with his tongue. Damn it. As Ric watched his client now, she was sticking to the shadows, moving closer still.

“Who the fuck you getting packages from?” the thug with the concealed weapon asked Brenda, who shook her head.

“I don’t know.” She looked to Annie for help. “You’re sure it’s for me? Brenda Quinn?”

“Quinn,” Annie repeated. “Quinn…No. It was Brenda Johnson or Jackson or…Something with a J. Wrong Brenda, sorry.”

“It’s not mine,” Brenda said, talking more to the thug than Annie.

“Sorry to bother you,” Ric said, trying to tug Annie away. Whatever was going to happen when Lillian got closer was not going to be good. People didn’t dress in hooded trench coats and creep around in the shadows, simply to return a photo album.

He had to get Annie out of there, and Brenda and gang safely into their limo and on their way. As quickly as possible. At which point he would tackle his client to the ground if need be. He’d demand to know why the cloak-and-dagger. Why, really, was she so intent upon finding Brenda Quinn that she would have followed him here?

That she’d managed to follow him without his being aware of her was pretty remarkable. As distracting as Annie was, she hadn’t had her hands on his ass all afternoon long.

Ric took his keys from his pocket and held them out to Annie. “Sweetheart, we left the ice cream in the car. Would you mind running back to get it? Hurry, hon, before it melts.”

She didn’t understand why he was intent upon getting her out of there, but he knew she was remembering his words. I’ll be testing you.

She took his keys and ran. Thank God.

Which allowed him to focus more fully on Lillian, whose right hand was now in her pocket.

Brenda and the armed troglodyte, however, were still glued to the sidewalk, in the middle of a heated discussion.

“Every other fucking day,” her loving boyfriend accused her, “it’s another fucking package from eBay.”

“It wasn’t my package,” Brenda implored him.

“Just get in the fucking car.”

They were too late, too late…Ric found himself reaching for his sidearm, which of course he wasn’t wearing, because this was supposed to be a simple case, an easy locate-the-whereabouts.

Brenda and her friends were still about ten steps from the limo when Lillian pulled her hand free from her coat. The moon stayed hidden behind the clouds, and the streetlights didn’t work to Ric’s advantage either, because he could not see what it was that she held in her hand. He could only see that she was holding something.

Something about the size of a handgun.

“Get down!” he shouted as she raised her arm, and he charged toward Brenda, taking her to the ground, knocking aside the skinhead duo while he was at it.

Both of Brenda’s gentlemen friends hit and kicked at him, fighting off what they surely imagined was his sudden unprovoked attack. But almost simultaneous with the elbow slamming the side of his head and the knee crushing the air from his lungs, he heard one gunshot and then another. A bullet smashed into the panel above his head, ripping the metal and shaking the limo.

He heard the car doors open, heard heavy boots hit the ground—more than just the limo driver’s.

“We got a shooter,” a male voice shouted through the ringing in his ears. “Kill the lights!”

“Shooter’s running,” someone else reported as the car lights went out.

“Let ’em go,” that first voice responded—deep, authoritative. “Just get Gordie Junior—get ’em all inside.”

Ric felt himself being picked up and tossed into the pitch darkness of the limo. He hit the far door, felt himself wrestled up into a seat and slapped down for weapons.

Gordie Junior. He’d heard that name before.

But his head was ringing and damn, his leg hurt like a bitch, and someone was crying—a woman. Not Annie—Brenda. Annie was safe. Thank you, Jesus.

Ric heard the door slam closed as he felt his wallet yanked from his back pocket, and then the interior lights went back on.

He was looking down the barrels of two very deadly-looking handguns—one held by the skinhead with the leather jacket, the other in the grip of a professional. A second bodyguard started going through his wallet.

“Who is he, Foley?” the skinhead—no doubt Gordie Junior—asked.

“Enrique Alvarado,” that second guard—Foley—reported. “He’s a private dick.” He looked at Ric with eyes that were dead. “Who you working for?”

They were starting to roll. There was so much about this that was not good. With two skinheads and two bodyguards here in the back, Ric was sorely outnumbered—forget about the driver up front and the still-weeping girl. But all Ric could think was thank God he’d sent Annie to the car. Thank God she’d done as he’d asked.

Before he could come up with a fabricated answer to who are you working for —God knows telling them the truth, that he’d virtually led the shooter right to them, would get him very dead very fast—the skinnier kid with the 88 on his shirt knocked on the window.

“That big chick,” he said, from his seat with his arm around Brenda in the back of the limo. “She’s with him.”

No.

But, yes, the limo braked to a stop. The door opened and Foley scrambled out. He was back in a flash, dragging Annie into the car.

She didn’t try to fight him, didn’t protest at all, as the man’s hands swept over her, as he searched her as roughly as he’d searched Ric.

She just looked over at Ric, concern in her eyes. “Are you all right?” She was worried about him.

No doubt he looked like shit. He could feel blood from a scrape on the side of his face trickling down past his ear into the collar of his shirt. His torn shirt. And his elbow was trashed. His head still hadn’t cleared, and his leg…He couldn’t remember getting kicked in the calf, but he must’ve been. It still hurt like hell.

Gordie Junior aimed his weapon at Annie now, damn him. “Shut up, bitch,” he ordered her.

Ric must’ve sat forward, because Foley’s extra-large partner pushed him back, jamming his own sidearm into Ric’s throat. He looked over at Annie, who was looking back at him. “Do what they say,” he told her.

“No ID on the girl,” Foley reported. He turned his attention back to Ric. “Who’re you working for?”

Again, Gordie Junior’s little friend interrupted from the back. “Yo, Frankie man, where the fuck you going? Club’s out on Longboat Key, and…shit, dude. Junior, come on. Don’t let him do this to us. Bren’s jonesing. Bad.”

“Gotta take you home, Junior,” the limo driver—Frankie—said, an apology in his voice. “You know the drill. If someone’s gunning for you, we take you to your father’s. Straightaway. No exceptions.”

“Dad’ll take care of her,” Gordie Junior reassured his friend.

“I don’t suppose you could just let us out at the next red light,” Ric asked Foley, who made a sound that might’ve passed for laughter in some circles.

Because that was where he’d heard the name Gordie Junior before. Gordie Junior was the eldest son of local crime lord Gordon Burns.

Alleged local crime lord Gordon Burns. The man’s organization was incredibly tight and ridiculously loyal. As a result, despite all the nasty things Burns had done—from running a prostitution ring to drug smuggling to murder for hire—he’d never gone to trial, let alone been convicted.

Which didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty as hell. Or any less dangerous than the sharks in the tank at Mote Marine Aquarium.

This was supposed to have been an easy case. A safe case. A case that Annie could work on without putting herself into danger.

Ric couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Who do you work for?” Foley asked for a third time.

Ric looked at Annie and shook his head. He would have said or done anything to get her out of there, but their best shot lay in getting a chance to speak to the man in charge. “We’ll wait,” he told Foley—told Annie, too, by using that we instead of an I—“to speak directly to Mr. Burns.”

Peggy Ryan was missing. It was official.

And there was nothing Jules could do about it. Nothing he could do to help her.

It was one of the nightmare scenarios every FBI team leader dreaded. An operative deep undercover vanishing at a time when continuing the investigation was vital to national security.

If Peggy were still alive, she was surely under duress. Held prisoner. Probably being tortured so that she’d divulge details of the case.

She would be asked which of a variety of illegal activities was being investigated. What evidence had been collected and how damning was it? Who else was she working with?

Jules sat at his desk, his insides tied in knots, long after most of the others in the office had gone home, reading and rereading the check-in reports Peggy had sent—in particular the last two.

She’d always been aware of the possibility of interception, and she’d made each report sound like postcards to loved ones. Weather’s been great. Enjoying both Sarasota and the job—same old routine, no news about vacation plans.

Although, in her last two communications, she had mentioned—almost identically word for word—watching the sunset from the window of her room in the servants’ wing at Burns Point. Mine’s the only room with such a glorious view, she’d written. Although it’s cold in there, colder even than the rest of the house, with the air-conditioning always running. I confess to missing the fresh air.

Their experts had analyzed her word choices—the message wasn’t in code—and had come up with nothing, aside from the obvious clue as to the location of her room. It was frustrating as hell because that was it. After sending those last two reports, Peggy had disappeared.

If she were dead, it was because of him.

And wasn’t that the biggest crock of crap? Jules hadn’t forced Peggy to transfer to Florida. She’d left because of her own inflexibility—her own inability to accept diversity in the workplace.

And yet Jules still felt guilty.

He reached for the phone. Picked it up. Put it back down.

His best friends, Alyssa and Sam, were out of the country on an assignment for Troubleshooters Incorporated—a private security team that was currently assisting the CIA. They were helping out in the hunt for a new arms dealer who’d shoved his way to the head of the international “most wanted” list by claiming to have a suitcase nuke for sale.

It was probably just a distraction—some fiction devised by Osama or some other Big Bad—meant to tie up teams of agents and operatives. Keep ’em from beating the brush in the mountains of Pakistan, where most of al Qaeda was still hiding. Which was kind of overkill, considering that the disaster in Iraq was already getting that job done quite nicely for bin Laden. Still, the threat of a suitcase nuke couldn’t be ignored, despite the improbability of its existence.

And so Alyssa—Jules’s former partner in the FBI—and her ex-SEAL husband, Sam, were somewhere overseas. Jules could call her on her cell, sure, and leave a message, but it’d probably be days before she’d be able to call back.

Plus, God knows he’d already filled his yearly quota of whiny messages left on Alyssa’s voicemail.

About Paolo. About gleaming, shiny, perfect Captain Ben Webster, and his latest freaking e-mail, sent from some computer tent in a Marine encampment on the outskirts of Baghdad.

About…everything that Jules couldn’t have, but wanted.

Like someone to talk to, when he was feeling like roadkill.

As if on cue, there was a soft knock on his door.

“Yeah,” Jules called. Maybe if he closed his eyes and wished really hard, it would be Ben, looking resplendent in his Marine uniform, echoing some of the words he’d written to Jules in that epic e-mail, just a few days ago. I haven’t been sleeping, and it’s more than just the increased casualties, the kids going home missing arms and legs. I was lying on my cot, staring at the tent above me, and I suddenly thought “What am I doing?”

“Hey. Mind if I come in?”

Max?

The door opened and it was definitely Max poking his head in.

“What are you still doing here?” Jules asked his boss. “I thought you had some sort of thing tonight.”

“I did. I stayed with Em while Gina went to a lecture over at the Smithsonian. Some author she likes. It was over early, so…” Max came all the way into the room, and Jules saw that he was dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt, his dark hair casually messed. “When she got home, I told her about Peggy and…She thought I should see if you wanted to go get a beer. Actually, what she said was go get drunk, but…”

Jules laughed. God, he loved Max’s wife. “Yeah, that’ll help.” He shook his head. “Tell her thanks, but no. I’ve still got a lot to do and…”

Max sighed and closed Jules’s office door, leaning on it so that it latched with a click. He sat down on the sofa beneath the window and sighed again.

Jules found himself sighing, too. “You know, you really don’t have to—” he said just as Max said, “I used to think…” But Max repeated himself, loudly enough to be heard over Jules, which kind of forced Jules to stop talking.

“I used to think I had to stay in the office, too,” Max said, “when an agent went missing. Or was killed. It’s likely that Peggy’s dead.”

“I know,” Jules said.

“It’s…hard not to feel responsible,” Max continued, “if not for the loss, then for…I guess I always want it to have some real meaning—when someone like Peggy gives her life—there should be something we get in return. Someone dangerous gets caught, a sleeper cell is eliminated, a bomb doesn’t go off and thousands of lives are saved…There should be some measurable reward for the sacrifice. It’s bad enough when you lose someone toward the end of an investigation, but we’re still at the beginning of this one, so…Right now her death doesn’t seem to have much meaning.”

“We’ve gained nothing.” Jules told him what they both already damn well knew. Peggy had been undercover for months, and they’d gained no new information. Except for the fact that she’d gotten close to something or someone and, because of that, had disappeared. Unless she’d left a message—somehow, somewhere…“I’ve got to figure out a way to get inside Burns’s compound. I’ve been going through Peggy’s reports—”

“Reports that will still be here tomorrow,” Max interrupted. “You can sleep here.” He patted the cushions of the sofa on either side of himself. “You can give this case 24/7 attention, but there’s going to come a point when you’re going to have to do that, and if you’re already burned out—”

“Oh, this is nice,” Jules said. “These words coming out of your mouth?”

“I get twice as much done these days,” Max told him. “Because I’m actually getting some rest at night, instead of pacing the halls.”

“How many times did you go home between 9/11 and the summer of 2005?” Jules asked. “Was it five times or six?”

“Back then…I didn’t have anyone to go home to,” Max said.

“Well, ditto,” Jules said. “Ben’s in Iraq, and even if he weren’t…” He exhaled hard. Even though his boss had met Ben a time or two, talking about Jules’s love life—or lack thereof—was surely not something Max had signed on for when his wife had urged him to come check up on Jules. “Just…thank you for the advice. I appreciate your concern, but—”

“Sam Starrett called me just a few days ago—before he and Alyssa went overseas,” Max said. “He, uh, told me about the e-mail you got from Ben. He just…thought I should know about it.”

Jules couldn’t believe this. He could understand Alyssa telling Sam, but…“As my boss or—”

“As your friend,” Max corrected him. “I just wanted to make sure that you understood, despite what the President said in our meeting—”

“Grooming me as your replacement,” Jules remembered. With everything going on in the search for Peggy Ryan, he’d actually forgotten that giant anvil that had dropped on his head from out of the blue. Max actually thought that when he moved onward and upward, Jules would be able to fill his gigantic shoes. It was almost too much to assimilate, not without bursting into tears—which could well make Max change his mind.

“You’re not going to disappoint me if you decide to take a different path,” Max told him quietly. “If you and Ben—”

“Whoa,” Jules said. “Whoa. Yikes. The man sent me an e-mail. I haven’t seen him in months. It’s crazy to think…I mean, God, even when we were together, it was only for a week. It was just an extended one-night stand. It was sex, all right?”

Ben was incredibly good-looking, and even though as a Marine he had to be in the closet, they had hooked up for a while because, well…Because Jules was human. But it wasn’t worth it—it drove him nuts to have to hide, to sneak around…They’d broken up, and Ben went to Iraq. End of story.

Except they’d started exchanging e-mail a few months ago. As friends. Just friends—Jules had made that very clear.

The idea that Ben was suddenly talking long-term commitment was absurd.

Wasn’t it?

Although, with Ben in Iraq, their relationship had been whittled down to words, thoughts, feelings—in the form of those near-daily e-mails. Jules had found it oddly enjoyable. Ben was a good writer—a skill that Jules appreciated and even shared. They’d gotten to know each quite well over the past four months—something that was much easier to do without Ben constantly pressuring him to make their friendship physical again.

But this latest e-mail had caught Jules by surprise.

“He’s willing to give up his career. You won’t have to hide anymore. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Max asked Jules now.

Jules nodded. First yes, then no. “I don’t know what I want,” he admitted. “I honestly don’t.”

No way was he torturing Max by telling him this, but the sex hadn’t been all that great, shadowed as it was by the knowledge that Jules was getting intimate with someone who would never even dare to hold his hand at a Pride parade. Not that Ben wasn’t plenty affectionate in private. Jules just found it hard to invest a hundred percent in a relationship that could never be permanent—not without Ben giving up his career.

God, the thought of Ben throwing everything away for Jules—for something that had never been real—made him feel claustrophobic. As if his tie were tightening around his neck as water closed around his head.

Which was probably close to the way Max was feeling right about now, too.

“You sure you don’t want a beer?” Max asked.

Jules stood up. Because Max was right—it would all be here tomorrow. Peggy’s reports. Ben’s e-mail. His future trying to fill Max’s shoes as the leader of the most elite counterterrorist team in the entire FBI.

“Yeah,” Jules told his friend. “Let’s go get a beer.”