Page 87 of Cruel Kiss

Plan B it is.

I open the junk drawer, the one with the takeout menus and the dead batteries, and dig past all of it until my fingers close on the thing I've kept there without letting myself think about why.

Two business cards. Identical.Special Agent Gia Mercer. FBI.

The second the dial tone catches, I start whispering. "Agent Mercer, it's Calista Meadows. There are two men on my front steps right now. They say they're FBI and they've got a production order for my software. Are these your people?"

To her credit, Mercer doesn't miss a step. "Describe them," she orders.

"Older one, gray hair, calls himself Hodges. Younger one, big jaw, McCarty. The paperwork is—it's really good, it looks real?—"

"I didn't send anyone."

"Are you sure?"

Rapid-fire typing follows on her end. "Yeah, I'm sure. And… Yeah, that's what I thought. There is no production order out of my office. Nobody I know should be at your door." More sounds. A rustle, a door, the hubbub of someone moving quickly."Calista. Listen to me. Do not open that door. Do not hand them anything. Where are your kids?"

"Upstairs."

"Keep them there. Stay on the line with me. I've got people close and I'm moving them in now. Do not hang up."

I press my back against the kitchen island—the same island where I built the worst spreadsheet of my life, and then the second-worst one. There's something almost funny about that, about how every catastrophe of the last three months has found me right here in my socks.

"They're still on the stoop," I whisper. "The door's open."

"Good. Leave it. Do not go back to them."

But I'm already panicking. Because the one thing I know, the one thing that has never once failed me, is that people who want something from you behave differently the moment they realize they aren't getting it.

"Mercer, I'm going to do something."

"Calista—"

I walk back down the hall. Not all the way. I stop ten feet from the door, close enough to be heard, far enough that neither of them can reach me before I could scream the house down.

"Sorry, guys," I call out. "I've got the Bureau on the phone right now. Agent Mercer. She's going to confirm the order and she's sending people over. Should be here in a couple minutes. You're welcome to wait."

The change is instant.

Agent Hodges's pleasant, patient expression doesn't crack so much asevaporate."That's not necessary, ma'am," he barks. "We can come back."

"I insist," I say. "Stay. She'd love to meet you."

McCarty is hurrying backward off the top step. Hodges stumbles down after him, keeping his face toward me the whole way like you'd back away from a dog you weren't sure about. As simple as that, they just fold up and go, down the steps and along the sidewalk, past the corner where one of Ronan's men should be sitting in a dark coat and, I realize with a lurch, isn't.

Then they turn the corner and they're gone.

"They left," I say into the phone. "They're gone. They walked. They didn't run, they just—they left."

"I've got a car ninety seconds out," Mercer says. "Stay inside. Lock the door. Do not touch that paperwork again, I want it exactly as it is."

I go to the door, close it, throw the deadbolt and the vault lock and the chain, all three, and then my legs just quit.

I slide down the door and land on the hardwood in the front hall. For a while, I sit there with my knees against my chest and my phone still pressed to my ear, and I start to shake.

Not cry. Shake. Full-body, teeth-rattling, like the house is running an electric current through me.

"Calista." Mercer's voice, closer to gentle than I've ever heard it. "You still with me?"