Jeff Abbott: Panic

She did not touch his computer, his notebooks. That would come. She locked the door, reset the alarm, and left.

‘Yeah, Callaway rocks. You studying film?’ Evan said. The guy in front of him in the line stepped up a space but Evan, last in line, stayed put.

‘No. It’s just an interest.’

‘I’m a film-maker,’ he said, trying hard not to make it sound like bragging or a pickup line.

‘Really? Adult movies?’ she asked innocently.

‘Uh, no.’ He was next up to place his coffee order, and he did, turning his back on her, and she thought, That didn’t work.

But he gave the barista his order and took the five steps back to her table. ‘I make documentaries. That’s why I don’t like Hamblin’s book. He gives us short shrift.’

‘Really?’ She gave a smile of polite interest.

‘Yeah.’

‘Would I have seen one of your movies?’

He told her the titles and she raised her eyes when he mentioned Ounce of Trouble. ‘I saw it in Chicago,’ she said. ‘I liked it.’

He smiled. ‘Thanks.’

‘I did. Bought a ticket, didn’t even sneak in from another theater.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, my pocketbook appreciates it.’

‘Are you making another movie now?’

‘Yeah. It’s called Bluff. About three different players on the pro poker circuit.’

‘So, are you in Houston to film?’

‘No, I still live here.’

‘Why don’t you move to Hollywood?’

‘There’s a difference?’ he asked with a laugh.

She laughed, too. ‘Well, nice to meet you. Good luck with your movie.’ She stood and headed to the counter to order a fresh latte.

‘My treat,’ he said quickly. ‘If I may. I mean, you bought a ticket. It’s only fair.’ So she smiled and let him buy her latte and she moved to sit close to him, wondering, Why on earth could Jargo be interested in this guy? And they talked for an hour about movies they liked and loathed, and she gave him her cell phone number.

He called the next day, they had dinner that night at a Thai place he loved; she was new to town so she couldn’t suggest she had a favorite place to go. She suspected Evan was the kind of man who would simultaneously pity her loneliness and admire her guts in moving to a city where she knew no one. They talked baseball, books, movies, and avoided their personal lives. She told him she was thinking of graduate school in English and was living off a trust fund, keeping her situation intentionally vague. She tried to pay for the dinner; he slid the check to his side of the table and smiled. ‘But you bought a ticket.’

She liked him. But over two more dates in the next five days, she hit a stone wall: he wouldn’t talk about what Jargo cared about, his future movies.

She’d watched his two finished films on DVD before she’d come to Houston to lay her snares. He only talked about those movies when she asked. He never mentioned his Oscar nomination for Ounce of Trouble, which impressed her far more than the honor itself.

Their fourth date, she saw Dezz watching them in the restaurant. He sat alone at the bar at the small Italian eatery, drinking a glass of red wine, pretending to read the paper. Jargo watched her, through him. He left halfway through their meal.

‘You’re upset,’ Evan said, not thirty seconds after Dezz had walked past their table.

This would be a whole world easier if he were one of those men lost in himself. But Evan, when he wasn’t immersed in his work, seemed to notice every small detail of her.

‘No. I saw a man who reminded me of someone I once knew. An unpleasant memory.’

‘Then let’s not dwell on it,’ he said.

Ten minutes later he asked her about her family. She decided to stick close to the truth. ‘They’re dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Burglary. They were both shot. A year ago.’

He went pale with shock. ‘Oh, Jesus, Carrie, how terrible. I’m so sorry.’

‘Now you know,’ she said, ‘but I’d like to talk about something else.’

‘Sure.’ He glided the conversation back onto safe ground, smoothing out the awkwardness. She saw a real tenderness in his gaze toward her and she thought, Oh, no, don’t do that, you make me feel as though I’m using their deaths and I wasn’t planning to tell you and I don’t know why I did. She was afraid that, having a storyteller’s curiosity, he’d visit the Chicago Tribune Web site, search on her name, look for an account of the murders. And she’d had a different surname then; there would be no Carrie Lindstrom whose parents had died in a burglary. She had made a mistake, but if he never looked it up, then that was okay.

They went back to his house to watch a movie and drink wine. She knew she should sleep with him; it was time to seal the deal, insert herself deeper into his life. He didn’t have a steady girl – there had been a woman last year, another film-maker named Kathleen, who had dumped him for another guy and moved to New York. He had mentioned Kathleen only once, which she considered healthy. Evan seemed a little lonely but not needy, she could keep a closer eye on him for Jargo, for whatever odd reason. But she hesitated.

Jargo had ordered her to sleep with a man once before, six months ago; a high-level Colombian police official, married, in his late forties. But she didn’t. Instead she let him pick her up in a Bogota bar, went back to his hideaway apartment, kissed him, and slipped a knockout drug into his beer. He passed out kissing her. She undressed the official, to let him think they’d consummated their evening and watched the man sleep. While he slept, Dezz broke into the man’s home office. Two weeks later she read about a number of police officers who were on the drug cartel payrolls being arrested. She figured Dezz had stolen financial records or payoff lists. Jargo never asked if she hadn’t slept with the official; he assumed she had, that she was willing to prostitute herself.

You never knew with Jargo on which side of the line between dark and light he would drop you.

But this. This she could not fake.

It’ll be all right, she told herself. He’s nice and good-looking and you like him. It would be easier, though, if she hated him, because it would only make her hate him more. She realized that with a shock as their lips met, his kisses tender and slow. She arched against him as he slid his hand over her breast, clutched his hair in her fingers.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘Nothing.’

He leaned back. ‘You’re not ready.’

‘You think too much.’ She kissed him hard again, willing him to just not care, willing herself not to respond to his touch, his tongue. He’s just a project.

He kissed her again but then broke it off. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

Oh, God, if I could. But I never, never will. ‘Nothing’s wrong. Except that you haven’t carried me off to bed yet.’

The lie reassured him. He smiled and picked her up from the couch and they lay down on his bed and it was not like the police attache in Colombia. She had thought, in the long, dark days of the past year, that she would never feel happiness again without pretense. But instead of being a terrible betrayal of her own self, the night with Evan broke her heart.

He’s just a project, Carrie.

The next morning she called Jargo and told him that she and Evan were lovers. ‘I don’t have any competition,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘He’s giving me a lot of his time.’

‘Is he talking about his films?’

‘No. He says if he talks too much about a movie, he’s told the story, then, and he loses the passion for making it.’

‘Search his computer, his notebooks.’

‘He’s not much of a note taker.’ She paused. ‘It would be helpful to know what exactly I’m looking for.’