Leslie Parrish - Pitch Black

Whatever. As long as Stokes wasn’t talking about Atlanta, and he suspected she was not, his new partner could think whatever the hell she wanted.

“Well, drivers who can’t keep all four tires on the road make me itchy, too.” He grabbed the dashboard as Stokes zipped around a tractor trailer doing seventy on the bumper-to-bumper beltway. “How about whoever lives for the rest of this ride gets to decide how to conduct the interview?”

For the first time since he’d set eyes on her, Stokes cracked a real smile. “Snarky, huh? Maybe you’re not just a pretty boy after all.” She put the pedal down, sending them hurtling off the 295 exit ramp at near warp speed. “I guess I’ll give you more than the week I predicted you’d last.”

“You keep driving like this,” Alec mumbled, taking no offense, “and I’ll be lucky to make it through the day.”

With a pencil stuck behind her ear, reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and her fingers flying across her keyboard so fast they barely connected with the letters, the last thing Samantha Dalton wanted to do was answer her front door, on which someone had just knocked. She’d finally hit her stride. The flicker of an idea had met the tinder of her own creativity and burst into an inferno of words that had to erupt out of her or be lost forever. Overblown imagery, but, as usual when she was on a deadline, she’d take whatever she could get if it kept her glued to her chair.

Knock-knock . Harder now.

She continued to ignore the interruption, riding the wave of energy she always relied upon when working on the columns and articles she wrote for her site, samthe spaminator.com. Especially ones like this, her weekly Sam’s Rant, which would go live on her blog late tomorrow night. The Wednesday-night rant, her most popular feature, was also the toughest for her to write. Getting things off her chest while maintaining her professional credibility had become a weekly balancing act. She chose every word carefully, despite the title of the column, never truly ranting. Though, right now, she wanted to because of the annoying knocking.

Having become a hermit since her divorce-at least, so her mother called her-she’d become adept at ignoring the odd salesman or nosy neighbor who dared to disregard the warning on her front door. But as the knocking continued, her eye started to twitch. Her voice low, she mumbled, “Can’t you read?”

She’d put the Do Not Disturb sign outside at noon, feeling optimistic that she’d spend the whole afternoon actually writing. Maybe even do something as adventurous as get dressed in real clothes.

It hadn’t happened. Instead, she’d surfed the day away, still wearing the sweats she’d donned after her shower. The Web had sucked up hours of her life, as it so often did lately.

Somehow, since the moment a judge with emotionless eyes had signed the piece of paper ending the four-year roller-coaster ride of her marriage, she hadn’t felt like Miss Get Up and Go. These days, Miss Got Up, Went, and Got Her Ass Handed Back to Her was content to stay right where she was.

Fortunately, the day hadn’t been totally wasted. She had found inspiration for tomorrow night’s column. But while researching, she’d also cruised blogs, played a few-okay, ten-hands of Spider Solitaire, and stumbled across stories here and tidbits there that grabbed her attention.

Still, she’d finally gotten down to business and the piece was coming along nicely. At least, it had been until the arrival of the person at the door, whose voice brought her irritation level up a notch.

“Ma’am, please answer the door.”

Fat chance. She still had to do updates for her weekly top-ten SPIT-aka Sam’s SPam hIT-list. There was research to be done on a new phishing scheme targeting Facebook users. She had an interview to do for a tech blog. And she had about three dozen e-mails to answer. Not much time for chitchat. Not much time for life, even.

Yet she’d surfed away many of her working hours.

“Loser,” she muttered.

“Miss Dalton? We need to talk to you,” the voice said.

If she had a real office, rather than working out of the living room of her Baltimore apartment, she might have been able to continue ignoring the intrusion. But as it was, she had no escape. So Sam saved her file, then trudged to the door.

Glancing through a part in the drapes and seeing a man wearing a suit, she figured she was in for some soul saving or a high-end sales pitch. Or both. “What is it?” she snapped, yanking the door open.

The man had his hand raised, ready to knock again, and her first impression was that he had big hands. Big fists. Strong-looking fingers. Her second was that if door-to-door salesmen now looked like this, lots more women would be lining up to buy vacuum cleaners and magazine subscriptions. Female shoppers all over the world were probably clamoring for deliveries.

Not her, though. She wasn’t buying. Especially not from men who looked like him.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the man said. “It really is important.”

The face was handsome-square jawed, strong featured, with heavily lashed eyes and sculpted cheekbones. Handsome enough to put Sam’s guard up. She didn’t trust handsome men, not after Samuel Dalton Jr. Her ex had been movie-star gorgeous.

Sam and Sam. God, why hadn’t someone slapped her when she’d accepted his proposal?

As he stepped closer, Sam had to tilt her head back. He was tall, easily topping her five-eight by several inches. Broad shoulders seemed to fill all the empty space between one side of the doorframe and the other. His light brown hair was slightly windblown and his pale green eyes held a friendly gleam. The friendliness didn’t extend to his nicely shaped lips, however. No smile widened them. His expression remained polite but entirely neutral.

Absolutely the only thing that said he wasn’t one hundred percent professional was the way his stare lingered for half a beat too long on her mouth. Which instantly made her want to lick her lips, even while she mentally cursed herself for the reaction.

“You are Miss Dalton? Samantha Dalton?”

“Mrs. Dalton,” she clarified, strictly from habit. Technically, she was no longer a Mrs. Dalton, not since her Mr. Dalton had found a Miss Slut-face to shack up with instead. Sam and Ashley. So much better . But she’d found the moniker useful in dealing with the occasional cyber stalker, and it fell off her lips as a matter of course these days.

“You are the Sam Dalton from the Sam the Spaminator Web site?”

Still feeling awkward about answering the door in sweats and slippers, she nodded hard. Her glasses slipped past the tip of her nose as she did so. Sam caught them as they bounced off, smudging the lenses with her tight fingers.

Reminding herself that she didn’t care what the hot guy with the sexy jaw and rock-hard body thought of her looks, she asked, “Do you need me to sign for something?”

He waved the leather wallet he’d been holding, which she hadn’t even noticed. It contained a badge. Sam immediately tensed.

“I’m Special Agent Lambert of the FBI. This is Special Agent Stokes. May we come in?”

She hadn’t even seen the woman. Sam nodded at her, saw the same emotionless expression, then let herself process the situation.

It didn’t take long. “Did you say FBI?” she snapped.

“Yes. We’d like to talk to you.”

God, not again. “Look, I tell people how to avoid scams; I’m not running one myself.” She thrust a frustrated hand through her hair, her fingers tangling in the loose ponytail, knocking several long, blond strands down around her face. “I’m not a hacker and my site and book are not secret instruction manuals for criminals looking for new ways to steal people’s money.”