Melissa Cutler - Secret Agent Secretary

Hmm. Felt weird on her lips. Apparently, a first-name intimacy with Agent Reitano was going to take some getting used to. She turned her attention back to the computer.

“Uh-oh.”

The monitor was black save for an error message.

“No, no, no,” she muttered as she pressed every function key to no avail. She tried again, this time pushing the function keys and the control button simultaneously. Nothing. Avery knew her way around a computer. She typed a hundred words a minute and could locate anything on the internet. Spreadsheets and data fields were her comfort zone. But when it came to the actual technological components that made her beloved machine work, she was as clueless as a monkey.

In desperation, she resorted to the only key combination she knew—Control, Alt, Delete. She depressed all three keys with a silent prayer, but the dang thing had the audacity to beep at her like the survey machine on Family Feud.

With an offended scowl, she pushed the power key until it shut down and began to reboot.

The office was loaded with computers, Avery didn’t have access through her own computer to the virtual storage cloud the agents used and she couldn’t jump onto another agent’s computer because each was privately passworded. If she couldn’t get Agent Reitano’s computer to work, her best bet was to scan the hard copy—if there was a hard copy.

Still barefoot and with the paper clip chain attached to the zipper slapping at her back with every step, she walked to the rows of file cabinets and went straight to the drawer where she’d put the Chiara case file that afternoon. She flipped through the files but found nothing on Vincenzo Chiara.

Baffled, she searched again. It should’ve been right in the front, but it was gone. She laid her palms flat over the tops of the files and considered her options. Before she got ahead of herself coming up with a plan C, she checked back at Agent Reitano’s—Ryan’s—computer. It had finished rebooting and the same error message from before still glowed on the screen.

She poked the monitor, muttering a mild curse, then jogged into Director Tau’s office. A quick scan of his desk for the file’s hard copy yielded nothing.

His file cabinets were locked, as she knew his desk would be, so instead of wasting more time, she pivoted and went straight for Agent Mickle’s desk, the other agent working the Chiara case.

It was locked.

With another, more stringent curse, she walked back to Agent Reitano’s desk. Maybe the hard copy of the case file had been right under her nose and she’d been too focused on the computer error to notice. The desktop was bare except for the bald eagle bobblehead figurine Director Tau had given him when he’d transferred to the department, as was the office tradition. And, as was the office’s tradition, Mickle and the other agents had promptly dressed the eagle in a pink Barbie bikini top and coordinating hat.

With her hand on the top drawer handle, she warned the desk, “Don’t be locked,” then gave a tug.

It opened, sending Bald Eagle Barbie’s head bobbling and pens in the drawer rolling. She eyeballed each drawer in turn but didn’t see the file. Or anything interesting or personal in nature. Nothing to give her a clue into the life or personality of her stoic office crush.

She had her head in the bottom drawer, riffling through form letters and expense reports, when the “Bootylicious” ringtone on her phone started. That would be Kristen, wondering why Avery wasn’t in front of Club Brazil like they’d planned. She hustled to her desk and fished her purse from the floor.

“Hey, Krissy.”

“Where are you? We’ve been standing here for twenty minutes.”

That late already? She chewed her lip and glanced at her computer screen to check the time—but all she saw was the same error message as on Agent Reitano’s computer. Stifling the curse that was on the tip of her tongue, she smacked the side of the monitor, then sunk into her desk chair. “Sorry I didn’t call. Something came up.”

“Aw, sweetie, are you still at the office? You’ve got to snap out of this work rut you’ve been in lately. You need to get a life.”

Avery was about to protest that she had a great life, and was, in fact, on the verge of crossing off the first item on her bucket list. And maybe a second one if Agent Reitano followed through on her coffee offer. But she didn’t have time to get into it with Kristen over the merits of working late on a case, not when Agent Reitano was expecting that transcript.

“Yes. I’m still at work. National security never sleeps, ya know.”

“You already used the work excuse to weasel out of joining us for dinner tonight, and now this? I know what’s really going on.”

“You do?” Avery asked.

“You mentioned the other day how lame you felt being the only single person in our group. You don’t still feel that way, do you? ’Cause you’d be the only one.”

True, it bugged her that she’d be partying with three couples. No one liked being the odd man out, but she’d never use that as an excuse not to go dancing with her friends. Just this once, though, she was going to let Kristen run with the idea.

“It’s so awkward, Krissy. Who am I going to kiss at midnight while you, Gina and Megan suck face with your men?”

Kristen groaned. “Oh, come on. Midnight’s not for two more hours. Plenty of time for us to find you a hot guy to ring in the New Year with. Have a little faith.”

Avery stuffed the letter from Honduras into her tote bag along with her work clothes. “All right, you win. You guys head into the club and scope out the scene. I’m going to have to meet up with you in an hour or so, after I take care of something here at work. If you see a cute guy who’s my type, do whatever you have to do to keep the other girls away from him until I get there.”

“I hope you’ve picked a new type because Zach was the last pretentious, tofu-obsessed jerk I ever want to see you with.”

Zach was the son of her parents’ best friends, and Avery had only stayed with him as long as she did because it’d made her parents happy to see her with someone they approved of, someone with their same lofty ideals and political leanings—or so they’d all thought.

Avery glanced at Agent Reitano’s desk. “I think from now on I’m going to go for the strong, silent type. Tall, dark hair and eyes. And lots and lots of muscles.”

“I like the way you think, but every girl goes for the strong, silent type. If I find an unattached one, I’ll try to save him for you, but you’re going to have to do your part and get here fast.”

Avery slapped the side of the computer monitor, but the blasted error message shone firm. “I’ll do my best.”

Once she got Kristen off the phone, Avery took one more look around the room. If there was any place she forgot to check for the Chiara file, it certainly wasn’t announcing itself with a neon blinking sign. There was nothing left to do but call Agent Reitano and find out how he wanted to proceed.

She called his number, but it flipped straight to voice mail. She left a message, then wrote him a text message.

Now what did she do? She had no idea why he needed that transcript of a wiretap tonight while he cased the hotel, but, frankly, it was none of her business. She wasn’t even supposed to know the LM1204 file was a transcript of a wiretap. Besides, if he said he needed it, then that should be good enough for her.

She had one more option left, but it wasn’t a particularly great one. Agent Reitano wouldn’t know this because Avery tried not to spread it around, what with all the national secrets she was privy to at the office, but she’d been cursed with a near-perfect photographic memory. She knew the contents of the LM1204 file by heart and could re-create it for him word for word, because the week before, when she’d waited at his desk while he signed off on a stack of evidence transfer paperwork, she’d seen the file open on his computer monitor. All she needed now was a functioning computer to type it out on and she could re-create it in minutes flat.