Frontline (19 page)

“Merrick is hiding something, Sara, regardless if he’s a good guy or not,” Kelly says. “Ditch him.”

“I, for one, find this new development exciting,” Denim says. “If anything, Kelly’s information tilts the scale in Trenton’s favor. I mean, if Christopher and Sean are U.S. Army personnel, then they wouldn’t be working for Trenton if he was a terrorist.”

Kelly frowns. “It still doesn’t explain why a CEO needs that kind of protection.”

“Trenton is filthy rich so it makes sense he wants the best protection,” Denim replies. “Given that his two best friends are so highly trained and he can trust them, plus afford to pay them better than the government, he probably persuaded them to work for him instead of going off to war and putting their lives in danger.”

“Yeah, but why go through all that education and training only to end up working for your childhood friend whose business is Wall Street, not warfare?” Kelly says.

My head spins. One thing is for certain
—I can’t cancel on Trenton again. It didn’t work before. The best thing for me to do is to meet him in Central Park tomorrow and make my decision after some sensible contemplation. I might be crazy for even considering seeing him again, but oddly, I’m not that worried. After all, we’ll be in a crowded place and in broad daylight. And Denim is right. If Christopher and Sean are high-ranking U.S. Army personnel, then the chance of Trenton being a terrorist is slim.

As for Trenton’s encounter with Alexander Kedrov, maybe he was on some government mission
—or maybe Kedrov isn’t really a bad guy, after all.

“Kelly, I’ll take your advice into consideration.” I yawn and stretch my arms over my head. “Right now, all I wanna do is sleep.”

Kelly drops the folder onto my coffee table.

I shake my head. “Take that with you.”

If Trenton shows up here unexpectedly, like he’s known to do, I don’t want him finding that information here.

Kelly scowls and picks up the folder.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She walks to the door, opens it, and turns around to glare at Denim.

Denim glides over to me and drops her voice to a whisper. “Remember what I said, Sara. If I don’t hear from Christopher in three days, tell Merrick to order him to call me.”

I shoo her and Kelly into the hallway and shut the door.

It’s nice to know Denim isn’t siding with Kelly and I have at least one person who understands my point of view. For now, though, I’ll keep my Central Park date a secret from her.

After locking up, I exhale a deep breath, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Then I think about the
New York Financial
magazine article on Trenton and all of the positive stuff I read about him on the Internet.

Who is the real Trenton Merrick?

I must admit that the possibility he could be a government figure is a big turn-on. But a terrorist or an arms dealer? Not so much.

After changing into my pajamas, I set my alarm clock, lie down, and close my burning eyes.

The shrill ring of the telephone wakes me. White sunlight glows behind the slats of my closed blinds. I look at the clock. It’s only been an hour since my head hit the pillow.

Why is it so difficult for me to get proper rest around this place lately?

I reach for the phone. The double staccato ring tells me it’s a long distance call.

“Hello,” I say into the receiver, rubbing my eyes with my fist.

“Sara!”

I smile and sit up. “Dad, hey!”

“How’s it goin’, kiddo? You doing all right?”

“I’m good.”

Aside from possibly dating a terrorist.

“What about you?”

“Same old, same old. How’s the hospital?”

“Work’s going well. I’m tired, but you know how shift work is.”

My father clears his throat. “So, uh, how are things, you know, financially?”

Not this again.

My mom and dad always offer to wire me cash and I always turn them down. They took care of me my entire life and now that I’m working full-time, it’s up to me to live within my own means. It’s not their fault I chose to move to one of the most expensive cities in the country. Plus, my mom is a housewife and my dad doesn’t pull in a huge salary at the Port of San Francisco. Despite their generous offers, they really can’t afford to give me handouts.

“I’m getting by, Dad. Don’t worry about me.”

Oh, by the way, I have a bazillionaire offering to pay off my debt if I get desperate.

“Because I can send you money . . . if you need it.”

“I don’t need it,” I say firmly.

“Okay, just offering. You know your mother and I are always here for you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So, uh, anything else going on, Sara?”

My eyebrows furrow. “No, why?”

He chuckles. “Just looking out for my little girl, that’s all.”

“I appreciate your concern, Dad,” I say with a smile. “But really, I’m good.”

“Well, that’s . . . good.” He exhales a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m heading into work early. I just wanted to say hello and make sure everything is good and, you know, there’s nothing new and exciting going on in your life that you want to share with your old man.”

I giggle. “Sorry to disappoint you, but thanks for calling. It was nice hearing from you. Don’t work too hard, okay?”

“You either, kiddo.”

I grip the receiver tighter. “Before you go, how’s mom? Is she there?”

“She’s good
—out grocery shopping now.”

“Oh, well, have a good shift and tell Mom hello for me when you see her, okay? I’ll call you guys sometime next week.”

“Will do. Love you, Sara. And, uh . . . be safe.”

Be safe, he says. If only he knew.

“Love you, too.”

I hang up the phone and snuggle back under the covers, mentally reviewing the information in Kelly’s folder and reiterating to myself that meeting Trenton tomorrow in Central Park in the middle of the afternoon isn’t dangerous.

As additional incentive to see him tomorrow, I decide to ask him pointblank if he’s a terrorist or
007
. Trenton doesn’t have to share every detail of his line of work with me, but a little clarification would be nice. Hopefully the worst thing he does is laugh in my face and tell me I’m crazy. It might be naïve of me to hope for the best, but at this point, hope is all I have left.

If Trenton asks where I came up with the idea of him working for or against the U.S. government, I can’t bring up the photos or written documents. No matter how I spin it, what Kelly did was wrong. And if Trenton really is a bad guy, he won’t take too kindly to me looking at his classified information and he’ll probably order Christopher or Sean to bump me off,
Jimmy Hoffa
style.

It’s funny how I now regard such notions like my possible murder so nonchalantly. I guess being held at gunpoint desensitizes a person. Perhaps I’m just desperate for excitement in my boring life or so tired that my common sense has gone right out the window.

What I need now is rest.

As I slip into an exhaustion-induced sleep, Alexander Kedrov’s face flashes before me. But he’s younger than the man I saw in Kelly’s photographs. I also see him in color, his hair black and slicked back from his face. His dark brown eyes glare from an ashen complexion; a cigarette dangles from between his chapped lips.

The details of his appearance are so lifelike, and the intimidation I feel so vivid, our encounter feels like a real experience, not a dream.

Kedrov extends his hand to me. He smiles, pulls the cigarette from his lips with his other hand, and says my name as streams of smoke billow from his mouth. I shudder as we shake hands. But it’s not his expression of false sincerity and kindness, or his cold, firm grasp that disturb me. It’s his thick accent, which I suddenly realize sounds eerily familiar
—

I sit up in bed. My eyes dart around my apartment in a panic as I struggle to catch my breath.

I have met Alexander Kedrov before.

Sleep comes between fits, my body fighting the fatigue of a long shift and my brain endlessly churning, trying to find an origin for my memory of Alexander Kedrov. It’s like thousands of unlabeled drawers filled with random photographs inside my head are opened and slammed shut again. Minutes on the clock take hours to tick by, and once the first streams of daylight finally glow through my window, I’m more exhausted than I was last night.

As the sounds of honking horns and barking dogs grow from dull to deafening, I lay still, looking at the ceiling, as if the patterned stipple there is an autostereogram that will reveal the answer if I stare long enough. It’s late morning by the time I realize it’s totally useless and finally crawl from beneath my covers. There are only a few hours to get ready to meet Trenton in Central Park and if I show up looking anything like I do now, he’s going to regret asking me to see him again.

I step into the shower and close my eyes as hot water flows through my hair and cascades down my face and body. Showers are like hitting the reset button. No matter how bad the day or night before, standing naked in a stream of hot water soothes every ache and slows my mind until I feel it’s safe to relax and breathe deeply.

But it’s only a second after I close my eyes that Kedrov’s image ambushes me again.

I slam my hand against the tiled wall to still myself and feel goose bumps sprout all over me. Turning the water all the way to
H
sears my skin bright pink, but offers no warmth. After a quick soap and shampooing, I step out into the steamy bathroom, throw on my robe, and twist my hair into a towel before retreating back into daylight.

The corner of my bed offers a bit of support as I sit and try to calm my racing heart. How is it possible that photos in a folder of classified information could resurrect a memory I feel no attachment to? I want to dismiss it as a random fragment from something larger
—the final scene of a movie I saw years ago where Bruce Willis or Jason Statham defeat a villain who looks like Kedrov in a hail of bullets and fireballs, but the fear that races through me each time his face reappears in my mind tells me it’s much more than that. How could I, the only child in a working class San Francisco family, ever have had contact with someone like him? It doesn’t make sense.

Stretching out on my bed finally provides some comfort. After a few minutes of drifting in and out of consciousness, all of them Kedrov-free, I decide to blame this on fatigue and an overactive imagination. I haven’t had a proper sleep in days and I clearly took the troubling information Kelly offered me about Trenton much too seriously.

By the time one thirty arrives, I’ve dressed in a pair of jeans, a purple blouse, and white sneakers. I’ve also chosen a small satchel purse with a strap I can wear across my chest for convenience. If it turns out Trenton is indeed a bad guy and this is the last outfit I ever wear, I want to make sure I look presentable and feel comfortable.

It’s a shorter subway ride to uptown Manhattan than I expect, and I hope I’m early enough that Trenton doesn’t see me coming from a public transit station, even though he did agree I could get to the park on my own. I don’t want to start the date with yet another argument about his concern for my safety. I know this is the Big Apple, but San Francisco isn’t exactly the world’s safest city either, and I’ve made it this far by myself.

72nd Street leads straight into Central Park. Magnolia trees and cherry blossoms shade the pathways from the bright blue sky above which shines in stark contrast to the endless gray drizzle and low-hanging clouds of San Francisco. I take a deep breath as the odors of Manhattan’s streets give way to the fresh spring air of the park.

I start down the pathway stretching in front of me. Joggers weave in and out of the crowd of pedestrians, their white ear bud cords bouncing against their chests with each stride, while others sit on nearby benches, texting or reading the paper. I look closely at everyone’s ears for a few seconds, making sure none of them sport the telltale Tin Man coil snaking beneath their collar like Christopher and Sean wear.

It takes a few more minutes to maneuver through the crowd toward the Bethesda Terrance. Just as I reach the balcony and the Bethesda Fountain comes into view below, I hear it overhead—the unmistakable roar of a helicopter engine. Embarrassment paralyzes me as I envision Trenton’s chopper landing on the nearby pond and his Tin Men picking him up in a speedboat that brings him the rest of the way to shore, the crowd parting as he makes his way toward the fountain, and ultimately, me.

A tap on my shoulder prompts me to whirl around, and I’m face to jawline with Trenton. In the past, I’ve spotted him from a distance and had time to drink him in slowly. Aside from the
New York Financial
magazine and Haiti photographs, it’s the first time I’ve seen him out of a suit and I’m completely unprepared. He wears an ivory cable-knit shawl collar sweater. Black leather shoes peek from beneath the cuffs of low-slung blue jeans.

My eyes drift higher . . . higher . . . and I sink into his steely blue gaze. Warmth fans across my cheeks as ribbons of desire unfurl deep inside me, circling, snaking, and spiraling like a rhythmic gymnastics routine.

Trenton takes an unhurried scan of my body, the approval in his expression bestowing upon me a perfect score of ten.

His eyes skip to my face. “Did I startle you?”

I blink. Words fail me.

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I turn around and look up. A helicopter hovers in the sky, but the news network logo emblazoned on the side of it tells me it’s not the property of Merrick Industries. My guilt is written plainly all over my face. Trenton’s expression lightens when he realizes what I was thinking.

“Sara, you really thought I’d take a helicopter to Central Park?”

I stare at him, wide-eyed, before bursting out laughing at my own idiocy. My face must be crimson. Trenton chuckles and I’m shocked to see some color appear in his cheeks, too.

“I’ve certainly made an impression on you over these last few days if that’s what you think I would do,” he says.

“It’s not that, it’s . . .” I fight to fill the emptiness in my voice with any sensible sound, and my excuse this time is as lame as ever. “I haven’t been sleeping . . . my mind is . . .”

Trenton places both hands on my waist and kisses me on the cheek.

Any coherency I had left vanishes.

“You look beautiful,” he murmurs.

As I savor the feel of his lips on my skin, it’s obvious lack of sleep has nothing to do with my stupidity. Trenton touching me is more debilitating than a month-long string of night shifts, but I’d volunteer in a heartbeat.

I manage to stutter, “Thank you.”

Trenton brings a hand to my lower back and guides me toward the closest set of stairs. We descend to Bethesda Terrace, the fountain looming ahead. The stone sculpture of an angel stands atop the fountain. Water spouts from around her feet and drains over the rim into a larger basin below, emptying into a pool at the bottom.

“So how did you get here?” As I ask my question, I look around, expecting to catch a few Tin Men hiding behind the nearby trees or suspended from the branches like monkeys.

“I walked.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I do that from time to time, you know.” His smirk looks light and playful.

Our steps fall together in easy, swinging strides, yet I can’t help but recall Sean’s comment that leisurely walks aren’t as typical for Trenton as he would like me to believe.

A soccer ball rolls past a small boy and Trenton doesn’t miss a beat. He does some fancy Beckham foot moves with it before kicking it right back to him.

“Thanks, mister!” the boy says.

Trenton nods. The boy’s smile widens even further and he regards us for an extra moment before turning back to his friends.

At the sight of this endearing exchange, I’m hit with an image of Trenton and me sitting in the gazebo of his Connecticut home, drinking lemonade on a hot summer day, watching two little boys with bright blue eyes and tousled brown hair playing soccer in the grass, and—

Jesus, Sara! You’ve known the guy less than a week and you’re already daydreaming of a future together straight out of
Leave It to Beaver.

“That was nice of you,” I say, hoping to redirect my thoughts.

Trenton shrugs.

“Do you like kids?” My attempt at sounding casual falls way short.

Trenton stops and lifts his eyebrows at me.

Mayday! Mayday!

I swallow hard, feeling my telltale blush making a grand appearance.

He shrugs again. “I guess so.”

I guess so? What kind of answer is that?

I strive for the ultimate
No-big-deal-I-was-just-wondering
charade when I nod and say, “That’s cool.”

Thankfully, Trenton continues walking instead of making some comment about the loud ticking of my biological clock hijacking our conversation.

As we start toward the fountain again, my empty stomach gives off a rumble that could’ve drowned out the noise from the helicopter a few minutes ago. I cover my abdomen with my hand and manage an embarrassed giggle.

“Have you not eaten today?” Trenton’s face is void of humor.

Shit.

“Uh . . . no. I skipped breakfast . . . and lunch, actually . . . and tried to sleep in as long as I could.”

I expect Trenton to launch into a verbal tirade about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Instead, he smiles. “You should’ve said so. I’ll take you to The Loeb Boathouse. They have a delicious lunch.”

It takes me a moment to absorb his cheerfulness. After all, this is not the Trenton I’ve come to know over the last few days.
Perhaps he really is making an effort to cool the overprotective, unreasonable, way-too-serious, incredibly frustrating, fuck-hot CEO routine.

“The Loeb Boathouse?” I frown. “Shouldn’t we have made reservations, like, a couple years ago?”

He looks at me as if I’ve forgotten whom I’m talking to. For a second, I guess I did.

“I can get us a table, Sara.”

I survey my plain blouse, jeans, and sneakers. Despite the compliment Trenton paid me earlier, if he’s willing to take me to a sophisticated restaurant, the least I can do is look the part.

“I’m not dressed for that.”

“It’s not an issue.” Trenton places his hand on my lower back again, but I don’t move.

“Not today. I don’t feel like eating anywhere fancy.”

His hand presses firmly against my back as he tries to move me toward the restaurant, but I dart off in an entirely different direction.

“Where are you going?” he calls, and he actually follows
me
for a change.

In a few more steps, he gets his answer. Gray plumes of smoke wisp into the air above a hot dog cart and orange flames lunge from beneath the grill, licking a row of sizzling sausages as the vendor rotates them.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Trenton mumbles.

“What’s wrong? Afraid of a little street meat?” I nudge his ribs with my elbow. “Come on, this allows us to eat and walk around in this gorgeous weather.”

Trenton’s eyes focus on the grilled sausages. His mouth flattens in a wince.

“What can I get you folks?” the vendor asks.

I step aside and let Trenton experience what I’m sure is his first hot dog cart purchase.

“I’ll take . . . two . . .”

“Two what?” says the vendor. “Hot dogs? Sausages? Sodas?”

“Um . . . two . . . hot dogs,” Trenton replies, as though in disbelief that the order comes from his own mouth.

The vendor plucks two hot dogs from the grill and drops them into two buns he has toasting on the upper rack.

“We’ll have whole wheat buns, not white,” Trenton says, as if dictating contract terms.

The vendor chuckles. “This isn’t the Loeb Boathouse, my friend. White is all I got. Now, what d’ya want on ’em?”

Trenton swallows hard, looking at the boxes of condiments lined up across the top of the kart. Stained handles of plastic spoons protrude from the surfaces of the mustard, ketchup, and relish. The banana peppers and sauerkraut float in yellow brine.

“We’ll take them plain,” Trenton says.

Oh, hell no!

I step forward. “I’ll have ketchup, mustard, and peppers on mine, please.”

The vendor’s grimace breaks into a smile.

“And bacon bits, if you don’t mind.”

Trenton glares at me. “Sara
—”

“Make that
extra
bacon bits.” I smile at the vendor super sweetly.

The vendor happily scoops an extra spoonful onto my hot dog and hands it to me. Trenton’s narrowed eyes burn hotter than the flames cooking the meat, but I don’t c
are. His plain hot dog looks boring compared to my heaping helping, the condiments splattering over the sides and soaking through the wrapper.

“What exactly are those so-called bacon bits made of?” Trenton asks.

The vendor shrugs.