Meet Me at Midnight. Jessica Andersen

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СКАЧАТЬ for the next presidential election, and he’d been in Boston this past week for some glitzy affair at the Hancock Building.

      Rumor also had it that he’d disappeared right after the blackout.

      “Why are you here?” she nearly whispered, fear and confusion stealing her breath. “Why aren’t you looking for him?”

      “I am,” he said bluntly. “I need you to tell me where I can find Liam Shea. If you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to arrest you as an accessory to the vice president’s kidnapping.”

      The ground pitched beneath Gabby’s feet and the world spun invisible circles around her. “I already told you.” She swallowed hard when tears pressed at her throat. “I don’t know either Liam Shea or a Liam Sullivan. Period, end of discussion.”

      “You hacked into his Web site on March fifteenth.”

      “I never—” she began, then broke off, realizing that her two guilty pleasures—Internet dating and testing her hacking skills against the occasional encrypted Web site—had come to roost simultaneously. And the Secret Service was involved, which meant… Wait a second, she thought. March fifteenth?

      Ty had first e-mailed her through Webmatch.com on the seventeenth. St. Patrick’s Day.

      Sick humiliation poured through her, nearly dropping her to her knees. “Oh, God. You hit on me because I hacked into this guy’s Web site. You—”

      She broke off, nausea building when she remembered all the things she’d told him. She might have hidden her blindness and the circumstances leading up to it, but she’d been open about everything else. She’d told him about her growing frustration with the school and the narrow confines of her life, about how she longed for adventure as much as she feared it. In return, he’d urged her to step outside her comfort zone, to embrace life and focus on the people she loved. He’d told how he’d married his high school sweetheart right after leaving the military, and how he heard his retired-colonel father’s voice in his head, calming him down when he’d been in tight situations. Or had all that been a lie?

      She’d thought they had a connection. It hurt like hell to find out he’d only romanced her because she’d hacked into some guy’s Web site.

      “Why me?” Her voice cracked on the word and she nearly sagged against Maria.

      “Because you hacked into a Web site dedicated to defaming Grant Davis,” Ty said coolly.

      “Gabby isn’t a criminal,” Maria said, her accent thickening with anger. “And besides, there must be a hundred Web sites like that.”

      “Thousands of ’em,” Ty agreed. “But this is the only one the vice president asked me to monitor personally. He and Liam…let’s just say they have a history.”

      Gabby’s lips trembled. “So you thought that gave you the right to pretend that you—” She broke off, unable to continue.

      She might’ve ended the relationship, but that hadn’t prevented her from thinking What if. What if they did meet? What if he proved to be a better man than his predecessors, and hadn’t minded that she couldn’t drive or play golf, and that she sometimes fumbled her way around? What if?

      Never once had she thought, What if it turns out he was only pretending to like me?

      “I’m sworn to protect the vice president with my life,” he said. “So, yeah, I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep him safe, including joining a dating service to get close to a woman who hacks through trilevel security like it’s nothing.”

      Maria tugged on her arm. “Let’s go. You’re not saying another word until you’ve got a lawyer and this guy’s got a warrant or a subpoena or whatever Secret Service agents need.”

      But Gabby stood her ground, shaking her head. “I don’t need a lawyer.” She lowered her voice, willing Ty to believe her when she said, “I teach computer science at the Edmunds School. That’s a school for the visually impaired, in case your background research on me missed that little tidbit. I visit a ton of Web sites, and yes, sometimes I hack into the more challenging ones, just to prove I can. But that’s it. I’m not connected to anyone named Shea or Sullivan, and I have nothing against Vice President Davis. I swear it on my sister’s life.” She didn’t know where that had come from, but although she hadn’t seen Amy in over a decade, it was a binding vow. The love remained even though her family had cut her off.

      Tears gathered now, welling from the pain in her soul. “As for hacking into encrypted Web sites, you can be sure I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t be Web surfing anymore. You never know what kind of jerk you’ll meet.”

      A tear spilled over and tracked down her cheek when she realized that even though she’d tried to end the relationship rather than meet him in person, some small, unrealistic part of her had hoped for something more when he’d e-mailed earlier, begging for a meeting.

      Her voice shook when she said, “Please go.”

      Ty cursed under his breath and said, “Listen, Gabby—”

      But she didn’t want to hear his lame excuses, didn’t want his pity as the swirling emotions coalesced into a hard, hot ball in her chest and the tears surfaced.

      Not wanting him to see her cry, she turned and fled into the darkness.

      Ignoring Ty’s startled shout, Gabby ran along memorized paths. It was five long steps to the iron gate, twenty across the next courtyard over, then a sharp right-hand turn into the narrow alley between the Robinsons’ two-family and Gino Vinzetti’s house.

      The sounds, smells and shapes of the neighborhood were familiar, grounding her in the realities of her life.

      Then footsteps sounded behind her and Ty shouted, “Gabby, wait!”

      Sobbing with anger and embarrassment, she hooked a left down Hanover Street, keeping one hand on the rough building faces and using the other to sweep her cane back and forth just in case. She tripped once and nearly fell, but regained her balance and kept going all the way to her apartment, which took up the ground floor of a three-family nestled between a seafood restaurant and a pastry shop.

      She was grateful that none of the neighbors were home to see her tears and the way her hands shook when she unlatched the wrought iron gate that led to her side entrance. Hopefully, Ty wouldn’t know where she’d gone. She could trust Maria not to tell him.

      But he was a federal agent. No doubt he’d known her home address all along.

      She blew out a teary breath and let herself inside. She leaned the cane against the door frame, knowing every inch of the apartment without its help, and headed down the entry hall toward the living room, with its soft, embracing couch and familiar, homey smells of cinnamon-scented candles and chocolate chips.

      Wanting nothing more than to throw herself onto the couch and scream, she hurried across the room.

      Halfway there, she tripped and fell.

      Gabby cried out as she slammed her hip into the corner of her coffee table and crashed to the floor. A wave of pain washed through her, radiating from her right hip and elbow.

      Dazed, she waited a moment for СКАЧАТЬ