And then he could finally sleep, providing their wily black cat, Midnight, let him. At least there’d be no more wake-up calls, intrusive maids and newspapers shoved under his door. Glancing around the office, Oliver decided the only thing worse than hotels was the new paperless FBI.
Like every large company, the FBI was deciding that hard-copy records took up too much space. Data was being transferred to computers, then destroyed. Trouble was, there was a huge margin for error in relying on electronic information. When Oliver’s e-ticket from L.A. to New York wasn’t at the airport, for example, Oliver had to buy another ticket that cost the agency—and ultimately the taxpayer—twice the price of the initial ticket.
The flight was a nightmare, too. Every time Oliver boarded an airplane, the seats got smaller and the food tasted more like plastic. How flight attendants survived, he’d never know. He sighed, thinking of the wanted posters usually displayed in airports and post offices. This week they were being recalled, soon to be replaced by an easier-to-read format. If you asked Oliver, it was all busywork, generated by people who weren’t good enough agents to actually solve crimes.
“You still here, Oliver?” Before he could respond, Anna added, “You know that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, right?”
“Good thing my name’s not Jack.”
She nodded at a blond man in an expensive suit wending his way through the cubicles. A distinctive birthmark stained his left cheek. “That’s Miles McLaughlin, right? He looks like Don Johnson on the Miami Vice reruns.” She paused. “And you’re right. He also looks like a jerk.”
Oliver eyed the head of the Information Systems Department, brainchild for the paperless FBI and co-creator of the new Quick Composite software. “What tipped you off? That he’s wearing sunglasses inside the building?”
Anna laughed, contemplating a tall, massively built black man with a shaved head who was as nattily dressed as Miles. “Yep. His sidekick looks like an African-American Bruce Willis.”
“Kevin Hall.” He was the other half of the Quick Composite team. “In their honor, I’m calling my next book Disappearing Evidence. Or maybe the Virtual FBI…”
“What about FBI Dot-Com?”
“Clever. They’re referring to this place as the E-Bureau.”
Anna giggled. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You sound cynical. I thought you backed the bureau all the way.”
Oliver had done so publicly, but for every criminal caught by new methods, others roamed free and, as far as he was concerned, the agency’s E-Bureau was siphoning manpower. Destroying hard-copy records was crazy. “You should see what’s happening downstairs.”
“That bad, huh?”
The basement was in pandemonium. On the first floor, files from open cardboard boxes were being scanned into a central database. Upstairs, Miles and Kevin were holding meetings, announcing that in the new global economy, evidence was going to become superfluous. “J. Edgar Hoover’s probably rolling over in his grave,” Oliver muttered. He slugged back a last gulp of mochaccino just as lightning flashed, illuminating the entrance to Grand Central Station.
“Big Brother,” Anna said, shaking her head, “you look grim. I think Kate Olsen hit the nail on the head.” Laughing, her eyes twinkling, Anna reiterated Kate’s words. “‘We know you deal with the darker side of life, Mr. Vargo, but what about the lighter side?’” Pausing, Anna offered her best dumb-doofus expression, then lightly mocked her brother, saying, “Duh? Lighter side? Fun? What’s that?”
Oliver couldn’t help but smile.
“Which brings me to something else,” she plunged on. “While I’m in the Virgin Islands, promise me you’ll meet some people. I’m leaving phone numbers for all my girlfriends who developed crushes on you when they saw you on TV. They all want you in the worst way.”
“So, it was you who put all those condoms in my wallet.”
“Who did you think it was? The condom fairy?” He chuckled as she continued. “You seem stressed and overtired, and you look like you need a vacation. Since it’s been so long that you’ve obviously forgotten, sex is the closest thing to a vacation when you don’t have time to go out of town.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
She leveled him with a stare. “Did you do it with Kate Olsen?”
“None of your business.”
“I didn’t think so,” Anna returned.
Damn. His little sister had been playing matchmaker ever since his arrival. When it came to fixing him up, he was beginning to think there was nothing she wouldn’t try. While he considered calling one of her friends for a date, he looked down at the entrance to Grand Central and a sidewalk teeming with open umbrellas. People without them crowded under awnings, craning their necks to stare at the downpour as if they expected the rain to stop sometime soon. Others lifted coats over their heads and ran through the deluge.
“Have fun while I’m gone,” Anna was saying. “You work all the time, Ollie.”
So did she, and the way Oliver figured it, they were lucky to love their work. Anna’s boyfriend, Vic, was just as passionate and could talk for hours about the various ways photographers manipulated images. Kate Olsen also enjoyed working, so it was too bad she hadn’t rung his chimes. The truth was, lately he’d been rejecting most women. It was as if, deep down, he’d decided on an image of what he was really looking for and now he was waiting for that dream woman to materialize.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Anna announced, drawing Oliver from his reverie as she put the Sex Files CD into his ROM drive. “We’ll get a picture of the sexiest woman first. That’ll get your juices flowing, so you’ll be ready to call all my friends who are dying to meet you.”
This was definitely more intriguing than getting a printout of the sexiest man. “I’m working on the Most Wanted List.”
Anna leaned and jiggled the mouse, moving the cursor. “We can keep that program open,” she assured. “We’ll minimize it and work in another window.” He watched as she hit RUN.
They waited.
And then text filled the screen. Anna groaned in disappointment. “I thought you said we’d get a picture.”
“We will when you scroll down.”
“Oh, but this is good,” she whispered, reading the words. “America’s Sexiest Woman would be named Cameron,” she announced breathlessly.
“And according to this, she’d be tall,” he added. “Five-eleven.”
“Her measurements are thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six,” continued Anna. “And she loves wearing sexy clothes.”
“She sounds like a walking cliché.” Still, as he continued reading, there was no denying the pull of arousal. Barely suppressing a shiver, he tried to ignore the tightening below his belt, but it only increased when he read that Cameron never wore panties under her Lycra slacks, body-hugging knit dresses and silk teddies.
When she has to get dressed at all, the text read, Cameron likes to get out and have spicy, erotic adventures. She especially loves the excitement of world travel and meeting new male playmates. She likes a hint of danger, too. Exploring kinky aphrodisiacs is her favorite pastime, and she dabbles in everything from body paints to edible undies. Cameron will do absolutely anything—and everything—to please her man.
Oliver