When Perfect Meets Crazy

Chapter 25: 24 - Burnt blackened toast

“My dad is a cop. The sheriff at that. I’ve been on the receiving end of that gaze a lot over the years.

Sometimes, when I stop by at the station, there’s a criminal in cuffs looking like he’d love to get me

alone in a dark alley. I recognize that gaze. I know it. I’d recognize it anywhere. You deserve credit

though.” I laughed. It was bitter and full of self-loathing. “You had me fooled for a minute there.”

The look of utter confusion on his face had me faltering for a second. His eyes were wide and guileless

in a way that one just couldn’t fake without being an Oscar winner.

I frowned.

The main reason I let him stalk me up close and personal -other than the fact that I didn't have much of

a choice seeing as he would have just done it from afar- was because he wore his emotions on his

face. The trait led me to believe that he wasn’t truly a rotten criminal.

The creepy gaze, however, was malicious in a way that would put even an ex-marine on guard. No

rookie criminal could pull it off. It was malicious in a way that screamed hardened trigger-happy

criminal. In a way that the eyes staring back at me at the moment just did not seem capable of.

“It wasn’t you,” I whispered.

The words were out of my mouth before my brain even finished processing the thought but the way he

instantly averted his gaze, clenching, then unclenching his fist made it obvious I was spot on. Oh, thank

God. Relief engulfed me like sinking into a warm bath after a long day. I could breathe again.

“How could I have missed this?” I mused quietly, my eyes widening as the pieces all came together.

I could smack myself. I deserved to be smacked. How had I missed it? How had I not even considered

it at all? It had been staring me in the face the whole time for fuck’s sake.

“It all makes sense now. Taking a day or two out of the week to catch up on all your real life

responsibilities?” I shook my head. “Given your intellectual capacity, it doesn’t make sense. It’s not

even plausible. You’re an idiot. You can’t possibly fit all that work into two days. You are not smart

enough to be that efficient.”

“Seriously?” he cut in, a disgruntled frown on his face.

“Challenged. Whatever. You know what I mean,” I amended inattentively.

It wasn’t him but judging from his reaction, it was clearly someone he knew. Someone he knew well

enough to know which days said person was watching me.

“A partner.” The word left my lips in a whisper. “You have a partner.”

It was all coming together.

“Whoever he is, he’s the brain behind this operation.” I nodded a little too eagerly. “It makes sense. You

couldn’t have possibly figured all this out on your own. You’re an idiot which means he’s the smart one.

And he’s... not fond of the fact that I know about you.”

The last part didn’t come out as smoothly as I intended but admitting someone somewhere wanted to

do bodily harm to your person wasn’t exactly easy when the threat was very much real. This partner

could be an actual murderer for all I knew.

“You don’t have to be condescending,” he muttered.

He wore a disgruntled scowl. I frowned, mentally replaying my statement to figure out what he was

referring to.

“Ahhh,” I mouthed. “You mean about your inferior cognitive capacity?”

He pursed his lips, unimpressed.

“I don’t have to,” I agreed. “I want to. It’s second nature at this point and it's fun.”

He was trustworthy after all. It was a welcome relief. The knots in my stomach slowly came undone. He

had, in some ways, grown on me and I had been carrying the can-I-really-trust-this-guy chip on my

shoulders since the night he broke into my room. It was draining. It felt good to finally know for sure.

Unfortunately, while I had come for answers, this just brought up more questions. Who was this

partner? What was their relationship? How did all that fit into the rich kid image?

It was time to try another trick. Needless to say, I was never going to roll my eyes or sneer at my dad

ever again for bragging about his investigative prowess. Well, not for the rest of year at least.

“Just so you know, another thing you’re bad at, besides keeping secrets, thinking on your feet and

keeping your mouth shut, is changing the subject,” I switched gears, my eyes glued to him like hawk

with its prey.

My brain was in overdrive. A partner was something I hadn’t anticipated. I had even more dots to

connect now.

I cast my mind back to the day we met. To everything that had happened at the arena. There had to be

a clue I had overlooked. From the idiot who spat in my hair to the people I had been following who I

miraculously lost sight of--

I frowned.

I wasn’t being that absentminded. It made no sense how they were there and then suddenly, weren’t. I

shouldn’t have lost sight of them that easily. Unless they were actively trying to ditch me.

My brows furrowed, the beginnings of a headache stirring behind them.

I couldn’t exactly ask Masked Idiot about it in case it turned out to be something I wasn’t supposed to

know about. One stalker was more than enough but something about their disappearance suddenly

seemed immensely fishy.

I filed my suspicions away to pore over later, forced myself to drop the line of thought and focus on my

current problem. Masked Idiot and whatever clues I might have missed during our unfortunate first

encounter. From how his mask slid off his face that day, revealing a shocked expression. To how he

had directed me out on autopilot. How I ran away trying to make up for the time I had lost while looking

for a way out. How he unexpectedly appeared behind me, yelling for me to stop. How I luckily lost him

in the mass of people exiting the building. How he magically showed up on my street later that night.

How he broke int-- Hang on.

My eyes narrowed.

“Did you know who I was before that day at the arena? Had we met somewhere else?”

He shook his head.

I had no idea why it didn’t occur to me before but he got my details way too fast. All he had to go on

was a mental image of what I looked like and I knew for a fact that he didn’t tail me back home. I lost

him in the crowd, I was sure of that. It should’ve taken him at least a week to track me down. Heck, he

shouldn’t have been able to track me down at all. His criminal contacts should not have turned up

anything. It wasn’t my crowd. No one could’ve known anyone who could’ve pointed in my direction. Not

even my drug contact would’ve thought of me. Not in a million years. I had no ties whatsoever to that

lifestyle.

Only a cop should’ve been able to find me. Or at least, someone going through the legal process. The

person would have had to work with a sketch artist, have my profile drawn, then run me against the

national database if they had contacts in the force or publicized the picture on news channels and

missing person posters if they didn’t. That was the only way.

Sure he could’ve gotten someone to hack into the DMV for him but petty criminals generally wouldn’t

think along those lines. They were law enforcement steps.

My brows furrowed, a speculative glint filling my eyes as I eyed him up. Could he really...?

“You got my details fast. Very fast,” I stated.

He shrugged. The movement was jerky, stiff.

He could?

Surprise filled me. It made no sense. It was preposterous even. The odds were unbelievably low,

practically non-existent but he actually could be what I was thinking. It made sense in a way.

“Given how fast you got my details,” I began, deciding to test out the theory. It was worth a shot. “I

mean that same day, barely a few hours later, I’d say you had someone who has access to that

information get it for you.”

I wasn’t expecting much of a reaction. Or any reaction at all. It was a shot in the dark. Less than one-in-

a-million probability of being true but as he froze, every inch of him stiffening to a still, I knew I had hit

bullseye.

I smiled inwardly.

So he did go through the official channels. The question now was how? Sure it wasn’t unheard of for a

cop to help a criminal behind closed doors but the second I came up, the cop should’ve, would’ve

warned Masked Idiot away. That much I was sure of. They all knew me well but more than that, they

knew my dad. That could only mean he was working with someone higher up than the local police.

Someone who wouldn’t care that my dad was the sheriff.

“Now, I know it can’t be the local police otherwise my dad would’ve killed me already and you would’ve

known right off the bat that I wasn’t a threat so...,”

I drew in a deep breath and straightened my spine. It was now or never.

“What I’m asking is,” I met his gaze squarely, “FBI? Homeland? A branch I don’t even know about?”

The question might as well have been a slap based on his reaction. A knockout.

“What?” His voice was three octaves higher.

I frowned. Was there more to it? The reaction was exaggerated for simply just paying off a Fed. Sure it

was illegal but a lot of criminals had done it before. What else was I not seeing?

My brows furrowed, deep creases appearing on my forehead. He was acting like I just stumbled on a

conspiracy as opposed to a behind-the-door once-in-a-while favor.

My eyes narrowed.

It couldn’t possibly be. He couldn’t. Right? He couldn’t actually be an undercover operative, could he?

No. I shook my head. No. that was too farfetched. It was impossible.

Unfortunately, I could see was how it made sense. It explained everything. Rich kid being an

underground fighter? That was tenuous at best but rich government operative going undercover? It

made more sense. Not a lot but definitely more than the former. Either that or I was losing my mind.

What, for the love of God, had I stumbled onto?

“What?” His gaze shifted nervously from one place to the next.

I drew in a deep breath, silently wondering if my life was turning into one of those bad crime fiction

novels. The things happening to me were that ridiculous and absurd.

“No. No, I... No. Why would you even...” he floundered, voice quivering so much I found myself actually

considering the idea that my deduction could be correct.

There was no other reason for him to be so nervous. More importantly however, if it was true, it meant I

didn’t have a criminal stalker. I had a government operative on my tail. Which was much worse. So

much worse.

If it were true, then this was something that could trickle down to my parents’ ears. If my name so much

as appeared in a report, I was dead meat. Parker, with his ties to the FBI and protective streak as wide

as the Thames, would no doubt find out and my dad with his bigwig contacts in law enforcement might

also find out and basically, I would be toast. Burnt blackened toast. Please be working for Homeland.

Or even Interpol. Or as unlikely as it is, the CIA. Anything but FBI.

“You really should work on your lying,” I advised. “Now answer the question, Ian. Who are you working

for?”