The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(54)

My knee popped up, hitting him squarely between the legs. He staggered backward out of the elevator from the blow and slammed into the wall behind him, doubled over in excruciating pain. I could see the cloud of rage and humiliation slowly begin to cast a shadow over his face. But by the time the room stopped spinning and he could even comprehend what had just happened to him, the elevator doors were closing again.

And this time his hand wasn't fast enough to stop them.



THE NEXT morning I awoke to the sound of my wake-up call. I was still wrapped in the Bellagio cotton robe I had put on after my twenty-minute cleansing shower the night before. A thorough attempt to remove Parker Colman from my mind and any part of my body. After all the standard post-assignment scrubbing, I doubted there were any skin cells left on my body that had come into contact with him; however, the washcloth hadn't seemed to do much to cleanse me of the memory. But then again, it never does.

I checked out of my room at the front desk, where I could pay my bill in cash. Most hotels require a credit card to secure the room, but a one-hundred-dollar-per-day cash deposit usually does the trick. This also allows me to check in under a different name. Credit cards can get you in trouble. Especially if someone like Parker Colman manages to find a male hotel employee with a sympathetic ear, and then suddenly my cover is blown.

Once seated in my American Airlines first-class window seat, I pulled my headphones out of my bag, slid them over my head, and closed my eyes. The Las Vegas assignments are always nice. It's just a short, forty-five-minute plane ride home. The New York assignments are the worst. Six torturous hours on a plane after a long night of dealing with corrupt businessmen (and I'm not talking about tax evasion).

I usually wear headphones on the plane. Whether or not I actually have music playing through them varies according to my mood. I hate airplane small talk. It's a waste of time. The plane rides are my time to relax, think about nothing, read my favorite gossip magazines. It's my down time. I've learned over the years that people on airplanes will still attempt to chitchat with you, even if you obviously appear to be reading something. But they'll pretty much leave you alone once they realize you can't hear them. Which is why I made sure to purchase those extra large, noise-canceling headphones. No chitchat from random strangers was getting through these suckers. In fact, they should be called "meaningless-small-talk -canceling" headphones.

It's not as though I'm not a sociable person. It's just that I have enough friends. I'm not looking for any more. And to a stranger, my life is always a big fat lie anyway, so what's the point in bringing another victim into my web of fabrication?

I used to enjoy talking to people on airplanes. Back when Jennifer Hunter was just Jennifer Hunter, and therefore I could be anyone I wanted to be. Ironic how I used to love to make up stories about who I was, where I was going, what I did, who I had just fallen in love with. But now that my life was just one big made-up story, it wasn't quite so amusing anymore.

I must have drifted off to sleep to the sound of Joss Stone playing in my ear, because when I awoke, we were in the air. I was somewhat surprised that the flight attendant hadn't woken me up to remind me to shut off my "portable electronic device." Maybe she could tell I had just been through a rough night and decided to cut me some slack.

I could feel the presence of someone in the seat next to me, but I didn't acknowledge them. It was easier to pretend that they weren't even there. I stared out the window as the large buildings that made up the Las Vegas Strip grew smaller and smaller in the distance, giant structures resembling the monuments of Paris, New York, ancient Egypt, and even medieval kingdoms.

The idea of Las Vegas always made me laugh. Can you imagine what archaeologists millions of years from now will think when they unexpectedly discover the city of Las Vegas? They'll be as confused as hell. Digging away, looking for any clues that might help them understand that ancient, mysterious species they call "human beings" who were wiped out by a devastating tragedy of their own making. And then suddenly... what's this? It looks like one of their cities. But wait a minute. Didn't we just see that same artifact when were digging in what was then referred to as the country of "France"? And what about this one? We found something remarkably similar in what was previously known as "New York."

And the human species would continue to remain a mystery for all of time, with a new underlying question to ponder: Why would a species choose to build identical monuments in two very different places? Talk about a world wonder.

I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I was jolted from my thoughts as I looked up to see the flight attendant taking drink orders.

I slid off my headphones long enough to order a Diet Coke, and just as I was about to slide them back on...

"So did you win?"

I turned to my neighbor, who I now noticed was a man in what appeared to be his mid-thirties, attractive, with gentle eyes that revealed a lifetime of experiences. Some good. Some bad.

"I'm sorry?"

"Did you win?" he repeated. "Or I guess, what I should ask first is... did you gamble?"

I dropped my headphones in my lap and stifled a groan. Here we go. Let the airplane small talk begin. You take your chitchat-canceling headphones off for two seconds and bam, you're cornered.

I smiled politely. "Yes, I played some poker."

"And...did you win?"