Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(12)

“What’s the accusation?”

“Insider trading,” I say, keeping my voice low, even though nobody’s paying attention to me. The weekday lunch hour on Wall Street is everything you’d expect—plenty of suits and martinis and pretension. Nobody bothers to look twice at a woman in a boring blouse and four-year-old stilettos bought at Nordstrom Rack.

I don’t really mind, but I’ll confess that just once, I wouldn’t mind one of those high-priced lunches instead of a mediocre café with cheap sandwiches.

Since today’s lunch will likely involve a thrilling debate between dry turkey and boring tuna, I’m in no hurry to get off the phone with my dad. He’s been working a big case, so we’ve been playing phone tag for a couple of weeks. It’s good to hear his voice.

“Who’s the tip?” my dad asks.

“Fantastic question,” I mutter.

I practically hear my dad’s frown. “You don’t know?”

“Steve’s keeping it quiet. Confidential informant and all that.”

Steve Ennis is my boss. I’ve worked for the guy ever since I started with the SEC at twenty-three, and up until this case, I couldn’t have asked for a better one. With the Ian Bradley thing, however, Steve’s been cagey, and it’s driving me crazy. I understand the need to protect witnesses in certain cases, but keeping the witness’s name from the investigator is a whole other frustrating level of classified.

My dad apparently agrees. “But you’re the investigator. How’re you supposed to do your job?”

I lift my heavy hair off my neck, but there’s no breeze today, so it does me no good. “Trust me, this is nothing I haven’t already told Steve. But those were the informant’s terms. We have to protect his privacy.”

“So you know it’s a him.”

I smile, because it’s so Dad—he’s FBI through and through. “Yes. Apparently, it’s a him.”

“Well, that’s a start. Surely with a little digging—”

“Dad,” I interrupt gently. “I don’t get paid to find the informant. I get paid to find out if he’s right.”

“Is he?”

I shrug, even though my dad can’t see me. “I told you, it’s too soon to tell.”

“What’s your gut say?” I hear the crunch of whatever he’s eating for lunch, and my stomach growls.

“It says it’s hungry. What are you eating?”

“Healthy crap with no taste. Now quit evading. What does your gut say about the case?”

“Who cares?” I say breezily. “Gut feelings can be wrong. My job is to find facts. Evidence.”

“Don’t discount intuition, Lara. If your mom and I’ve learned anything in the bureau—”

“Yeah, well, I’m not in the bureau, Dad.”

I hear him blow out a breath. “Not this again . . .”

I shouldn’t let my irritation show, but the more work experience I get under my belt, the harder it is to accept the wall my parents put up every time I mention my dream of joining the FBI.

They’ve always told me I can do whatever I set my mind to—that I can do anything any man can do, all that good, empowering stuff. Right up until the moment I told them I wanted to follow in their footsteps.

Instead of being encouraging, they’ve been . . . reluctant.

“I’m not asking you to get me into Quantico,” I say quietly. “I want to get there myself, on my own merits. But you and Mom both change the subject every time I mention it.”

“Lara, if you have kids someday, you’ll get it. Your mother and I are just having a hell of a hard time thinking about our baby girl going through combat training and target practice.”

“Skills I’ll likely never need in the white-collar division,” I point out. “The job will be pretty much just like the one I have now—”

“Then why not keep the one you have?”

I tilt my head back in frustration and gaze for a moment at the sky. It’s an old argument and an exhausting one.

“The SEC’s fine; it’s been great training, but I want to be FBI, Dad. You know this has always been the plan.”

“I know,” he says grumpily, resuming his crunching.

“Is it such a bad thing?” I tease. “Having your only child want to follow in her parents’ footsteps?”

“It is when our footsteps are dangerous.”

“Exactly,” I say, pouncing on the point. “You and Mom walk into danger every day, and I worry, but I’m proud of you. I want you to be proud of me, too.”

There’s a long moment of thoughtful silence.

“We’re proud of you.”

I stifle a sigh. I understand their protectiveness, but if I’m being totally honest, a little part of me wonders if they think I can’t do it—that I won’t be good enough. I’m not as whip-smart as my dad, not as hard-ass as my mom, and maybe . . . ah hell, I’m that girl. The one still trying to please her parents at age twenty-eight.

My thoughts are distracted as I see a familiar form crossing the street.

Ian’s been avoiding me since our Frappuccino moment on Tuesday, and I’m sick of it. I can do only so much with e-mails and reports and meeting minutes. I need to talk to the guy. Read him.