You've Got Male. Elizabeth Bevarly

not unlawful when OPUS is doing it,” Dixon told her. “Those untraditional channels again.”

      She eyed him narrowly. “Does the Libertarian Party know about your agency?”

      He shook his head. “Only the people OPUS wants to know about it know about OPUS. Anyone else finds out, they don’t live long enough to talk about it.”

      “I’m going to talk about it,” she told him. “I’m going to tell everyone. Starting with the Libertarian Party.”

      “You go ahead and do that,” Dixon told her. “And we’ll make you look like a raving lunatic who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

      “That won’t be a problem for the Libertarian Party.”

      “We’ll make it a problem for them.”

      “Is that a threat?”

      “Yep.”

      “You can’t threaten the Libertarian Party.”

      “Peaches, we can threaten any party we like, be it Libertarian, Birthday, Tupperware or Slumber. And they all forget all about us when we do.”

      Her jaw set tight, she hissed, “Fascist.”

      He smiled. “You’re cute when you’re angry, you know that?”

      This time her reply was a snarl. And he hated to say it, but she was even cuter when she did that.

      A soft knock on the door made him turn around, and through the wire-reinforced window he saw the round, bland face of Mr. No-Name. Behind him was Tanner Gillespie, who still looked a little shaken from this evening’s encounter.

      The boss man pushed a series of numbers on a keypad below the doorknob, and the lock released with a soft click. The already small room shrank to microscopic when the two men entered, making Dixon feel crowded and uncomfortable. Avery seemed not to be bothered at all.

      Agoraphobia. Right.

      “Ms. Nesbitt,” Dixon’s boss said without awaiting an introduction.

      She didn’t reply at first, her attention flickering to Dixon instead. He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him, so he only met her gaze in return. After a moment, she looked at No-Name again.

      “Do I know you?” she asked.

      “No,” he replied immediately.

      “You sure? You look familiar.”

      “I’m not.”

      “But—”

      Before she could say more, he hurried on, “You’re a difficult woman to pin down, Ms. Nesbitt.”

      “Not really,” she said, still eyeing him with wary interest. “I never go anywhere. Well, not usually,” she added with a meaningful glance at Dixon. Then to his employer she continued, “I do my best to keep a low profile, but anyone who really wants to find me can.”

      “Is that why Adrian Padgett was able to find you?”

      Her expression turned puzzled at the question. Convincingly so, Dixon had to admit. His boss, on the other hand, looked convincingly skeptical.

      “Who’s Adrian Padgett?” she asked.

      “You might know him better as Andrew Paddington,” No-Name said.

      Avery glanced at Dixon again, obviously remembering that he had mentioned her online boyfriend earlier tonight, too. “What’s Andrew got to do with any of this?” she asked.

      Now his boss turned to Dixon, too, giving him a look that let Dixon know the other man was deferring to him. But only because Dixon was more familiar with the particulars of the case. Under no other circumstances would his superior actually defer to anyone.

      Dixon looked back at Avery. “Where did you meet Andrew Paddington?”

      Of course, he already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted to see how honestly she would answer it.

      “Online,” she told him, surprising him. He had been ready for her to challenge him again and not give him any information at all. “In a Henry James chat room. Why?”

      So far, so good, Dixon thought. “And how long have you been corresponding with him?”

      She hesitated. “What business is that of yours?”

      Dixon ignored the question. Thanks to the OPUS techies at her apartment, who were currently combing through every computer she owned, it wouldn’t be long before they knew every detail of her correspondence with and relationship to Sorcerer anyway. But he wanted her to talk about it, too, to see if her version corresponded to what the techies discovered.

      He tried a different tack. “Why were you building that virus?”

      Had it not been for the two bright spots of pink that appeared on her cheeks, Dixon would have thought she hadn’t heard the question. “That’s none of your business, either,” she said softly.

      “It could send you back to prison, Peaches,” he said. “It’s highly illegal. That makes it my business.”

      “No, that makes it a matter for the feds,” she said. She hesitated only a moment before adding, “And stop calling me ‘Peaches.’”

      He bit back a smile. He honestly hadn’t been aware he was calling her that. “When it’s a matter of national security, it becomes a matter for OPUS, too.”

      “That virus wasn’t a matter of national security,” she said.

      “It was last time you built one,” Dixon reminded her. “Hell, it was a matter of international security then. We still get calls from the Vatican.”

      “Not to mention Greenland,” his boss added.

      Avery expelled a soft sound of capitulation and closed her eyes. Then she lifted a hand to her forehead and rubbed hard at a place just above her right eyebrow. Very wearily, very quietly, she said, “If you want me to explain this, it’s going to take a while.”