Public Secrets (Artificial Intelligence Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

wait for his assistant Davis, who was buried somewhere in the back of the plane.
    The choir students were near the front of the coach section. They were singing a choral number as they filed out of the plane. Carla slipped into the line and joined their song. Chad was amazed by the loveliness of her voice as she smiled and waved goodbye. He gave her a lopsided grin in return. At least he now knew her profession. With a voice like that, she had to be a singer, but for the life of him he couldn’t place her.
    He had no doubt she would escape the reporters outside. She looked as young and silly as any of the students. Could she really be two years his senior? He’d met many women who would lie about their age, but never had they claimed to be older, except for those young enough to be jailbait.
    When Davis finally appeared in the long line, the man looked as if he’d been tortured.
    “How was your flight, sir?” Davis asked.
    “Better than yours, I think,” Chad replied with a sympathetic smile.
    “Then you weren’t bothered?”
    “No. Not at all.” Chad smiled as the image of Carla came back to his mind.
    “When I saw it was a young woman, I figured she would drive you crazy.”
    “No. I don’t even think she knew who I was.”
    Davis scoffed. “That’s just a scam. They all know who you are.”
    “You know, Davis, there are people who don’t watch football.”
    He slipped in front of the man. The moment they cleared the gate, a crowd of reporters swarmed around him, yelling questions.
    Yes, he truly envied Carla—whoever she was.

Chapter Three
     
    The man stood with the reporters, waiting for her. They had assured him she was on the plane. He had studied the picture from her latest book’s dust-jacket, so he felt confident he could find her. He had an assistant watching the car rental counter where she held a reservation. He could have waited for her there, but he was always careful, always covering the angles. The mass of reporters made him nearly invisible.
    He prided himself on his precise planning. It was why he could charge so much. He had a perfect record of eliminations and never once had the police called him in for questioning. He would have been concerned when she hadn’t left with the first-class passengers, but then neither had the other celebrity, Chad Tyler. They must have decided to wait until the plane had cleared out.
    He grew a bit restless as the gate area filled with the annoying singing choir students, but soon enough they had cleared the area and made their noisome way to customs. He surged with the reporters as Chad Tyler entered, but didn’t follow the mob when they left the gate. Instead, he sat and waited for the plane’s final passenger. It wasn’t until the flight attendants closed the gate that he realized he had somehow let her escape. He called his backup guy watching the rental car line. She hadn’t claimed her car yet. He still had time to find her.
    With his fake New Zealand passport, he breezed through customs and joined the even larger group of reporters waiting outside. Again, he studied the people as they slowly made their way through. If only he had the list of people entering the country, but that would take days to obtain.
    He had to suffer through the singing choir group again, wishing that someone would pay him to eliminate the whole lot of the annoying little cretins.
    The jarring ring of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. There was a single woman, blonde, in her early forties, standing in the car rental line. The man shook his head in disgust. He didn’t know how he had missed her, but fortunately, his careful planning had compensated for the slip.
    She was still in line when he arrived. He now understood why he hadn’t recognized her. The dust jacket picture was obviously a glamor shot from many years prior. Yet the faint hint of past beauty still resided beneath the double chins and loose skin. As she approached the counter, his assistant, dressed