The Fitzgerald Ruse Read Online Free Page A

gotten me shipped to the V.A. hospital in Asheville, I’d had plenty of opportunity to reveal information that would have incriminated any number of thieves. Still, on my drive up Biltmore Avenue to my office, I spent as much time looking in my rearview mirror as the road ahead.
    I stepped on the elevator for the short lift to the third floor. Two middle-aged men got in on either side of me. Each held a briefcase and a cup of coffee. Their dark suits, crisp white shirts, and conservative ties pegged them as lawyers in one of the firms in the building. We nodded an unspoken “good morning,” and I relaxed. Assassins wouldn’t have both hands full unless they planned to club me with a briefcase and scald me to death. As I left the elevator, one of the men said, “Have a good day, Mr. Blackman.” My fame hadn’t been so fleeting that my face wasn’t recognized.
    I would have a good day. I was a professional, and this first morning on the job gave me a renewed sense of purpose. I wasn’t as formally dressed as the attorneys, but my blue blazer, open-necked pink dress shirt, and tan slacks were fashionable enough for me to meet with any potential client with confidence. I had a Blackberry clipped to my belt, a P.I. license in my wallet, and years of investigative experience in my head.
    What I didn’t have was a weapon. My credentials from North Carolina included the right to carry a concealed weapon. Nakayla owned a small .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol, but my sidearm had been the property of the U.S. government. Later in the day, I planned to purchase a suitable handgun and side holster.
    A square white box sat on the floor outside our office door. It was no more than six inches by six inches. I approached it warily. Neither Nakayla nor I expected any deliveries. I bent down beside it and saw the logo for the City Bakery Café on the lid. Beneath it and written in blue ink were the words: “Sorry to have bothered you. Welcome! Amanda Whitfield.” Our security guard had gone to the trouble to come back, and even though she had a passkey, she’d chosen not to enter our office. Or maybe the person who brought it didn’t have a key. That possibility sent a mental alarm ringing.
    My bad leg didn’t bend so well so I dropped to both knees and leaned over the box. Then I put my nose close to the seam of the lid and sniffed like a dog. If the contents were an explosive device, someone had gone to the trouble to use materials that smelled like freshly baked muffins.
    “Are you okay?” A woman’s voice came from behind me.
    I felt my face flush. She couldn’t see my embarrassment. Her view would have been of my butt sticking up in the air. “Ummm” was all I could manage. I tried to rise but my artificial leg didn’t want to flex enough to get both feet under me.
    “Sir?” she asked more urgently.
    “Contact. I dropped a contact.” It was the second thought that popped in my mind after I discarded morning prayers. “Oh, here it is.” I reached out and grabbed an imaginary lens by the door. I pretended to moisten it in my mouth and then insert it in my eye.
    I swung around so that I was sitting on the floor. Above me stood an attractive woman I guessed to be in her mid-thirties. She had short brown hair and wore a brown pants suit with white running shoes. In one hand she held a thermos; in the other, a small shopping bag with the heels of her dress shoes showing over the edge. She looked at me suspiciously and I knew my nose-sniffing-the-box-lid antic hadn’t gone unnoticed.
    “That City Bakery Café makes the best muffins.” I struggled to my feet and offered my hand. “I’m Sam Blackman. Blackman and Robertson. We’re just moving in.”
    She smiled. “Of course.”
    I didn’t know whether “of course” meant she’d heard we were coming or that Sam Blackman and behaving like a dog went together like a burger and fries.
    “I’m Cory DeMille. I work for Hewitt Donaldson.” She said the name as if