Hot Toy by Jennifer Crusie

Author:Jennifer Crusie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250090416
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Chapter 3

Trudy borrowed a cell phone and called Courtney to tell her she was all right. Then she faced Nolan’s boss, who ditched the hat with the green and red bobbles and became tough, efficient, thorough, and polite, none of which made Trudy feel better. She answered everything the woman asked, and when she was finally released it was well after midnight. She took her purse and the battered bag with the Twinkletoes and rode home through the snow in the back of a black car, too tired and too defeated to argue anymore.

I couldn’t do it alone, she thought. I really needed that bastard’s help; nobody could have done it alone. But she still felt like a failure. If only she hadn’t trusted him, hadn’t trusted Reese, hadn’t gotten in that cab in the first place, hadn’t ever talked to Nolan at all, they’d never have known she’d found the MacGuffin and Leroy would have it now. Her throat swelled and she stared at the back of the driver’s head and willed herself not to cry. Not in front of the NSA, anyway.

She tiptoed into the house, but Courtney called out from the dimly lit living room. Trudy went in and found her on the couch, glass in hand, her feet propped up on the coffee table that held a bowl of white icing, a lopsided gingerbread house, and a stack of gingerbread men with a knife stuck through them. She was staring into the gas fire, and the glow reflected off the tinsel on the tree while Christmas music played low and slow in the background.

“Do you have it?” Courtney said, her voice dull.

“No.” Trudy went around the mess on the coffee table and sat down beside her, dropping her bags on the floor. “The Feds took it from me. For national security reasons. Nice gingerbread house.”

“It’s crooked,” Courtney said, clearly not caring. “The Feds?”

“Turns out Nolan works for the NSA. I know. Unbelievable.”

“I believe it.” Courtney sat unmoving, her eyes on the fire. “That’s just my luck. Even the government is out to get me.”

“Two governments. Reese the Surfer turned out to be a double agent for the Chinese.” Trudy leaned forward, pulled the knife out of the gingerbread, and scooped up a glop of white icing.

“Well, at least you’re meeting men.” Courtney picked up her glass to drink and then made a face when she realized it was empty. “So why did they want the Mac?”

“It had the codes to the Chinese spy network on the instruction sheet and then something else was on this thumb drive disguised as a silencer for the gun.” Trudy smeared the icing on the roof. The white mass hung there for a moment and then began to slump its way to the edge. Not enough powdered sugar. The icing plopped off onto the cardboard base, looking like a snowbank.

“Chinese spy codes?” Courtney said.

“I wouldn’t have believed it, except that I saw the thumb drive. That and there were so many guys in bad black suits there at the end.

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