Free Deep Breath by Alison Kent Page A

shopping for a dress I can’t even afford to have dry cleaned. And if you loved me, well”—she stood on tiptoes to whisper since they’d moved back into line—“you did okay on that score.”
    “Please. Don’t use the word score. Not until I’ve recovered from the fact that I didn’t.” When she opened her mouth, he quickly silenced her with two fingers pressed to her lips. “Whatever you do, do not say you’re sorry.”
    She nodded, stood beside him while he handled the business of the donation and the receipt, then nearly ripped the reception brochure in half pulling it out of his hand.
    “You’re supposed to blend in, remember?” he leaned down to remind her, catching a whiff of the soap she’d used to bathe. “That kid at Disney World act isn’t what I call blending.”
    But she wasn’t listening. She was scanning the tri-fold color brochure. The first section, the second, the third, the back side of each, before starting at the beginning again. And she did so without looking where she was going. He had to guide her by both shoulders through the door from the lobby into the exhibit hall.
    The low-ceilinged room didn’t have the museum-quality ambience Harry had expected. There were no glass-cased displays, ornately carved wood bases, engraved brass plaques. There were no special spotlights or velvet-draped stands. Instead, the setup reminded him of a hotel meeting hall. Dry and businesslike.
    Tables covered with maroon cloths circled the room’s perimeter and were made off-limits to the public by roped dividers. In the center of the room, carpeted in an industrial gray, the caterers had set up their tables. Food, drinks. Mucho drinks.
    After the earlier symposium, he figured there would be a lot of takers. And, indeed, a large segment of the crowd of a hundred and fifty or so did seem more interested in the refreshments than in the memorabilia displayed.
    Not Georgia.
    She had her fingers wrapped like a claw around his elbow as she propelled him toward the section designated for the personal papers the general had deemed too insignificant to warrant inclusion in his university bequests.
    Harry had expected—and wasn’t disappointed to find—such things as letters from military dignitaries, correspondence from government officials, notes for the general’s soon-to-be-published memoir. The dry cleaner receipts and grocery lists did raise his brow. But hey, if people could auction Britney Spears’ chewing gum on eBay…
    What he’d been surprised since the beginning of this mission to learn was that a dossier of this one’s apparent importance would be included with the rest of the junk. Except he was beginning to doubt that it was. Not with the way Georgia had nearly ripped his arm and the brochure to shreds.
    “Okay. Something is wrong,” she finally said, having matched up every item on the table with those listed in the leaflet. She reached for a flute of champagne from a passing server, gulped half of it down. “There’s a lockbox of miscellaneous documents related to Duggin’s contract work that’s supposed to be here. It’s not. I can’t find it.”
    “You sure?” A lockbox of miscellaneous documents? Was that where she expected to find the dossier?
    She punched him in the shoulder, downed the rest of the champagne. “I’ve done everything but look under the table. It’s not here.”
    “Maybe it’s in one of the other sections.” He glanced around. There were a lot of other tables set up around the room. They’d only looked at this one.
    They could have looked at two hundred. It wouldn’t have changed the fact that he’d put all his eggs into the basket of an unreliable source. He knew better. He should have spread his inquiries further into the field. In short, he’d fucked up. What Georgia was looking for—meaning what he was looking for—wasn’t even here.
    “C’mon,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and guiding her away from the table she was