Free Embracing Midnight by Devyn Quinn Page A

problem.”
    Reinke cleared his throat in disapproval. “If you don’t mind, please proceed.”
    Callie exhaled a lungful of smoke. “My contact with Drake has been exactly as instructed. I’ve been friendly, making small talk, eyeing him up and expressing my interest.” She flicked the ashes into a nearby ashtray. “I suppose he got the message.”
    Having let Roger Reinke conduct the majority of the interview, Assistant Director in Charge Samuel Faber looked up from his notes, which he’d jotted on a yellow legal pad.
    An ex-military man still sporting a crew cut, Faber was fanatical about bending no rule. He was one rung up in the chain of command, the man calling all the shots. “Is it possible you and Norton were seen together?”
    Callie glanced up at Faber. Through the last hour, his laser beam stare hadn’t left her once. Probing, dissecting, visually slicing her to pieces. She wondered if he simply disapproved of her less formal style, or if he was sizing her up and finding her performance inadequate.
    Or maybe he knew she was lying. It occurred to her Norton was able to slip into her apartment any time he wanted—easy enough to plant a listening or recording device.
    Paranoid.
    Reining in her wild theories, Callie concentrated on focusing on the task at hand. She had information. These men needed it. Simple. She shouldn’t be taking it personally. Faber wasn’t being a bastard for putting her feet to the fire. He had a job to do, as did she. “More than possible,” she finally concurred. “Same street corner, same time, every night. I buy a couple of joints and slip him a twenty-dollar bill.”
    The marijuana Paul Norton sold was, in fact, nothing more noxious than parsley, better eaten than smoked. Buying from her dealer gave a plausible reason for the two to be seen together. Local law enforcement had the heads-up that both were federal agents. Norton had been hassled by the street cops as part of his cover. Callie had been busted once, taken in, but quickly cut loose and hustled out the back door—a vital move allowing her street credibility to remain intact.
    Faber nodded. “Any chance Drake’s made you out to be an agent?”
    Callie briefly focused her attention on her cigarette, watching the smoke rise from its tip. “I doubt it. We’ve been too damn careful. My professional judgment is he believes he’s found an easy snatch.”
    Mitch Reeve snickered, giving her the eye. “And was it easy?”
    Callie glanced across the table. Her eyes narrowed. Asshole. “Was what easy?”
    “For him to pick you up?” Innuendo laced Reeve’s broadside. He’d struck a nerve, and not in a pleasant way.
    A quicksilver cutting remark jumped to the end of her tongue. Close to letting loose a verbal bitch slap, Callie thought better of it. Men were pigs. Why did they turn into immature jerks the minute sex was mentioned?
    Sitting among these men, Callie felt every bit the outsider, an interloper in their all-male club. Every damn one of them had degrees out the ass. She had two, a bachelor’s degree in computer science, as well as an associate’s degree in criminal justice. She’d served her country and earned her qualifications and the right to sit among their rarefied number. Yet something would always be a barrier between them.
    They had balls. She didn’t.
    She had a twat, and her sex would always be a strike against her in a man’s profession. As long as you can do the job, it’s not about being male or female , she reminded herself. It’s all in the details.
    Fighting to maintain her composure, Callie clasped her hands together until her knuckles whitened from the pressure. She hated the games, but she knew how to play them. “Sure. I’m cheap and I’m easy.” She intended the statement to sound blithe. Instead, her tone was tinged with a longing and loneliness betraying the hollow void in her soul.
    Reeve’s tongue went into his cheek in a manner leaving no doubt what he was thinking