Free Active Shooter by Eduardo Suastegui

bathroom needs some serious disinfecting.”
    I started waving my hands to dissuade her,
but she was already lifting the toilet lid. The bug dropped into
the water with a blop. She pulled the flush lever.
    “Close the door,” she whispered.
    I did, and she turned on the faucet. She
waved her scanner around the bathroom one more time.
    She turned to me and came closer. “Relax,
Andre. They'll just think paranoid Bridget went on a bug hunt and
missed them all but one. We need a safe room, and this will be it.
Heck, if a girl can't tinkle with some privacy, what has the world
come to?”
    I looked into her eyes and saw them clouding
with concern.
    “It's OK, really,” she said.
    “Where did you get that thing?”
    “I'm sure you can guess.”
    She set the scanner on the sink counter and
turned it off. With a wry smile, she turned to me.
    “You seem tense,” she said, resting her arms
loosely on my shoulders.
    “You should be too.”
    “Oh, I am. All wound up, with jet lag
sprinkled on top. Long day of bouncing around town with an artist,
and all.” She gave me a light kiss. “You need to relax.”
    “We're wasting water.”
    “Oh? What happened to that white noise trick
you taught me? A faucet may not be as good as a fountain, but it
does well enough, wouldn't you say?”
    My mind raced to put her part of the puzzle
together. Her source had given her the scanner, had somehow spoofed
her network's Twitter feed to post a warning, or a go ahead
message, or something. If that were not enough, Bridget had the
know-how and trade-craft to detect and evade electronic
surveillance, presumably, also thanks to her source. Why then had
she sought to recruit me out in the open, in a New York restaurant?
Why had she done all this in full view? Because she wanted my
handlers to come after me, after her, to over-play their hand and
in so doing reveal the secrets she was trying to expose? Had her
source counseled her to do it this way?
    “This is a dangerous game you're playing,” I
said.
    “You mean the game we're playing,
right? Because you're in this all the way, fully engaged .”
    That last word made me want to pull away from
her. I recalled Walter asking me whether I was engaged , and
could not help but make the connection, especially given the way
she'd said it and the way she was looking at me now.
    “Why do you say it like that, engaged ?” I asked.
    “I guess my source is better than you
thought.”
    “Jesus, Bridget. Do you know what we're
into?”
    “I think I do. Do you?”
    “What are you?” I asked.
    “Still a reporter. Just a reporter doing my
job.”
    I shook my head and tried to step away from
her. She didn't let me, and somehow we ended up closer than before,
with my hands resting on her hips.
    Bridget smiled. “God, you really do need to
relax.”
    Her forearms locked behind my neck and she
pulled me in. She looked into my eyes not with malice or lust, but
with what I could not mistake for anything but compassion. Then she
kissed me long and hard.

Chapter 9
    Entangled. That word formed my first
thought as I awoke, sheets strapped through and around my legs,
Bridget’s right arm and leg pinning me down onto my bed. Bright
sunlight beamed through window blinds whose blades wouldn’t close
all the way. The early, almost horizontal angle of the sun’s rays
beckoned me to get up. My full, aching bladder did as well, pressed
downward under the weight of Bridget’s thigh. I stayed there,
asking myself and whoever else might be listening how’d gotten to
this point. Entangled.
    I stirred gently in hopes Bridget would
either roll onto her back or wake up. In return, I only got a soft
moan and a shift in her weight that tightened her hold on me. I was
about to take more assertive action when her cellphone rang with a
repeating pattern of what I recognized as a Bach sonata for
harpsichord.
    She turned to tend to it. I rolled out to
escape for the bathroom.
    When I returned I found her under the