In Deep with the FBI Agent (10 page)

“I love that you have that kind of faith in me.”

“You deserve it,” Casey said. “It's one of the reasons we all hated you in high school. There was no playing jokes on a teacher if you were around, and there was no copying homework, either.”

“We had an honor code.”

“Yes, and you were one of the few who followed it,” Casey responded.

“You did, too.”

Silence.

Sam accelerated past a slow car on the highway, speaking fast to Casey. “You were up for fun in class, but you never broke the honor code. You always found a way around it if your friends asked to copy your homework.”

“You really did stalk me in high school,” Casey said with a quick laugh.

“I was a boy in love,” he said, and gripped the steering wheel at his revelation.

“And now?”

“I'm a man intrigued. I had a good time the other night, Case. I want to take you out again Friday night.”

He held his breath for what felt like forever before she quietly said, “Okay.”

“Awesome. I'll pick you up at seven. Now stop dawdling, Ms. Cooper, and get back to work.”

She laughed, and the throaty noise went straight to his groin. “Bye, Mr. Cooper.”

Before she could hang up, Sam said, “And, Casey? Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime, Sam.”

C
asey's finger froze on the mouse when a photo of Sam grinning in the computer lab flashed on the screen.

“He was short, wasn't he?” she muttered, but she said it with affection, especially when she thought of arriving in her office this morning to discover a tiny typed and folded note from him. Just like he'd slipped into her locker in high school. How he'd entered her office, she didn't know, but the message on the note had her squirming with happiness all day. Instinctively, her fingers went to her pocket to rub the folded note.

“What was that?” Valerie leaned forward in the chair adjacent to Casey's and squinted at the screen.

Casey gestured to the screen. “Sam. I remember him being little in high school, but he looks like he's twelve there.”

Arianna laughed. “Well, he's all grown up now.”

“You don't have to tell me twice,” Casey said and earned speculative looks from both women. They'd been in the school administrative conference room for more than an hour making a photo slide show for their upcoming reunion. Her admin, Annie, was taking care of the class of 1995, but since the ten-year reunion class was her own, she wanted to take care of it personally. Valerie and Arianna had volunteered to help, but now Casey suspected they were here to get their own take on her burgeoning relationship with Sam.

To give them credit, they hadn't said a word or asked a single probing question, which was good since Casey wouldn't know what to say. Sam had snuck in the locker note on her desk this morning, and he had called her Thursday, obviously shaken from his visit to his friend in prison, and he was taking her on a date tonight. Was it a relationship? She didn't know. They'd done nothing more than kiss, but given their long history, he was much more than simply a man with whom she was going on a second date.

“He mentioned to Lance that he's taking you out tonight,” Arianna said, almost cautiously, which for her was a miracle. Arianna had never understood the meaning of cautious, though her father's legal battle had changed her subtly. There was a sympathetic depth to Arianna that hadn't been there in high school, or maybe it was that Casey—too focused on her own issues—hadn't seen past the surface.

“Yes, we're going out. Did he happen to mention where he's taking me? I'm not sure what to wear.”

“This is Sam, so you never know,” Valerie said. “He could take you to mini golf, or to the nicest restaurant in town.”

Casey felt a smile form on her face. “I know, he's unpredictable, and yet he's totally predictable in that the date will be unlike any others I've been on.”

“Is that a good thing?” Valerie asked. Both women eyed her, obviously feeling protective of their friend, and Casey felt her hackles rise. What right did they have to question her intentions toward Sam? He was
her
friend first, and it was
her
he'd had a crush on forever. Oh, boy, she was feeling possessive over Sam Cooper. Not good.

Yet why wasn't it good? As she edged nearer to the dark side of age thirty, Casey was close to admitting that though she had a great job and some close friends, she wanted more. She wanted a partner, one who shared the intimate and the mundane. Though she'd never in a million years dreamed she could find it with Sam, she wasn't averse to it either.

“I like him,” Casey said. “I think I always have.”

“You had a funny way of showing it in high school,” Ari said.

“I was a bitch in high school, and it wasn't like I actively bullied Sam.”

“But you weren't very nice to him either,” Valerie said.

“No,” she admitted. “I wasn't, but that's between me and Sam.”

“Point taken,” Ari said. “Let's go on to the next photo.”

Valerie had a printout of the names of every person in their graduating class, and their goal was to make sure everyone appeared at least once in the slide show. They'd put out the call for photos about a month ago and people had responded nicely. It helped that Casey was able to contribute a boatload of her own photos, but as they were seeing now, they featured the same group of kids over and over. Quite a few members of her class were left out.

“Some people are simply going to have to remain absent,” Valerie finally declared, crossing off one more name on their list. “Has Dina Grodinsky said she'd attend the reunion?”

“Who's Dina Grodinsky?” Ari asked.

“Tall, dark brown hair. Played volleyball,” Casey said.

“How do you remember stuff like that?” Ari asked.

She remembered because she had every yearbook from the school's history and before she made a personal phone call or email to request an alumni donation, she looked the person up.

“Part of my job,” Casey said.

“I may need to hire you for my gallery,” Ari said.

“You couldn't afford me.”

“True.”

“I think we're done,” Valerie interrupted. “Let's test it, 'cause I have to go. My babysitter needs to get to her class.”

Casey hit Play on the montage software and turned up the speaker volume.

“The song is killing me,” Ari said. “It's cliché.”

“It was
the
song that played throughout high school,” Casey protested.

“It's like a rule,” Valerie said with a giggle. “No photo slide show could be made between the years 2002 and 2007 without using Green Day's ‘Time of your Life.'”

They all laughed.

“But it works,” Casey said, and they fell into silence to watch their handiwork. As the images flashed on-screen, her stomach tightened and her throat felt heavy. Oh, good God, were those tears she was swallowing back? At a cheesy photo montage of bygone days?

She wasn't alone in her sudden sappy sentiment.

“Oh, remember that?” Valerie laughed at the photo of the boys' basketball team in cheerleading uniforms.

“She has three kids,” Ari said as the next photo flashed on, showing a perky blonde in a volleyball uniform.

“Three? Wow, she must've started right after college,” Casey said.

“During,” Arianna said.

There was nothing wrong with someone their age getting pregnant in her early twenties, but it was certainly unusual for kids from their prep school. From Casey's RSVPs to date, she estimated that only about thirty percent of their class was even married, and only a handful of their class were parents.

“Oh, wow,” Valerie breathed and they all froze as the screen showed two boys with ear-to-ear grins, arms around each other. The boy on the left was Eric Cohen, forever frozen in time at seventeen.

“I think he died a few weeks after that photo,” Casey said. “That was taken on the spring break ski trip.” Eric had died driving home from lacrosse practice in the spring. He'd been on his phone and had driven off the road into a tree. The tragedy had brought their class together, even though Eric had remained the kind of stereotypical jock asshole memorialized in teen movies.

“So sad,” Valerie said.

“Yeah,” Casey and Arianna echoed.

“It's weird to think we're about to attend our ten-year reunion and Eric never will. He never even got to go to prom or graduate.”

“His sister sent a letter,” Casey volunteered. “Remember, she was two years ahead of us at school.”

“That was nice,” Valerie said.

Ari stared at the screen thoughtfully. “I know this sounds awful, but I tend not to remember the kids that didn't go all the way through elementary school to graduation with us.” She glanced at Casey. “You being the exception, of course.”

“Glad I'm memorable,” Casey said.

“Unforgettable, more like.” Valerie and Ari laughed.

“Hey, what does that mean?”

“Casey, you were voted most likely to succeed and most popular.”

“Despite the fact that you weren't that well liked,” Arianna said.

Casey rose. “Yes, I was a bitch in high school. I think I'll wear a scarlet letter B on my blouse to the reunion. Or should I type up apology notes to everyone?”

“Casey, relax, we were kidding around,” Ari said.

“No. I think people owe me apologies. You both have no idea how crazy this school was.”

“What are you talking about? We both went here,” Valerie said, a wrinkle marring her brow.

“Not on scholarship,” Casey said. “When there were bake sales or you had to buy a team uniform, you asked your parents for money. Not all of us could do that. You didn't go on the senior ski trip because you didn't want to. I didn't go because I couldn't afford to, and I wanted to. Desperately. Instead people mocked kids they thought were on scholarship. You know how many times I had to pretend to laugh when one of my so-called friends made a joke about someone buying clothes at a discount store.
I
bought all my clothes at discount stores.”

“You were on scholarship?” Valerie's eyes were wide. “I had no idea. But stop acting like it's some dark secret. So what if you had less money than the rest of us? It wasn't a big deal.”

“Wasn't it?” Casey asked. “You know why I was on scholarship? Because my mom had trouble holding down a job. She suffers from depression and wasn't able to go into work a lot. So either she missed paychecks or had to find a new job. And yet, she insisted I come to this fancy private school so I could have a better life than her.”

“I'm sorry, Casey. We had no idea about your mom. That must have been rough,” Valerie said.

“Still is,” Casey muttered.

“I hate to be dense, but was the money such a big deal? I totally get why your mom's health problems were, but…”

Ari was biting her lip. “Actually, Val, speaking as someone who went from having a trust fund to no money, it kind of is a big deal. How many times did we sneak off campus for lunch? Or collect money from everyone for group birthday presents. It adds up.”

Casey was nodding. “It did. Every weekend, people would meet at the mall to shop, go to movies, and eat in the food court. You know how much that costs? I couldn't be part of it at all, so I was constantly pretending I had dates with boys from other schools. In truth I was working so I could help my mom pay our rent. The worst was junior year, when everyone got their driver's licenses. At our school it wasn't
are
you getting a car, it was what kind of car are you getting? I could barely afford the DMV fees, not to mention my mom was way too anxious about me driving.”

Valerie, who'd driven her father's hand-me-down BMW, stood and placed her palm on Casey's shoulder. “Wow, I'm sorry. We were really clueless idiots, weren't we?”

“About certain things.” Casey sat again. “But everyone was worldly and knowledgeable about things I was clueless about.” She looked Arianna in the eye. “I remember you complaining once that they ran out of ice cream sundaes in first class on your way to Amsterdam, and you had to have a cookie instead.
Boo hoo
. I'd only been on a plane a handful of times in my life to visit my dad in Tampa.”

“First world problems,” Arianna murmured. “We had 'em. But if it's any consolation, my arrogance has been paid back. Tenfold.”

“I know.” Casey sighed. “And I've outgrown my bitterness. Honestly, I realize now I only thought I was poor because everyone around me was so rich. We lived in a relatively nice apartment, rarely worried about food on the table, and I managed to afford college, even if it wasn't the one I wanted. I was incredibly wealthy compared to most folks, but like most teenagers, I was a bit of an idiot about a lot of things. The hardest part was never knowing whether my mom would be up making me breakfast or hiding in her bed.” She stopped talking, because although she'd opened up more with Arianna and Valerie than she had with anyone from her high school days, she still wasn't sure she wanted to share about her anorexia.

Valerie pressed a hand against hers. “Wow. That's rough.”

“Thank you,” Casey said, remembering that Valerie's mom had died a long time ago. What would be worse? To have a needy mother or no mother at all? No mother at all, she decided in a heartbeat. When Casey had hit bottom in college, her mother had been there to pick up the pieces.

“I hate to cut this short, especially when we're getting to know you for real,” Val said, “but I have to go. My sitter…”

Casey shrugged. “I have to go back to work, too.”

“Me three.”

Both women looked at Arianna.

“Well, I do,” Ari defended. “I'm trying to earn enough to rent a new gallery space. The pop-up shows are fun, but I want a home again.”

Casey was about to make a snide comment that Arianna should simply ask her fiancé, aka America's thirty-seventh richest bachelor under forty, for a loan, but she realized that was something high school Casey would've said. Adult Casey understood there were some things a woman had to do for herself. Buying her own business was one of them. “Good luck, and please invite me to the next show.”

“I will.”

“Invite Sam, too,” she said impulsively. “The walls of his house could use some art.”

“Whoa,” Ari crowed. “You've been to his house? Things are more serious than I thought.”

“It's no big deal,” she said, but she was laughing as she stood and the three women exited the conference room. “He made me an omelet.”

“Is that what we're calling sex these days? I can never keep up,” Valerie said.

Both women whirled. “Valerie Wainwright Moore,” Arianna said, “you naughty girl. Marriage has affected you. I love it.”

Valerie's cheeks were pink, but she was smiling.

Casey thought it was slightly funny, but as it was her sex life they were joking about and they were in her workplace, she kept a straight face. “
Shh
, this is my office, and it's a school. There are children around.”