Chapter Three
Bethany
I thought about Ransom’s offer as I ate. Ethically, it wasn’t exactly sound. I wasn’t supposed to let anyone--anyone--without clearance have access to secure files, and I still didn’t know why he wanted to look in the agency’s databases. Try and offer him more money, see if he’ll take that instead, I thought.
“You know, as much as I’d like to make a splash at my high school reunion, I don’t think I want to give up my job for it,” I said, turning back to look at him once more.
“I can promise you that nothing I get out of the files is anything you’d ever get fired for,” Ransom said, turning to face me completely, arms crossed over his chest.
“How can you know that for sure? I could offer you...let’s say twenty-five,” I countered. Ransom shook his head.
“I’m not interested in your money--besides, if you got fired, wouldn’t you need it?”
I couldn’t really argue against that logic. “You swear to me that you’re not going to use access to the files for anything that could be traced back to me? And that you’re not going to...I don’t know. Do anything extremely illegal? Nothing that would hurt people?”
Ransom looked at me for a long moment with something that was almost like pity in his eyes. “It’s a database of people who put their children up for adoption and the kids they put up, right?”
“Amongst other details like donors and how much they gave us, tax information, things of that nature,” I agreed.
“What on earth would I do with information like that, that could get you in anything like real trouble? And what the hell is ‘extremely illegal,’ anyway?”
I had to laugh. “I don’t know! I meant...you’re not trying to get information that you could use to hold someone ransom or anything, are you? I mean, your name is Ransom, after all.” My heart pounded hard in my chest at the thought, accompanied by a series of mental images of what would happen if someone found out that the murder or kidnapping of a donor--or someone else--had happened because I’d granted someone access to key files.
“No, nothing like that. I won’t tell you what it is that I need the information for, but I can promise you that it’s nothing that you’d object to. Probably.”
I raised my eyebrows at the ‘probably’ and picked at my meal for a moment. It was a better deal than I would have thought possible, in a certain way: I didn’t really have to spend any money at all, at least not unless I got fired for giving someone access to confidential files. But if Ransom held up his end of the deal, and if he didn’t do anything that could be traced back to me, I was a solid twenty thousand dollars ahead. I could go on an actual vacation for once, I thought. I certainly had enough time accrued.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine?”
I glanced at Ransom and took a deep breath. “If you’ll pretend to be my boyfriend, and if you actually succeed, and convince the people at my school, I’ll give you access to confidential agency files.”
Ransom held out his hand, leaning across the counter toward me.
I shook his hand and he smiled, and I could completely see why the two waitresses had been falling all over themselves to flirt with him. His grip was strong but not crushing, his hand was dry, his fingers had a kind of firmness to them that told me that he could do a lot with them--not that he could do anything for me, not really. The smile, though. The smile was amazing, breaking across his face like a burst of sunshine from behind heavy thunderheads.
“We have a deal,” he said.
He took his hand back and I realized my mouth was dry. I took a sip of my coffee and tried to think of what should come next.
Ransom spoke first, though. “Where’s the event going to be? From what I know about this kind of thing, it’s usually at a hotel or something.”
“Oh, it’s a whole, long thing,” I said. “There are a bunch of events over the course of a few days, and a dance at the end of it.” Ransom pressed his lips together at that and I wondered if he was going to ask for the money in addition to the access.
“Okay, that works for me,” he said instead. “How do you want to do this? I assume you want to show up from the beginning together--and we should probably have a cover story of some kind, at least.”
“Do you already have a hotel set up in town? Or somewhere near here?” I thought about it for a moment; the idea I’d started to form felt a little crazy, but I couldn’t think of a better way to manage it.
“I was going to find a motel or something when I got into town,” Ransom said.
Lucy, our waitress, had started to get annoyed at his lack of attention to her, and I saw her give me a quick, slightly sour look as she put the check for his meal down next to his plate.
“Here--let me pay for your meal,” I said, sitting up and finding my wallet.
“I can afford my meal or I wouldn’t have come in,” Ransom countered.
“What? Are you afraid I’m not going to leave a generous enough tip or something?” I glanced at Lucy, who probably was afraid of just that.
“Of course not,” Ransom said. “I just think it’s silly for you to pay for my meal when I’m the one who chose to come here and order what I wanted.”
“Let it be part of my payment to you for you helping me with this reunion,” I said.
Ransom held my gaze for a long moment and then chuckled, shaking his head.
“If you insist, I’ll let you pay,” he said finally.
“And about where you’re staying. If you’re not staying at the same place as me--well, that will just bring up a lot of questions,” I said. I got up and picked up the little folder with his tab in it. I could feel the blood starting to rush to my face and ducked my head, opening the folder to look at the bill for Ransom’s order.
“I can get a room at your hotel,” Ransom suggested.
“That would open up a bunch of questions, too,” I countered. The idea I had still seemed crazy to me, but I thought it was the only way I could make the whole ruse work.
“What do you have in mind? I could share your hotel room, but that might get a little crowded, since I’m not actually your boyfriend.” His voice turned playful. “Unless you want the full ‘boyfriend experience.’”
The blush flooding my face deepened and my cheeks burned. I took out my card and slipped it into the little pocket, trying to regain my composure.
“You can stay at my parents’ place, with me,” I said quickly. “There’s a guest bedroom, and I don’t think I’m going to have anyone over, so it’s not like there will be questions.” I took a deep breath and dared to look up.
“That sounds fine to me,” Ransom said, and if I could see something in his eyes, I thought it was probably a good idea to ignore it.
“As soon as we’re all paid up here, you can follow me back to the house,” I told him.
“I’d be happy to,” Ransom said.
Lucy brought me my own check and I made sure to pay both--giving her a good tip on each one. I noticed that my hot chocolate wasn’t “on the house” anymore, but it had been good enough that I was more than happy to pay for it. I signed both of the receipts and tucked the copies into my purse. It was only then that I really thought about what I was doing. You’re letting a stranger stay in your parents’ house with you, to pretend to be your boyfriend for a long weekend. You’re going to give him access to confidential information from your job. Are you sure you haven’t lost your mind completely and totally?
But even as I questioned my sanity, I thought about the counterpoint: I wanted to make as flashy an entrance at my reunion as possible, and Ransom would complete the picture I wanted to give my former classmates of my life after high school. I figured that if he seemed to be untrustworthy, or if he acted up, or something came up during the weekend, I could always insist on paying him the money I’d set aside for something like this instead of giving him access to the agency files. Worst case scenario, you can call the cops on him.
Somehow, though, I didn’t think I would need to. I thought I would be pretty lucky, all things considered. “Okay, I think that’s everything,” I said, rising from my seat.
“I’ll follow you out to your parents’ house,” Ransom told me.
I nodded and started for the door. A cold gust greeted me when I stepped out of the Green Leaf Diner, and I thought that the temperature had to have fallen at least another five degrees. I shivered and hurried over to my car, glancing behind me to see if Ransom was following.
I wasn’t sure what I expected a guy like him to be driving, but somehow the nondescript black car--a little sporty in its lines, but not a sports car properly--was exactly what I would have thought and nothing like what I expected. I waved at Ransom and he sketched a quick return wave before climbing into the driver’s seat of the black car and starting it up.
I climbed into my Prius and turned the heater on high to get it going properly. I flashed my headlights as I passed by Ransom in the parking lot and watched in my rearview mirror as he pulled up behind me at the entrance into the parking lot. “Let’s see if he actually follows,” I muttered to myself, starting on the way back to the highway and toward my old hometown.