Read Online Deadly Deception (SCVC Taskforce) by Misty Evans - Free Book Online Page B

to do. “Seven. The siege happened when I was nine. It was less than two years, but I was totally indoctrinated. Took nearly ten to deprogram me.”
    “Deprogram?” His arm touched hers as he shifted his weight. “Must have been rough. Especially without your mother.”
    A nightmare . “I managed.”
    Pushing away, she grabbed Celina’s shoes. In her haste that morning, she’d remembered a change of clothes, but forgot to bring comfortable shoes. Avoiding Thomas’s eyes, she sat again, pulling on the blasted heels. Her toes screamed in agony.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Time for your makeover.” She shut down the tablet and slid it into her briefcase. “Then we have to shop for some…” She inventoried his clothes. His T-shirt was too tight, showing off his muscled arms and flat stomach. His jeans hung loose on his waist. Bare feet poked out from under the ragged hems. “Appropriate clothing.”
    He looked down. “What’s wrong with this?”
    Just everything. “It’s too…” Sexy. Provocative . “Analysts wear collared shirts and khakis. A Type A guy like you should know that.”
    He mimicked shooting himself in the head with an index finger. “Boring.”
    Very, but somehow she knew he’d look as good in office attire as he did in street casual.
    “Just so we’re clear, I don’t do polos.” He went to the back door and slipped on a pair of flip-flops. “Maybe a button-down, but I get to choose which kind.”
    Lord help her. It was going to be a long day.

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    “How short do you want it, hon?” The hair stylist at the Cut & Go smacked her gum as she wrapped a cape around Thomas’s neck.
    Ronni stood behind him, arms crossed. “Short,” she said.
    “Not too short,” he countered.
    She eyed his ponytail, gave it a tug. “Shave it off. Bald, like Bruce Willis.”
    “ What? ”
    Ronni’s phone rang. The stylist lifted a pierced brow as she ran her hand through his thick locks. “Really? All of it?”
    “All of it.” Ronni turned on her heel, answering her phone and walking off toward a quiet corner of the busy salon.
    Thomas met the woman’s eyes in the mirror. “Come near me with a set of clippers and I’ll…”
    “Relax.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I only take orders from you.”
    He sighed. “Good. What I need is Brad Pitt hair from A River Runs Through It . Short, clean-cut, nothing fancy.”
    “You got it.” She released his hair from the band. “Your girlfriend’s a little intense.”
    “Fabulous But Irritating is not my girlfriend, but yes, she’s very intense.”
    The stylist gave him a confused look, then went to work on his hair, chatting and flirting and putting him at ease as inches of his hair fell to the floor. It had taken months to grow it that long.
    In the mirror he saw Ronni thumb the off button on her phone, seemingly lost in thought. Her head came up, met his eyes in the mirror, and he thought, oh shit . Something was up.
    But she turned to look at two women at a back table, one getting her nails done by the other. She titled her head slightly, listening. The phone came back up and she moseyed over to the table, acting like she was carrying on a conversation.
    Thomas knew better. She was eavesdropping. Why?
    Ronni had been insistent on using this salon. Claimed it was just a feeling, but from what he’d seen of his partner, she didn’t do gut feelings any more than he profiled people.
    A minute later, she closed the phone, asked the nail tech where the restroom was. At the woman’s directions, Ronni disappeared down the hall.
    Five minutes later, his hair was FBI short, and he had the phone number for Anita—the stylist—in his back pocket. She wasn’t his type, but he didn’t want to offend her by saying so.
    Ronni was still MIA. He paid and slipped down the hall acting like he, too, needed to use the restroom.
    She stood near the back door, reading flyers on a bulletin board next to the restrooms. Before he