a pizza on Sunday night.
“Of the guy?” Ana pretended to be confused to buy time.
“Uh, yeah.” Jen’s sarcastic response was immediate. “I give you chapter and verse on the date, the Prometheus thing, the private jet to Vegas on Saturday, the whole deal, and you’ve barely batted an eye. You’ve got something smoking in that mad mind of yours. You’ve hardly heard a word I’ve said.”
“Oh, I heard it,” Ana stalled. She didn’t want to admit she’d been thinking about Gates. Or that she’d been running scenarios about the art fraud case. Or that she’d been wondering again about Dav and Carrie.
“So?”
“So what?” She wasn’t going to get away with that one, but how did she tell her best, most supportive friend that the millionaire she was dating was tweaking Ana’s suspicion radar? She didn’t want Jen hanging out with the guy, possibly getting into something she couldn’t get out of, but she hadn’t found anything to hang her hunch on, nothing solid. There were some peculiar things in the files, some weird codes that might even be Agency codes, some stuff about him from New Jersey, but she hadn’t had time to dig them out.
Jen sighed and set her plate aside. “I know you ran him, Ana. I could tell it at the gallery. So let’s get that out of the way. I forgive you, all right?”
Ana was shocked that Jen wasn’t going to ream her. Relief followed hot on the heels of shock. “So when I tell you he gives me the willies, you’ll know why you shouldn’t see him again, right?”
“Nonsense,” Jen parried. “Everybody gives you the willies. Stupid, if you ask me.” Jen made a tsking sound as she recovered her plate. “Look, honey,” she said, a look of sympathy suffusing her features. “You’ve had a crappy run of it. First that married guy in Rome, then the whole work deal and all that crazy scary stuff with your job. You’re gun-shy, I know it and you know it. I’m just sayin’ it’s time you got over it. You’ve never let fear get you, all these years we’ve known each other. I mean, when I met you, after your parents died, you were shy and hurt. You climbed out of that when we were in college, really played the field. Hell,” Jen laughed, shaking her head over the next words. “You blew the field wide open, girl. You went to work for the CIA.”
“I know, I know. But they recruited me,” Ana reminded her. “And I do have skills they need, right? But this guy, D’Onofrio. There’s something about him I don’t like.”
Jen rolled her eyes and continued eating pizza. “I appreciate you trying to save me from myself, honey. Here’s the thing: I like taking the risk, you know? And you used to take ’em right along with me. Don’t you think it’s about time you found that part of you again?”
“Yeah, but Karma’s a bitch, Jen,” Ana managed, feeling old and sad all of a sudden. “I screwed up. Maybe if the married guy hadn’t made me so crazy, I’d have been sharper at my job. Maybe I would have seen things differently.”
“Bullshit,” Jen answered. “Doesn’t apply. You got screwed with that guy, sure, but I know what you give to your work. You were on the straight there, girl. Whatever was going on with him was over anyway, the minute you found out he was hitched.”
“I know,” Ana said, still fretting. “But Jen, this guy, he’s dating through an agency—don’t you think that’s weird?”
Once again, Jen rolled her eyes. “A lot of people do. He’s not perfect, right? Anyway, I’m going to see how it goes. He’s fun, you know? And what’s not to love about being whisked off to Vegas, and wined and dined?”
Nothing she could say to Jen would dissuade her from her choice. To her surprise, Jen changed tactics on her.
“Enough about me. I saw you being all up close and personal with that sexy stumbler. What was up with that? He was touching you, had his hand on your back and stuff. What’s going down? Did he ask for your number?”
Ana nodded, uncomfortable with the spotlight being turned her way. “I gave it to him.”
Jen sat up, her meal and the brief argument over Jack forgotten. “Really? You did? Oh, my gosh. Seriously?”
“Yeah, but it’s the number for the diner down the street,” Ana said without cracking a smile.
“Aaaaannnna!” Jen’s disappointment was palpable. “You didn’t.”
Ana laughed. “Of course not.