“Your name cropped up in terrorist chatter recently. Zachary schooled his features to a professional mask. “We aren’t here to lure you back to the bureau.”ĭidn’t take a genius to figure that lie out, though. This is Special Agent Murdock.” She nodded to Zachary, and they both produced credentials the geek ignored. Foster”-Zachary’s temporary partner flashed a stiff smile-“I’m Special Agent Rodriguez. “The answer was no half a year ago,” Foster said, voice clipped and unfriendly, “and it’s stayed no with every phone call since.” That distinction fascinated Zachary almost as much as it pissed him off. The clothes made him look like a sloppy punk rather than the brilliant twenty-seven-year-old forensic accountant whose skills the bureau had decided America had lived too long without.

Foster’s wrinkled cargo shorts and Mötley Crüe T-shirt argued otherwise. The accountant’s wiry body, nerdy glasses, the shaggy hair overdue for a cut all spelled geek to Zachary. Those eyes-too pretty for a man-were magnified behind the lenses of wire-frame glasses. Foster tipped up eyes the color of melted chocolate to focus a cool, assessing stare on Zachary. The unruly mop of brown hair crowning his head didn’t reach Zachary’s chin. Small and lean, Foster stood several inches below Zachary’s six foot three on the other side of the rusting screen door.

He sort of looked like what Zachary imagined an accountant should be, though.

In the Red by Kari Gregg