Duplicity by Vicki Hinze

fingers of shock bolted up her spine. All of the men on his team had been junior operatives? None of them had been communications-trained? Why had they been assigned? And why had Burke been assigned to lead them?
    The dial tone buzzed in her ear a solid minute before Tracy could slow her racing mind enough to hang up the phone. He had surprised her, first by calling-she’d considered the odds of that slim to none-and then by throwing out his intriguing question and hanging up without another word.
    She’d have to be an idiot not to recognize the call for what it was: a direct challenge to prove her worth. In the past, she had walked away from similar challenges though if they were still alive, her parents and Matthew would find the notion impossible to believe. Yet she had no intention of walking away from this one.
    Cradling the receiver, she gave the Simpson file one last look, closed it, and then retrieved her purse from her lower right desk drawer. The retired Major Simpson would just have to wait to test the strength of the regulations that demanded he forfeit part of his civil service salary because he was already receiving a military retirement pension. His was a valid common complaint of discrimination against regular commissioned officers who retired from active duty and then went back to work for the Department of Defense as civil servants. It had been challenged in the past without success and Tracy feared, it would be again in the future. She’d give it her best, but the battle would have to be put on hold a while longer. Adam Burke didn’t get into talkative moods oftenin fact, this was the first one since his arrest-and Tracy didn’t want him to clam up again before she learned anything from him.
    She buried her hostility at what Adam Burke had done-her only hope of finding her legal hook and building a respectable defense-and left a note for Janet, who had gone to lunch with this week’s heartthrob.
    Out in the parking lot, Tracy cursed the scalding heat pouring out of the Caprice and climbed in. Even with tissues stuffed under her hands, holding on to the steering wheel proved to be an exercise in discipline.
    Half an hour from the time she received Burke’s call, she sat cloistered in the Lysol-scented, attorney/client conference room, suffering symptoms of claustrophobia and looking at a less swollen, if still shackle(!, Adam Burke.
    He sat ramrod straight on the metal chair, his expression tense, his distrustful gaze hard and unbending. “Everything I say to you is confidential, correct?”
    She nodded, determined that this time he would be the one tawng-and that she would not leave here doubting everything on God’s green earth because of what he said-especially herself.
    “You will repeat it to no one?” he persisted. “Not under any circumstances?”
    The hairs on her neck lifted. This wasn’t going to be some Sunday-school disclosure. His caution proved it, and her instincts hummed it. “Not without your express permission, no.”
    He dropped his deep voice to an unmistakable warning. “I’ve learned the hard way not to trust others, Keener, and if I had any choice, I sure as hell wouldn’t risk trusting you. Not knowing you consider me guilty.”
    She could challenge him to find someone who didn’t consider him guilty, and she would have, but there was a bite of accusation in his tone. He resented knowing she believed him guilty, and afraid any reply to what he had just said would shut down communications, she tilted her chin and chose a less confrontational tack. “In the five years I’ve been practicing law, I have never-not once breached attorney/client confidentiality.”
    “I’m glad to hear it.” His gray eyes glittered. “Don’t disappoint me by starting now.”
    She tossed a hank of unruly hair back over her shoulder and propped her elbow on the table, striking what she hoped would pass for a lazy pose. “Is that a threat?” It felt like a threat, and it had her