Raw by Jo Davis Page A

worried.
    â€œNo, no. I just need to speak to him, but I’ll come up there in person. No worries.”
    â€œMust be a late night for a lot of your employees,” the guard mused.
    She frowned. “Why do you say that?”
    â€œThere’s been a couple of other workers come in tonight. One of them is called Keene, but I don’t recall the other one’s name.”
    â€œThat’s odd,” she said slowly.
    â€œIs there a problem? Should I call the police?”
    â€œNo, that’s okay. I’m sure they have a good reason for being there.” Though she couldn’t think what. “Thank you so much, Joel.”
    â€œMy pleasure. See you soon.”
    This time, Anna didn’t go on foot. She hailed a cab and was at the building in record time. As she jogged into the lobby, Joel barely had time to wave before she was stepping into the elevator.
    All the way up, her mind whirled with scenarios of what Gray could be up to. It was just after midnight. The restaurant was closed now, and all the employees would have gone home. If he was stealing from her, she was going to kick his ass from here to Times Square. She’d call the police and have him thrown in jail. She wasn’t worried about facing him, either. If she had trouble, she’d call downstairs and alert Joel.
    At the top floor, she stepped out and into the restaurant’s lobby. Flipping on the lights, she walked quietly through the main dining room, then through the kitchen doors and down the adjacent hallway to her office.
    The light was on, and the door was almost shut. Rustling came from inside, and her pulse pounded. When she peered through the slit in the door, she swore she felt her heart break in half.
    Gray was there. Her laptop was out on the desk, open and running. Which meant he’d broken into her cabinet to get it out. There was a flash drive beside the machine that she knew wasn’t hers—wrong color. The bastard was downloading her files? Why?
    Her gaze went to the file cabinet where he stood, rifling through the one containing the employee records. Names, addresses, social security numbers. All sorts of sensitive information that an identity thief would have a field day with. Anger replaced her nerves, and she pushed open the door without giving her safety a thought.
    When his gaze swung to where she stood, the look on his face was priceless. He stared at her, unmoving, file in hand.
    â€œThis isn’t what it looks like,” he said quietly.
    â€œYou have the gall,” she hissed, “to stand there going through my things and say that to me? So tell me what the fuck you’re doing. And make it good, before I call the cops.”
    Setting the file he was holding on top of the desk, he faced her squarely. It took him several moments to speak, and the words were rough as sandpaper. “Anna, I’m so sorry. This really isn’t what it looks like, and before I tell you what’s going on, I want you to know I never thought you were guilty of anything.”
    She glared at him. “I’m trying to make sense out of that, and nothing is coming to mind.”
    â€œGood. I’m glad, because that means you’re not a part of what’s going on,” he said earnestly. “Everything I’ve found supports your innocence, which is what I—”
    â€œWhat the hell is going on here?” Her shout echoed off the walls.
    Gray merely accepted her anger. Absorbed it.
    â€œI’m an FBI agent,” he said quietly. And then he reached into his pocket, hauled out a black wallet, and showed her his badge. Her world tilted on its axis.
    He might as well have said,
I’m an alien from a distant planet.
Her brain struggled to process this and assimilate it into information that made sense.
    â€œNot a prep chef. An FBI agent.”
    He nodded. “Agent Grayson James Sloane.”
    â€œYou went to Le Cordon Bleu.”
    â€œAn assignment from