Entrapment

All of a sudden I could hear the bells of doom ringing in my head.

There was no room for interpretation here.

Maria’s office. Now.

What did she want with me? Oh God, did Gloria make it there after all? Was I completely screwed?

Then again, maybe not? I mean we had a few things we needed to talk about. She needed to give me some fake info that I could then pass on to fake FBI.

Maybe she needed to talk about the date that I had with Gloria? But then again, would that really be the only thing she wanted to talk about?

Also, I couldn’t help but notice what time it was.

1.30 PM.

My daily fake FBI call would take place thirty minutes from now.

Did she plan to hear my conversation with agent “Rodriguez” again? Or did she have some more nefarious… scheme?

Here’s the good part, though. She only sent me a text message. I could pretend I didn’t see it, and only enter her office after 2 PM. Therefore, anything she was planning with my fake call, wouldn’t work.

Yeah, you know what? That actually sounded smart. Why give her the advantage? Best to play it safe.

I could continue with whatever I was planning to tell Gretchen anyway. She was still silently waiting for me to continue.

“Yeah, so…” But then I continued my thinking. What if it was the worst scenario? That Gloria was now crying to her mother about all the nasty things I had done to her? If that was the case, would Maria be satisfied with waiting for me?

No way.

I should run.

I needed to play this extremely safe. I needed to disappear and check back on the situation a few days later. I could always say that I just got sick. From whatever was making the other writers take sick days too.

No time to waste. I just got up and swiftly walked to the door. I left Gretchen there in silence, just desperately waiting for my next words.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to say to her right now. My head was a mess.

Further proof of that? I should’ve checked if there was someone else on the other side of the door. Because there was.

“Ah, Jack. Great. It’s good we finally get to talk about this.”

It was the sudden return of our magazine’s dedicated lawyer, Hayley Joan Marino.

Looking as prim and proper as always. A deliciously sexy brunette, hiding behind those big glasses and her official-looking pantsuit.

“Um, what?” I babbled in confusion, as I quickly closed Gretchen’s door behind me.

“I was just on my way to Maria’s office. We can go together.”

“Wait, I don’t…”

“Oh no. Don’t tell me she forgot to tell you. We scheduled a meeting between the three of us. Oh God, she did, didn’t she?”

“Um… This is the first I’m hearing about it, actually.”

I’m sure the bitch did that on purpose. To keep me on my toes and stop me from planning anything.

“Oh man. But it’s really urgent. Whatever other plans you had, just reschedule them for now, okay?”

What to do here? Did I have to enter Maria’s office like this? Unprepared and afraid?

Wait, there was a positive side to this. This was a meeting that was scheduled some time ago, apparently. Therefore this can’t be about Gloria. And as far as I knew, that meant that my life wasn’t in immediate danger.

I relaxed. I calmly collected myself, and gave Hayley a happy nod.

“That’s fine. We can have a meeting right now.”

“Great. Let’s go. Let’s have this whole awful thing sorted out.”

What …thing was she exactly talking about? I still had no idea what was going on here.

I wanted to ask Hayley before we walked in, but she got a call from some other client. She was completely occupied for the entirety of our short walk, and the phone call only ended when she was already opening Maria’s office door. Leaving me more and more frustrated.

At first glance, everything seemed normal. Maria’s office was the same, and she was sitting behind her desk like she always did.

With those cold, cold eyes. And that hot, hot body.

Hayley didn’t bother sitting down, she walked behind Maria and just stood there. Thinking about it, I rarely saw her sitting down at all. Maybe it was an exercise thing or something?

I took my usual seat on the lone chair that was placed in front of Maria’s desk.

Ominously.

Needless to say, anything involving Maria and chairs still gave me shivers.

“I understand the date didn’t have a happy ending. Sorry about that,” Maria suddenly spoke.

She couldn’t sell that “Sorry” if her life depended on it. Not that she really even tried.

And the date did have an extremely happy ending. But I was happy to hear she was thinking otherwise.

“Yeah, well… She told me that you made her break up with me. So I feel kinda cheated in our deal.”

That’s right. The very first thing Gloria did on our date was reveal that Maria wanted her to break up with me. And she told me that in the limo. There was zero percent chance that Maria hadn’t put microphones there.

So I was **** to bring the matter up, whether I wanted to or not.

“Really? She said that?” Maria pretended as if hearing this for the first time. “I assure you, that is not the case. Perhaps she was just looking for an excuse to let you down easy.”

Well played.

“In either case, I’ve held up my part of the deal,” she continued. “I allowed you to have one proper date with Gloria. And she’s also back to working here as an intern. That’s it. I expect you to hold up your part as well.”

She had me there. Technically she didn’t do anything wrong here.

Also, we just got straight into business, didn’t we? Talking about our illicit deals and such? Despite Hayley just standing there, and hearing everything? …Maria didn’t even bother informing how much I was allowed to talk about with her in the room?

And what was this fucking meeting about anyways?

Hayley just stood there. Emotionless. Like waiting for her turn.

Sometimes she was so robotic it was almost scary.

I tried my best not to let her presence distract me. “She’s still the only one I love. And I will do anything… to not let bad things happen to her. Or her family.”

Maria smiled her fake little smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“In fact,” I continued, “I want to train her to become a better professional. To truly excel-“

“No.”

Yeah, I expected her to shut me down like that. She had heard my offer to “train” her, when we were in the limo. She knew what I was going for here.

“No, please, let me finish. I can mold her into-“

“No.”

Fuck. At this point I would normally start turning the screws. Casually mentioning about her investigation etc, and pressuring her to keep me happy. But Hayley was here. I couldn’t talk about that subject, unless…

Wait… Maybe she…

Better just come out with it.

“Why is she here?” I asked, pointing at Hayley.

“Shall we move to the matter at hand?” Hayley asked politely.

“Yes, I believe we should,” Maria confirmed smugly.

“Alright then. First of all, mister Jack Dingle, you need to understand that I’m fully updated on the situation. My client here, Maria Diamanti, is being wrongfully pursued by law enforcement. By some questionable officers at the FBI.”

Oh shit. I had a feeling things were about to get a lot fucking complicated.

“And if I understand correctly, you, mister Jack Dingle, were approached by the FBI to become a confidential informant in the case of state versus Maria Diamanti?”

I slowly nodded. I guess that was right?

“Okay. Normally I would say let the police handle their investigation first, but it’s becoming clear to me that this whole thing is very shady. Perhaps even unlawful. Perhaps it’s something that needs to be tackled before it even… materializes.”

What?

…That was an odd way of putting it.

“Now, I believe, that we all are in agreement here. This thing needs to go away. Nobody wants the hassle of dealing with the imaginary crimes this kind of unconstitutional witchhunt is sure to dig up.”

What?

Oh I see.

It appears Hayley was… very lose with her morals.

A dirty lawyer.

Never took her for one.

She leaned on the desk, trying out her best serious look.

And it was a pretty good one.

“The best solution to all parties would be to put a swift end to this. You may not know this about me, but I’m very well connected. I have multiple friends in the Justice Department. I have experience of making some things just… disappear.”

What the fuck?

Why did she talk like we were in a mafia movie or something?

Oh yeah that’s right. That was actually my reality now. Wait, how deep was Hayley in this? She did seem to have a vested interest into making this thing go away.

Maria never stopped smiling. It’s like she held the same face for the last three minutes.

Jesus Christ. Was I in a room with two serial killers?

It was starting to feel like that.

“Now. Jack. Please tell us the name of the agent you are working with.”

Oh fuck.

I was starting to feel shivers all over my body. I had a bad feeling about this.

“Her… She was Lori… Lori Rodriguez.”

Maria and Hayley exchanged a glance.

“You need to understand something here, Jack,” Hayley began with a slightly deeper, more ominous tone. “I asked around all weekend. Nobody, absolutely nobody knows anything about a sting operation like this. And I cashed in all my contacts.”

…Was it getting hot in this room? I could feel sweat start forming on my forehead.

“Now, that’s not conclusive though. Somebody could be lying to me. Or this thing is so top-secret that only a select few know about it. But I checked out something else as well. Maria had heard that your agent’s name was Lori from your previous conversation. FBI currently has no-one named Lori working for them. No-one nicknamed Lori either. There are no Loreleis, no Lorraines, no Loriannes, no Lorelyns, no Hannelores, no Hannaloris etc. etc.”

…Fucking fuck.

Think, Jack. Think. Think. Think.

My thinking was impeded by the sight of Hayley suddenly sitting down on Maria’s desk.

She did it in such a way I had a small glimpse of her panties.

They were red.

“So, Jack… Before we go any further, we need to know if you are being completely truthful with us here. Is there… a Lori Rodriguez?”

My eyes darted towards Maria.

Oh boy.

She was staring me with such intensity I could feel her looking straight into my soul.

This is what she wanted. She wanted to see my reaction to all this.

This is why she gave me no time to prepare. This is why they took such a roundabout way of getting to this point.

Her plan was to see my reaction.

And she got it. The paleness of my face, the sweat on my forehead…

My bluff was on life support, no matter what I did or said next.

She was playing this perfectly.

Then… a strange feeling in my head.

Like… telepathy? It was the same feeling that always told me how many Submission Points I had just gotten.

I was a… mental notification?

(MARIA: NIPPLE PINCHING ALLOWED)