TWISTED GAME ©

Profiler 3

"We'll be arriving in about twenty minutes."

Sydney Heart looked from the car window to the driver. Checking her phone for the time, she smiled in relief. She hated being late.

"Thank you," she said, slipping her phone into her ebony clutch.

"What kind of event are you heading to?" the driver asked. He was a middle-aged man with dark hair and light eyes that had brightened when she made her way down the stairs of her condo earlier that evening. "Seems nice."

They were en route to the Stirling Mansion. Tonight the venue was hosting, an old friend from high schools wedding, Amy Kal.

"A friend's wedding," Sydney said.

"You're going to outshine the bride in that dress," he said," You look mighty pretty."

Sydney looked down at her body-hugging organza dress. The Mystic material clung to her curves like a metallic skin, leaving everything and nothing to the imagination.

"You have beautiful eyes, but I'm sure you already know that."

Sydney stared placidly at him in the rearview mirror. "Thank you."

"What color are they?"

She played along to be polite. "They're Hazel."

He squinted and looked closer at her eyes in the rearview mirror. "I thought they were green. It's difficult to tell from here."

"They look lighter some days than others," she told him.

"With those thick eyelashes and your long pale hair. . . What a nice combination."

Sydney suppressed a shiver and ignored the compliment as the car drove into the flow of busy Tulsa, traffic.

In the rearview mirror, Sydney could see the driver's eyebrows rising. "Is your boyfriend meeting you tonight at the wedding?"

She shook her head. "No, my career is my relationship," she explained. "I work for the TPD."

"The TPD?" He whistled, low and skeptical. "You're too beautiful to be out chasing criminals."

Sydney's hairs on the back of her neck prickled in irritation as his lips curved into a ghost of a smile.
She was feminine, yes, but she packed a hell of a punch.

"I'd be more concerned with the criminals getting hurt if I were you," she said. "I catch sycophants."

"You're a cop?" he asked, mockery evident in his leering grin.

Sydney smiled, but he didn't notice the wolfish edge in her expression. "Something like that," she said coolly.

Her focus narrowed. Her eyes tracked past the driver's face, to the irritating line of his shoulders as he maneuvered the car through the downtown traffic.
Her driver was probably the middle child always out to prove his worth.
He related being louder with being better because it was the only way he had received any attention in the past.

Truth was, she was a profiler for the FBI. She was far from 007. Profiling was about details and knowledge. About psychology and behavior. About paying attention to the cues and clues, physical and verbal.

And the way her driver's hands clenched around the steering wheel, told her he hated his job and hated his passengers too.
His wide eyes roving up and down her clingy dress had revealed an obvious attraction but also a hint of disgust that he had quickly squashed down.
His snide comment about her looks made him feel like the Alpha-male.

Her gaze drifted to his left hand where a wedding band should be. The strip of untanned skin. Was a dead giveaway.
Recently separated or divorced.
She'd bet all the money in her bank account that the reason was infidelity on his part.
He didn't respect women. He thought they were inferior. A woman in power made him feel inadequate.
He was the kind of man who felt as if women owed him something.