by Elle Casey
“You’re not gonna win,” he says. “You should just give up.”
“Oh, yes, I am going to win.” I shift my weight to my other foot. “I can do this all day. I have three kids.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I have one kid who’s more like four kids, and I don’t go down easy.”
I blink, so surprised to hear that he’s a father that I lose my focus. Dammit!
He points at me. “You lose.”
I roll my eyes, turning around so he won’t see me blinking over and over trying to rehydrate my poor raisin-like eyeballs. “What are you?” I ask. “Ten years old?”
“No, actually, I’m thirty-five, but I’m also the winner.” He reaches over and picks up the telephone handset again.
“Someone had better answer that damn phone,” I mutter as I walk over to one of the comfortable-looking armchairs. I place my laptop on the side table next to it and my purse on the floor, and then drop down into my seat as I wait in silence for someone to answer our call.
I’m tired of fighting this man. I just want to get out of here and back to my boring old life where I act like an adult and don’t enter into staring contests with near strangers who shouldn’t look that good when they’re sweaty.
CHAPTER FOUR
I know the moment someone picks up on the other end of the line because Dev’s face lights up and his mouth opens as he prepares to speak. Then he doesn’t say a word. He just stands there like an empty-headed, bald-ass mannequin.
“What’s going on?” I stand, getting this crazy idea that I’m going to go over and huddle up next to him, press my face to the receiver, and listen in on the conversation.
He holds a hand up at me like a stop sign, freezing me in my tracks.
I frown. I do the same thing to my kids when they’re bugging me and I’m on the phone. I’m a grown woman, but for some reason, in the last half hour, I’ve been reduced to a young teen in this man’s presence. Possibly a pre-teen.
On another day I might actually enjoy this, because I always feel way older than my actual age, but not today. Today I want to be a part of the real world where I’m a grown-up and I get to decide where I’m going, when I’m going there, and how I’m going to get there. This whole being-locked-up-with-a-crazy-sweaty-commando thing is making me stir-crazy. That movie The Shining comes to mind.
My captor is all serious now, his non-eyebrows drawn together as he stares at the wall. “I acknowledge with code Harbinger.” He pauses after this mysterious transmission, nods, and then continues. “Yes. Okay. Got it.”
Dev hangs up the phone and walks over to drop down into the chair opposite me. His legs spread open and he rests his elbows on the arms of the seat. The fingers of one hand come up to rest on his lips. The other hand dangles in the air at his waist, hanging casually as if he doesn’t have a care in the world . . . as if he didn’t just act like some army sergeant in an action movie where someone’s trying to assassinate the president, the White House is full of terrorists from Uzbekistan, and he’s the only G-man on the inside. He’s staring at me like he’s considering buying me at an auction or something.
Gulp. Holy hotness. I feel like a piece of meat, and I like it. What’s wrong with me?
“Well?” I sit back down in my seat and attempt to smooth out the wrinkles in my pants, trying to distract myself from my nutty thoughts as I wait to hear the news about our hopefully imminent rescue. I’m happy to know that the bad guys have not cut the telephone lines here like they always manage to do in the movies. At least something is going right today.
Dev’s hand moves away from his face and he sits up a little. “Someone did try to breach the warehouse entrance, but it’s been handled. Now we just need to wait until one of the team or a member of the police department can come and let us out.”
This makes no sense to me. I ignore the first part of his statement—something too distressing to acknowledge without some more internal processing first—and focus on the second point. “What do you mean, someone has to come and let us out?” I look over at the keypad. “Don’t you just have to go over there and type in some numbers and put your fingerprints on the screen?”
He gives me a sheepish look. “Normally, yes, but . . . uh . . . I might have been a little overeager about getting us to safety when we came in.”
I back my chin up into my neck. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He dips his head, and when he answers, I notice that his face is a little pinker now than it was before. “There are two ways to enter this room. One way, you can just tap the keys to get in and out, and the other way, you go in, and you’re kind of stuck inside until someone comes from the outside to let you out.”
This doesn’t compute. What kind of messed-up system do they have here, anyway? My words come out measured and slow. “Why would you have a door to a panic room that doesn’t open from the inside?” You’d think people whose whole business involves dealing with criminals and security would be smarter about how they set up their locking systems. Duh. I’m trapped in the lair of the Bourbon Street Boneheads. Awesome.
He doesn’t sound as embarrassed as I think he should when he explains. “Well, it’s the same concept as a home alarm, in a way. There are two different codes you can enter when you want to go in; one code just shuts everything off, but the other code is used when somebody’s holding you at gunpoint. It shuts everything off, but at the same time, silently alerts the monitoring team to the fact that there’s something fishy going on, so they can send law enforcement to intervene. Certain members of the New Orleans Police Department have the access code too.”
I only have to think about that for a few seconds before the obvious problems jump right to the front of my mind. “So, then, what you end up with when you use the second kind of code is a bad guy with a gun locked inside this room with you.” I nod my head sarcastically, thinking how ridiculous these people are. “I see. That makes complete sense.”
He shrugs. “It does if you have the kind of training we do.”
My eyebrow goes up. “And what kind of training would that be? The ability to hypnotize people into putting their weapons down, lying on the couch, and giving up?”
“No. We’re all trained to relieve people of their weapons in a very short space of time. Let’s just say that anybody who came in here with one of my team and a weapon would not be leaving here with that weapon.”
He’s pretty full of himself, but to be fair, I have seen his and Ozzie’s physiques, and my sister does have some biceps now, something she’s never had before. Who knows . . . maybe he is a ninja disguised as an NBA basketball player. I move on to my next most logical argument.
“Why not just use one code that will open the door and let people go in and out? I don’t get how having it locked from the outside is any kind of benefit to somebody inside here.”
He sighs like I should be the one riding the short bus. “Then it’s just a door. But if it’s locked from the outside, no matter what a bad guy does to the person he’s in here with, he’s not going anywhere until one of my team comes to get him. There’s no way he can escape. It’s not just a door; this way, it’s a prison.”
“But why do you think anyone breaking in to the warehouse would want to hang out in your panic room in the first place? Why would someone force himself in here of all places?”
“This is where someone choosing not to fight would come. If someone came into the warehouse searching for that someone, he’d follow.” He shrugs, as if this makes complete sense.
I take a quiet, deep breath in and out to calm myself down. Today will not be the day that I die hard. No, it’s time for me to get the hell out of here and back to a life that doesn’t include any of these Bourbon Street Buffoons. “How long is it going to take before our rescue party arrives?”
“The team has a few things to wrap up outside first. Maybe ten minutes?”
After I think about that for a little while, I decide that I can live with ten minutes. And now that
I know everything is mostly okay, my natural curiosity takes over. “So, you have a son, you said?”
He nods. “Yep. He’s five years old and a terror on wheels.”
“Is he as tall as you are?”
Dev gives me a slight grin. “Now that would be something, seeing as how he’s only in preschool right now.” He goes from stern to teasing so quickly it makes my head spin. In a good way, though, like I just took a ride on a smallish roller coaster.
I roll my eyes. “You know what I meant.”
Dev’s smile comes out in full force, and it’s nearly blinding, it’s so big. It makes me go all warm inside. “He is big for his age, but his mother was pretty small, or I should say she is pretty small, so he may end up in the middle somewhere.” Dev’s smile fades a little at the end of his explanation, which only makes me want to know more about what makes him suddenly sad when he’s obviously talking about the apple of his eye.
“Is his mom around?”
He stares at me for a long time, so I start to worry that I’ve stepped over that polite boundary that’s always a little blurry for me. It is maybe a little pushy to ask that question, but we’re stuck in a freaking panic room together, so it seems like normal societal rules should be a little more relaxed. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s been sweating so much in my presence that makes me think we can ask each other about loves lost. There’s only one place in my life I’ve seen a man that sweaty, and it was in my bedroom.
A few seconds later, I can’t take the silence anymore. “Was that too personal? Sorry, I get a little nosy when I’m nervous.”
He’s back to smiling, so my anxiety lessens just a tiny bit. Maybe I wasn’t being rude after all.
“You don’t have to be nervous,” he says. “I’m here.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
He tilts his head to the side. “I make you nervous?”
I snort. “Yeah. Duh.” Dammit. I’m back to being a teenager again.
He’s smiling. “Why would I make you nervous? I’m one of the good guys.”
I shrug. “So you say. But I’m on my first day of a freelance job here, my sister is nowhere to be seen, and I’m sitting in a panic room with a guy I just met, who talks about being some sort of commando karate chop person who takes bad dudes out and relieves them of their weapons and locks them up in this prison. I don’t know how that’s supposed to calm my nerves. It’s kind of doing the opposite, if you want me to be honest.”
“I always want you to be honest,” he says, losing his smile.
The weight of a double meaning is there, but I don’t really know where it’s coming from or what it’s all about, so I don’t play along. I’m tired of looking like a dingbat in front of this guy.
My gaze roams the room again. I’m afraid to continue with the conversation, knowing that my natural curiosity has already gotten away from me once. The way my heart is racing, I’m bound to start asking questions even more personal than the ones I already have; it’s kind of a defense mechanism I have: stun them with disbelief and distract them from my flustered demeanor with a barrage of socially unacceptable interrogations. Not very elegant, but it usually works. Not so much with Dev, though . . .
He surprises me by speaking as if he hadn’t hesitated before. “My son’s name is Jacob. His mother hasn’t been around since the day he was born. She pretty much took off.” He looks down at his hands. “Yeah, so that’s pretty much it. My life in a nutshell. Not much more to say.” He picks at his fingernails, frowning.
My mind is racing with questions now. Who cares about society’s rules? I want to know what makes this guy tick! I smile to put him at ease. “If you thought that sharing that little bit of information was going to stop me from asking more questions, you obviously don’t know me or any woman very well.”
He gives me a slight nod. “I would say you are correct in that assessment. I’m terrible at reading women. I always get it wrong.”
“Did you have any sisters growing up? Or girl cousins?”
“The only girl that I had around me when I was growing up was Toni, and she didn’t come into the picture until I was well into my teens. Around sixteen or so.”
“Who’s Toni? Is that your ex-wife? Girlfriend? Is that Jacob’s mom?”
“No. Toni works here with me, and we grew up in the same neighborhood together. She’s lived in New Orleans all her life. Toni and her brother Thibault were kind of like another family to me. Along with Ozzie and Lucky, too.”
I lean in a little. “I think I heard May say a few things about her. She’s, like, really badass and gorgeous and somebody you don’t want to mess around with, right?”
Dev laughs and nods, his body relaxing a little deeper into his seat. “Yeah, that’s her. There’s nobody tougher.”
My vision fades into a haze as I stare off into the distance. I’m picturing myself as a little Rambo chick, kicking ass and taking names, earning the respect I hear in Dev’s voice.
“What are you thinking right now?” Dev asks.
I answer without hesitation. “I’m thinking how awesome it would be to be described that way by a guy like you.” My ears go a little pink when I realize I’ve revealed a bit too much of my hand.
“A guy like me? What do you mean by that?”
I shrug, trying to play it cool. “I don’t know . . . a guy like you. A guy who . . .”—I gesture in his general direction—“. . . likes to train and get all sweaty all over the place.” The perspiration has stopped pouring down his body, but his clothing is still wet and sticking to him.
He looks down at himself. “Oh. I gotcha.”
My eyes follow his lead and land on his crotch. I quickly look away, but not before he catches me ogling him. I start waving my hand in front of my face. They seriously need a fan in here. Is this early-onset menopause?
Silence ensues. Both of us are trying not to look directly at each other, but it’s like our eyes are refusing to obey. It’s silly; I’m totally blushing. It reminds me of high school.
“You know, you could become like Toni if you wanted to.”
I frown at that. “What?”
“I said, you could look like Toni if you wanted to. You have a great frame; you just need to do a little weight training to build up some muscle.”
I don’t know why this is making my face get even hotter and my body all tingly. He’s looking at my frame? He thinks I have a great one? Didn’t he see my big butt?
“It wouldn’t take you very long, either,” he continues, oblivious to my freak-out. “If you’re anything like your sister, you could get it done in less than six months.” He shrugs. “Not that you need to do anything. I’m just talking about strength training here, not changing your body. Your body is fine the way it is.” He almost says something else, but then he stops himself and looks away for a second.
I flap my hand around the front of my face, trying to wave away his comments and the waves of heat coming off my skin. Talk about embarrassing. I eat way too many Fudgsicles to look like I imagine Toni does, not even in six years, let alone six months.
He’s just being nice when he says my body is fine the way it is. He must have gotten too much sweat in his eyes or something. “I don’t have time for that stuff. I have three kids and a job . . .”
He shrugs. “You could find the time. If you did more freelance work, you’d probably have more free time right away. You could make your own schedule, work out when the kids are in school or daycare.”
I snort, no longer embarrassed by the conversation or my weird reactions to being in an enclosed space with him. “Oh, believe me, I will not be doing any more freelance work. Not that I did any to begin with.”
“Why not?”
My hands drop to the seat on either side of my legs. I stare at him intently, waiting for him to figure the answer out on his own.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” He’s grinning, the fool.
“You really don’t k
now, do you?”
“No, I really don’t.”
I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, to tell him that you don’t invite a prospective freelancer to your warehouse, lock her in a panic room for an hour, tell her that some crazy person is trying to break in to the job site, and then suggest she work more hours for you. Calling them Bourbon Street Boneheads is giving them too much credit. It’s more like I’ve entered the lair of the Bourbon Street Bimbos.
Before any of these choice words can make it out of my mouth, though, I hear a beep and a click, and the door to the panic room opens.
CHAPTER FIVE
May’s head appears around the side of the door. “Jenny? Are you in here?”
I stand up and grab my purse off the floor by my foot and throw the strap over my shoulder. “Yes, I’m here. But I’m not staying, you can be damn sure of that.”
I walk quickly to the door as it swings open more fully. Behind my sister is the hulking form of her boyfriend, Ozzie. He takes up almost the entire doorframe.
Ozzie looks over our heads and fixes his gaze on something behind me. “You good in here?”
Dev answers. “Yeah, we’re fine. Just a little antsy, maybe.”
I look over my shoulder and narrow my eyes at him. “Antsy?”
He’s grinning as he shrugs. “What would you call it?”
Honestly, I could call my attitude a lot of things. Antsy might even work. But right now, I’m too mad to debate the issue. I turn my attention back to my sister. “Sorry, May, but I have to get out of here.”
She holds her hands out at me. “No! Don’t go! Please stay.”
I shake my head. “Nope. Sorry, but I’ve had enough.” I step around her and her boyfriend and out the door. I’ve got to get out of this warehouse before they lock me up in another windowless room.
I’m moving fast, but my sister is having no problem keeping up. “Jenny, you don’t understand. None of this was planned. It’s totally random! Everything’s fine now. You can get the work done in an hour, and then you can go back home, and it’ll all be over. And you can have the money and the gift certificate.”