He found Rory on the far side of the building, contemplating an open window she’d have to scale the building to get to.
“Need a hand up?”
She jumped. “Shit, you move quietly.”
“Break and enter for beginners.” He polished his knuckles on this shirt. “I’ve still got it.”
“It’ll be a break and enter fail if we can’t get in there. It’s all locked up tight and you have to wonder why. What do they have in there they want to hide? Master keys don’t work either. Whoever locks this place up really wants it locked tight.”
He came in behind her, bent and made a stirrup with his hands. She put her hand to his shoulder and her foot in his hands. “Ready?”
“Did you manage to get Cadence up to dance?”
“I had help from Susan.”
“She’s a piece of work. Wants your ass.”
He grunted. “Wants my spunk.”
Rory laughed. “Did you notice all the pregnant women tonight?”
“Are you going in or do you want a foot massage?” One more question and this could wait, he’d haul her off to talk about the showdown with Orrin.
She clipped the top of his head with her palm. “I’ll take that massage later. On three.”
On three he boosted her so she could catch the edge of the windowsill, held her feet while she checked it for alarm sensors, then boosted her again so she could drag herself the rest of the way up and wriggle inside. He heard her land. She’d check for tripwires and internally set alarms, then establish a secondary exit for emergency purposes. He wouldn’t fit through that window so unless the door didn’t have sensors and she could pick the lock and let him in, there was nothing he could do but wait.
Only a few minutes later, he heard a series of clicks and she opened the rear door.
He skirted the side of the building and covered himself in shadow before he slipped inside. Once his eyes adjusted they moved off in separate directions, looking for the signal jammer or any useful phone or tech they could lift. Fifteen minutes inside using tiny bullet torches and staying clear of the windows was likely safe, twenty at the outside. As long as the band was playing, people would be focused on the party.
There wasn’t much to HQ. A reception area, a number of meeting rooms with the usual handmade furniture, an arrangement of sturdy desks and drawer sets. Not a lot of flashing green pinpricks to indicate equipment-drawing power. There were PCs and printers, but they were old and there was no server or routers so they were standalone terminals, not networked and not connected to the internet.
There were no phones on desks. You wanted to talk to someone in this office you had to get up and go talk to them face to face, no calling their desk, no email and certainly nothing like Messenger or Slack.
He went through drawers, moving quickly looking for a cell phone, finding binder clips and notepads and random personal items: hair ties, an old pair of flip-flops, one sock, a pair of furry earmuffs, a jar of safety pins, a backscratcher, a copy of Playboy from November 2009 with a seductively posed Marge Simpson on the cover, which made him laugh aloud.
He met Rory in the reception area. Her side of the building had more storage areas. “Anything?”
“Bunch of empty suitcases. A lot of locked cabinets. I’ll need a week to go through it all. Maybe they destroy all the tech.”
They’d brought in top-of-the-line laptops and phones. “Seems wasteful when what they’re using here is junk. My bet is they sell it off.”
She raised a finger to the ceiling. “There has to be a stash somewhere.”
He was about to respond when there was the sound of footsteps on the porch. Rory pulled on his hand and they ducked low, moving to sit on the floor behind the reception counter. If someone came in, even with lights turned on, they’d have to look over the counter to find them.
Outside a woman’s voice said, “I know you said you don’t love Donna, but you haven’t broken your bond with her, Hank.”
“Uh-oh, lovers’ tiff,” Rory whispered. She settled against his side, both of them sitting cross-legged in the deepest of the shadows, their backs against cupboards that held basic office supplies.
“I don’t know why that’s important to you.” Hank sounded like every man who’d ever needed to juggle relationships and lie doing it.
“Because you don’t love her. You love me.”
“Aw shit, Tina, I do love you, but Donna’s got nowhere to go if I break her bond.”
“That’s just excuses. She can find a roommate. And there are all those spare cabins out past the old shooting range.”
“Spare fucking cabins.” Rory’s angry mutter made him laugh silently. Her elbow jabbed in his ribs made him grunt not so quietly. Fortunately, Hank and Tina had ears only for each other.
“Well, I don’t want to not be with you,” said Tina.
There was movement, the creak of boards. “You are with me, sugar.”
Tina giggled. The giggle of a woman being happily handled. “I mean all the time, not just for sex.”
“If you were with me all the time all we’d do is have sex.”
Oh yeah, Hank had problems.
“I liked it when there was marriage, you know long-term commitment. I like it when a couple bonds and they stay together. I don’t like it when the man I love won’t dump the bond mate he can’t get pregnant for no good reason.”
“Maybe Hank really loves Donna,” he said into Rory’s ear and braced, tightening his abs for her elbow jab.
“Hank is a lying, two-timing, sneaky—”
He put a hand over her mouth and pulled her tighter into his side to muffle her outrage. They might be con artists, but they always played it straight with family and the people they loved. Which is how Rory ended up hurt. She wanted more from Cal than he could give and the truth was shattering.
From outside Hank said, “All marriage ever meant was people trapped where they didn’t wanna be. Folks unhappy, kids all messed up forever, hatred and violence and divorce. We were both screwed up by our parents fighting all the damn time.”
“Not everyone is like that.”
Good on Tina for keeping the faith.
“The majority, sugar. You know it. Humans aren’t made to be monogamous.”
“But Rodrigo and Sarah-Jane and Alessandro and Salina, they’re staying together.”
“Wait till they’ve been together more ’n a few good years. What they got is the early flush before it goes bad.”
“I love you, and I don’t want to share you, and I don’t want to have another man’s babies. I only want yours.”
“I want a TV and an Xbox and a goddamn decent bourbon.”
“I’m with Hank on that,” Zeke said to the top of Rory’s head.
Rory made the universal sign for vomiting, pointing two fingers at her open mouth.
Tina giggled. “I want to go to a movie and shop for clothes and swim in a big old hotel pool with those loungers where they bring you cocktails.”
“All those places will be gone soon. The fancy clothing stores and the movie shows and the hotels with pools.”
“But I can’t stop thinking about the fact they’re still there now. Tell me you love me, you’re gonna bond with me, and you’re not just using me for sex.”
“I love you, Tina.”
And from what they could hear, Hank used Tina for sex.
Rory tucked her face into his chest and mumbled, “He’d better be a three-minute wonder.” Hank was fucking Tina up against the wall not a car’s length from where they sat, making wounded cow-like noises. Rory’s hair tickled his chin and her warmth was comforting like a good bed. Shit, bed was such a bad image to have grabbed on to. Why couldn’t he have thought about a caramel latte. And shit, shit, shit, now what he wanted was a creamy hot latte with honey and a warm bed shared with the woman in his arms.
“Oh Hank. Oh Hank. Harder,” Tina said, and the windowpanes vibrated in their wooden frames as Hank did what he was told.
He had to think about signal jammers and spruce forests and spare cabins, no, not spare cabins, they had fucking beds—why the fuck didn’t Hank and Tina do this in a spare cabin—not to trigger his own arousal.
“Baby, baby. Oh God, Hank. I’m coming. Oh, baby.”
“Hallelujah,” Rory said.
Hank, however, was still deep inside his inner wounded cow. “Ah, come on Hank, you can nut now, man.” He rubbed his eyes. Please make it over.
Rory turned her face up to his. “We could probably get upstairs while they’re at it. They’re not going to hear us.”
“Safer to wait,” he groused, keeping his eyes covered. “Come back for upstairs.”
Rory’s fingers to his cheek. “What’s wrong?”
He leant his face into her hand for a moment and her breath caught. He straightened and squirmed. “Floor is hard. Other things might get fucking hard if this doesn’t stop.”
Her face was bathed in shadows, but he could see her well enough from the streaks of moonlight that came in through the slats of closed venetian blinds to know she was amused.
“It’s not even that hot,” she complained.
From outside, Hank shouted, “Squeeze my cock. Squeeze my cock.”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “Please stop saying cock, Hank.”
She laughed, the air of it skating across his lips and chin and that was what made him stiffen. She didn’t pull away, and her breathing was as coarse as his was. It would be so easy to put his hand to the back of her head and his lips to hers. Sink into this feeling he’d had for her for forever and pretend her show of affection for him the other night wasn’t just the result of the strangeness of all this.
Rory tucked her face into his chest. “It’s got me all riled up too.”
He didn’t have a verbal response for that, afraid his voice would betray him further than leaning his face into her hand and holding her so close already had.
“Your heart is good, Zeke. Watching you with Cadence made me proud to have you as my friend.”
It would be so easy, and he’d fall the instant their lips met, but she’d never wanted him that way and he couldn’t be Tina, would never recover from not having all of Rory to himself.
From outside there was a bellowed, “Fuuuuck. I love you, Donna,” a moment’s stillness and then Tina started shrieking.
“Are you okay?” Rory whispered. She could’ve shouted and not been heard above the commotion outside.
He was hollow to his core. Committed to a woman who was burned by being faithful to his own brother.
He grasped her hand, pulled it away from his chest, needing badly to get a lungful of fresh air. “Let’s go.”
They went out the way they came. Zeke through the door, which Rory locked behind him, and Rory from the window after she’d reset a laser alarm. He took her weight in his hands, against his chest. His pulse rate soaring the moment she relaxed into him. He held onto her longer than necessary once her feet were on the ground because his heart was conflicted, and his head was full of fear. Not for their mission, the missing signal jammer, their lack of a cell phone, not for the Continuers, or for Rory, but for himself.
He was not coming out of this unchanged. Loving someone who didn’t love you was baggage you heaved around and never put down, and without truth between him and Rory the future looked stunted with his own personal decay.
Chapter Ten
First thing Rory did as the sun broke the horizon Monday morning was find the spare cabins. A dozen at least, strung out in a row, hidden from view by a massive stand of trees, each one with its own unique identifier, as if it was already lived in.
She entered the cabin on the end, furthest from the rest of the settlement with a flying duck family on the wall, to find it laid out and furnished in the same way Cadence’s cabin was. Same galley kitchen cupboards, dining table and chairs, same lumpy couch and bedroom furniture. There was power to the lights and water in the taps.
Dammit. She could’ve been living here with Zeke. They’d have had a safe place to catch up, wouldn’t have had to waste time looking for each other. She pulled out a chair and sat at the table, the events of last night turning over in her head.
She was not under any circumstances having sex with Orrin.
Fortunately, her femme fatale experience came in handy there. She’d spent years helping men fall in lust with her and then disappointing them in all the ways possible while stealing the money they ripped off others. And if Orrin got physical with her, she was more than capable of breaking his hand and making him feel like it was his fault.
She put her head down on the smooth varnished surface of the table. It was cool after her run and smelled of the varnish used to treat it.
This latest development put her closer to the center of Abundance’s corruption and would limit her movements while keeping her occupied in fending off unwanted attention. Orrin was too clever a con to reveal anything useful to someone he hoped to seduce and didn’t trust.
“Oh fuck,” she said into the table. She had to win his trust. She had to find the signal jammer. And she had to not let Zeke see she was worried.
Better that she wasn’t living here with him. They’d learn more working independently. Yeah, keep kidding yourself. Snuggled in the dark with him, she’d almost kissed him. Full on the lips. The memory made her face heat up and she pressed her cheek to the table’s smooth surface.
It had to be because of the live sex act going on not five feet away. “Fuck you very much Hank and Tina, and you too, Donna.”
She’d never wanted to kiss Zeke like it meant something before. He was for messing about and dirty dancing and having her back. He was for pranks and fried food after midnight and hysterical laughter. He was her friend and her safe port in a love-gone-wrong storm and for always being there to comfort her when she was down. He was the one person she knew who was reliably better than a book for company.
He was also one of the most gorgeous men she knew but it took more than a pretty face for her to find a man attractive. It took a sharp brain, emotional intelligence, a strong sense of justice, matched with a wicked sense of humor and a deep connect—
“Oh Jesus Christ.”
She got up from the table and did a circuit of the room. Identical to the one she lived in and equally incapable, with its hard, bland surfaces and its lack of personality, of being somewhere she could relax.
She’d wanted to kiss Zeke because she was relieved he wasn’t in danger, because of Hank and Tina, that’s all it was. Extreme provocation on top of isolation and the thrill of the break-in, coupled with what she’d learned about Orrin wanting her and the fact they were stuck there, huddled together on the floor in the dark with a sex soundtrack of grunts and sighs and groans.
“That’s all it was, that’s all.”
That was all it could be, because they were working and there were lives at stake and if she didn’t start running from this idea of holding on to Zeke and kissing him till her only breath was the one they shared, she’d come apart at the seams.
She’d loved one Sherwood and that had almost wrecked her. She wasn’t getting romantically attached to another and wrecking a good friendship just because she was unbalanced by an undercover assignment.
From a more practical point of view, she was going to be late for corner duty at breakfast.
Half an hour later, hair still wet from the shower, she watched the action in the kitchen and settled her thoughts. It’d happened. She’d wanted to kiss Zeke. She knew it would be good. He’d wanted to kiss her too. That last part wasn’t in dispute. He’d gotten awkwardly hard over H
ank and Tina’s floor show and though he tried to laugh it off, the way he’d looked at her had fogged her heart with desire. If she was honest, it wasn’t the first time she’d sensed that need in him and chosen to ignore it.
And that was what she had to do now. Nothing in Abundance was real and that moment wasn’t either.
As breakfast service wound up, she found herself in the dining room with eggs and bacon and one of the line cooks called Beth.
The woman took a seat opposite her. “Good morning, new girl. Did you enjoy the social?”
Rory pointed at herself. “Are you voluntarily talking to me?”
The older blonde sipped her coffee. She had short nails, perfectly painted red. “I like to live dangerously. You can pretend this isn’t happening. I’ll deny it anyway.”
Had Beth seen something Rory didn’t want seen by anyone? A little break and enter maybe? A little too much familiarity with Zeke? “Glad we got that straight. Like your nail color.”
It looked remarkably like Ready and Willing Red, the bottle that had disappeared from Rory’s bag. She looked at her own hands, polish impossibly chipped and no remover to fix the situation.
Beth likely had her acetate too. Nothing to be gained by making an issue of it. Just like there was nothing to be gained when she’d showed up at the library, only to be told she had to wait six months to qualify for membership, as if people who liked to read would find themselves improved by having to wait to get near a book.
“Did you enjoy the social?” Rory asked.
“You’re one of those pains in the neck who answers a question with a question.”
“I’m out of practice talking to people.” Beth didn’t come on like the advance guard of a love-bombing brigade. Rory stuffed the words, “What do you want?” back down her throat.
“Go on, ask me why I came over here.”
Good call. “Why’d you come over here?”
“Thought you could do with some advice, new girl. My turn for a question. Why’d you say you didn’t want Orrin’s kid?”
The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game Book 3) Page 9