She walked with an exaggerated strut and caught Keeler’s eyes immediately. She stopped at his table and held his gaze as she grabbed the neck of his liquor bottle. The women at the table grumbled, but Keeler smiled, watching for her next move. She tipped the bottle to her mouth, the taste smooth and harsh as it hit her tongue, which she pressed against the bottle to stop it from flowing into her mouth; just enough to taste, but not nearly enough to even get her buzzed. She made sure to keep Keeler’s eyes on hers so that he wouldn’t notice. She tilted the bottle down and slit it across the table at him.
She licked her lips. His eyes followed the movement. She put the bottle back on the table and turned to the poor girl who’d been on the receiving end of his bird feeding. Her eyes were wide and locked on Kierra’s. Kierra sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and smiled at her. She crooked her finger and beckoned her forward. She didn’t know if the girl scrambled to stand because she was so desperate to get away from Keeler or because she was interested.
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was that when she grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her toward the dance floor, by the time she turned back, Keeler was already moving to follow them into the crush of bodies. Away from his security detail.
***
Undercover operations were Lamont’s specialty. He liked to think that given enough time and preparation, he could blend into any group for any length of time. But he was struggling trying to keep his eye on Keeler and follow what the short girl, Sarah, and her tall bear of a boyfriend, Kay, were saying. This should have been easy. He only needed them to provide a cover so he could keep his eye on Keeler without being spotted. But his brain kept stuttering over their words.
“Wait,” Lamont said, his eyes darting over Kay’s shoulder briefly to make sure Keeler was still in his booth. “So you’re saying that the wolf has magical powers, but only on the blood moon?”
“No!” Kay and Sarah screeched before tripping over each other to explain the plot of the obscure anime they were obsessed with one more time.
Lamont had assumed he would only have to flirt with them and maybe dodge some inappropriate touching. He’d been shocked to find that the couple were quite polite and more comfortable wooing a third with their geeky interests rather than sexy talk. It was throwing him for a loop.
“Okay so the wolf can shapeshift into any animal,” Sarah began. “But he can only become a human again during the full moon.”
Lamont nodded.
“Which means he can only be with the person he loves when the moon is high,” Kay added.
“Okay, I got that.” Lamont watched Kierra approach Keeler’s booth again. “Then what about the blood moon?”
“The entire show is the wolf searching for a spell that will turn him into a human full time. When he finds it, he has to say the spell under a blood moon for it to work,” Kay said.
“But he hasn’t found it yet,” Sarah said excitedly.
“Five seasons, more than one hundred episodes and he still hasn’t found it!” They began to bounce on the balls of their feet.
Lamont turned to them and his mouth fell open. He could not, for the life of him, understand why this was supposed to be entertaining. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Keeler rise from his booth, so it didn’t matter.
“Yeah…” he said, “I don’t think this show is for me.”
Sarah and Kay’s faces fell.
“I’m sorry,” Lamont said, already moving away. “I see my friend finally. I have to go.”
“No wait,” Kay said. “Do you like space operas?”
Lamont had no idea what that was and he thankfully didn’t have time for them to explain. He was already enmeshed in the crowd, his eyes on Keeler’s sandy brown hair. He pulled the metal cuffs from his pocket, which were wonderfully easy to bring into the club as part of his outfit. He opened the bracelets and held his breath.
Keeler was too drunk to understand what was happening when Lamont slapped one cuff on his wrist. But when Lamont grabbed his other wrist and locked his arms behind his back he straightened, “Wha-”
Keeler whipped his head around and he looked as if he might shit himself when he saw Lamont behind him. He started to struggle and Lamont wrapped a hand around his neck, applying gentle pressure, just enough to put him to sleep. He struggled for a second and Lamont strengthened his hold. He finally went limp and Lamont dropped to the floor with him.
He looked up and Kierra was whispering into the girl’s ear and slipping a set of car keys to her. Lamont furrowed his brows. The women straightened and Kierra nodded just before the girl ran back toward Keeler’s booth screaming. No one on the dance floor noticed, the music was just loud enough to drown out her cries. And everyone was just high enough not to wonder what the hell was going on next to them.
Monica appeared out of the crowd. She slipped zip ties around Keeler’s ankles and then she and Lamont lifted him up. “Distraction, Asif.”
“Way ahead of you, boss,” he said just as the music was almost drowned out by a fire alarm and the sprinklers erupted. The crowd went wild.
Lamont looked over his shoulder. He could see Keeler’s bodyguards behind them in the crowd, heading toward where they’d taken Keeler down, but with the alarms, the water and the hysterical crowd, their progress was slow. They moved toward the bar.
“Wait,” Monica said, her eyes on the small hallway where Keeler had disappeared earlier.
Lamont followed her line of sight. He saw Kierra talking to the guards clearly explaining from her hand movements his takedown of Keeler.
“So this is what you’re into?”
Lamont startled and turned to see Sarah and Kay staring at him. “Um… yes?”
Sarah frowned at him and Kay put their arm around her. “I guess we wouldn’t have meshed.”
“Move,” Monica said.
“Sorry,” Lamont called back at them. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Kierra was running down the hall in front of them, the sound of her heels clacking against the concrete spurring him on.
They moved past the closed doors and the line of people waiting for the bathrooms. No one seemed to register any of the commotion. At the end of the hall, Kierra pushed open the emergency exit, the light above it began to whir and a new siren joined the fire alarm. Lamont turned as they exited, shocked that no one had even blinked twice at the three of them high-tailing it out of there with an unconscious, restrained man. He was ready to go back to Ohio.
They carried Keeler down a set of brand-new steel steps. Lamont found himself in another alleyway, stuffing another unconscious man into another vehicle. “This is the weirdest fucking week of my life,” he said out loud to no one in particular.
“You gotta get out more,” Asif said and then slammed the van’s back doors closed.
“Lane,” Monica said, her eyes unfocused, the sign that she was speaking into her ear piece. “Report.”
They waited in silence for his reply. It didn’t come.
eighteen
Kenny’s hand was on his gun before he heard the elevator doors fully open. He pushed past Lane and moved Maya quickly back. There was a bathroom behind them and he motioned for her to go there. Immediately. She was already halfway there before they even made eye contact.
Mehmeti was squirming weakly, hogtied just inside his office.
“What’s going on?” Chanté said, breaking the silence and alerting whoever had arrived that something was up.
Lane reached for Kenny’s phone and hung up, slipping it in his pocket. They needed to give Chanté at least ten more minutes to finish downloading Mehmeti’s hard drive. They could even afford to leave the physical backup behind if need be. It wouldn’t be ideal, but if Kenny had to choose between grabbing that USB stick and getting Maya out of here quickly, there wasn’t a choice.
They waited in silence, Kenny crouched beside the couch and Lane behind the desk, their guns trained on the doorway. Two full minute
s passed. The good news at the moment was that as soon as someone stepped into that doorway, they would drop; Mehmeti’s body worked as an unexpectedly useful obstacle to slow their approach. Since they were stalling for time, this worked to their advantage. But as soon as the download was complete, the odds would flip. The longer they waited, the more time for reinforcements to arrive, and the harder it would be to get them all out of here in one piece.
“Hello,” someone called from the foyer. Kenny recognized it as the voice of the first, and biggest, bodyguard who’d met them downstairs.
Fuck, he mouthed silently.
“Howdy,” Lane called back.
Kenny turned to look at him; Lane was laughing silently.
“I don’t know who you are, but this will not end well for you,” the bodyguard called.
“I was gonna say the same thing to you, hoss.”
Kenny rolled his eyes at Lane’s impossibly thick Texas accent. He silently willed Chanté’s download to speed up so that he could escape this deathtrap and that fake drawl.
“What do you want?” The bodyguard called.
Kenny spotted a shadow near the door.
“Thank you for asking,” Lane said in an excited tone. “No one ever asks me what I want and Christmas is coming. So first, I really want a pair of those running shoes that look like Flintstone feet. I don’t run, but they’ll annoy the shit out of my wife.”
Kenny groaned.
“I want a new pair of cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat for the exact same reason.”
Kenny saw the shadow move again. He moved his finger to the trigger and tried to ignore the sound of Lane’s voice, something he was becoming adept at. He was ready when a hand shot out and tried to grab Mehmeti by the shin. He let off two rounds. One shot was aimed at where the hand was, he didn’t hit his mark, so he pulled the trigger one more time, grazing Mehmeti’s thigh. The man screamed loudly and began to writhe again. Kenny’s point was clear: he had no problem riddling their boss with bullets if they tried to rescue him.
Lane started talking again as if that exchange hadn’t just happened. Although he did have to speak a little louder to be heard over Mehmeti’s whimpering cries.
“I really want a vacation. It’s been a long year. I’m not as young as I used to be. I want to just sit on a beach somewhere and drink some fruity drinks. That’d be nice.” There was a moment of silence. Kenny almost turned back to look at Lane, the seemingly uncomfortable honesty of that wish catching him off guard. It made him think of Maya, cowering in the bathroom alone.
Lane’s voice brought him back to the crisis at hand. “But I guess what I really want right now is for you to go ahead and threaten my life again or whatever, so we can get this show on the road.”
There was silence from the foyer but Kenny heard the muffled movements of many feet on the carpet. He didn’t know how many people were out there, but he felt certain that the odds were not in their favor. They never were.
“I will give you the chance to surrender, old man. You and whoever is in there with you,” the bodyguard said.
Kenny turned to Lane. The man had a large smile on his face. Oh, he thought, that’s why he talked about being old. Lane was older than Kenny for sure, but so was Monica. And an agent didn’t get to their age with the personnel records they had without having been consistently effective and deadly. Regardless of age, annoying twang or not, there were few people Kenny would have trusted Maya’s life with in that moment. Making the bodyguards think he was older and less effective was potentially a great way to get them to make a mistake. He was suffused with a begrudging respect for the man. It didn’t rival the adoration and near hero worship he felt for Monica, but it seemed like a significant shift in their relationship nonetheless.
“Do I have to decide right now?” Lane asked.
“I will count to ten,” the bodyguard said.
“Can you make it twenty?” Lane asked. There was a soft knock on the desk.
Kenny turned and Lane motioned toward the bathroom.
The bodyguard started counting.
He moved to the door, opened it. Maya was crouched across the room, near the shower. Kenny motioned for her to come close. She knelt down near him.
“When I give you the word, you stay behind us at all times.”
She nodded.
“And if we get separated you get the fuck out of here as fast as you can.”
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you,” she hissed.
“Nine,” the bodyguard yelled.
“Yes you are. And you’re going to take the money The Agency gives you, get out of debt, and take care of your brother and sister.”
She frowned at him.
“Eight!”
“Look asshole,” Maya hissed. “You don’t get to catfish me in my own cam room, burst into my apartment, tell me you’re a whole ass spy and then get me caught up with the Algerian mob.”
“Albanian,” Kenny corrected.
“I don’t give a shit where they’re from,” she yelled.
“Seven!”
Kenny’s eyes darted to the door briefly before coming back to Maya’s beautiful face.
“The point is,” Maya continued in a more reasonable tone, “that you’ve caused me a lot of fucking hassle and now I’m invested. Also, you don’t get to die on me before we go to Hawai’i like you promised. So we’re getting out of here together. Period.”
“Six!”
Kenny stared at Maya, the rest of the room – and the dire straits of their situation – falling away. He blinked. Her face had flushed, her breathing had escalated and her pupils were wide with anger and he realized that he was going to fall in love with her. Life-threatening endorphins aside, he was halfway head over heels in love with her already.
“Okay,” he breathed simply. Because he would give her anything she wanted. Even if the thing she wanted was as far-fetched as them getting out of this situation alive and together.
The computer chimed.
Kenny nodded and Maya crouched back into the bathroom. When he turned, Lane had already stood and was pulling the USB from the computer monitor. And like a fucking idiot that big bear of a bodyguard had thought that moment was the time to rush into the room. Forgetting, apparently, that the door was a bottle neck.
Kenny stood and put two rounds into his head; there was no reason to aim anywhere else on a man that big. A kill shot was the only way to go. He fell backwards as another man entered the frame. But with Mehmeti and that big corpse blocking the doorway he didn’t make it far. Lane took a shot, the guard yelled and retreated. They couldn’t hear anything in the foyer, which didn’t mean the coast was clear, just that the few security guards left were smarter than the ones they’d picked off.
They waited, but now time was not on their side. The same things that had made the doorway a bottleneck for security were also going to slow them down, especially now with more bodies cluttering the floor. And on top of that was Mehmeti. They’d need to carry him, which would mean they’d need to put their guns away. That was a death sentence. And Maya had said that was not an option.
“Get ready,” Asif said, his voice bursting into their ears.
“For what?” Lane said just as the fire alarms started to blare. A few seconds later the sprinklers turned on.
“Son of a bitch, Kenny said, wiping at the water droplets that hung on his eyelashes.
But then they heard it, the shuffling of feet in the foyer. It was barely perceptible and if they’d been still moving stealthily, Kenny wouldn’t have heard it. But they were freaking out. He and Lane advanced on the door. Kenny pressed himself against the wall and inched forward to look at the mirrored wall at the back of the sitting area. From that vantage point he could see three guards at the elevator; two facing the door and one pressing the elevator button, clutching at his throat as blood poured over his fingers. Kenny assumed he was the one Lane shot.
He turned to Lane and relayed that information silently. A
nd then he crouched down, grasped Mehmeti by the ties at his ankles and dragged him quickly out of the way. His moans were barely audible over the alarm.
An errant shot from the foyer splintered the wood of the doorframe.
Lane moved to the bathroom and Maya followed him out into the office. Kenny moved to her and handed her his gun.
“Anyone you don’t recognize, you shoot them here,” he told her, pointing at his gut, “or here,” he pointed at the center of his forehead.
Her eyes were wide but she nodded.
He turned, grasped Mehmeti and picked him up, throwing him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
As soon as the elevator dinged, Lane moved in a rush into the foyer. There was a hail of gunfire. When Kenny moved to the door, he saw Lane across the hall in the bedroom doorway with a smile on his face. “Did I ever tell you that I was a top-rated marksman when I went through the Academy?”
Lane moved into the foyer, his gun still at the ready.
Kenny inched to the doorway, leaning around to survey the damage. “Clear?”
Kenny heard a groan and then one more shot. “Clear.”
“Move now,” Kenny called over his shoulder.
He stepped into the hallway and nodded Maya into the elevator. She was quick in her bare feet, her heels and purse clutched in her hands and pressed tight to her chest. Kenny held his breath as they crowded inside. He lowered Mehmeti to the floor and the man wailed. Fresh blood began to pour from his wounds.
Lane pressed the button to the second floor. The exit they needed was at the back of the club and they’d have to cross the main dancefloor to get to it. He wiped his wet hands on his pants and grasped the gun from Maya. He held it at his side, waiting as the elevator descended slowly.
On the fourth floor, the elevator doors opened to the private salon.
Kenny and Lane raised their guns at the two men standing there kissing. They barely seemed to notice that the elevator had opened. Lane pressed the button to close the door and they moved on.
“Damn, I really liked this place,” Maya whispered from the back of the elevator.
Private Eye Page 29