by Jade Powers
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. You did put the money in my account. Look, I need help. My dad was grabbed by men who knew that I was coming off that plane. They have him, and they have the tech AIT was working on.” Bryce figured that everything he was saying Kendall already knew. If Kendall wanted to stay clean, maybe he’d ‘rescue’ Tom as a gift to Bryce. Bryce could play along...to a point.
“The tech. What is that?” Kendall leaned forward. The guy was like a shark in a tank with a floppy fish.
“No idea. Top secret stuff. I only know that someone kidnapped three people for it. Now, they have the people and the tech. One of those people is my dad, and I will turn this city upside-down until I have him back,” Bryce met Kendall’s eyes with an unflinching stare. He studied Kendall’s expression, but the guy had been a liar for too long for Bryce to get anything but a vague sense of uneasiness when he faced him.
“I’ll check into it. Where are you staying?”
“I don’t have a place yet. I’m not sure where I’ll be staying,” See? I can lie, too. “If you find my dad, call Sven at AIT. You have his number, right?”
With a palpable distaste, Kendall said, “Indeed, I do.”
Sven must have ticked Kendall off recently. Good on him.
Bryce decided to go a step further. He said, “Fifteen grand is a lot to dump into someone’s account without results. I’m sorry for being kidnapped and all, but I’m here now. Is there something you needed me for?”
Kendall pressed his lips together and studied Bryce. It made Bryce feel like a lab rat. He wondered if everyone felt like an experiment or prey under Kendall’s scrutiny. Kendall said, “I hired you to watch one of McFarland’s new spies. Technically he’s not new. He’s been on McFarland’s payroll for quite some time, but he recently moved to Miami. I want you to befriend him. Find out what he’s up to. Will you do that?”
“Sure. What should I tell him about AIT and my dad and all of that? Does he know who I am? Am I playing double agent or college kid?” Bryce asked.
Kendall pulled a folder out of his desk and handed it to Bryce, “He can’t know you are in any way connected to this firm or AIT. That would be a dead giveaway. Don’t go into any depth about your past, where you’ve lived, places you’ve been. Don’t even give him your real last name. He would figure it out.”
“Will you help me find my dad? Please?” Bryce needed to say it again, needed Kendall to know that his dad was everything.
“The minute we finish here, I’ll put my men on it,” Kendall said. He leaned forward, his bald head catching the overhead light.
“Thank you,” Bryce said.
“Lucas is looking for players for a role playing game. Here’s the phone number he listed. It’s Friday night at seven o’clock. Something called GURPS. You may want to research that before you call.”
“What kind of information would make it worth your time to hear from me?” Bryce asked. There could be a hundred different levels of involvement.
Kendall shrugged, “I want a weekly report every Monday, even if you have nothing substantial. Report to my receptionist, Barb. She’ll know what to pass on.”
“Okay,” Bryce said.
I expect this agreement between us to be absolutely confidential. You don’t tell Drake or Sven, and when I find your dad, you don’t tell him either. If anyone asks, tell them I’m helping you find Tom.” Kendall had a hawkish expression to begin with, but the ferocity of his glare in describing his expectations gave Bryce a clue as to how serious he was.
Swallowing, Bryce said, “Understood.”
Kendall nodded and said, “Dismissed.”
It was very military of him. Bryce nodded back and left the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. Barb was sitting at her desk. He thanked her on his way out, just to be courteous.
Bryce still wanted to buy a sleeping bag, pillow, and pillow cases, but he was hot, tired, and frustrated. He had to do what he could while he could. He would worry about his dad on the way to the mall. If Kendall didn’t kidnap his dad, someone else was behind everything. Purchases today. Application to the hotel tomorrow. He was going to figure this out one way or another. And Bryce knew that he didn’t have much time.
Chapter 4
GAIL LIFTED HER HEAD and stared at the ceiling, her lower lip caught between her teeth. C+. She couldn’t get an average grade. Not after everything. Cellular biology was hard, really hard. But that was no excuse.
With a deep sigh, and drooping countenance, Gail left the lecture hall. She stopped at the library to pick out two more books for a paper. She avoided the shuttle, walking the wrong way around the lake, past the fountain just to give herself time to think. With her new roommate, Gail couldn’t mope at home the way she normally would after a rough day.
When Gail turned the corner, she expected Bryce to be waiting on the steps. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that he was still gone. Unlocking the door, Gail remembered that she had promised to make him a key. Her mind skimmed over the promise. Her test score took center stage in her thoughts.
Gail took a shower, her face turned into the water. The shower cleaned off some of the failure, but it couldn’t wash away the entirety of her self-doubt and the ache that she wasn’t good enough.
Climbing out of the shower, Gail toweled off and changed into a t-shirt and underwear. She didn’t have anywhere to be for the rest of the day. Shutting the door to her bedroom, Gail tucked herself into bed, curling up into a ball to ignore the world.
Outside she could hear the sound of students calling to one another, the noise of vehicles in motion. Internally, she wondered where she went wrong, how she would ever get accepted into medical school if she was only pulling C’.s And finally Gail turned off her mind enough to slip into oblivion.
She woke to knocking on her door.
“Gail? Are you in there?”
Grumbling, Gail tore off the covers. She was wearing her t-shirt, which showed more cleavage than she was willing to reveal to her new roommate. Grabbing a sweatshirt, she yanked it over her head, then pulled on her pajama bottoms.
“I’m here.” Gail pulled open the door.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you were asleep.” Bryce backed away as if Gail would throw a punch or something.
Maybe she was too much of a growly bear when disturbed while sleeping. She said, “It doesn’t matter. I should be studying anyway.”
“Are you okay? You seem upset.” It must have been that last comment that clued Bryce in. The way Gail flung those words away from her. She was always saying that she needed to study, but this time her words must have carried the bitterness she felt.
Gail closed her eyes. He had to be nice, the jerk. She felt overwhelmed and alone and scared that she was going to fail. Swallowing hard, she said, “I got a C on my test. I need straight A’s to be a doctor.”
“Who said?” Bryce stepped forward, his arms out.
BRYCE DIDN’T WALK THE whole way to embrace Gail. Gail had to want comfort from him. Too many men thought forcing their attention on a woman somehow turned her into jelly, moldable and eager to accept their every whim. Bryce was taught manners and compassion. He knew to wait for her.
Gail stepped into his hug. Her hair smelled nice and Bryce’s chin nestled perfectly against her hair. She murmured, “Not everyone who applies to med school will get in. It’s something like fifty percent.”
“You will. Many of the premeds will wash themselves out. They’ll think that two C’s means they’re not good enough for a job in the medical field and they’ll lose heart. You won’t, because you know it’s a long game. You might have gotten a C on this test, but you’ll be ready for the next one. You’re in it for the right reasons and that matters.”
“But I already put as many hours into studying as I can. I’m not going to give up seeing my sister on Sundays. And I have to work. That doesn’t leave as much time as I need.” She nestled closer to Bryce.
He wrapped
his arms around her, his heart, and maybe another part, throbbing with desire. Not the time to make the moves, but she was beautiful. Bryce said, “I’ll help you study. You’ll be the new master of cellular biology.”
Pulling away gently, Gail sighed, “Thank you. I needed that extra encouragement today.”
Bryce dug out his wallet, “In the meantime, I have the rest of the rent for this month. I like to be squared away. I’ll help with groceries, too. I’m trying to get a job at the hotel where they held my dad hostage. It’s a long shot, but I have the feeling that’s the only way I can get close enough to the staff to ask questions.”
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we? A premed student with ambitions to cure blindness and a sleuth hunting for his father’s kidnappers. You know that both of our chances of success are miniscule, right?” Gail padded to the kitchen. In a few short days, she had become comfortable enough around Bryce to wear her pajama bottoms, although she always wore a bulky sweatshirt over her sleeping t-shirts as added protection against visible boobs. It was a shame really, as Bryce would have liked to see them at least once, to know what he was missing. Who was he kidding? He’d probably make a fool out of himself and his eyes would go straight down, and Gail would kick him out.
“You have a better chance than I do. When you love someone, you don’t give up. That’s where we’re both coming from, a place of love. That gives us power,” Bryce said. His own words sounded cheesy, but he needed some kind of hope, after the problems he had caused his dad and that poor college student.
Gail’s eyes were the clear blue of a summer sky. When she turned her smile on him, Bryce thought he would give up everything for her, conquer the world if she asked. But she didn’t want anything from him. She simply said, “You make it sound so easy.”
“Not easy, just worth it.”
WHEN THE MOMENT WAS over, Gail found herself wondering at this new roommate of hers. If she believed in heaven, Bryce would be something of an angel, dropped into her life at just the right time and in just the right place. When her first roommate moved to her boyfriend’s, Gail thought she could hold everything together. She had to.
The first few weeks had been spent watching the message board, hoping against hope that someone would rip her number off and give her a call. But her request for a roommate was long posted, all the numbers lined up on the bottom, intact.
By the time Bryce arrived on her doorstep, Gail was desperate. As utterly stupid as it was to let a stranger stay with her, Gail had to admit that the outcome was far beyond her wildest imagination.
First of all, her new roommate was considerate. A hell of a lot more considerate than Stormy, the nickname for her old roommate. Stormy left clothes strewn all over the living room, had her boyfriend over and together took over the living area, no matter that Gail liked to study in the kitchen area with her books on the table. Gail and Stormy had shared a few roommate spats. Nothing huge. More like negotiations. But Stormy didn’t even wait out the school year. She knew she was leaving Gail in the lurch. That was the worst.
Second of all, Bryce paid rent early, way early.
Third, he was cute. Gail didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but that hug made her want more. She could imagine dating Bryce, maybe going to the movies or a rock concert. The way he held her when she needed comfort, his arms wrapped around her cocooning her from the world. It was magic.
Gail shoved those feelings down deep into her heart and turned the lock. The one thing Gail didn’t have time for was romance.
Chapter 5
THE NEXT WEEK WAS A busy one. Bryce bought an old Toyota Camry for $3,000. That and the insurance ate a huge hole into the money Kendall had paid him to watch Lucas. He applied for a job at the hotel where he and his dad had been held hostage.
And he called Lucas.
That was why on Friday night when most of the guys in Miami were hitting the clubs and bars trying to pick up ‘hot chicks’, Bryce was shaking hands with a bunch of guys in the conference room of a small Miami business.
“I’m the IT guy here. We’re fine to use the office after hours. Shall we get started?” Lucas was not a typical computer nerd. He was competition. Bryce decided on the first night that his idea to introduce Gail to the group to get her out of the house would be a devastatingly bad idea. If she hooked up with Lucas, he would have to kill the bastard. And that wouldn’t exactly work out since he needed to spy on him for Kendall.
“Sounds good.” Bryce said. He was the odd man out. The rest knew each other and had played together the past several months.
“We’re starting a new campaign. One of our guys graduated after Fall Semester, but it didn’t make sense to redo everything then. We’re going to create new characters, which is why we are open to new players.” Lucas gave a nod to Bryce.
Lucas passed out characters sheets. He had piles of books stacked on the table. Bryce had played various role playing games before. What he had found was that the level one game play was too limiting. Everyone started these role playing games at the beginning level and no one ever really progressed. Maybe some hardcore dungeon master somewhere leveled his people up, but it took a dedicated group, and most just didn’t last. That was Bryce’s real problem with role playing games. They were actually quite limiting when it came to magic.
Bryce dug into his character. Kendall paid him to play role-playing games with some IT guy who may or may not work for McFarland. Yeah, he could do that, except he had the feeling that Kendall was playing him at the same time. He scribbled a name on his character sheet and tried not to think too hard about what that money really meant. There was a reason for the term, blood money.
“You’re a student at the University of Miami?” Lucas asked. He had an open book in front of him and was only half paying attention to the question. The other two guys rolled for attributes.
“Yeah. I moved mid-semester. I applied for two summer courses, and I’ll take a full load in the fall.” Bryce was only half-lying. He was planning to apply for the summer courses, and depending on what happened maybe for fall. But that wouldn’t serve his purpose at the role-playing table.
“Where’d you move from?”
Dang. Bryce was supposed to be asking these questions. His grandma lived in New Mexico. He said, “Santa Fe” before he could consider the ramifications of a lie like that.
Fortunately, Lucas just nodded and picked up his dice. Bryce turned the tables while Lucas scribbled notes about his campaign. Bryce asked, “What about you? Are you born and raised here or a transplant?”
“Just moved a few months back myself. Originally from Virginia, but I move around a lot. My dad’s military, but now that I’m of age, I’ll settle some place.” Lucas grinned wildly and pointed to the dice roll of one of the guys. He said, “Catastrophic failure. As the GM, I fear you’ll start in one heck of a bad position.”
He said, “Yeah. That really sucks. Maybe we can kill me off and I’ll make a back-up character.”
“If you want. Flaws like that can be fun to play though,” Lucas said. He leaned back and grabbed one of the books from the chair behind him. It was on top of a stack. He said, “While we’re in character creation mode, we can all make two. I’ll make a couple of nameless characters in case anyone else decides to join us.”
The only moment of note occurred at the end of the night. Lucas asked Bryce if he could stay and help set up for the next week, which turned out to be a smoke screen. As soon as the other gamers left, Lucas said, “So you’re at the University of Miami?”
“Yeah.” Bryce said. The way Lucas was watching, Bryce knew this was more than a casual question.
“A woman was kidnapped not long ago. Did you hear about it?” Lucas carefully tucked his figurines into his dice bag, a velvet wine bag converted into a handy dicing pouch.
“It was all the talk. Some guys grabbed her out of the parking lot.”
“Did you hear any rumors or anything about why? I heard that maybe she was working
for one of those tech companies. Like they wanted something from her.”
Bryce couldn’t believe what he was hearing. While he tried to get information from Lucas, Lucas was trying to get information from him. If it weren’t for the fact that someone’s life was upside down, if not over, because of this stupid spy ring, Bryce would have laughed. He said, “No idea. I was there minutes before it happened. Really creepy.”
They parted on good terms. Bryce and Lucas liked the same things, had the same tastes, which meant that Bryce wasn’t about to betray Lucas to Kendall on a whim. It was one thing to have concrete evidence that Lucas was sent to take down SpaceTech and another entirely to act on vague suspicion.
ON MONDAY BRYCE REPORTED the game to Kendall’s secretary. He described the game play in detail, with the character he created, “And then we rolled to see our attributes. My rolls were great.” He neglected to mention any talk of kidnappings.
Barb was in her forties, in great shape, one of those ladies who took care of herself and dyed her hair. But she had that no-nonsense face, the kind that could fall down on you in an instant like a raptor on fresh meat. She said, “Are you going to get to the point anytime soon?”
Bryce stopped mid-sentence. “What do you mean?”
“Did you or did you not hear anything of interest to SpaceTech? Anything about McFarland? Anything about Kendall?” Barb’s frown was quite pronounced. She would have a severe wrinkle in the middle of her forehead if she wasn’t careful.
“Not a thing.”
“Although this may take more than one week...” Barb pulled a small half-globe out of her desk. The flat part was magnetized. She handed it to Bryce. “Find a way to get into Lucas’ working space. Put this there.”
Bryce turned the small metallic device over in his hand. “What does it do?”
“It will listen and transmit anything spoken in its presence,” Barb said. She slid back into her chair and said, “That is all,” in clear dismissal.