Tiffani stood patiently, waiting for me to order. “I just need another minute. Go ahead and put his order in, okay?”
She shrugged charmingly. “Sure, I’ll get his appetizer started.”
“So, what do you think about Tinder?” Dane asked with a slow wink.
I bit my lip again, and realized I’d chewed off all my lip balm in my attempts to appear unthreatening. Dry lips were my kryptonite, so I re-applied, and took enough time with it to seem like a tease. “I’ve heard it can be hacked, and that makes me nervous. You seem pretty confident about putting your information online, though.”
He shrugged. “Oh yeah, my company has the best private security money can buy. No one can touch me without setting off alarms all over the place.”
I was about to ask about such mythical security, but just then Dane’s phone rang. I almost reached for it automatically, but held the movement down to a flinch. I did check the screen though, and saw Cypher Security Systems flash as he picked it up.
“Speak of the devil,” he said with a grin. “It’s the security guys at work. It’ll just take a minute.” He answered the phone with a deep voice. “This is Dane,” he said importantly.
I looked up at Tiffani and said quietly, “I don’t think I can eat anything, thanks.” I’d heard about Cypher Security Systems, and they actually were pretty mythical. They were the kind of company banks used to check for hacking vulnerabilities. I didn’t think Dane’s business was big enough to need that kind of protection.
Someone spoke briefly, and Dane answered. “At the Northside Grill, why?”
My gut clenched in a way that usually signaled lactose intolerance or an attack of the flu. I didn’t like any association between Dane Quimby and Cypher Security Systems, much less one that placed me in Dane’s proximity.
I stood up to pull a twenty out of my back pocket, and Dane’s eyes widened as they followed me up and up and up. He scowled, and covered the phone again. “Where are you going?”
I nodded toward the phone in his hand. “You’re busy, and I have to prep for a colonoscopy tomorrow.”
He made a face and spoke into the phone again. “Hang on,” he snarled. Then he covered the mouthpiece again. “When can I see you?”
I brightened. “Why don’t I find you on Tinder and we can look for men to share.”
He frowned. “To share? But I’m not gay.”
I put on my saddest face. “You’re not? Oh, that’s too bad, because I am.”
Before he could untangle that ridiculous parting shot, I handed Tiffani the twenty as I headed for the door. “Thanks Tiffani,” I said brightly. “Keep the change.”
“What happened to your leg?” she asked. “You okay?”
She must have seen my limp, and she looked sweetly concerned. Dane was still on his phone, and I could hear his voice rising angrily in the background. “What do you mean, you’ll be right here? Why?”
“Oh yeah, it’s nothing. Just a shark bite,” I said with a quick glance back at Dane before I stepped outside.
I’d taken about five steps down the sidewalk when a big black SUV barreled around the corner and drove past me to screech to a stop in front of the restaurant. The passenger shot out of his seat and stalked into the building so fast I barely caught a glimpse of a good suit, dark sunglasses, and neck tattoos. The driver was still in his seat, and I could see his eyes on me in the side view mirror.
Something in those eyes locked my knees in place and forbade my legs to move.
Then the driver opened the car door, and was out on the sidewalk facing me before I could exhale.
I hadn’t even registered the driver’s appearance and I was already cataloguing my options. Bond? Bond Girl? Or Bond Villain? I knew I looked good tonight, and I could charm my way out of most situations, so Bond Girl was on the table. I’d worn a special knife holster on the titanium shaft of my prosthetic leg, invisible inside my boot, which gave me Bond powers of attack and defense. But I’d just emptied Dane’s private cootchie fund of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and transferred it to his wife as payment for fifteen years of services rendered. So maybe I was actually a Bond villain instead.
But then I took a breath and actually looked at the man on the sidewalk in front of me.
He wasn’t much taller or older than me, which made him about six two or three, and put him in his early thirties. He wore a sharp black suit tailored to make his shoulder-to-hip ratio look like an inverted triangle, and made me think quarterback instead of linebacker. He stood like a cop and dressed like a CEO, which made me think private security – and that made me think that somehow, Cypher Security was on to me.
An aura of power radiated from the Man in Black like wavy heat above a desert road. It didn’t help my temperature that the guy’s Idris Elba smolder threatened to set my skin and various articles of clothing on fire. For one insanity-filled moment I imagined casually walking over and introducing myself.
I must have flinched, because his hand twitched toward a holster he wasn’t actually wearing. Then reality intruded on the fantasy. I was a Caucasian female alone in a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Logan Square, having just committed something akin to a felony, albeit justly deserved, standing in front of a guy who probably used to be in some form of law enforcement.
And perhaps because I must have truly gone insane, I smiled at him. It was pure reflex, like the sigh at a spectacular sunset, or the grin at a child’s laughter, and was as if the pale green eyes, dark skin, and powerful build of the man in front of me composed my picture of male perfection, and my smile was the acknowledgement of having beheld it in person. He very nearly took a step toward me, then seemed to come to his senses and halted in place. It was at this point that I compounded my idiocy by accidentally waving to him as I turned to hurry away down the street.
Who waves at the guy who could probably bust her ass ten ways from Tuesday?
Finally, cold logic, survival skills, and James Bond took over control of my hands. I powered down my phone, took out the battery, and tucked both into my back pockets as I walked. I also ducked down an alley and circled back on myself twice. I never carried a purse if I could help it – my phone, keys, a credit card, my L card, lip balm, and two twenties were all I ever had on me, and even squeezing my not-insubstantial hips into skinny jeans had left room enough for those.
I half expected squealing tires and slamming doors to find me before I got to the L, but remarkably, I made it to my train unimpeded. My heart still pounded uncomfortably in my chest as I dropped into a seat, and it annoyed me that I had reacted so strongly. Was it because the Cheater McCheaterson I’d just relieved of a quarter mil had connections to Cypher Security, or was it the Man in Black who had made my stomach clench in a way that was decidedly not like lactose intolerance or the flu? I was almost grateful for the two young hoods who sat down across from me and leered suggestively.
Seriously boys? That’s all you’ve got? I front-loaded disdain into my pointed glare until they got up and slid down the train, leaving me alone with my slamming heart.
I’d just hijacked Dane Quimby’s phone and moved half his money into his wife’s account.
How long until someone connected the dots between my “date” with Dane and the missing money?
I absently rubbed the skin above my leg socket and let my head fall back against the window of the train. I might have even tapped my head against the glass a couple of times to drown out the whooshing sound of impending doom that filled my ears.
Two
Gabriel
“You have to be smarter than them, talk softer, smile bigger, and let all the words roll off your back. It’ll be hard, son, but someday you’ll find someone who wants to see your light, and when you do, you’re going to shine.”
– Felicity Eke
Who the hell was that?
I took another step forward, but she was already walking away – fast, like she had a place to be. She had a slight hitch in her st
ep and I almost got back in the car to offer her a ride, but that was madness from an overactive protective gene I seemed to have inherited along with a penchant for self-destructive behavior. It didn’t matter how nice the suit was, a black man in an SUV did not offer a ride to a beautiful white girl he didn’t know, not even when the man in question had a British accent and an Oxford education. At a minimum, she’d call the police, and I did not need to explain my misguided chivalrous instincts to Chicago’s finest tonight.
“You alright, man? Why’d you stay outside?” O’Malley asked, as he stepped out of the restaurant. Dan O’Malley had the Boston accent and tattoos of a thug, and the generosity of a gentleman. He’d been showing me the ropes at Cypher since I came onboard, and he was one of those people who made the new bloke feel welcome without doing anything particular to show it.
His voice broke the spell I was under and I tore my eyes away from the excellent view disappearing around the corner. “I’m fine. Thought I’d give you first impressions. What’s your opinion of Quimby?”
“Well, Quinn’s been phasing out private clients, and this one’s definitely on the block. Alex is taking a look at the numbers, but my gut says the guy’s a mess. His company’s hemorrhaging stockholders like rats from a sinking ship, and guys who cheat on their wives lie like shag rugs. The liability’s too high for us to keep untrustworthy clients.”
“How do we know he cheats?” I hadn’t read the client file yet, and wondered if fidelity was part of their profiles.
O’Malley gestured inside the restaurant. “The waitress said he brings a different woman in about once a week. Last one just left, actually.”
I tried to shrug off the unaccountable feeling of disappointment at the thought that the lovely bird with the spectacular rear-view had already been claimed.
“The account breech that called us here is going to complicate things, since he’s still technically our client, but hopefully we can sort that out soon enough. Come on, you should meet him, get a feel for what he’s made of.”
I followed O’Malley inside the hole-in-the-wall, and wondered how any man, much less a married one, thought he could shag a girl after a date here. The waitress was in her early twenties, and had the pouty bottom lip that made me think she practiced it in a mirror. The bloke I assumed was Quimby sat at a table in the corner, scrolling manically through his phone. He was probably about my age, and handsome enough to make up for being short in a tall man’s world. His date had looked like she was over six feet tall, and this bloke didn’t seem like he had the confidence to pull that off. A mystery to ponder some other time, perhaps.
We approached the table and Quimby looked up with a wide-eyed expression that had shades of panic in it. His quick glance dismissed me and landed on O’Malley.
“It’s gone!” he squeaked. His voice sounded as though someone had his stones in a vice.
O’Malley didn’t say a word, just arched in eyebrow and waited. A good tactic, and one I used often with squealers. I wondered idly if he’d ever been with the police.
Right on cue, Quimby answered the unasked question. “My money! It’s gone!”
The waitress looked over at us from the salt shakers she was refilling and I gave her an easy smile. She looked away quickly and went back into the kitchen.
“Calm down, Mr. Quimby,” said O’Malley as he pulled out his phone. “Why don’t you tell Mr. Eze the details while I get our tech person on the line.” O’Malley pronounced my name with the proper “Azay” inflection that told me he had a good ear for language or music.
Quimby continued talking to him as thought I wasn’t in the room. “I have an account at National. It’s been emptied.”
“How much is missing, Mr. Quimby?” I asked.
He looked startled at my accent, then glared and spoke to O’Malley again. “I had a half a million dollars in that account!”
O’Malley turned his back and walked away a few steps to speak on the phone. I knew he was doing it on purpose, and it seemed to infuriate Quimby.
“So, five hundred thousand is missing?” My voice was deep, and I usually spoke softly enough that people had to lean closer to hear me – a useful tool for gathering information about everything from personal hygiene (unfortunately) to lipstick or blood splatter on a collar.
Quimby glared at me. “Who are you?”
“Gabriel Eze with Cypher Security.”
“I don’t know you. I’m going to wait until he’s off the phone so I don’t have to repeat myself.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I adopted an at-ease posture and studied the table Quimby had shared with … someone. I had no proof it was the lovely bird, but she was who I pictured sitting across from him. A barely-touched glass of sparkling water with a wedge of lime sat in a small puddle of ice-sweat on the table. She’d had at least one sip, but the sides of the glass were wet enough to make fingerprints unusable. She wore some sort of lip balm rather than lipstick, which, for some reason, made me think of pretty young girls and athletes instead of mistresses.
The chair had been pushed quite a way back from the table, as though a tall person had been seated there. I studied the chair-back and saw a few strands of long brown hair caught in a crack in the wood. Again, totally circumstantial – the hair could have been there for months – but the bird outside was a brunette, with thick hair she’d worn down past her shoulders. I pictured it up in a sloppy ponytail, or long and loose, spread across a pillow, and I shook myself sharply and concentrated on Quimby again.
Why him? Why would she choose him? Unless …
“May I see your phone, Mr. Quimby?” I asked just as O’Malley returned to the table.
“I’m not giving you my phone!” He spat.
“Give him the damn phone, Quimby, we have to talk.” O’Malley sounded tired and disgusted. No mean feat for a man I’d only ever seen behave in a completely professional manner.
The tone startled Quimby, and he shoved the phone across the table at me, sliding it through puddles left behind from wet glasses. I didn’t pick it up. Like hell was I going to wipe the water off on the tailored suit.
The phone was unlocked and on the home screen, so I navigated to the call icon. The screen opened to a blank contact, containing a phone number and no name. I memorized the number and then searched the recent call list. There were three missed calls from “home,” then about twenty minutes later, O’Malley’s phone call. So, the wife calls multiple times before the mistress gets here? I took a screenshot of his call list, airdropped it to myself, and then navigated back to the home screen and slid the phone back across the table.
O’Malley was just barely keeping his temper in check, as evidenced by the jaw muscle flexing with every clench of his teeth. “Exactly how much is left in the account that you claim no one knew about?”
Quimby’s voice was back up to squeaking levels. “Two hundred-fifty thousand dollars.”
I started chuckling as I dialed the number I’d memorized from his contact list. “Half,” I said under my breath.
“You think it’s funny to have a quarter million stolen from an account I worked damn hard to fill, Easy?” Quimby squeaked angrily. Calling me Easy rather than correctly pronouncing Eze with long “a” sounds was exactly the cheap shot I expected of him. I also noted that he said fill, not earn, but I ignored him as the ringing phone in my ear was picked up by an answering machine.
“You’ve reached the Divorce and Bankruptcy Specialists of the greater Chicago area. Please leave a message after the beep.”
My chuckle turned into full on laughter as I jerked my head at O’Malley, indicating we should leave.
“We’ll be in touch, Quimby,” he said, to the cocky bastard as he followed me out of the restaurant.
“What’s so funny?” O’Malley asked as I climbed behind the wheel of the SUV.
“It was the wife, and she must have used the girlfriend to do it.”
I had yet to figure out what Dan O’M
alley thought of my work for Cypher Systems during the month I’d been employed there, but for the first time I got the sense that he might be impressed.
“Well, good for her,” he said as I pulled away from the curb. “Serves him right for cheating.”
About the Author
APRIL WHITE has been a film producer, private investigator, bouncer, teacher and screenwriter. She has climbed in the Himalayas, lived on a gold mine in the Yukon, and survived a shipwreck. She and her husband live in Southern California with their two sons, dog, various chickens, and a lifetime collection of books. Marking Time, book one of her five-book time travel fantasy series, is the 2016 Library Journal Award winner, and her other works include historical mystery and contemporary romance.
Website
Amazon
Also by April White
The Immortal Descendants series
Marking Time
Tempting Fate
Changing Nature
Waging War
Cheating Death
* * *
The Baker Street series
An Urchin of Means
* * *
Forthcoming for Smartypants Romance
Code of Conduct
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all the authors who dropped everything and miraculously found the time to write original content for this anthology (in less than a week).
Thank you to Jenn and Sarah at SocialButterfly PR, who probably wanted to murder the organizer of this anthology more than once…
Thank you to Avery Flynn at RWA for liaising with us! And thank you to Cristin Harber for making the introduction and being gracious.
Thank you to all the authors, bloggers, and readers who helped spread the word!!
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