He stepped a little closer, and her pulse skittered. “I’ve, uh, got your Bluetooth.”
Glancing into the palm of his extended hand, she saw a tiny device about the size of a hearing aid. She went to reach for it, but he closed his hand and pulled it back.
“I need to fit it for you. It’s easier if someone else does it.”
“Fine.” Resigned, she pushed away from the tree trunk. All she wanted now was to get this whole thing over with so she could get home and have a nice, long soak in her tub. She lifted her hair away from her ear and did her best not to sigh in pleasure as his fingers touched her skin.
Tom gave her pointers as he adjusted the device. “Keep your lies simple and make sure they contain a grain of truth. Makes it easier to remember if he asks you about it later. Choose an alias close enough to your own name that you’ll recognize it if someone calls you.” He took a deep breath and stepped away from her. “Most importantly, if you have any trouble at all, cough twice. That’s our signal to intercede. Remember this thing is two way, Princess.” His use of her pet name made Liv’s knees tingle. “And please, don’t take any chances. It’s not worth it.”
“Got it. Thanks.” Liv stepped away from him. “Here goes nothing.”
Shoulders back and head held high, she walked into the diner and took a seat at the long Formica counter. There were a few scattered patrons in the place, but none of them was her target.
“What can I get you?” a waitress dressed in a stained pink polyester uniform asked.
“Coffee, please. And pie. Cherry.”
“Sure thing.” The waitress flipped over the plain white mug in front of Liv and filled it from the pot in her hand then went to fetch her food. Liv glanced around in time to see a tall, bulky guy enter. Black hair, black shades, fifties-style pompadour.
Yep. That was Bill Remington, all right.
She swallowed hard and ran through the scenario once more in her head.
Get in, get her intel, get out.
Remington took off his sunglasses and looked around, catching her eye with a knowing little smile. She smiled back, going for flirty and fun instead of her usual nerdy and nervous.
Her tactic seemed to work. She wiggled a little on her stool as he took the seat beside her. The waitress returned with her pie, and Remington ordered a coffee before swiveling to face Liv.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Liz.” She gave him a little half smile, remembering Tom’s rule. “What’s yours?”
“Bill. Bill Remington.”
“As in Steele?”
“Huh?”
“You know. The eighties TV show? Remington Steele?” She coughed slightly, twice, for help with the awkward conversation. This wasn’t exactly going well. “Sorry. I used to love that show.”
“Keep it together,” Tom’s voice whispered through her earpiece. “You’re doing fine.”
If her new companion noticed anything strange, he didn’t show it.
“So, Liz.” Bill leaned an elbow on the counter and tucked his sunglasses in the front pocket of his black suit jacket. His eyes were pale blue, not quite as icy as Blake’s but cold all the same. “What brings a gorgeous gal like you so far off the Strip?”
“I wanted to taste some local flavor.” She took a bite of her pie and licked the fork in what she hoped was an erotic show. His gaze followed the small movement, and his tiny grin increased. “It’s my first time.”
“A true cherry, huh?” He gave her a slow once-over before meeting her eyes again. “Where are you from, Liz?”
“A little town in the middle of nowhere. You’ve probably never heard of it.”
“Nowhere, huh?” Bill traced a finger over her forearm. “Can’t get more nowhere than this place.”
“Keep him talking.” Tom said in her ear. “Reel him in. Show him you want him, like you showed me that night we spent together. You were so hot, so ready for me.”
Liv damned near choked on her pie. Please, God, don’t let him be in the SUV with the other guys saying this stuff. She swallowed hard and took a large gulp of coffee. If Tom was trying to get her all hot and bothered, then his words worked perfectly, because now all she could think about was the two of them together, all hot and sweaty and passionate. Her breath quickened, and moisture gathered between her legs.
Bill must’ve picked up on her soaring arousal, because he leaned even closer and nuzzled her ear. “Liz, sweetheart, why don’t you come back to my place? I’ve got a room right around the corner, and we can get to know each other better.”
Surprised, she jerked away, and her elbow bumped her coffee, sending the contents sloshing out all over the counter and her.
“Oh!” She grabbed her napkin to dab at the stain, and Bill took the opportunity to turn her stool to face his then pin her in between his thighs. “C’mon, sweetheart. Come back to my room and we’ll get you all cleaned up.”
“Um, okay, I guess.” Normally, she would’ve cold-cocked this asshole by now and called the cops. Still maintaining her cover, though, she watched him slap a twenty on the counter then let him lead her out of the diner and around the corner to the sleazy attached motel that evoked every single rundown vacancy stereotype she’d ever seen in the movies—all buzzing neon and peeling paint, every serial killer’s fantasy.
Once inside the musty room, Liv reached into her pocket for the burner phone that Brandon had equipped with special hacking technology and set it on a table beside Bill’s laptop.
There. Mission nearly complete.
Now all she had to do was buy Brandon enough time to access the data on the computer’s hard drive, then she could get out. Easy peasey. She traced a finger over Bill’s jaw and gave him a coy grin. “Just let me freshen up a minute, honey. I’ll be right back.”
“Seriously, dude?” Jace leaned out his window and gave Dom a disgusted look. “Enough with the whole ‘you’re so hot, you’re so ready for me’ shit, okay? That’s my sister, man.”
“And mine,” Blake growled from the backseat. If looks could murder, Dom would be toast right about now. He’d heard rumors about the famous Hurt glare around the office, but nothing compared to the real, lethal thing.
Well, fuck. Did these guys have supersonic hearing? He thought he’d stood far enough away from the van to not be overheard.
He’d only been trying to help out Liv the best way he could, get her distracted enough so she could get out of her own way and reel the suspect in. Too bad it had backfired and made his body uncomfortably tight as well.
“Sorry. My bad. I was just trying to get her into the role.” He ducked his head and thanked God once more his sweatshirt covered any embarrassing situations near his crotch. The last thing he needed now was to get the shit beat out of him by a couple overprotective Rockford bros. He’d already gotten way more involved in this case than he’d ever wanted to—both intellectually and emotionally. Trouble was, he genuinely liked these people. They seemed like good, upstanding individuals. And if his real mission ended up producing evidence to the contrary, well that would just plain suck. His chest tightened with tension.
And that was why he always kept his emotional distance.
Getting in too deep only led to hurt and disappointment when it all went to shit.
And in his experience, things always went to shit eventually.
Forcing himself back to the task at hand, he got back into the vehicle. “She’s in. They just entered the motel room. She’s excused herself to go to the bathroom, meaning the phone’s in place.”
“Good.” Brandon opened his laptop, balanced it on his knees, then began typing away.
“Remind me again how all this works?” Dom asked to distract himself. “All that code on your screen looks like Chinese to me. You’re remotely hacking into this guy’s computer?”
“Not exactly.” Brandon frowned at his laptop. “If this Remington guy has any kind of encryption, I won’t have time to hack, but at least seeing his security wil
l give me information. You can tell a lot about a person by how they protect what’s important to them.”
Dom had always thought so too.
Blake looked up from his phone and over at Brandon. “And in this case?”
“This guy’s wide open.” Brandon shook his head. “No way could he have hacked our system.”
“Does that mean he wasn’t involved in the robbery then?” Dom straightened, feeling restless. He was used to high-stakes, high-action ops, not hurry-up-and-wait detail.
“No,” Jace said. “Just confirms what we suspected—that someone inside Rockford leaked information.”
“While I’m in here,” Brandon said. “Let me just see if I can find anything interesting on Remington’s computer.”
Dom’s instincts went on full alert. Maybe he’d catch a break on his investigation for the feds after all. “I thought you said you weren’t hacking.”
“Bill Remington is crooked as hell.” Blake shoved his phone back into his pocket and looked at Dom. “Anonymous tips are admissible in court. Law enforcement would have a field day with whatever we gave them. Even if the guy’s not directly involved in the robbery, he was still behind a dangerous ambush that nearly killed one of my employees and seriously injured you and Liv. You think I care more about ethical quandaries than nailing a ruthless bastard like him?”
Dom got it. He did. Hell, if Angela or Milo had been under attack, he’d cross every line imaginable to save them. End of story.
Only problem with that kind of thinking was, where do you draw the line?
Fuck.
This was exactly the kind of information Felix expected him to bring in. Sitting on it could only spell big trouble for him, whether he agreed with Blake Rockford or not. He cursed under his breath and raked a hand through his hair. This whole thing had become so goddamned twisted he didn’t know which way to turn anymore.
But just because he now knew that Brandon had hacker skills didn’t mean the guy used them to hack into government databases. That was really what he’d been sent out to discover. And he still had no proof of that one way or the other.
But he couldn’t think about any of that right now. Liv was still in that motel room with a known felon, and they needed to get her out before Bill Remington suspected this whole shebang wasn’t kosher.
Finally, Brandon shut down his computer. “Okay. You can pull her now.”
Dom clicked his earpiece on. “You can get out now. We’re good.”
No answer.
A hollow void opened up where his stomach should’ve been. “Liv? Do you copy? Get out. Now.”
Nothing.
He and Blake exchanged another look.
“Liv?” Dom shouted, his voice edged with fear. “Liv? Princess? Answer me.”
You can do this. You’re almost home free. All that’s left is leaving.
Liv stepped from the motel bathroom to find Bill Remington standing over his laptop, holding her burner phone in one hand, a puzzled look on his face. “Are you trying to hack me?”
His rough tone was frigid enough to cause frostbite.
Well, shit.
Fight or flight said to get her ass the hell out of there, so she rushed back into the bathroom and slammed the door. Despite his angry pounding, the lock held, thankfully. Now she needed to find an alternate route of escape. Except this tiny room had no windows. Which meant she had to leave the way she’d come—by the front door.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The pounding stopped, and her heart lurched.
At least with the fierce attack, she’d known where Remington was. Now…
Liv frantically searched for something, anything, to use as a weapon. He was big, probably six-four or six-five at least, and had a good seventy-five to a hundred pounds on her. She needed something quick and sharp and easy to maneuver. With limited choices, she removed the razor blade from his old-fashioned razor then took a deep breath. Face to face, she could bust out all her moves, but first she had to get him where she needed him.
Cracking the door open slightly, Liv scanned the space outside.
Nothing.
She hadn’t heard the outer door open or shut, which meant Remington was still here…
Wham!
He smacked the door hard, sending her stumbling back several steps. Liv recovered quickly and slammed the door again, this time on his arm. He cried out in pain and dropped the gun he’d been holding. It clattered to the floor, and she grabbed it, clicking off the safety and chambering a round.
Armed and definitely dangerous, Liv charged out of the bathroom and gave a hunched-over Bill Remington a swift kick to the side of the head. He crumpled to the floor, out cold. Breathing hard from adrenaline and effort, she kept the gun trained on him as she inched toward the door. She didn’t want to kill him, even if he was a criminal. But she would if she had to.
Seconds later, the motel room door crashed open and Jace and Tom burst in, their own guns drawn and expressions tough as granite.
“Drop your weapons!” they yelled in unison.
Liv complied, raising her hands in surrender.
Jace walked over to Bill Remington and crouched to check his condition while Tom holstered his gun and rushed to Liv’s side. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Things got interesting for a moment, but yeah. I’m good.”
“Great.” He pulled her outside while Jace rummaged through the drawers.
“What’s he doing?” she asked, peering back inside.
“C’mon. He’ll be right behind us.” Tom led her around the corner and back to the parking lot. She stumbled a few times, her muscles still twitching from the ordeal. “What happened to your earpiece?”
“What?” It took her overtaxed mind a minute to figure out what he’d asked her. “Oh. It must’ve shorted out while I was in the bathroom. I think it got wet when I splashed water on my face. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” He cursed, then faced her once more, the SUV only feet away. “Jesus, Princess. I could’ve lost you in there. Do you know what that would’ve done to me, huh? Do you?”
Jace jogged up beside them, and together they climbed into the vehicle.
Liv buckled her seat belt. “What were you looking for back there?”
Jace gunned the engine and swerved out into nighttime weekend traffic. “I gave his room a cursory search in case he was hiding something important.”
“And?” she asked, doing her best to calm her still-ragged breath. Tom glared at her from the backseat, his words still clanging through her head like a gong.
I could’ve lost you in there. Do you know what that would’ve done to me? Do you?
“Nope. Nada. Must be stashing his stuff elsewhere. Unless he’s had a sudden change of heart and given up his thieving ways.”
Everyone in the van snorted.
Like Bill Remington would be going clean anytime soon.
And maybe glitter-pooping unicorns would invade Vegas.
“I did get this though.” He passed a tablet phone over the back of the seat to Brandon. “Present for you, Brando.”
“Thanks, man.” Brandon inspected it and held it with all the reverence he would lavish on a gold bar, and Liv shook her head. The guy was a true geek, through and through. “I’ll see what I can get off of it. Maybe there’s some deleted files I can restore.”
As the adrenaline rush of the moment wore off, exhaustion invaded every crevice of Liv’s body. She slumped back in her seat and frowned. “Please tell me that whole deal was not just a waste of time.”
“Aw.” Jace grinned over at her then winked. “Now, sis. Would I ever break your heart like that? Don’t worry. Brandon will get us something. Won’t you buddy? We have faith in your skills, Brando.”
16
Late the following Monday afternoon, Dom found himself stuck in yet another meeting in the IT conference room. Weak sunshine trickled in through the windows, and the air smelled of copier toner and stale coffee. He checked his watch for the u
mpteenth time and did his best to concentrate on the discussion at hand. He’d much prefer to be out in the field, kicking ass and taking names, not stuck inside listening to yet more reasons these crooks had continued to evade capture.
Brandon, in his typical fashion, apologized again for being empty-handed, his gaze lowered and his expression contrite. “Sorry, but I can’t get anything off the laptop.”
Liv, his one bright spot in the whole dreary room, straightened in her seat. “Excuse me?”
The IT guru winced. “Maybe I worded that wrong. What I meant was, there’s nothing on the laptop for me to find. Just a bunch of useless crap. I did, however, flag all of the accounts Remington used from the computer—social media, emails, financials. The next time he accesses any of them, we’ll know. Until then, however, we can only wait. Like Jace said, he must hide his incriminating stuff elsewhere.”
“So what you’re saying is all that hard work we put into the mission at the motel was for nothing?” Liv crossed her arms. “Perfect.”
Blake, seemingly unfazed by his sister’s pissy attitude, continued to pet Henry. “Not for nothing. I passed Remington’s location on to the police. He was gone by the time they got there, but now he’s back on their radar, at least.”
Dom shook his head. “You should’ve told them we were going in the first place.”
“We will next time.” Blake broke off another chunk of the melon in his hand and fed it to his iguana.
“What do we do now?” Liv asked.
“Like Brandon said, we wait,” Blake said.
She looked about as happy about the answer as Dom felt. All he wanted now was to get this damned job done. Get things wrapped up so he could write his report for Felix and be on his way home to Angela and Milo.
Home.
Liv’s long sable hair hung over the back of her chair beside him, so close that if he reached out his fingers, he could touch it, feel the silky strands on his skin, smell the sweet floral scent of her perfume…
Then again, considering the fact she’d returned exactly zero of his calls over the weekend, he had no business thinking of her as any kind of refuge. In fact, given her current state, if he did touch her, she’d probably give him a nice roundhouse kick to the face.
Wicked Deception (The Rockford Security Series Book 5) Page 13