Zachariah approached then, two coffee mugs in hand, and passed one to Ashton. His fingers brushed Ashton’s as he took the mug and remained longer than was proper, but Ashton only gave him a smile and took a sip from the mug. Zachariah had fixed his coffee to perfection, just the right amounts of creamer and sugar. The man knew him too well. Which was why he waited until Ashton was drinking his coffee before he dropped the metaphorical bombshell for maximum effect.
“I don’t think the case was properly investigated,” Zachariah said.
Ashton lowered his coffee mug and raised his eyebrow. “It was investigated.”
“I mean by us.”
“Why would we need to investigate it?” Ashton asked. “Again, that is. It was pretty straightforward. Anderson was shot twice by a sniper in order to disable him and then killed by an elder vampire. What’s left to investigate?”
“If you’d read the files like you say you did, you’d already know the answer to that,” Zachariah pointed out.
Ashton rolled his eye and took another swallow of coffee. “Pretend like I haven’t and enlighten me anyway.”
Zachariah placed a hand on top of Ashton’s coffee mug, pushing it down. “Something stood out for me in Riley’s incident report. Something she didn’t bother to mention in the meeting because it seems insignificant. Maybe you’ll see it too.” Ashton set his mug on his desk and turned his full attention on Zachariah. “In her report, Riley said that the vampire woman looked right at her after she’d killed Anderson.”
Ashton raised his eyebrow again. “Oh?” Somehow, he’d missed that detail.
“Exactly,” Zachariah said. “The elder vampire knew she was there, and she didn’t go after Riley, didn’t take her out. Why?”
Ashton reached for his mug again but hesitated halfway. He pressed his lips together and thought it over, his brain working through the files he’d read, tossing facts and suppositions around. Zachariah was contented to let him think, drinking his coffee and watching Ashton’s face. “You think she was involved, don’t you?” Ashton asked.
“Got one better for you, and I’m not sure anybody else has noticed it yet,” Zachariah said. He put his mug down beside Ashton’s and went to his own desk, unlocking a drawer and pulling out a red folder. He removed a stack of computer-printed maps from it and began to line them up on the desktop. Ashton moved closer for a better view. There were twenty-seven sheets, each labeled with the name of a deceased agent and the date of their demise, a pinpoint on each marking the locations in which their bodies were found. Ashton frowned, watching as Zachariah pulled out a stack of labeled transparencies. “I don’t think anyone noticed this, because the Agency’s investigation into Riley ended before the second killing happened,” Zachariah explained. He started to lay the transparencies over the maps, and Ashton squinted at the labels. When he realized what he was looking at, he straightened so suddenly that the world around him lurched sickeningly.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “Riley Walker was in the same cities on the same dates as every one of the dead agents.”
“Even worse? Fourteen were killed in buildings within a block of whatever hotel she was staying in at the time,” Zachariah said. “Seven more within a one-mile radius. The rest? In the same hotels.”
“What do you propose we do?” Ashton asked. “For that matter, what’s your theory?”
“I don’t know. I’m still working on it. That’s why I want someone with Internal Affairs experience on her, to watch her and see what she does.”
“Maybe she’s being set up?” Ashton suggested.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But that just makes me ask what the fuck the vampires want with her. If she’s not involved in anything nefarious, that is. I just know the lady doth protest far too much when confronted with the idea of vampires. Like she’s determined to refuse to acknowledge what her eyes see, no matter what.” Zachariah sighed, a long-beleaguered sound that made Ashton want to hug him. He refrained. “I don’t have time to go over all of this right now. I’ve got something going on and need to get some rest.”
“What is it?”
“An assignment,” Zachariah answered. “Investigating some suspected vampire activity right here in D.C. I’ve got a place I want to check out, but I can’t until after sunset when they vacate the place.”
“Sunset’s dangerous when vampires are involved,” Ashton warned.
“I know. But I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.” Zachariah sighed and rolled his eyes toward Ashton with an exaggerated look of pitifulness on his face. “Do you mind if I use your bed?”
Ashton chuckled. “Have I ever minded you using my bed?”
“Touché.” Zachariah gathered the papers and transparencies together and slipped them into the folder, then offered it to Ashton. He tucked it under his arm to look at later and then, as Zachariah passed him to head for the bedroom attached to the office, caught the other man by the arm.
“Do me a favor?” he asked.
“Yeah?” Zachariah’s voice was as hushed as Ashton’s, and he leaned closer to hear Ashton better.
“Be careful tonight, okay?”
“Of course.” Zachariah sounded surprised at the suggestion that he wouldn’t be.
“I don’t want to have to clean up a mess involving your body,” Ashton admitted.
Zachariah stepped closer to him and rested his forehead against Ashton’s. “I promise I will be careful,” he murmured. Ashton closed his eye and breathed in before letting the breath out with a nod. Zachariah stepped away from him, as if aware of how unprofessional—how personal—they looked.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Zachariah added. “Look over those files for me, would you? Now that you know what I’m thinking, I’d like to hear what you come up with.”
Ashton nodded and watched Zachariah walk to the other door in the room and slip through it, shutting it behind him. He gripped the folder and, though he was no longer a religious man—something he had difficulty accepting in the business he worked in and the life he lived—he sent up a prayer that Zachariah would make it through whatever he was doing that night unscathed. Then he carried the file folder to his desk and dropped it next to his and Zachariah’s mugs of cooling coffee. He picked up Zachariah’s mug and poured its contents into his own.
It was going to be a long evening. He had a lot of work to do.
Chapter Five
That evening found Scott sitting at a table in the hotel’s restaurant across from Riley, trying to not stare at her as he cut a bite of steak from the slab on the plate in front of him—at least, not stare at her openly. A lamp hung above them, casting a soft yellow glow over the table and its occupants; the table was draped in a thick white cloth, and fellow diners’ murmured conversations cast a quiet hum over everything. It was an atmosphere that hinted at money, and while Scott didn’t love it, he certainly wasn’t bothered by it since someone else was picking up the tab.
Riley was working her way through a large piece of fifty-dollar salmon, using the tines of her fork to feather pieces of fish away from the rest before eating them with all the elegance of a well-trained lady. The muted light shone off her dark hair, illuminating the natural highlights and lowlights shot through the strands, giving her hair a chameleon-like quality that he found appealing. With her head bowed as she focused on her food, Scott couldn’t see her eyes, though he remembered vividly what they’d looked like when he’d first seen them in the conference room at the Agency headquarters: dark brown, framed by thick lashes, with a perpetually wide-eyed look that made her appear youthful and innocent. Her skin was lightly tanned, as if she spent just enough time outside to get a bit of color, and she was much smaller and thinner than he’d expected after hearing all the larger-than-life rumors that flew around the Agency: she was maybe five-foot-four and very slim, like she never got enough to eat. Despite that, she was a beautiful woman, and he was sure that she was well aware of that fact and probably used it to her advantage.
H
e hadn’t been in her company for long, but there was one thing he was already sure about: if he was already this attracted to her, then he was in a world of trouble.
He tried to distract himself with the steak, forking the bite he’d cut into his mouth, chewing slowly and trying to savor it. But all he could think about was back in the hotel room forty minutes before: him pacing back and forth across the room while Riley locked herself into the bathroom to “get ready.” Every time he’d passed the bathroom door, he could see her silhouette, distorted through the frosted, nearly opaque glass set in the door, as she changed her clothes for dinner. He had a thing for the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties—though he’d married the opposite—and Riley qualified as one. The thought of working with her for an unspecified amount of time made him uncomfortable.
At least Riley didn’t seem thrilled about working with him. That could help him at this point—he felt a lingering, nagging sense of guilt over finding her attractive. His wife hadn’t been gone for a year yet. He wasn’t ready for this—not any of it. Not the assignment, not working again, and certainly not pretending like he was married to the woman across the table from him.
“You’re staring at me,” Riley commented as she scraped another bite of salmon free from the rest. She ate it, then reached into the bread basket in the center of the table, plucking a dinner roll out of it and carefully setting it on the edge of her plate beside the one already there.
Scott blinked and shook his head, as if he could knock himself out of his mental distraction with a mere movement. He forced his eyes back to the steak in front of him. It seemed less appealing than it had when he’d first ordered it. He prodded it with his fork and began to slice off another bite for want of anything else to do with his hands.
“So, did you see something interesting, or…?” Riley trailed off with a raise of her eyebrow. When Scott glanced at her, he discovered she wore a smirk on her face, a look that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was toying with him. He should have guessed that from the tone of her voice, but he wasn’t used to working with people like her. His attraction turned into a fire of irritation, and he rolled his eyes and stabbed at his steak.
“I saw absolutely nothing interesting,” Scott said, more aggressively than he meant to. He didn’t dare look at her. “I was just trying to figure out what the hell we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.”
“Well right now, we’re going to eat,” Riley repeated. She ate a bite of fish off her fork and gave him a bright, though obviously faked, smile. “And then we’re going upstairs to our room, and you’re going to sleep on that lounge chair, and I’m going to sleep in the bed. And tomorrow, we’re going to rent a car and head to Buzzard Point.” She shrugged. “I see nothing complicated to figure out there.”
“I like to have my entire plan worked out before I go,” Scott tried to explain, sawing at his steak. Watery, greasy juices ran from the meat, and he dragged the bite on his fork through them before he popped it into his mouth.
“So you’re one of those OCD types that tries to hammer out every detail so you don’t have to actually think when you’re out in the field, huh?” she said. “You do realize that what happens in the field is never consistent with what you have planned, right? I mean, I can’t remember a time where I was able to carry out a plan from start to finish without having to change everything halfway into it.” She took a sip of water and shrugged, then laid her cloth napkin out beside her plate and started carefully arranging her uneaten dinner rolls on top of it as she continued. “I just don’t see the point in spending all that time planning something I’m not going to be able to use.” She folded the napkin over the rolls and slipped the bundle into her ever-present backpack. Scott raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment on it.
“So what did you do when you worked with Kevin Anderson?” he asked. “Was he the plan-maker and you the improviser, or—”
“We’re not going to talk about Kevin, okay?” Riley interrupted. She put her hand up, waving it to get the waiter’s attention. When he came over, she said, “I need a scotch, please. Neat.”
“Riley, I’m not sure drinking is a good idea,” Scott started to say. She put a hand out, as if to tell him to shut up.
“I’m old enough to drink. If I want a scotch, I’m going to have a scotch.” She gave the waiter a smile that was much more charming than the ones she’d given him.
Scott remained silent in the few minutes it took for the waiter to return to the table with Riley’s drink, focusing on his plate but not seeing what was on it. He bit the inside of his lip at the irritation that had welled up in him, and he managed to hold it back until Riley accepted her drink before he spoke.
“Do you make it a habit of drinking when you’re on an assignment?” Scott asked once the waiter had walked away.
Riley looked at him over the rim of the glass tumbler and raised an eyebrow. The glass met the table with a thump. “It’s one drink,” she replied. “Besides, what business is it of yours that I decided to have a drink while I’m working?”
“It became my business when the Agency decided it was my back you were supposed to be watching,” Scott hissed, leaning half across the table so none of the other diners would overhear him. He slapped his fork onto the table before continuing. “Let me lay it out for you, Ms. Walker. You have a reputation in the Agency. It’s not a good reputation. If anything, you have a reputation for pulling stupid shit and getting civilians—and fellow agents—killed. And I will tell you right now: I will not be one of those agents. I don’t want to be here any more than you do. And the last thing I want is to deal with an immature twit that breaks every damn rule in the book and puts my life in jeopardy in the process.”
Riley slammed her tumbler down as hard as he’d slapped his fork down. The liquid inside sloshed but didn’t make it over the rim to stain the white tablecloth. “I have not gotten anyone killed,” she snarled, her voice low. “It was only that situation with…with Kevin, and that wasn’t my fault. You heard what I said in the meeting. That was the truth of it.”
“I never doubted that for a moment, Ms. Walker,” Scott replied. Though he doubted that she’d told the entire story.
Riley settled back in her chair and sipped from her scotch. “Oh, so we’re back to ‘Ms.’ again, huh?” she said.
“Yeah, we’re back to Ms.,” Scott grumbled, picking up his fork again and starting to jab at his steak. He’d lost his appetite, but despite that, he started to cut a bite of meat free from the rest to eat it. He’d force the rest of the food down his throat if he had to.
“Any particular reason why?”
Scott sighed. “Because I’m annoyed with you.”
“Any particular reason why?” Riley persisted. He didn’t look at her as he growled low in his throat.
“Just shut up and eat your food.”
~*~
Henry Cage was exhausted by the time he stumbled his way back to his office suite, entering it for only the second time that day. Most of his day had been sapped by meeting after meeting—all of them important, and all of them by turns nerve-wracking or boring—and he was ready to go home, crawl between the sheets, and pass out for the rest of the evening and night. His brown eyes felt scratchy as he closed them and rubbed his thumb and forefinger over them, and when he slipped through his office suite’s door and pushed it shut behind him, the first thing he had the misfortune of seeing when he opened his eyes was the pile of paperwork waiting for him on his desk. It was all of the paperwork he should have been doing when he was in his meetings, but the meetings most certainly wouldn’t have waited—and neither would the paperwork. He heaved a sigh and started toward his office to take care of it, but he stopped short when a tall, curvy brunette rose from her seat behind the secretary’s desk and gave him a warm smile that he couldn’t help but return.
While all the other secretaries were blonde, vapid, and anorexic, prized for their waif-like builds and lack of initiative, Vanessa Ioannides was
the polar opposite. With dark chestnut hair and a complexion that hinted at her Mediterranean heritage, she had the hourglass curves of a ‘50s starlet and the looks to match. She was six years younger than his fifty-three, and she wore it well. She was also one of the most intelligent women Henry had ever met, and despite Damon Hartley’s not-so-subtle suggestions that he consider replacing her with someone younger and more tech savvy, Henry refused to even entertain the idea; the woman had become invaluable to the operations of his office over the years he’d worked with her.
“I thought you’d left already,” Henry said, casting a quick glance at the watch around his wrist to confirm that it was as late as he’d thought it was. “You didn’t have to hang around. You could have left at five.”
“I wanted to hang around,” Vanessa said. She scooped a pad and an envelope off her desk and motioned with her head toward his office. “I’ve got several messages for you, plus a delivery from Brandon Hall.” She waved the envelope in his direction and smiled. “I was reasonably sure it was important, considering he ran into me in the hall looking like a thunderhead when he gave it to me. Anything that pisses off Brandon is always a potential source of amusement. I thought I’d wait until you’d been freed from your meetings before I headed home.” As Henry led her into the office, she followed him, asking, “How did it go, by the way?”
“I’m not sure,” Henry admitted. He dropped into his desk chair with a sigh. “I can’t manage to read Damon Hartley or figure out what he’s thinking. I couldn’t tell you if I did well or not.”
Henry had spent most of the day interviewing for the Agency’s newly opened Deputy Director position, hoping to score the promotion and the pay that went with it. He wasn’t sure how many other handlers and agents had applied for the position when the old Deputy Director, Tobias Ismay, had taken a bullet to the face the week before on what was supposed to be a quick, easy job. Ismay lay in a coma in the ICU at the local hospital, and he wasn’t expected to recover. Even if he had, Henry doubted that Damon Hartley, the Agency’s Director, would consider Ismay capable of continuing with his job; being shot in the face would, to Hartley, suggest an avoidable carelessness that wouldn’t be tolerated in a Deputy Director.
The Unnaturals (The Unnaturals Series Book 1) Page 6