by Odell, Terry
He puffed up. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you. The people who work for Aguilar, they all have these special cell phones. When the phones don’t work, things fall apart. I’m in charge of making sure everyone can talk to each other. We’re not hooked up to the big city systems—not worth their while to put towers out here—so Aguilar built his own.”
“What else does Mr. Aguilar do?” she asked.
“Him? He eats his fancy food and bosses everyone around.” His tone was flat, like a kindergarten child reciting memorized lines.
Elle wondered if Bill had had a minor seizure. He seemed slow, as if he wasn’t sure of his surroundings yet. Maybe Aguilar had everyone under some kind of hypnotic conditioning.
She almost laughed at the thought of a bunch of Stepford men and women, all molded to serve their patrón. She wished Steve would hurry up and finish whatever he was doing, because there were only so many questions she could ask Bill about his job before he’d want to use the computer to demonstrate.
She heard the keyboard clicking again.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Three years,” Bill said. “Someone I knew told me about this place. I was okay with computers. I faked the cell phone stuff at first, but I catch on quick.”
“You seem to be a very smart man.” Damn, this was lame. She wished she could get him to face the other direction, but she was afraid he wouldn’t keep his eyes on her if she let the computer monitor fall into his line of sight.
“Phone.” Steve’s voice made her jump.
“What?” Bill said.
“I need a phone. Can’t very well see how things are working without testing them, can I?”
“You want a regular one or a network one?”
“What?”
Bill looked at Steve as though he were nuts. “Some of us have to deal with the outside world, you know.”
Steve blinked, as if he hadn’t thought of that until Bill mentioned it. “Right. Both, then.”
Bill nudged Steve aside, pulled open a different desk drawer and handed him a cell phone. “This is the real deal.” He unclipped his from his belt. “And this is internal network only.”
“Great. Three or four of the network phones would be even better.” Steve swiveled in his chair. When Bill didn’t say anything, Steve went on. “Hey, man. I need phones. Can you swing it or not?”
Bill pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes cleared, his expression more alert, like someone shaking off the effects of an afternoon nap. “More phones. Of course.” He guffawed. “I can’t call anyone and tell them to bring their phones in, now, can I? Because they’re not working. But I’ll check with the patrón.”
Elle glanced at Steve, wondering if it was wise to bring Aguilar into the mix.
“You sure you want to disturb him?” Steve said, as if he could read her thoughts. “What about the rest of your crew, the people living where you do? Can’t you pop over and bring me their phones? Or should I come with you? Of course, that means I can’t be working, and your patrón might not approve.”
Bill seemed to be weighing the options. “There’s the in-house system. I can call.”
“And drag someone over here? What’s the big deal? I promised to get things up and running.” Steve lifted his palms. “I thought you were going to help me.”
Steve and Bill exchanged a look Elle couldn’t read, but Bill nodded. “Right. I’ll be back in about... twenty minutes?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Steve said.
Bill left, and Elle faced Steve. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got twenty minutes alone.” He gave her that lazy grin she was getting used to.
Chapter 15
Jinx allowed a full two seconds to enjoy Elle’s reaction. The way her cheeks flushed a slight pink and her eyebrows pinched together telegraphed a contradiction of emotions he was finding all too endearing.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.
He grasped her hands, expecting her to yank them away, but she stood, her head tilted, her eyes twinkling. He circled his thumbs across hers before letting go. “I’m going to want a lot more than twenty minutes for what you’re thinking.”
Her flush deepened.
“What I meant was we have twenty minutes to level with each other,” he said.
“Like telling me who you really are?”
He grinned and extended his hand. “Josiah Ignatius Nix, at your service. But everyone except my grandmother calls me Jinx.”
She accepted the handshake. “And you’re a private investigator for Blackthorne. Looking for Crystal Montlake. I knew it.”
He shook his head. “Nope. I’m a computer jock. Depending on your point of view, I was either in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time. But I am hoping to help find Crystal.”
Jinx had already decided he had to trust Elle. It was a matter of how much he could tell her. Sooner or later, she was going to meet the ops team.
He checked the program he was running. Everything seemed fine. He took a breath. “First, tell me why you thought I was me, not Stephen Brand, at the resort.”
“I have a contact. I can’t give you his—or her—name. As a cop, I have to protect my sources.”
“I need more.” He tried for a smile. “Blackthorne is a private investigation firm. If there’s a leak, they’ll find it.” And he wouldn’t want to be standing across the desk from the boss when they did.
“My contact isn’t a Blackthorne employee,” she said.
Jinx wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not. And right now, it didn’t matter. Someone had alerted her to his arrival. He let it drop. “We’ve got to figure out our escape route.”
“Escape? This place is a fortress. And people have guns. What do we have?”
He brandished Bill’s real-world cell phone. “The best person you could want covering your six.”
“Steve—Jinx. I’m a cop. I’m used to giving and following orders, depending on the chain of command. But I need things laid out in plain English. Less chance of misinterpretation.” Pink tinged her cheeks again, and Jinx knew she was referring to his comment about their twenty minutes alone—too many of which were gone. He wondered why a vice cop would blush at sexual innuendos, but figured he’d enjoy it rather than analyze it.
He turned on Bill’s phone, and while it booted, he enjoyed a little more Elle. She was chewing her lip, staring at the monitor, as if it might hold the answers to her questions. And it might, but he doubted she could understand what she was seeing.
When Bill’s phone came alive, Jinx punched in a text message to Fozzie.
“What now?” Elle asked.
“We wait. Shouldn’t be long.” He patted his thigh. “Sit. Relax. You know, in case Bill comes back. Have to look the part.”
She shook her head and smirked. Sat in her own chair. “What about Bill? I’m guessing he’s got a personality disorder. One minute he’s with us on Earth and the next he’s in outer space.”
“He seemed totally normal when I got here. Helpful, even. My contact,” Jinx tapped the phone, “alerted him to my arrival, and Bill was careful, but he didn’t sell me out.”
“Which doesn’t mean he’s not selling you out right now,” Elle said.
“There is that. But I think he’s rational enough when he’s on the planet, and he seemed to understand what I wanted.”
“Which was to get him out of here for twenty minutes?”
Jinx nodded. “There were a few things he didn’t need to see me doing.”
“I’m not supposed to ask what they were, am I?”
“I sure hope not.” The phone buzzed in his hand. Butterflies danced in his stomach as he checked the display. Worst case scenarios danced in his brain. “Cross your fingers this is good news. Or would you rather kiss me? For luck.”
Elle held up both hands with fingers crossed.
Jinx read Fozzie’s message, then tapped out his response.
&
nbsp; “He’ll be here in three hours,” Jinx said to Elle.
“How does he know where we are?”
Jinx smiled. “I activated the GPS when I turned on Bill’s phone. But knowing Fozzie, he already had a bead on our location.”
“So you fixed the system already?”
“Not yet. I’ve got a few more things to do before I can say I’m done.”
“Does your friend know where Trish and Crystal are?” she asked.
Jinx shook his head. “That’s our job.”
“And how are we supposed to do it?” Her eyes widened. “Wait. The waiter. Diego. He said he saw someone here who looked like me. It had to be Trish. He was going to tell me what he knew—or at least try. He can’t risk upsetting Aguilar because of his family. Diego said working here keeps them safe.”
“The way it’s keeping Bill out of prison.”
“Can you think of a way to get Diego down here?” Elle asked.
Jinx thought about it. “Not unless Aguilar doesn’t want to deliver my Red Bull himself and sends him. But my money’s on Aguilar wanting an excuse to come watch what I’m doing.”
“That doesn’t bother you?” Elle said.
“No, because I’ve got to convince him it’s going to take at least another day to fix his system.”
“But it won’t, will it?”
Quiet footsteps approached. Not Aguilar’s boots, or Maria’s stilettos. More like Bill’s sneakers. Jinx held up his palm. “You hear that?”
“Someone’s coming,” Elle said. “Do we need to pretend we were taking advantage of being alone?”
She wasn’t blushing this time, but there was a flirtatious uplift to her lips.
“Much as I’d love to, I promised Aguilar no hanky-panky, and Bill heard me. I don’t trust him not to rat me out.”
Now, she blushed.
The door opened and Bill came in carrying a small canvas tote. He set it on the desk, upending the contents. “I got you five phones.”
“Excellent,” Jinx said. “Are they turned on?”
Bill shook his head.
“Not going to be able to test them unless they are,” Jinx said.
Bill handed one to Elle, one to Jinx, and powered on the other three.
“Would have expected more bells and whistles,” Jinx said.
Bill shook his head. “Bandwidth issues, and batteries crap out too fast. Aguilar doesn’t need his people surfing the Net or playing games. He just needs them to be able to talk to each other.”
Jinx extended his hand, and Bill relinquished the other phones. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” He shot Elle a look he hoped said distract him. His trust in Bill had been borderline at the beginning, but Bill’s new personality roulette had put a hitch in the plan.
Elle gave the briefest of nods, barely perceptible. Jinx wondered how he seemed able to read her after knowing her such a short time. Was there a connection between them? He told his groin to shut up and took the first phone.
Elle’s eyes went all bedroom. Her lips curved. Her scent wafted through the air as she tilted her head, shaking out her hair. She tucked a curl behind her ear and stepped closer to Bill. “I’d love to know more about living here. We might end up being neighbors.” Her voice was like maple syrup dripping over a stack of pancakes, smooth and slow.
He did his best to ignore his reaction, which was inexplicably bordering on jealousy. Hell, he’d told her to do it. Turning away from them, Jinx found the number for the phone he was holding, then put it down and used Bill’s phone to call it.
This had better work.
Elle shoved her mind to the place she sent it when she was working a major sting. She needed to pull out a few stops to keep Bill’s attention on her, and not on Jinx—no, she had to remember he was Steve. She wondered how she’d tuned in to what he wanted so easily. She was no stranger to reading body language, but there was something about Steve that ran deeper.
She realized Bill had been speaking and shifted gears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that last part.”
“I said, if you want a movie, you have to sign up, and watch out for Smitty, because he always gets there as soon as he’s off duty and sticks The Wizard of Oz into the DVD player because it’s one of the only movies they have in English.”
“Good to know, thanks. I meant to ask you,” Elle said. “Are most of the people here English speakers? I’m afraid I don’t know much Spanish.”
Bill hunched a shoulder, shifted from foot to foot. “You should get by.”
He seemed to be drifting, and Elle tried another tack, one that might lead to information about Trish without triggering another trip to outer space. If mentioning Trish had been the trigger in the first place. Who knew what would set him off? “What about health care? Where do you go if someone gets sick? I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but we seem to be out in the middle of nowhere. Is there a hospital nearby?”
“Hasn’t been an issue,” Bill said. “There’s a small commissary and they have the basics—over-the-counter stuff for aches, pains, coughs and colds. When my allergies act up, I get meds, no problem. I think Aguilar has a private doctor. He’d probably call him if something warranted, but the worst we’ve had here was a run-in with the flu a couple years ago.”
What did that mean for Trish? Would anyone believe her if she said she needed medication? Or maybe Aguilar had, and his private physician had given Trish what she needed. Dare she hope that was the case? But the prickles in the back of her mind said it would be more likely Aguilar would get rid of Trish as damaged goods—too much trouble to deal with.
She forced a smile. “Good to know people are healthy. I had images of this being a slave camp.”
Bill laughed. “Not hardly.”
“But you can’t leave, can you?”
Bill’s face clouded and his eyes lost focus. Had she triggered another of his personality shifts? She tried again.
“But then, if everything you need is here, why would you leave?” she hastened to add. She cast a hurry up glance in Steve’s direction. He nodded and went back to work.
Time ticked away. Bill remained in whatever place his mind took him. Elle was afraid to talk to Jinx for fear Bill would snap out of it and interfere with whatever Jinx had to do. Finally, Steve spoke.
“Bill,” Steve said. “I need to test this. Can you take a phone somewhere relatively remote? Somewhere the signal isn’t too strong.”
Elle watched Bill for any signs of coming apart. Instead, he seemed to snap into earthling mode, considering Steve’s request.
“It’s late,” Bill said. “Dark out there.”
“Sure, I understand,” Steve said. “Wouldn’t want you to get eaten by a—what kinds of predators do you have here, anyway?”
“Nothing comes inside the gates—at least nothing dangerous. I think. But you’re going to get the same signal strength anywhere in the compound.”
“I guess we won’t know for sure until morning, then. I assume Aguilar will cooperate.”
Elle avoided Steve’s eyes. Was this his escape plan? But before, he’d said three hours. It wouldn’t be morning yet.
The door burst open. Aguilar and Diego entered, Diego wheeling a cart holding a huge stainless steel bowl, filled with ice and cans of Red Bull. She stepped aside, giving Diego room to set the cart alongside Steve’s desk. Bill stood, not at attention, but clearly in deference to Aguilar’s arrival.
“You made good time.” Steve didn’t wait for proprieties, but snagged a can from the ice, popped the top and tilted the can to his mouth. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“There are two more cases on the lower shelf,” Aguilar said. “Also glasses, if you prefer not to drink out of the can.” He smiled in her direction. “I trust this will be sufficient for your needs.”
Steve set his can on the edge of the desk and extended his hand. “I’m impressed, and I really appreciate it. You’ve been very accommodating.”
“I trust you have something positive to
report,” Aguilar said.
“I do.” Steve held out a cell phone. “I’ve restored partial function—can’t promise it’s a total fix yet, but you could really help me.”
Aguilar’s brows lifted. He dismissed Diego. Elle’s heart sank. She wondered if she could follow him, pleading the need of a bathroom break. Yet Steve’s plan was critical to their getting out of here, and she wanted to stay on top of things. For now, she’d play spectator. She gripped the back of her chair.
Once Diego had left, Aguilar spoke to Steve. “I would be pleased to offer assistance. What is it you need?”
“Your man, Bill, was telling me your signal strength is relatively uniform within the confines of your compound. Once it’s daylight, I want to go somewhere a little more remote.”
“I can arrange it—or, if you prefer, I can have someone escort you now.”
“No,” Steve said. “Tomorrow is fine—I need to run a few more tests. Do you have your cell phones with you? The network one and one you can use to make outside calls?”
Elle listened, impressed with Steve’s attitude as he spoke to Aguilar. Nothing subservient. A man who knew what he was doing and expected to be obeyed.
“Yes,” Aguilar said. “Is the network working now?”
Elle glanced in Bill’s direction. He was still standing, his eyes darting from Aguilar to Jinx and back. Aguilar’s full attention was on Steve. It seemed as if Bill was invisible to Aguilar.
“That’s what we need to test. I’ll start with a text message to your regular phone,” Steve said. “What’s your number?” Aguilar hesitated. Elle watched his face. What if Aguilar refused? She turned her attention to Steve. He didn’t seem worried.
“I would prefer to test it myself,” Aguilar said. He pulled a phone from his pocket.
“I totally understand,” Steve said. He handed over one of Bill’s phones. “Use this to send yourself a simple message.”
Elle watched as Aguilar tapped the screen. Her heart rate jacked up a notch or two as she waited for… what? Aguilar’s phone to explode?
You’re going beyond ridiculous. Why would he do that while we’re all in the room? Why would he do that, period? How could he do that?