“Okay, well, have a good night,” I said, feeling vaguely guilty for eating at Fiorenza’s instead of Eddy’s.
“You, too… oh, wait,” he added as we moved toward the door. “Your nephew was looking for you Saturday afternoon. Did he find you?”
My heart lurched into my throat. “My nephew?”
“Yes. Tom Rossburn mentioned your nephew was in town…?” Eddy surveyed me with a slight frown as though wondering if I’d drowned a few too many brain cells Friday night. “You must have crossed paths on your way home without realizing it, because he just missed you at the bar.”
I suppressed a shiver.
“Are you sure it was my nephew?” I asked. “Because he dropped by my place Thursday morning but I haven’t heard from him since. Did he say he’d tried to call me?”
“No, I was busy with the brunch crowd so we didn’t really talk. He only asked if you’d been in recently, and I said you’d just left. He looked about the right age, so I assumed he was your nephew.”
“Did you ask him if he was?”
Eddy was beginning to look worried. “No. Why, is something wrong? You’re not in danger, are you?”
Shit. After witnessing my abduction and being given the subsequent cover story over a year ago, Eddy took his duty as my unofficial guardian angel seriously. Seriously enough to put him at risk if he challenged the wrong person.
I put as much reassurance into my tone as I could muster. “No, don’t worry, Eddy, nothing’s wrong. But I doubt if he was my nephew. He might have just been a new client looking for bookkeeping services.”
Eddy made a dubious face. “Didn’t really seem the type. He looked like one of those artsy-rebel-alternative-music types that plays in a band where they abuse their guitars and scream like tortured ferrets. You know, with the beard and funky clothes and piercings everywhere.”
I couldn’t hold back my grin of relief. “That sounds like Tyler Brock. I work with him at Sirius Dynamics.”
Eddy’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “He actually has a day job?”
“Yeah. He’s a computer geek,” I oversimplified cheerfully. “Thanks for letting me know, Eddy. I’ll talk to him at work tomorrow.”
“Okay, good,” he replied. “I’m glad it’s nothing to worry about. See you Tuesday, then.”
“If not before,” I agreed, and we parted with a smile and a wave.
Once we were seated at our usual table with our backs to the wall, Kane leaned closer, holding the menu in front of him as though discussing its offerings. “So your nephew is in town. Which nephew is this, and why does Rossburn know about him?”
His quiet tone masked any emotion, but I thought I detected a jealous edge.
I raised my own menu to point at a selection. “You know I don’t have any nephews. Tom showed up at my place right after I shot Drake Mallard, and I had to explain his car in my driveway somehow. I would’ve made up a better story about a bookkeeping client, but Mallard’s car was such a piece of shit Tom wouldn’t have believed it.”
“So you’ve been seeing a lot of him.”
I deliberately misunderstood. “I’d never seen him before in my life until he turned up with that shotgun. But I asked Arnie to check with his contacts and see if anybody’s been trying to hire any cheap goons lately.”
To my relief, Kane accepted the diversion. “Good thinking,” he said, and laid down the menu. “I’m going to go for the all-meat pizza with extra cheese. What about you?”
Later, we leaned against my car in the long rays of the late-afternoon sun, chatting companionably about nothing in particular. I had gradually relaxed during the meal, and by the end of it we had nearly regained our usual camaraderie.
At last, Kane straightened with a smile. “Well, thanks, Aydan. This was…” He let out a breath. “…good. Someday I’d like to have a meal with you where I don’t have to do a visual check for concealed weapons every time a new customer walks in, but at least there was no bloodshed this time.”
“Physical or emotional,” I agreed. “That was really nice.”
He winced, and I gave myself a mental slap to the head. “I’m sorry,” I said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean that as a dig, I just meant I liked being with you… as a friend. With no baggage or agenda.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you, that’s nice to hear. Well… good night.”
This time I let him take the initiative. He gathered me into his arms and lowered his lips to mine in a brief soft kiss that somehow managed to be both unsatisfying and hot as hell.
Then he stepped back.
“See you tomorrow,” he said, and strode away.
“Yeah…” I said to nobody in particular, and slid into my car, frowning.
Driving home, I pondered why Brock would be looking for me. Other than our clash on Friday, I’d never really interacted with him before. If he needed something business-related, the Sirius Dynamics phone list was available to all internal personnel. Phoning me would make far more sense than wandering aimlessly around looking for me.
But if Eddy’s visitor hadn’t been Brock, then who was it and why was he looking for me? Could he have been Assassin Number Two?
At home, I spent an uneasy evening startling at every noise. When I finally retreated to my mattress in the garage, dark figures stalked my dreams and woke me screaming again and again.
Chapter 21
Morning came both too soon and not soon enough. Aching and exhausted, I dragged myself out of bed wishing for more sleep but thankful for an end to the nightmares. I couldn’t bring myself to brave the shower, so I gathered my workout clothes and hauled my tired ass to the gym.
Even there, showering after my workout was an exercise in paranoia. I tensed at the slightest sound from the locker room, and when someone slammed a locker door the metallic clang nearly sent me through the shower ceiling.
“Get it together,” I growled softly, patting my racing heart with a shampoo-lathered hand. “There’d be a hell of an outcry if some guy charged into the women’s changing room with a gun.”
I pushed my head back under the shower, but a sudden thought made me freeze, my pulse pounding.
Gender bias. Shit, I hadn’t thought this through. I had been expecting a man, but if they sent a female assassin I was toast. I’d left both my guns in my locker.
I skipped the hair conditioner and stumbled out of the shower to make a dripping beeline for the lockers. My shaking hands muffed the padlock’s combination twice before getting it right while I shivered with cold and nerves. When the door finally opened I felt slightly better, but if I needed my guns in a hurry I’d still waste precious seconds unearthing them from the bottom of my duffel bag where they were hidden.
I didn’t draw a full breath until I was back in my car, hair still in wet snarls that soaked my sweatshirt while I transferred the pistols back onto my body. Foregoing pride, I drove directly to Sirius Dynamics where I signed in under Leo’s quizzical scrutiny.
“Running late,” I muttered, and scurried upstairs to the safety of the ladies’ room.
Inside I dropped my duffel bag and leaned both hands on the counter, letting my head hang while I waited for my heart rate to return to the vicinity of normal. At last I let out a long breath and straightened to survey my haggard face and wild hair in the mirror. Suppressing a groan, I rummaged in my duffel bag for my hairbrush and blowdryer and did the best I could.
By the time I emerged I had exchanged ‘soggy and shivering’ for ‘frizzy-haired and cranky’, but all in all it seemed like a good trade. I stopped in at the lunchroom to brew a cup of green tea and grab a cereal bar before heading for my office.
Gratefully inhaling the aromatic steam from my mug, I rounded the corner of my desk and sank into my chair.
A thunderclap of close-range guitars galvanized every nerve in my body and I launched to my feet with a yell, arms flailing, tea splattering everywhere.
The noise cut off abruptly, leaving me gasping with shock and ad
renaline, my chest vibrating under the pummelling of my heart.
Spider dashed in wide-eyed. “Aydan, what was that?”
“I’ll…” I had to stop and pant a few breaths. “I’ll kill him… I’ll kill the little fuck…” I braced my violently shaking hands against my desk. “…as soon as I can walk again…”
At Spider’s look of confusion, I jerked my chin savagely toward the footwell of my desk. “Brock,” I snarled.
Spider came around beside me and knelt to retrieve a small black box with a speaker from beneath the desk. Scowling, he peered at my chair before removing a second small device from the underside of the seat.
“Pressure switch,” he said in the closest thing to a growl I’d ever heard him utter. “It closed the circuit when you sat down.”
“I… will… fucking… kill… him,” I ground out.
Spider rose, his frown dissolving into worry. “You can’t, Aydan, you know you can’t. And I don’t want you to get in trouble. We’ll report this to Stemp…”
“No, we won’t,” I growled. “Brock will just deny it, and I’ll look like a fucking idiot.” I drew myself upright, scowling at the puddles of tea on my desk. “Scratch that; like more of a fucking idiot.”
“I bet we can prove it was him,” Spider argued. “He probably left fingerprints on this, and I’m pretty sure I recognized the music. It’s the same song he hurt you with on Friday morning, one of the ones his band does.”
“He has a band?”
Spider made a face. “Yes. The Ballistic Rutabagas. Every now and then they get a gig at one of the alternative clubs in Calgary, and Brock thinks he’s cool because he’s the lead singer.”
Well, shit. Chalk one up for Blue Eddy’s snap character assessment. Maybe Sirius should hire him as a secret agent instead of me.
Spider was still talking. “He doesn’t even play an instrument; he just screams at the microphone. Hellhound has more talent in… in his beard than Brock has in his whole body. Come on, Aydan, let’s go talk to Stemp.”
“No.” I peeled off my tea-blotched sweatshirt and used it to sop up the remaining tea on my desk before hesitating. Damn, I couldn’t walk out into the corridor with my guns in plain view. If one of the civilian researchers came along…
I swore and pulled the damp garment over my head again before marching for the door. “Time to end this.”
“Aydan, no!” Spider squeezed out the door at the same time to scamper beside me down the hallway, clutching my wrist. “You can’t, Aydan, you’ll go to jail, please don’t do it, please…”
Kane emerged from the doors at the end of the hall and strode toward us.
Spider cried, “Kane, help! Don’t let her kill him!”
Kane’s eyebrows snapped together and he quickened his pace. “What’s happening?” he demanded as he closed the distance between us in a few long strides. “Aydan? What’s going on?”
My lips stretched in a wolfish grin at the sight of Brock’s pinched face poking out of his doorway like a rat from its hole. “I’m just going to talk to Brock.”
Brock paled, but drew himself up with a small vicious smile. “Kane,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here. Kelly attacked me on Friday, and now she’s coming back for another try. She’s obviously unbalanced.”
Kane surveyed him, his eyes like grey glaciers. “Is that so?” He took a couple of leisurely strides toward Brock to lean one massive shoulder against the wall beside Brock’s door. Looming over Brock’s expression of growing uncertainty, Kane smiled down at him. “Well, let’s just see what happens. Innocent until proven guilty, you know.”
“No, you have to protect me! It’s your duty!” Brock’s tone developed a whine as I paced slowly toward him. “You have to! If you don’t, I’ll report you to Stemp and you can go to jail right along with this bitch!”
Kane straightened, eyeing Brock as though he’d discovered something slimy and malodorous on the bottom of his shoe. “Oops,” he said in a voice as hard and cold as his eyes. “I just remembered I left my SUV running.”
He turned on his heel and strode down the hall. The click-clang of the security door closing behind him sounded abnormally loud.
Brock backed away from my pointy-toothed grin. Spider was still clinging to my wrist and making frantic noises, but I ignored him.
“Well, Brock,” I said pleasantly. “I enjoyed your little practical joke this morning. I didn’t realize you were such a funny guy.”
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything! I don’t know how that speaker got there, it must have been the cleaning staff…” He trailed off as if suddenly realizing he’d admitted his guilt.
“Oh, that’s okay, don’t worry. I’m not mad.” I bared my teeth at him and he twitched. “In fact, I’m really looking forward to working with such a joker,” I went on in my fake-pleasant voice. “I love exchanging practical jokes. Now it’s my turn. I won’t do anything right away ‘cause the surprise is part of the fun. But once I get going, you’re going to absolutely die laughing.”
He went even paler, but his lips curled with venom. “Watch it, Kelly. You don’t want to push me. If what I know about you gets out…”
A burst of icy fear cooled the heat of my anger, and I lowered my voice to a deadly hiss. “Gee, Brock, you’re not saying you’ll leak classified information, are you? ‘Cause I hear the higher-ups get a little tight-assed about stuff like treason.”
His sneer turned into a shocked gape. “No, of course not! I’d never breach security!” He looked so sincerely horrified at the thought that I actually believed him.
But a moment later his sneer came back. “I don’t need to leak anything classified. All I have to do is say the right things to the right people and your dirty little secrets will be all over town. And Stemp will discharge you so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
“And which dirty little secrets would those be?” I inquired, racking my brain for anything shameful I’d done lately and coming up empty. Hell, I’d only been home for a few days. I hadn’t had time to do anything shameful yet.
Brock shot a triumphant glance at Spider’s worried face before turning his gloating grin on me. “Your drinking problem and your affair with Blue Eddy.”
A bark of laughter escaped before I could stop it. “What?”
“Drinking problem. I saw you at Blue Eddy’s Friday night, totally blotto and then propositioning Eddy right before he helped you up the stairs to his private apartment where you stayed the night. And you haven’t slept at home since. The analysts’ surveillance footage proves it.”
Shit, I should have known his apparent disinterest on Friday night was too good to be true. And that must have been him sniffing around Eddy’s bar Saturday morning, too, checking to see if I was still there. And the little slimeball had been snooping in my home surveillance footage. The garage was outside its range so it would look as though I hadn’t been sleeping at home. Damn his low morals and high security clearance.
“Where I sleep is nobody’s business but my own,” I snapped. “And I’m not sleeping with Eddy but even if I was, I wouldn’t be ashamed of it and nobody in town would care. And I didn’t need help up the stairs.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Brock said snidely. “Eddy’s girlfriend might care. And I notice you didn’t deny your drinking problem. Stemp will confiscate your weapon and dishonourably discharge you if he finds out about that, and then we’ll just see how tough you are without your gun. So you’d better be nice to me.”
“Listen, you pathetic little louse,” I began just as Stemp came through the security doors. I briefly considered trying to backtrack, but it was far too late. He had obviously heard.
Fine. This could work.
“Don’t you dare spread lies about me or my friends,” I snarled at Brock as Stemp approached. “And don’t booby-trap my office again, either.”
“What is this about?” Stemp demanded.
Spider’s eyes lit with the unholy glee of a pacifist pus
hed too far. “Brock tried to goad Aydan into attacking him,” he said. “And now he’s threatening to spread lies about her.” Even then he was too nice to turn a triumphant look on Brock, but Brock’s cheeks turned crimson nevertheless.
Stemp’s expressionless façade never altered, but I got the distinct impression of strained patience. “In my office, all of you,” he said.
We trailed behind him like guilty children summoned to the principal’s office, a similarity that was heightened when Brock stuck his tongue out at me. The childishness of the gesture was negated by the way he wiggled the tip obscenely, a silver dumbbell twinkling in the pale revolting flesh.
I held my face completely devoid of expression, fighting the urge to yank out the piercing and listen to him scream. Spider shot me a wide-eyed sidelong glance, but I didn’t acknowledge him, either.
Inside Stemp’s office, we weren’t invited to sit. Stemp eyed us in silence across his desk.
Of course. He’d do the silent treatment until somebody blurted out something incriminating. Amusement bubbled up, but I stifled it and kept my face expressionless.
Spider was the first to crack.
“This isn’t working,” he said. His uncharacteristically grave and decisive tone surprised me. My endearing man-puppy was gone, replaced by a competent professional. He turned to Brock. “I’ve been putting up with your attitude because you’re an excellent analyst. You do good work, but this kind of toxic stuff can’t go on.” Spider’s cheeks were flushed and his fingers trembled where they knotted together behind his back, but his voice was steady. “You’ve been disrespectful to me, you’ve been abusive to Tammy, and your attacks on Aydan are not only childish, they’re malicious and dangerous. That stops now. Or you’ll be replaced.”
I stared at Spider, holding my mouth closed while pride swelled inside me. That’s my boy. I knew he had it in him.
Brock tossed his head. “Too bad there’s nobody else with a high enough security clearance for this project. And when things start changing around here, you’re going to wish you’d treated me with a little more respect.”
Spy Away Home (The Never Say Spy Series Book 10) Page 16