Still Waters (Greenstone Security Book 1)

by Anne Malcom

  “Sends a message,” I replied.

  “That it does,” he agreed.

  “So, since Rosie has you unable to commit the felonies I know you live for, and the club is quiet, how about I give you some excitement?”

  “Please don’t tell me it’s something juvenile like hacking into your guy’s phone to see who he’s been texting?” he asked with a bored sigh.

  I scoffed. “You know I don’t have a guy, and if I ever did, I would not be that girl.” I paused. “You can do that, though?”

  “Lucy,” he warned.

  “Right,” I muttered. “How easy is it to access shipping data from a certain person and download a manifest and give it to me?”

  “You got a name?”

  I rattled it off.

  Another sigh.

  “You can do it?” I frowned down at something on my cluttered desk that was not a part of the clutter. It was a silver owl figurine. Not a toy, more like a knickknack that older ladies collected and laid out on their mantelpiece.

  I didn’t have a mantelpiece. And even if I did, I was not likely to line up a collection of silver birds.

  Yet it was rather pretty and delicate. I idly wondered how it got on my desk before Wire spoke, distracting me.

  “The shipping manifest is the candy, and the United States Customs Service is the baby,” he said by way of answer.

  “So, it’s easy,” I deduced.

  Keys tapped. “Maybe I should hack into a satellite. Just for fun. Reposition one to Megan Fox’s bedroom or something,” he mused.

  “Just because you use state-of-the-art technology and above-average intelligence to do that doesn’t make it any less creepy.” I fingered the figurine, then tapped it on my desk. Stephanie glared at it, then me. The sound must have been distracting her from having to do her work, and mine, instead of Facebooking her boyfriend.

  I gave her a blank look and continued tapping.

  She rolled her eyes and then focused back on her computer.

  I smiled at the back of her head, though I wasn’t using the figurine purely to piss her off; I may have had a little trouble keeping still.

  It might have been time to cut myself off from the coffees for the day. A scary thought, but it was getting towards evening and my heart was getting close to palpitating.

  “Manifest should be in your inbox right… now,” Wire informed me as the forceful tap of his finger on a keyboard echoed through the phone.

  I clicked on my inbox. Indeed, there was an e-mail with a certain shipping manifest.

  I grinned at it and then pressed Print. I would take it home with me. Then I could escape both Stephanie’s sideways glares and Heath at the same time. I reasoned that Keltan wouldn’t station him outside my apartment or anything along those lines. Even he wasn’t that crazy.

  I hoped.

  “You’re amazing. Thanks, Wire,” I said, clicking off the screen and standing from my chair.

  “I know, but seriously, you don’t want me to hack into Bank of America, pay off your credit card with some Wall Street assholes’ stolen millions?” he asked hopefully.

  I paused. The bill was high this month.

  “No,” I said finally.

  “Fine,” he sulked. “May I ask why you need shipping manifests of a jewelry designer who was found murdered three days ago by none other than the arsonist I’m currently on the phone with?” he added casually. “Great story, by the way. I could almost smell the blood; the writing was so good.”

  I walked over to the printer, snatching my piece of paper and giving Carrie a finger wave.

  She mimed the “call me” gesture with googly eyes. Obviously wanted a debrief of the whole finding a body situation. I nodded.

  “Alleged arsonist,” I corrected. “Nothing has ever been proven, nor charges laid against me.”

  I could almost see him roll his twitching eyes. “Yes. Because I’ve never been charged with taking a certain person off the FBI’s most wanted list it means I never did it.”

  “Gage?” I guessed immediately.

  “I told you, I never did it,” Wire replied innocently.

  “It was totally Gage,” I muttered.

  He was, hands-down, the most depraved of all the Sons of Templar patched members. There were no doubts in my mind that he had a huge number of skeletons in his closets. And under his floorboards. And in his red room of pain.

  I paused at the elevator, a not-unattractive man waiting for it beside me. I glanced at him, then at his ill-tailored suit, resisting the urge to screw up my nose. It made his lean but muscled form less appealing, even with his expertly styled sandy blonde hair and boyish features that would have made him the perfect candidate for an Abercrombie & Fitch campaign.

  He gave me a sideways glance, eyes flickering with interest.

  I quickly looked to the glowing elevator button, not wanting to give him the wrong idea.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Wire probed.

  “You didn’t answer mine,” I countered.

  The doors opened, and I stepped in as the man tried to also.

  I frowned at him slightly when he stopped. His mother did not teach him very well. I walked in when he found his manners and let me go first.

  “I’ll never tell,” he said sweetly. “But I’m bound by my word and loyalty to the club, so I’ll take it to my no-doubt early grave.”

  I pressed the button for the ground floor. “Maybe stop drinking three times the recommended dose of carbonated energy drinks, and you might make it to your thirtieth birthday,” I teased.

  “If I stopped drinking those, I wouldn’t make it to my twenty-fifth,” he said with certainty. “And seriously, Lucy, you tangled up in shit up there? You need backup?”

  I felt a little warmth in my belly at the gesture. If I said yes, I had no doubt there would be a large number of Harleys roaring into the parking lot of my apartment. Family was like that.

  But it was time I started living without the Harley safety net.

  “No, I’m fine,” I reassured him. I glanced to the man in the elevator, conscious of having any kind of conversation like this with someone listening. He didn’t appear to be listening, though. He seemed very intent on watching the journey of the numbers above the elevator doors.

  Wire was silent.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated.

  “‘Fine’ from a woman means exactly the opposite,” he mumbled.

  I smiled, rolling my eyes. “This time it means exactly that. Thanks for your help. I’ll credit you if the story breaks.”

  “No, doing that wouldn’t be crediting, it would be testifying against my breaking federal law,” he replied with a grin in his voice.

  “Okay, we’ll leave that out,” I said as the doors opened to the foyer, and I caught Heath’s shaggy head in the window of the coffee shop. “Got to go, got a story to write.”

  I stepped out, uncomfortable as I felt eyes on the back of my neck. I looked around. Bad suit guy was staring at me. Not in a way that made me think he’d been checking out my ass. That would have been preferable.

  This look was something different.

  Something that made me walk a little faster through the bustling lobby.

  “You kick ass,” Wire said. “Let me know if you need my hacking skills.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but how about I try and do the rest on my own?”

  There was a pause. “Babe, you’re family. You’re never alone.”

  The simple statement filled me with warmth and ice. Even though I moved, I would always have the Sons of Templar, and I loved that. But a part of me felt alone. The part of me that Rosie had filled. She was an integral part of that family.

  “You might want to reconsider that satellite thing if Rosie takes any longer to surface,” I informed him, walking past Heath to grab myself one last coffee for the day. What could one more do? I could handle heart palpitations.

  “Give her time. The girl hasn’t had that since she came from
the womb,” he said.

  I sighed, hating that he was kind of right. “Fine,” I said.

  “I’m ignoring that ‘fine.’ But anything you need,” he said by way of goodbye.

  “Thanks, Wire.”

  Then I hung up.

  And got coffee.

  And tried to figure out how I was going to navigate all of this.

  Somehow it was easier knowing that I could finally breathe again.

  I was tired.

  Was there a word for beyond tired? Because I was that. A couple of death threats, emotional rollercoasters and sex that would have made Hades himself blush had me feeling like I needed a bath and Netflix and bed.

  And to somehow sort through the fact that I wasn’t worried at all about death threats when my mind was bursting with one thing.

  Keltan.

  I hoped for his presence. So much better than Netflix. Then I wondered where the declarations of earlier left us. Were we finally wading through the shit? Was I finally going to let him in? I toyed with the answer that was leaning towards yes, then tried to imagine how it would work.

  Us.

  That’s why I didn’t notice my door was ajar until I was halfway into my apartment.

  I should have been a little more observant considering the aforementioned death threats. The glint in Keltan’s eyes and then Heath’s gave me enough pause to know that glint wouldn’t be there if the threat wasn’t.

  But when my survival instinct finally caught up—it was too busy trying to protect my heart, you see—it was too late. The person in my apartment was already close enough to do their damage.

  “Surprise!” Polly shouted.

  I screamed and nearly jumped right out of my Prada mules.

  Polly took it as a scream of excitement, never mind that I had never in recorded history screamed from excitement. She jumped on me, and in my efforts not to fall over, taking her with me, I dropped my bag.

  That poor thing was getting a beating.

  I was engulfed in her vanilla-laden scent. And when I got my racing heart under control, I hugged my little sister back, her scent calming me slightly.

  Polly grinned wide at me, her hair tossed into a messy bun atop her head. Her tanned skin was glowing, just like her violet eyes. “Are you so happy to see your favorite sister?” she asked excitedly.

  “Only sister,” I corrected, turning to close the door behind me. “And am I excited to see my only sister, who broke into my apartment, nearly giving me a fright to rival the time Ashley tinted her eyebrows too dark?” I asked seriously, turning to regard her. “Of course,” I added on a grin.

  I was close with the Sons of Templar family, and missed them. Missed Rosie like an ache. But my blood family were everything to me. I may not have been like Polly, and she may not have loved hanging out with bikers as much as me, but she was my Lol.

  I hadn’t talked to her much in six months, namely because she couldn’t be wrangled in one place long enough for a phone conversation. Even in the age of cell phones.

  Mom was much the same. She called me at least once a week but didn’t stay on the phone long enough to talk properly.

  Dad and I still had our movie nights once a month, over Skype.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, walking over to the fridge. Wine was needed. Coffee was enticing, but my hands shook slightly from the sheer amount I’d imbibed.

  She walked with me, grabbing the glasses from their spot in the shelf above the toaster. We were all about easy access.

  She set them down for me to pour. “What? You’re not happy to see me?” she asked.

  I filled the glasses. “Of course I’m happy to see you, despite the mild stroke you gave me from breaking in.”

  She swiped her glass and raised her brow at me, leaning back on the counter.

  “I didn’t break in,” she argued. “Jon let me in. Then invited me to some party where everyone was going to be dressed like their favorite Disney character.” She sipped her wine. “I’d totally be down for that but his costume told me it was a lot dirtier than he made it seem, and I just couldn’t see my Disney characters treated in such a way. It would scar me for life.”

  I sipped my own wine, grinning and happy that the cool liquid was doing its job and relaxing my taut muscles with only one mouthful. Though I worried it would take at least three bottles to relax my taut mind. And only then because it would make me pass out.

  “Good call,” I replied. “But what about school? It’s a Monday. Don’t you have classes?”

  There was a loaded silence as Polly took a long sip and darted her eyes around mine and Jon’s chicly designed apartment. Luckily we both had the same taste and were into black and white. Even though it was small, it rocked.

  “Polly,” I warned as she found our vintage black sofa with a stark white fur throw very fascinating.

  She nodded to it. “That better be faux, Lucy,” she warned back. “Do you even know the horrific process poor animals go through to get something people only purchase for vanity?”

  I gave her a look. “Of course it’s faux,” I snapped. “I can’t afford the real deal,” I added. “Don’t change the subject. School. Why aren’t you in it?”

  She sighed and pushed off the counter, the clicking of her fringed boots echoing as she paced into the living room that was off our small kitchen in the open-plan space.

  Polly couldn’t sit still at the best of times. When she was nervous, or trying to avoid a subject, she was like Sonic the Hedgehog. She picked up a matte black candlestick that was sitting on the matte black coffee table, then set it down again.

  “Don’t freak out,” she said finally, abandoning her fondling of the décor to focus on me. I didn’t miss the distance she put between as.

  Not that I’d physically react to anything, ever, but she seemed to need it.

  My face stayed impassive. “The week I’ve had, if I didn’t freak out with any of the other stuff, I won’t freak out with this,” I told her.

  She took another sip. Or gulp. “I’m deferring. Taking the semester off. I just don’t know what I want to do and that place is stifling me, you know? Telling me where to be, what time to be there and what to think.”

  I gave her a look. “That’s college, Polly,” I said dryly. “Telling you where to be and what time to be there is kind of a necessity for classes. And real life in general. An employer will most likely do that too.”

  She sighed at me, fingering the fringes on the printed kimono she wore atop a simple pink dress. “Well, I don’t care. I need something different. I don’t know if college is me.”

  “You’ve got a semester left. Figure out what is you after that,” I told her, sounding remarkably like a parent. Then I wondered why my own parents hadn’t called to tell me about this. We collaborated on Polly things. Then, because my skills weren’t top-notch that morning, I only just noticed the large duffle covered in patches.

  “Polly. What do Mom and Dad think of this?” I asked evenly.

  She bit her lip, looking more than a little sheepish. “Well, they don’t quite know. Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?” I repeated.

  “Or not at all,” she corrected. Her eyes went wide in the way she did whenever she wanted something. A character trait of the youngest child in any family, I guessed. “I was hoping you could talk to them.”

  I gaped at her. “Me? And why would I talk to them about you dropping out of college when that’s your job.” I paused. “No, your job would be to finish college.”

  “I still might,” she exclaimed, sinking onto the sofa and frowning at the throw before thrusting it away from her. “I just… need a break.”

  I walked over to sit in the armchair across from the sofa. “And did a guy have anything to do with this sudden need to literally run away from home?” I asked tightly, my eyes on the duffle. I was already thinking of ways to punish said guy.

  Her brows narrowed at me. “No,” she protested firmly. She paused. “Well, no
t entirely,” she murmured.

  I put my hand to my forehead. “Fuck, Polly,” I muttered.

  “Don’t do that,” she ordered.

  I opened the eyes I had just closed. “What?”

  She waved her hands in a circle around my face. “The whole ‘Polly has ruined yet another facet of her life again and I now have to go and commit a felony’ kind of face,” she explained. “I know what I’m doing.”

  I raised my brow.

  She raised her own. “Lucy, I need you on this. Please. I just need to be somewhere different where I’m not flaky Polly who makes bad decisions when it comes to guys and can’t figure out what she’s doing with her life,” she said, her voice small and lacking her usual spark.

  That small voice, coupled with the words and the heartbreaking vulnerability on her face, had me moving. I sat next to her on the sofa and yanked her to me, then kissed her head and reveled in the vanilla smell of the baby sister I’d missed so much.

  “Okay, Lol,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to them.”

  I would likely be able to talk them down. Despite them probably seething that Polly was dropping out, they loved us. Wanted us to be happy more than anything. They were good parents.

  I had a pang. No matter how old you got, if you had good parents, you craved their council when things got hard. Like discovering a body, getting involved in a murder investigation and tumbling into a relationship with a man who held my heart from the moment I met him.

  Polly leaned back from the embrace, her eyes light. “And I can stay with you?”

  “Yes, you can stay with me,” I said.

  She grinned big and wide, the little lost girl of before long forgotten now that she had her way. I didn’t doubt that it was genuine, that girl from before. But just because Polly didn’t wear a mask of indifference to shield her from the world didn’t mean she didn’t wear a mask.