Blair resisted the urge to run her hand over her own hair to smooth the unruly mass. This late in the evening, nothing but soaking it or using an entire bottle of hairspray would tame it. “You need to have a date in order to give details.”
“He stood you up? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Blair shrugged, giving Tuesday night’s no-show as much thought as he deserved. None at all. She might not have a porn-star rack and a size-one waist, but she had plenty to offer. Not the least of which was her solid conversational skills. She liked to think she excelled at learning a lot about a person in a short amount of time, and without making it appear she was pumping the individual for information. Getting people to open up, to let their guard down—whether she was hunting for a good quote, someone’s favorite pizza topping or their darkest secret—wasn’t something just anyone was good at.
And she was damn good at it. So good she thought she made a great date, especially when she let herself be roped into a blind date and all the initial awkwardness it usually entailed. Maybe that was why, at twenty-six, she still hadn’t found a guy she could fall head over heels for. She was too good at getting people to talk, too efficient at uncovering all the reasons that it would never work long-term with the men she dated.
“Men are hardly worth the effort most of the time anyway. You’ll be more satisfied spending the night with Charlie.”
Charlie being the other gift Whitney had thoughtfully given to her when she had admitted her commitment to her career didn’t leave a lot of time for dating. And only a woman planning on breaking things off with her present boyfriend would think a vibrator was better than the real thing.
“You and your mystery man having problems?”
Whitney looked surprised at the question. “Nope.”
“He’s not putting out enough for you?” Blair guessed, grinning.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Her friend rolled her eyes and dug into the bottomless pit she called a purse. “I know I had a pack of batteries in here somewhere. You’re probably out.”
Laughing, Blair shoved her friend. “I do not need pity batteries.” But the subject made her wonder how long it had been since she’d found herself on the receiving end of sex so good it took a woman right to the edge.
Too long.
Not liking where that particular train of thought was headed on yet another Friday night, Blair reached for her jacket. Outside the light mist had turned into an all-out downpour and she didn’t feel like getting more drenched than necessary. Normally she didn’t mind walking to the parking garage in the rain, but tonight the weather was putting a serious damper on her mood.
“So this big mystery meeting your source mentioned goes down this weekend?”
Blair didn’t answer, mostly because she knew it would drive her friend crazy. Given the backseat her social life had been taking for a while now, she was actually looking forward to getting out of the city for the weekend. A drive down to the coast, even if it was for work, wouldn’t be so bad. Neither would spending a night or two at the exclusive resort when she hoped to catch former district attorney Jonas Holson with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar.
“I just hope that chasing this story isn’t the one that finally catches up to you.”
For a journalist, Whitney was entirely too pessimistic. Blair sometimes wondered if her friend’s reluctance to doubt Holson’s possible shady dealings stemmed from the two of them having attended the same high school. Part hero worship, part shared educational experience maybe. “I always make sure to dot my i’s and cross my t’s.”
“If you’re wrong about him, this could blow up in your face.”
Blair pushed the call button for the elevator. “A chance we take every time we go for the hard stories. Besides, with Greer playing kiss-ass, I need any edge I can get.” Breaking the story on Holson would guarantee she’d have her pick of assignments over Greer and maybe even a shot at the assistant metro editor position.
Whitney didn’t look convinced, but Blair was saved from reassuring her friend that she wasn’t anywhere near up to her neck by the ring of her cell phone.
“You have ‘Hangin’ Tough’ for your ringtone?” Whitney stared to wheeze in that trying-not-to-laugh-outright way of hers.
Blair didn’t bother to say it only had that ringtone when it was her brother calling. She’d also been sworn to secrecy that he used to play that song more than her or her two sisters had when they were younger.
She pressed the phone to her ear. “Hey, Brax.”
Whitney put her hand to her heart and sighed. Blair rolled her eyes, more than used to her friend’s preoccupation with her older brother. Whitney didn’t seem to care that Braxton was involved hardcore with a woman he worked with. While Blair still hadn’t managed to meet Quinn face-to-face, Braxton had been talking about the woman so long it seemed like Blair knew her as well as Whitney.
“So what are you doing next weekend?”
Blair wasn’t sure if her mouth fell open or not. “You’re not actually about to make plans are you?” Something Braxton rarely did. Since his private security job routinely took him out of town unexpectedly, their plans for catching up were usually made on the fly.
“Yeah, we’re having a barbeque. Just a few friends, mostly people we work with.”
She arched a brow, but didn’t betray her surprise at the invitation. Brax usually went out of his way to avoid talking about his job, let alone letting his family and work intersect. His relationship with Quinn was obviously loosening him up more than Blair realized. “Name the time and I’m there.” Though she wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up calling between now and then to say something had come up and he had to reschedule.
“Great. And I didn’t exactly mention this to Mom.”
Blair cringed. She knew Braxton was avoiding their mother, or more specifically avoiding the new man in her life. While she knew her mother deserved to be happy again, Blair was no fonder of the slightly cynical retired cop their mother started seeing a couple of months ago than Braxton was. But she was even less fond of lying to her mother.
“Actually,” Braxton added, “I’m not inviting Gwen or Addy either.”
Now that she hadn’t been expecting. “Why not?”
“Well,” he began, his voice muffling as he shifted the phone to his other ear. “The idea of meeting my three sisters and mother at the same time sort of freaked Quinn out a little.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t want Quinn to overhear me.”
Blair trailed after Whitney as the elevator opened on the main floor. “Is she in the room with you?”
“She’s downstairs.”
“Then why not just close the door?”
“Right,” Braxton murmured as if he wasn’t convinced that would get the job done. “So we’ll see you next Saturday? Around two o’clock?”
“Sounds good. See you then. And,” she added almost as an innocent afterthought, “if I get caught in a lie with Mom…”
Braxton sighed. “Don’t you ever get tired of making me wash your car?”
“Not even close. See you Saturday.”
“Tell me you can bring a friend,” Whitney said the second Blair flipped her phone closed.
Smiling, she slung her arm over Whitney’s shoulder. As they headed out into the rain, she listened with half an ear as Whitney predictably touched on the subject of Braxton’s undeniable sex appeal. She tucked the upcoming barbeque away in the back of her mind, already thinking of who she knew that could get her a last-minute reservation at the resort where Jonas Holson would be this weekend.
“You know, for an assignment this one sounds an awful lot like a vacation.”
“Then consider it a mandatory one,” Rae clarified without looking up from her computer.
Drew studied his boss in the same disinterested way he’d learned from her—taking in all the pertinent details without looking like he was paying attention at all. Assignments to follow
up on temporal activity that could indicate demons crossing over weren’t outside the norm. However, that coupled with Rae’s earlier suggestions—ignored suggestions—that he take some time off left him suspicious. “So this is your way of making me take vacation?”
When she didn’t answer him he asked, “Does this have anything to do with my last assignment?”
With dark red hair, a lethal smile she rarely let anyone see and legs that looked amazing in heels, few people would have guessed Rae had slain more Shadow Demons than the rest of the agents who worked under her put together. Unless she was looking for a reason to call one of them out on the training room floor, she dressed the part of a powerhouse career woman on her way to the top. He usually pitied the guys dumb enough to hit on her on the rare occasions she stopped into Kane’s bar—right before he bet against the fools too stupid to realize she was hustling them at pool.
Rae fixed her glacier blue eyes on him. “Do you really need to ask me that?”
“They had a kid.” A little girl who had refused to let go of him for the better part of two hours after they’d gotten her out of there.
“I know,” she said quietly. She crossed her arms, the familiar militant pose making it clear he wasn’t going to sway her.
He tried to anyway. “I don’t need time off.” Right now it was the last thing he needed.
Vacation would give him too much time to think and he wasn’t crazy about what conclusions he might draw with no demons to keep him occupied. It didn’t matter that he’d been off his game lately. He’d be happy stuck behind a desk for a while, even if it meant doing the other agents’ paperwork. He opened his mouth to say as much only to have Rae cut him off.
“Not due to your last assignment entirely, no.”
The schooled expression on Rae’s face gave him nothing to go on, but the tone of her voice gave her away, the quiet nuances that only a Shadow Destroyer whose DNA had been mutated by a stealth demon could pick up on.
“You think I’m burning out?”
“I believe you think you’re burning out.”
He shook his head, leaning forward in his seat. “Letting one demon get to me is a far cry from needing a break.” So he’d broken the cardinal rule for all Destroyers and let his emotions run high. It wasn’t as though it mattered that the demon had enjoyed his fury a little too much. The creature had still been vanquished. Objective attained.
“Who are you trying to convince here?”
Drew shoved his hand through his hair, anchoring his fingers at the nape of his neck where his muscles seemed locked in a permanent state of tension. “After the last few weeks, is it really wise to be giving any of us time off? Who knows if there could be another mole in the network feeding intel to the enemy.”
The betrayal weeks ago by one of their own had blindsided all of them. Given the increasing reports of security breaches in other field offices within the network, surely he could be put to better use than being taken off active duty altogether. Hell, the half-dead plants in Rae’s office needed to be watered by someone.
Okay, now he was just getting desperate.
“Do you think I need the reminder?” Rae’s sharp tone caught Drew by surprise. She glanced away, drawing in a deep breath before continuing. “The resort where you’re expected to check in tomorrow is only a couple of hours away. If anything comes up, it’s close enough to get back here quickly.”
“And how long am I supposed to wait around for a demon to make an appearance?”
“As long as it takes,” she answered, though they both knew this assignment didn’t have much to do with a serious demon threat at all.
She met his gaze, the lines around her eyes softening. “You’ve had a lot on your mind lately and your change in circumstances, although unexpected, is affecting your job performance and risks the team. I need you to get your personal life straightened out and be sure that this is still where you want to be.”
He wasn’t going to ask how she knew about the doubts running through his mind. To him Rae was the all-seeing Oz and he was more than a little nervous to learn about the world she hid behind her little curtain. The network that recruited people like him—average, everyday people who carried a rare gene that enabled their DNA to mutate when they came in direct contact with a Shadow Demon’s dakorum—wasn’t exactly a two-way street. Information was passed down to their agents strictly on a need-to-know basis, with little or no indication of what went on behind closed doors. As curious as he sometimes was over the network’s secrecy, he had no problem just doing his job.
Or he hadn’t until recently.
“I’ll be in touch,” Rae said with the practiced edge of dismissal, motioning to an envelope on the edge of her desk before turning back to her computer.
“Why this resort? Why not just tell me to get lost for a couple weeks?”
“I tried that already.” She flipped open a file on her desk and skimmed the contents. “Besides, I can keep better tabs on you when I know exactly where you are.”
“Comforting.”
She didn’t acknowledge his dry tone and he hadn’t expected her to. With nothing left to say, he tucked the envelope into his pocket and let himself out of her office.
So absorbed in wondering what the hell he was going to do with himself during his exile, he answered his phone automatically on the first ring. “Yeah?”
The quiet voice on the other end of the line brought him to a stop.
“Is everything okay?” he asked after another few seconds, glancing down the hall and wondering where Quinn was. He tried not to rush the conversation, but didn’t want to linger on the line. Not here. “I’ll be by to see you soon,” he added when he could get a word in, ending the call just as Braxton came around the corner.
Brax frowned at him, his expression curious. “Late night?”
“Yeah.” And he’d started feeling it about five hours ago.
“I figured as much when your report came through this morning, but I didn’t know you ran into trouble.”
Drew cringed, having been half asleep when he’d finished the report on his last assignment. One he’d put off for too long already, which Braxton had been happy to point out—more than once. “Not the demon-slaying kind.”
“I didn’t see anyone with you when you left Kane’s.”
Probably because he hadn’t left with anyone. Hadn’t in a couple of months, but Drew shrugged, preferring to let the subject drop. If Brax assumed he hadn’t gone to bed alone, he wasn’t about to correct his friend’s assumption and risk more questions he wasn’t ready to answer.
“You got plans for next weekend? Rae mentioned you might be on some kind of special assignment for a few days.”
Drew hesitated, half expecting Braxton to use his telepathic abilities to try and get a read on what that assignment was really about. “I might be around,” he answered as casually as he could manage. His mental shields might not be the strongest of the team’s, but he excelled at always letting the mind-readers get a fix on what they expected to find. They were far less likely to probe any deeper that way.
“We’re planning a barbeque.”
“Next weekend?”
Braxton nodded, distracted as he glanced at the door to his right.
“And you don’t think the odds are stacked against you, that you or Quinn will get called away?”
“Oh, probably.” Braxton cringed at the same moment the thump of a body hitting the training mat reached Drew’s ears.
“Quinn and Jordan?” He didn’t really need Braxton’s acknowledgement to picture the two women going head-to-head. All of the Destroyers assigned to this field office were active enough that they didn’t need the constant training to stay in shape, but preferred it nonetheless. “So why the barbeque if there’s a good chance you won’t even be around?”
“Quinn needs to meet some of my family.”
“Are your sisters going to be there?” The question dripped with exaggerated innocence. Drew wasn�
��t sure how many sisters Braxton had, but they’d always been a hot button issue he couldn’t help pushing as often as possible.
Braxton glowered at him. “Never mind. You can’t come.”
Grinning, Drew dodged across the hall at the last second, hearing the rapid pounding of feet Braxton was oblivious to.
The door to the training room flew open, catching Braxton in the side and nearly knocking him on his ass.
Quinn skidded to a halt and pivoted back around, unaware she’d almost crippled her boyfriend. A red splotch on her arm promised to darken to an ugly shade of purple before long. Determination straightened her spine before she sprinted back into the room, making Drew glad he wasn’t her sparring partner today.
“You heard her coming, didn’t you?” Braxton rubbed at his side.
“Nah.” Some days it was just too easy.
“When are you taking off?”
“Heading out now. I’ll let you know about the barbeque.” Assuming Rae wouldn’t have something to say about him leaving isolation.
Leaving the other agent behind, Drew headed for the elevator. He had one stop to make before his forced holiday could begin.
Now this beat the hell out of spending the weekend at home alone with Charlie.
Blair curled her toes in the warm sand and closed her eyes. The lulling roar of the surf rushing up the beach made her feel miles away from deadlines, hard-ass editors and dates that not only didn’t show, but didn’t bother to call and cancel either.
None of which she would think about right now. Not when she was enjoying stealing a few minutes for herself before she gave the real reason she was here her full attention. She loved her job, loved pursuing a story, closing in on the details that would expose the truth. She probably loved it a little too much, sometimes pushed a little too hard to get what she was after. Most of the time her perseverance paid off. Like today. But after exploring the grounds and making a few discreet inquiries to be certain Jonas Holson was, in fact, a registered guest and had a dinner reservation at the poolside grill later this evening, she felt restless, edgy.
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