by Amber Lynn
Sleep was not my friend during the night, as I continued to learn more about Nate's body than I was comfortable knowing. When I woke up, a dreary rain enclosed the city, which in general echoed my mood. It was a little chilly, so it wasn't the warm rain I enjoy being out in.
Since my life had decided to turn a little screwy, it made sense to me that the weather would do the same. Getting ready went a little slower than normal because my body took a while to crawl out from under my purple sheets.
I was just going to the gym, so I didn't worry about looking presentable. Dressing in a plain purple tee and some jeans, I grabbed my already packed gym bag and headed out the door. I didn't even bother brushing out my hair, just pulled it back in an elastic hair-tie.
After a short train ride, I arrived at the gym. In a city as large as New York City, I didn't know what I'd do without the various forms of public transportation. The only thing I thought was scarier than a large group of people, was those people in motor vehicles.
I didn't see Frannie or Nate as I walked in, so I got an energizing protein shake to help me get ready for class. I didn't see many people as I looked around. From where I chose to sit, I could watch the door, but not necessarily be seen by those coming in, so when Nate walked in and looked around not noticing me, I was amused.
He briefly talked to the first employee he found, and after a quick point of a finger by the other man, Nate headed towards the locker room to get changed. His attire before changing was more akin to what he wore at the hockey game than his work clothes. A pair of dark jeans was matched with a baby blue polo.
I was a little surprised he hadn't worn a jacket or hat because of the rain. I was used to the weather, and if I thought about it, I expected coming from Chicago he'd be too, but most guys I'd seen commuting that morning had some sort of protection against the rain.
While he changed into whatever he had in the black duffle bag over his shoulder, I waited for Frannie. I did my best not to think about the Nate from my dreams, and just how accurate those dreams were.
Five minutes later, she finally appeared with her bag in hand. Waving so she saw me, I met her halfway and we made our way into the female locker room to get changed. I only took a few seconds to switch clothes, but of course Frannie had to look perfect, and took about twenty minutes.
I didn't see any reason to make sure my hair looked perfect, and for her, it wasn't like Gary was around to impress. Nate was on one of the weight machines working his triceps when we finally made it back out into the gym. Seeing his bare arms and legs, I flashed back to the dream I was really hoping I could forget ever happened. Hoping didn't do me a lot of good when I seemed to constantly be thinking about it.
Frannie followed my gaze and laughed. "Come on, we need to get to class. You can ogle the goods later."
Giving myself a mental slap, I followed her to the Spinning room. We were both in really good shape, so class was always relatively easy for us, but by the end there was a lot of sweat pouring out of our bodies. We had vitamin water to help keep us hydrated, because without it I was pretty sure we'd be nothing more than puddles on the ground.
After the thirty-minute class, any thought of hitting one of the various machines for a little extra fun was the furthest thing from my mind. All I wanted was to get the extra layers of sweat off my body and find a nice cold shower to accomplish the task. I didn't turn the water to the coldest setting, but by the time I was washed off, I felt a lot better.
"Hey, Avery, I need to talk to you a sec." I wasn't expecting Nate right outside the locker room waiting for me, so I jumped when I heard his voice.
"What?" I chirped, trying to hide the fact that he'd snuck up on me, but as usual, I failed miserably.
"It's not something I want overheard. Is Frannie likely to come out soon?" he asked.
He was already back in his street clothes and the smell of shampoo or soap, maybe both, was strong. It wasn't the same woodsy smell I'd picked up from him before. I could still smell that scent on him, but the clean aroma was overpowering it.
"No, it'll take her another ten minutes just to dry her hair," I replied. Ten minutes was being generous, but I didn't want Nate to think I had all day to stand there talking to him.
"Good. Just got a call from your boss, it seems Carl has a name for me to work on. I was going to head to the office and wondered if you'd like to go with?"
"Sure, let me just go make up some excuse to Frannie and I'll be right back."
I was excited to see that part of the case come to a close, because it would be the end of having to work with Nate. Maybe then he'd leave and I could get my hormones under control. I was tired of the look I kept getting from Frannie. We couldn't really talk during our spinning class, but I'd caught her glancing my way more than once with a look I didn't like on her face.
Frannie quickly bought my excuse that Nate and I were going to grab brunch alone, so we could get to know each other better. I figured if that was where her mind was already going, it'd be easier to convince her that was what we were really doing.
We loaded into Nate's rental car. It was a nice nondescript, black Chevy Impala. His over six foot frame fit nicely within its confines without being cramped. Nothing was said as the car purred to life and he pulled out of the parking lot.
A few minutes went by before I tried to break the silence. "So, you must be happy about getting a name this quickly. It means you get to go home and carry on the investigation on your own turf."
"Well, catching this guy is important. No matter what turf I have to play from, I'll get the job done. I've had a good time while being in town, though, but I can't say I don't regret not having to work here anymore."
Ouch. That really stung. Oh well, guess I didn't make as big as an impression on him as he did on me. I'd imagine he was probably thankful he hadn't spent the night tossing and turning from erotic dreams about me.
The car ride continued in silence from that point as he made his way to the office. I didn't know where to take the conversation after his declaration, and he didn't seem to think anything else needed to be said.
Once we got to the office, we both exited the vehicle and he held the front door open for me when we got to it. Past security and into the Pit we went, keeping a good distance between us. It was odd enough we were showing up at the same time. There was no reason to give people something to talk about.
"Tell me what you got," Nate said as he entered the room, getting right down to business.
While he headed towards Carl, I made my way over to my terminal to check on the status of my own program. Seeing the complete status again on the screen, I did a mental happy dance. After a few button clicks I had the name of who was getting Schwartz's money. For a day that had started pretty crappy, things were looking up.
"James Zuba," I said at the same time Carl said the exact same name.
"What?" Nate, looking totally confused, asked.
"James Zuba. That's who's getting the money coming from a man we've been tracking for a few weeks now, Olaf Schwartz."
I was busy looking at my computer, following the path of the money. The program I'd written had an amusing visualization of a little cartoon dog hoping from one point to the next. The fun part of writing stuff for yourself was adding your own little personalization.
"That happens to also be the name of the person who's getting these emails," Carl added.
The happy little dog lost my attention as I was forced to realize my case was going to be a little more complicated if Nate was getting involved. I didn't want to think about all the jurisdiction crap I was sure Mr. Irving was going to have to deal with.
"Okay, tell me about this Olaf Schwartz and why you're tracking his money," Nate said as he scratched his head trying to make sense of things. I didn't physically mimic the move, but mentally I looked about the same.
I wasn't sure how detailed he wanted me to be. I had whole folders of information on Schwartz, and relaying everything they contained would take about
a year. Needless to say, I opted for the condensed version.
"Schwartz and his brother have an operation in Panama that deals with drug and human trafficking. As you can imagine, we've been monitoring their phones and emails, so we generally know what they're doing and when they're doing it.
"A month or so ago we noticed some large transfers from their accounts and we've been trying to find the final resting place of the money since then. My trace ended up in a bank account for a person named James Zuba."
Nate took a second to filter my words. I rattled things off pretty quickly, but there wasn't really a lot in my words to analyze. We tracked bad guy and his brother. We found who they're giving money to.
"A lot of questions immediately come to mind, like what Zuba's going to do or has done to get the money transferred to him? How much money are we talking about? I've got a general idea of some going rates for work."
"Do you now? What would one and a quarter million dollars buy you? I'm thinking you could get a unicorn or two for that kind of money, but I highly doubt that's what it's being used for."
That kind of money could probably get you a dozen or so people killed. I didn't know the going rates like Nate claimed to, but it'd have to at least buy a few deaths.
"That's a lot of money. I have to alter my question to be: are the guns for him or is he the in between for Schwartz and Agapov, because I have a feeling with that much money the guns are involved. If he was just the middleman, then the guns may not actually be arriving in the States. Not that we won't still try to intercept them, but it'd be a little relief," he prattled on about his ideas.
I got bored as he hypothesized and looked back at the happy puppy on my computer. My part of the case was over, even if I didn't originally know our two cases were the same. The computer work was done, so everything else was Nate's problem.
"Um, guys," Carl spoke up, drawing my attention his way. "According to this email from two days ago, this guy is coming to New York for some charity ball on Wednesday night. He confirms a tuxedo and limo rental with a person that seems to be his assistant."
I assumed I wouldn't be able to get rid of Nate quickly if that was the case. I really hoped Carl had read something wrong, or the Zuba guy came down with an unforeseen case of the flu and couldn't make it. For some reason I was pretty sure Nate wasn't just going to leave and start working out of the local office of the agency he worked for. That would be way too nice of him.
"I'm going to call my boss to check in and see what photos and information we can dig up on this guy. I also need to see about getting tickets to the event. Seeing his actions while he's unaware that I'm watching would help me make sense of which side of this he's on," Nate said quickly while taking out his phone and dialing.
I thought it was pretty obvious what side the guy was on. If he was dealing with Schwartz, there was no good side. I highly doubted he was some undercover agent making million dollar deals. The different agencies weren't always great about talking to each other, but I really hoped someone would've clued someone else in, since it seemed at least two agencies were working on the case.
Nate paced around the room as he talked to his boss. I watched, intrigued to see how the big boys did it. I couldn't say he looked any different than any other man I'd ever seen pacing around. He may have looked sexier doing it, but the general movements were all the same.
After a while he said, "If they want names for the tickets let's keep it simple. Either make it Mr. Jones and guest or Mr. and Mrs. Jones. If you want first names just make them up and make sure you get me identification to go along with the identities. Yeah, that should be it; I'll send photos to go along with the IDs. No, I already have someone to act as my date."
With that last bit, he looked me straight in the eye. Oh no. He had to be kidding me. I really hoped that look didn't mean what my gut told me it meant. I was going to have to come up with some new ways of disposing bodies.
CHAPTER 7
Shirt says "Dear math", should be "Dear anybody, solve your own problems"