"Don't call me honey," I grated. "Where is it?"
He laughed. "If I knew that, I'd get it myself. I imagine it's either in his office or stashed somewhere in his home."
My eyes grew round at the implication of his words. His home? "You can't expect me to go to his home. What am I supposed to do, break in?"
"I don't care how you gain access. You're a beautiful, intelligent woman, you figure it out. I'd check his office first."
I hated his smug tone. "He keeps that locked up tight," I said, thinking about the impossibility of it all. "Why me? Why not get one of his employees to do this?"
"They're too fucking loyal to him. And besides, he wants you."
I scoffed. "Believe me; Beckett James does not want me,” I insisted. How in the world had he come to that conclusion? "I told you that he fired me. He hates me."
An amused laugh escaped him. "Then you'd better make him want you, because your friend's life depends on it. You get inside his office and if it's not there, his home, and you find that fucking SD card."
I began to shake at the menace in his voice. I was still trying to come to terms that this was the same man that I'd come to know over the past few weeks. "What if I get caught?"
He shrugged uncaringly. "You better have a good story if that happens. Or use what God gave you and take his mind off the fact that he caught you snooping around." His eyes moved over me with something close to an insult as he'd said it. His meaning was clear. "I'll give you one week."
One week wasn't very long. I'd have to move fast, and I'd have to come up with a plan. I glared at him. "Did you intend to use me for this the whole time? Pretend to be my friend to get my guard down?"
"How could I? I met you for the first time at the bar. No, I had plans for you for myself." He reached out to touch my hair, but I leaned away. "I got the idea for this when I saw the way you two clashed. Maybe when this is over, I'll take you for myself."
Like hell, I wanted to say, but held my tongue. How could I have been so fooled by him? "I want to talk to Holly," I demanded. "And I want to talk to her every day to know that she's okay."
"Sure. No problem." He reached for his phone, dialed a number, and waited. "She wants to talk to her friend." He handed me the phone.
"Holly?"
"Bailey? Wh-What's goin' on? Why are . . . are they doing this?"
I could hear the fear in her voice, and something else. She was slurring her words, and it sounded as if she were drunk. "It will be alright, honey."
"But—"
Someone at Holly's end must have grabbed the phone away from her because her words were abruptly cut short. "Holly!" I screamed, tears coming to my eyes again. I practically threw Martin's phone back at him. "If you hurt her…" I sobbed, unable to continue.
"You know what you have to do." Martin got up and walked to the door. "Oh, and don't go to the police, or mention my involvement in this to Moody. If you get caught, you're on your own."
Nice.
"And what about Holly?"
He didn't say anything, but the resigned look in his eyes revealed that things wouldn't end well for her.
I waited until I heard the click of the door before I buried my face in my hands and broke down completely. One week. One lousy week to find some SD card that could be anywhere. And what if there was more than one? How was I supposed to know which one to take? All I knew was that I had to find it, or Holly…I couldn't even finish the thought. Would Martin really kill her? I had to believe that he'd meant what he’d said. If she died, it would be because of me, and I couldn't let that happen.
After I pulled myself together, I went to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of wine and a glass. I had to come up with some kind of plan. I didn't even have Moody's address. If I didn't find the SD card in his office, I would need that. But first I had to figure a way into his office. I thought of Tommy. I knew that he had a key, but getting it would be another matter. He kept his keys in his pants pocket.
Did they sell lock picking kits in Target?
God, what a mess!
I drank wine until it knocked me out.
Chapter 6
Bailey
The next day I found myself at the Naked Lady around opening time. I pulled into the lot, parked, and then just sat there. It didn't appear to be busy yet. I'd given a lot of thought to what I was going to do once I got inside, and the only thing that made sense was to say that I was there to try and change Moody's mind about hiring me back. I would have to find out if he was there, and if he wasn't, say that I was going to the bathroom. I came armed with a nail file, hoping to break into his office with it.
If I didn't find the SD card there, then I'd worry about going to his house to continue the search. I would at least make an attempt to find it, although I didn't think I had a prayer’s chance. Those cards were small and could be hidden anywhere. For all I knew, Moody kept the damn thing on him. What was on the card that drove Martin to such extreme measures to get it back? If it belonged to him, how had Moody gotten his hands on it? As far as I knew, the two men didn't know each other outside of the bar, where Martin was a frequent customer. Of course, I'd only worked at the Naked Lady for two weeks. There was no telling how long Martin had been going there.
Keeping my fingers crossed that Moody wasn't there; I took a deep breath and got out of my car. Getting caught wasn't an option. The man was a fucking biker, and I'd learned a lot about them in the weeks that I'd worked at the bar. You didn't cross them that was for sure. They seemed to have a violent aura about them, giving me the impression that it wouldn't take much to set them off.
Moody was a scary dude on a good day.
When I opened the door I breathed a sigh of relief that Tommy was at the bar alone. I kept my fingers crossed that they hadn't hired anyone new yet, giving me less of a chance of getting caught. The stock room was located right across from the office, but if Tommy was alone he wouldn't be making any runs to it now that the bar was opened.
As he saw me approaching the bar he gave me a huge smile. "Hey, honey!" He walked close to the bar and leaned over it, a cleaning rag in his hand. "What brings you here?"
I forced myself to act normal. "I need my job back, Tommy!" I rushed out in a desperate tone, trying to cover it up with a laugh. Yeah, that came out totally normal.
He shook his head, his expression growing serious. "I'm sorry, Bailey. If it were up to me, I'd have never let you go. Have you been looking?"
I nodded. "Yeah, no luck, bad timing, that kind of stuff. Unless I want to take my clothes off, that is, and I can't afford to go too far because of my car." So far, everything that I’d said was the truth. He nodded in understanding. "Have you replaced me yet?"
"No, haven't really been looking. Kind of hoping Moody would change his mind about you. We work well together."
"Who's Moody?" I pretended that I didn't already know.
"Beckett James." I gave him a confused frown, and Tommy laughed. "That's the name he goes by, no one calls him Beckett."
"Oh, Moody suits him," I said with a twist on my lips. "Is he, um, here?"
"I keep forgetting that his real name is on the job application," he smiled. "No, he's not here, he's out of town. He actually doesn’t come here that often."
Out of town. That was good news in case I didn’t find the SD card in his office and had to go to his house. "Oh," I said with resignation. "I thought I'd have a better chance of getting my job back now that he's had time to think about it." The lies were coming easier.
Tommy laughed out loud at that. "Honey, you don't know Moody. I've been trying to get you back myself, and he's threatened to can my ass if I bring it up again. I've been here ten years, but I know he means what he says."
"What a jerk," I murmured. A hot jerk, though. "Can I have his number?"
Tommy didn't even consider it. "Nope." The smile on his face didn't waver. "I'm not suicidal."
I laughed with him, I couldn't help it. He was a likable guy, and I felt ba
d for using him the way that I was. I sat down on one of the stools to kill some time. Tommy got busy with a customer. The bar was open twelve hours a day. I guessed that Marnie was probably filling in again as a bartender as she had been at the time that Tommy had hired me. It was sweet of him to put off hiring someone else while he tried to get my job back, which made what I was doing even worse.
I chewed on the inside of my lip for a minute. Tommy happened to glance my way as I slid off the stool. "Going to the ladies room," I explained. I was shaking inside at what I was about to do. If I didn't find what I was looking for then I could at least snoop around until I found Moody’s address. I walked into the ladies room, took care of business, made sure that I was presentable, and opened the door to leave. Glancing around and seeing no one else in sight, I continued towards the office a little further down the hallway, slipping the nail file out of my pants pocket.
Holy crap! The door was open! I slipped inside the room and tried to close the door behind me, but something was wrong with the latch so I was forced to leave it ajar. I went to the desk and began to look around. I checked the computer, which was the obvious place to look, but there was no SD card. I moved things on the top of the desk, hoping that maybe it was just lying around, and then moved on to checking the drawers, which were a mess. It almost looked as if someone had already gone through them. I moved on to the file cabinet.
After spending as much time as I dared without finding it, I looked for Moody's home address. I didn't know why that name came so easily to me. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it fit him so perfectly. As I rummaged through his things, I kept my eye on the door, praying that I didn't get caught. I was certain that what I was doing was illegal. I'd never snooped like this before, and I felt like the worst kind of person.
It didn't take me long to locate an envelope with an address on it that wasn't the bar's. It was addressed to Beckett James, so it had to be his home, I hoped. I pulled out my phone and quickly typed it into my GPS and then got the hell out of there. Tommy was busy, so I tossed him a wave and quickly slipped out the door. Moody was out of town, so I knew that now was the perfect time to go to his house. In a way it made sense that he'd probably keep the SD card at his house, since he didn't come to the bar that often. I should have thought of that before.
Thank goodness for GPS. Even though I trusted it, the further I got away from Boulder, the more I began to worry. Little by little I was leaving civilization behind. Businesses and homes began to disappear, while sand, cactus, and other desert plants began to take their place. Soon I found myself driving through the desert on a lone stretch of road that had little traffic. Mountains loomed in the distance. It was beautiful, the kind of beauty you had to respect because once you became immersed in it, it could turn deadly at any time. I'd heard that the temperatures could be extreme from the heat of day to the cold at night.
I wondered what would make someone want to live so far away from everything. No wonder Moody hardly went to his bar. I finally came to a turn that seemed to lead further into the desert. When I came to a "private property" sign I realized that I was driving down a long driveway of sorts. And then I saw it--a huge adobe structure that instantly called to mind the forts that I'd seen in some of the old westerns on TV. If it wasn't old, it had been made to look old. The outside of the house appeared to be a rough, crude-like texture; the clay-like look was a dry, orangey brown. There was a step-up, porch-like section at the front where the door was located. The small, square windows were set in deep, as was the front door. What looked to be the main part of the house was as tall as a two-story house, with two one-story wings connected at both ends of it.
I pulled up to the front and turned my engine off. There were no other vehicles around, but I supposed that they could have been around the back. I got out. As I walked up to the front door I noticed the dangerous-looking cactus that was planted against his house with their long, spiky needles. The flowers were beautiful, though. I knocked and waited. I wasn't about to take Tommy's word that Moody was out of town, and I already had a story for him if he should happen to be home.
I knocked again.
Nothing.
I knocked, and waited some more.
Still nothing.
The place was so big that it was possible that he could be inside but not hear me knocking. I walked around and knocked on every entrance door that I found. Then I began calling out. I hadn't seen any vehicles around back, but there was a separate building that looked as if it could be a garage. On my second trip around the house, I began trying the old, iron door pulls but the doors were apparently locked from inside because none of them had visible key holes. I'd already decided that I'd have to go in through a window. I found myself at the back door again. I tried the door pull, surprised when the door creaked open.
Oh, God, this was it. I hesitated, trying to work up the nerve to go inside. This would be the second time today that I would be invading Moody's privacy, but for a very good reason. I had to keep that in mind. I pushed the door another inch. "Moody?" I called out nervously. The next thing I did was push the door in far enough to slide inside.
"Moody!" This time I yelled his name out. From what I could see, the natural, raw beauty of the interior of his home was unique and versatile. It was clean and simple, with splashes of color to break up the adobe walls. Bright throw rugs decorated the stone-like floors. A huge adobe fireplace dominated the corner of the main room, and the ceiling was broken up with large, dark beams. "Moody!" I called out again, realizing that I'd gotten distracted.
I stepped further into the room, realizing that this must be the main part of the house. "Hello?" I stood there for a minute but didn't hear anything. It was time to accept that the jerk wasn't home and start looking for the SD card. I backed up a couple of steps, my mind going to the wood cabinet that I'd passed when I’d entered the house. That would be as good a place as any to start my search. I turned around.
"Oh!" I halted abruptly, my eyes rounding with fear at the unexpected appearance of Moody. "You scared me!" Where had he come from? God, I hadn't called him a jerk out loud, had I? That was the least of my problems now.
"You make it a habit of just walking into someone else's house?" he growled with an unfriendly look on his rugged features.
My heart was fluttering wildly. "I was looking for you." I gave him a smile, which he didn't return. He looked as if he'd been working on something. Gone was his cut. He was in a pair of old jeans that hugged his thick thighs and revealed the outline of an impressive cock, even when soft. His white t-shirt fit tight against his massive frame.
"That didn't answer my question," he said coldly. "Come to think of it, how'd you get my fucking address?"
It wasn't hard to gauge his mood; the man had a face carved like granite. I could probably take a chisel to it and it wouldn't crack. His coal-black eyes, and the way they seemed to take all of me in at once, reminded me of a predator. And I was the prey, a naked prey, because I felt as if he could see right through my clothes.
I forced a smile that I wasn't feeling and decided to try and win him over with sugar. "You have a beautiful place here." He growled low and took a step closer. I took one back. "Ah, have you owned it long?" My leg hit the corner of a table, and I scooted around it to continue backing up. Moody was livid and looking at me with suspicion. My smile began to falter. "Um, I can see that you're not exactly happy to see me."
"Understatement," he snarled.
"But, I, ah wanted to, um, see if you might have ah, changed your mind about me?" God, I was stammering like an idiot, I was so nervous and scared. It was hard to remain cool and sound half-way intelligent when you had a huge, angry man slowly stalking you. He'd walked me into the middle of the large room that I'd been admiring, and I was running out of room. Somehow, I kept the smile on my face. "Have you?" I swallowed.
"How did you get my fucking address, Bailey?” he grated through his teeth. "Did Tommy give—"
Oh, God, I
didn't want Tommy to get into trouble for something that he didn't do. "No! I swear!" My back hit a wall, and I had nowhere else to go. Thankfully Moody stopped, too. He crossed his massive arms, and I had the feeling that he'd done that to keep from grabbing me and shaking the information that he wanted out of me.
"Talk."
I felt tiny compared to him, especially when he was this close to me and I had to tilt my head in order to meet his eyes. He made me nervous because my damned traitorous body was reacting to his closeness. It wasn't fair! I didn't really like him, and he clearly didn't like me. And yet I felt my nipples betray me by beading up against my thin blouse. I pretended not to notice that they were tingling now, mostly because Moody's dark eyes had dropped there. It was harder to ignore the wetness that I felt soaking my panties.
I quickly reminded myself why I was there. Now, what was my story again? Think Bailey, think!
"Well?" The gruffness of his tone revealed that he was getting impatient.
"Um, ah, what was the question again?"
A muscle leapt in his clenched jaw. "My. Address?" he muttered through his teeth.
"Oh, yeah, that." I smiled big, knowing that would make my dimples appear more noticeable. Who couldn't resist a red-haired Irish lass with big dimples? I knew that I could be cute when I wanted to. I'd played the same tricks to get out of trouble with my father when I'd been growing up.
Moody didn't appear to be as mesmerized by my dimples as I'd hoped. In fact, it appeared that he was growing angrier by the minute. He looked like he was about to explode. Well, he wasn't going to like what I was about to say, either, but I had to tell him something that would make sense. The hell of it was that it was the truth. "I snooped around in your office."
"The fuck?"
I froze at the look coming over him, and suddenly the room seemed to be shrinking. His hands curled into tight fists. Oh, God, was he going to hit me?
"I only looked on top of your desk. I didn't go through any drawers or anything," I lied.
Furious (Nomad Outlaws Trilogy Book 3) Page 4