"How am I supposed to take that the wrong way?" she asked and took a sip of her drink.
"You could have assumed I was hitting on you, said something along the lines of 'ew, no' and walked away," he replied smoothly as his own beer arrived. "You have to admit it is a fairly likely scenario."
"Sure, it’s not that unlikely," she replied with a shrug. "With that said, though, you shouldn't take it the wrong way when I say you’re a fun drinking buddy too. And I'd say that the way for you to take it the wrong way would be to say I was hitting on you and make some kind of lewd remark that would make me say 'ew, no' and walk away. Maybe after splashing this beer in your face."
"Fair enough." He chuckled. "Can I ask you something?"
"Only if I have the option to not answer," she countered smoothly.
"Why is it that you pay so much more attention to me than to the other members of this task force? It's not because you think I need the help. You've seen my credentials and if you didn't believe them, you've seen what I can do with your own two eyes. You have no reason to doubt me. So why hover?"
The agent shrugged and seemed to try to decide what to say. "I’m not really sure. You have to understand that this task force is kind of my baby. I wasn't the one who came up with it, but when the offer came my way, I took it because I believed I could pull this shit off. As yet, the people I've hired as freelancers have been the epitome of low risk and low reward, and while people have watched every move I've made, I've managed to keep them at bay. When you were brought in, I needed to pull too many strings and owe an astronomical number of favors to get you on my team. You were a considerable risk on my part so I'm only…making sure that my investment is sound."
"Okay, I can live with that," he said with a firm nod. "But let me explain again. You don't need to keep your eyes on me all the time. I know what I'm doing, so if you'd rather keep an eye on the other folks you're working with, that might be time better spent."
"I'm not wholly convinced." She shook her head. "But keep up the work you’ve been doing, and I will be."
"Fine. I’ll leave it at that then," he agreed, raised his glass, and clinked it with hers.
He noted that her gaze shifted to the door as he took a sip and something akin to panic crossed her face before she quickly regained control of herself. She looked at her drink, not to take a sip but to think about what to do next.
What could have her this unsettled?
Taylor turned when a small group arrived and three young women and a man stepped through the entrance of the bar. They didn't appear to be regulars, but the waitress was quick to greet them, all smiles, and told them to take a booth and that their orders would come along shortly.
Banks' gaze was focused on one woman who stood ahead of the others and scanned the room like she was looking for someone—his companion, he assumed.
The special agent was quick to gain her feet when the woman caught sight of her and damn near jogged over to the door and gestured for her to come closer. He turned and leaned in a little to hear what they were saying.
"What are you doing here, Jennie?" she asked, her voice heated, and she sounded a little annoyed.
"Hey, sis, it’s nice to see you again. It’s been a while," Jennie answered with a smile. "That's how you're supposed to greet a sister you haven't seen lately in case you need some pointers."
"Hey, sis, it’s nice to see you again. It's been a while," Banks repeated woodenly. "Now, what the hell are you doing here?"
"Well, I heard you were in town and more importantly, I heard he was in town, so I thought I might come over and see how you two are getting along. Oh, and I brought some friends, so don't feel like you need to hang out around us all the time."
"I…dammit." Banks growled in frustration. "I told you to stay away. Find someone you like and spend time with him or her. Preferably someone with a job who’s boring and makes a ton of money like maybe a banker or something. Stop chasing after tail that'll only get you in trouble."
"I appreciate you looking out for me," the other woman responded. "But you have to realize I'm my own person and you don't get to tell me what to do."
"I know." She raised a hand to her forehead. "I only wish you would take what I have to say seriously."
"I do. But I don't need to follow your every instruction. I'll hang out with my friends now, but it would be nice if you came over to share a drink with us. I think you know them."
"Yeah, I do. I don't think I remember their names, though."
"I'll text them to you." Jennie waved. "Later, sis."
Taylor was quick to realize that the conversation was wrapping up and turned in his seat before Banks returned and took her seat across the table.
"Who was that?" he asked. The conversation revealed that the woman in question was her sister, whom she had mentioned was a scientist who had spent some time in the Zoo. He was curious about whether the special agent would share that information with him.
"Oh, yeah, an acquaintance of mine," she said blandly. "Beeswax.
“First name Nunya."
"What is that—Italian?" he asked with a small grin and turned to face toward the seats he couldn’t see. "Otherwise, her parents must have hated her."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bobby sighed.
It was easy enough to open the shop without Taylor there and he honestly didn’t mind doing it. The alarm system had been transferred to him like it usually was when his boss made one of his out of town trips. He would receive the alerts when he arrived and nothing would happen until he was already inside and able to shut the system down for the day.
The basics of it were no problem at all. What was annoying, however, was that his phone buzzed with virtually step he took. It was as if Taylor had wanted to know every move that any intruder might make and had set the system so he would be alerted every inch along the way.
It was like a damned Police song—the rock group, not the law officers.
While it made sense in a situation where their security was breached, it was still beyond frustrating. He especially hated that he had to deal with it when he arrived at the shop for the start of what promised to be a long day's work.
Maybe that was why Taylor always had the grid shut down before he arrived. Right now, he knew he’d arrived to trigger everything so simply ignored the warnings.
He unlocked the door, pulled it up, and stepped inside. Vickie was already hard at work on the pieces he had assigned to her. These only needed the simple electronics repaired, something she already knew a thing or two about, but they still had to be fixed before they could put the third suit together and ship it out.
"Morning, Bobby," she said, entirely focused on her work. "I hope you don't mind but I was up early and decided to get some of this done before you got in."
"Why would I mind?" he asked and placed his customary delivery of coffee and donuts on the table to be consumed at their leisure.
"I don’t know…I assumed you and Sir Tay-Tay would prefer to keep an eye on my work to make sure I don't burn anything out." She delivered this in a slightly teasing tone but still didn’t look up from what she was busy with.
"Hell, I ain't no helicopter parent," he said with a deep chuckle and took a bite from one of the donuts. "With me, it’s sink or swim. If you get it wrong and burn something out, that piece will come out of your paycheck."
"Fair enough," she conceded. "But don't think I'll make a shit-load of mistakes simply to save you guys money."
"It’s not likely to happen," Bobby grumbled. "Taylor probably wouldn't charge you the five hundred bucks it would take to replace a data relay."
"That's sweet, I suppose. But I guess I could still afford it. He is letting me live here rent-free, after all."
"And how's that working out for you?" The man was genuinely curious.
"Like he said, it's better than living on the street, and the Wi-Fi is actually downright decent. Aside from that, though, it's definitely more of a temporary situati
on, and I'm already looking into getting a place of my own. I have the feeling he likes his privacy too, so he'll be happy to see me gone."
That was a fairly sound assumption.
Taylor did like his privacy, and while he was unlikely to voice any kind of complaint, Bungees knew the man well enough to realize that he would be anxious to have the place to himself once more. It was why he had elected to live in the strip mall instead of finding a place actually suited to…normal humans.
It wasn't like he couldn't afford a place of his own.
The sound of tires over concrete brought his eyes up from his coffee and toward the garage door he'd neglected to close. It wasn't like they expected any visitors, but Taylor had insisted that they keep the place locked down given the possible dangers they might face.
When the SUV pulled up in front of the garage door and two men exited, both toting firearms, he realized that his boss might not have been paranoid.
Or maybe he was, but that didn't mean that there weren't people out to get him. He turned toward his shotgun.
"Now, now—no need to get fussy," one of the men said and aimed his weapon at Bobby's head with calm precision. He seemed comfortable with the weapon but still far from a consummate professional, which made Bobby a little nervous. Top-notch pros were less likely to react in stupid ways. "We're not here for either of you, strictly speaking. Although, having said that, we won't think twice about giving your brains a new access to oxygen if you try anything funny. So, why don't you move away from those tables, nice and slow, and no one will get hurt, understood?"
The second man aimed his weapon at Vickie, whose hands were already up. They moved away from the furniture, which allowed the second man to approach them and run a quick frisk for weapons.
"Hey, hands off the goods," Vickie protested with no response from the gunman.
"They're unarmed," the man said finally and stepped away to join his friend. A bandage peeped out from inside his shirt.
"You're the dumbasses who tried to pick a gunfight," Bobby noted, more for Vickie's benefit than for that of the two men.
"No shit, Sherlock," the first man said. "Which means we're here for your boss, not you, so if you'll go ahead and stay fucking still, no one will be hurt. Well, except for him. Now move outside, keep your hands on your heads, and face the SUV while my partner here picks your boss up for a little one-on-one time. How does that sound to you?"
"Are you really asking or merely playing the nice guy to reduce the possibility of one of us resisting?" Bungees asked to draw the attention toward himself and away from Vickie.
"Well, I tried to be a nice guy so the reasons are moot." The captives moved to the SUV and faced it with their hands above their heads as the second one moved through the strip mall.
The building was large, but given that it was mostly abandoned, it didn't take long for him to return.
"He's not here," he said.
"And you looked everywhere?" his partner asked.
"No, I peeked into every room and asked him politely to step forward." His tone had a sharp and sarcastic edge.
"You—Jet Li-looking asshole," the first man called. "Where's your boss?"
"How the fuck should I know?" he asked and shrugged. It wasn't a lie, technically. Taylor had said he was on his way back, which meant he could be anywhere between Portland and Vegas by this point.
"Shit. Well, plan B it is, then. You two”—he waved his gun—“get in the car. We'll go for a little ride."
"Do you expect us to simply go along with this?" Bobby asked and gasped when something hard and metal struck him in the kidney. He doubled over and fumbled to rub the place on his back where he had been struck when he suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
"Your compliance really isn't a concern," the second man said. "Now get in the fucking car."
"Fuck you, asshole!" Vickie snapped, her cheeks pink with indignation.
"You don't want any of what I am right now," the assailant retorted and pressed the barrel of his pistol to her head. "Now, unless you want to explain to flight attendants why you walk with crutches for the rest of your life…” He shoved her head with the point of his gun. “Get in the fucking car—now!"
An early start had obviously been a good idea, of course, but as the miles dragged on, Taylor wondered if he didn't simply want to change his mind about this no-flying business, even though it would mean confronting his phobia on a regular basis. It was worth consideration, at least until Liz was fixed or until Bobby could install a compatible AI into the new truck.
Maybe they could take the one in Liz out, put it in the new one, and replace it when she was fixed.
Admittedly, they would then have to reprogram the device to a new vehicle twice, but it had to be better than having to actually drive everywhere Banks needed him to be. He really did miss the freedom and relaxation the AI brought to the process.
The music helped, but in the end, listening to the random shit people played on the radio lost appeal almost as quickly as listening to the pre-selected songs from his own playlist on repeat.
But, when the early start stretched toward a later finish, he knew he would reach the shop before nightfall. There was no way he would subject himself to a night in another crummy motel. While his own abode wasn't much better than the average motel, it was still his and the Wi-Fi was at least functional.
Provided that Vickie didn’t decide to download something and hog all the bandwidth.
The sun was only starting to set when he managed to reach Vegas in record time. Or better time than his trip up to Portland anyway, and the traffic into the city was much lighter than he’d experienced when heading out. It wasn't long before he turned into the strip mall. Usually, this would have transferred the security programs from Bobby's phone to his, and as he could see none of it, he assumed his friend was working late.
Or maybe Vickie needed access to the building's security.
It wasn't something he would have done, but she was the one who was living in the building and if she wanted to have people in while was away, that was her call.
His eyes narrowed as he turned into the back and saw the garage door still open and most of the lights on with no one in the shop. It wasn't unrealistic for them to perhaps leave things as they were for a quick trip to the bathroom, but he would still give them a piece of his mind for it.
Anyone could have waltzed in and taken hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise that simply sat out in the open.
Taylor slid out of the vehicle, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and pressed the quick-dial for Vickie's phone. She would definitely hear his complaint about this. Bobby as well.
He looked around, a little startled when the girl's ringtone played softly in the background. She wasn't the kind to leave her phone anywhere, paranoid type that she was, and yet there it was on the floor under one of their worktables.
"Oh…that is not good," he muttered and ducked under the table to retrieve the device. It turned on automatically and immediately opened to a web link that evidently led to a location on a map.
"Huh. I would have thought she would at least password-protect this," he said softly as he opened the link and followed it to the map, on which a bright red dot pinged just outside of Vegas.
The caption on the bright red dot read, I'm here, moron.
"Yeah. This is really not good," Taylor grumbled and turned his attention to the room. There was no sign of where Bobby might be, so his second step was to call the man to make sure he was safe.
"Of course—straight to voice mail. I assume they destroyed your phone." He shook his head as he finally accepted the suspicion of foul play as fact. The message left by Vickie told him where she was, but he didn't know how she managed to transmit her position if she didn't have her phone.
Still, she only called him a moron when she was serious, and this seemed to be about as serious as she could ever get. Somehow, she’d found a way to make sure he knew where she was.
He wouldn’t be able to do this alone, he realized. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed help. Worse, he needed the help of someone who was the absolutely last person he wanted to fill in on this particular situation.
"Special Agent?" he said when the line was picked up. "I'm afraid I'll need your help."
"Do you miss me already, Taylor?" Banks asked and laughed.
He would have appreciated the irony of the situation any other time, but he shook his head. "I really didn't want to make this call, but I assumed you'd want to know that it looks like Bobby and Vickie are missing. And unless they eloped for some reason—I wouldn't judge, Bobby is an absolute catch—they've gone missing. Vickie left her phone in the shop with a link that opened to display her location."
A moment of silence passed and he gave her time to think things through. "I'll catch a plane and will be there in a couple of hours."
"There's no need to involve the FBI, except maybe Desk," he said. "I merely need to make sure they're in trouble before I head in as the cavalry."
"I'm coming to Vegas," she insisted.
"That's really not—"
"Vickie is my cousin, Taylor," she said firmly.
"Oh." He grunted and ended his protest. "Well then, welcome to the team, Special Agent Banks."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The woman hadn't been kidding when she’d said she would be there in a couple of hours. Taylor had to assume she had wangled a flight with some of her FBI connections since he thought it took far longer than that to get through security at the airport.
But no, only two and a half hours passed before Banks arrived. She pulled up in one of her SUVs, spilled out of the vehicle, and looked like she was about to kick up a storm.
"First of all, I have no idea how this happened," he said in anticipation of her line of questioning. "I was in Portland with you, and Bobby was supposed to keep an eye on her. I'm still trying to work out what happened."
Silent Death (Cryptid Assassin Book 2) Page 20