by Shandi Boyes
My quick agreement returns the smile I was mesmerized by only seconds ago. “Thanks, BJ.”
Melody stares directly at me for what feels like a lifetime before she disconnects our call. It takes me just as long to lower my phone from my face. Even with an immense amount of awkwardness fueling our exchange, it was so surreal, I’m beginning to wonder if I am napping on the couch with Phillipa.
The only reason I know I’m not is because Phillipa has her shoulder propped on the doorframe of my bedroom. Her brows are pulled together tightly, and her lips are pursed. “Do you often have wordless conversations in the middle of the night?”
I shake my head. “That was Melody.”
“I kind of gathered that.” Phillipa enters my room without waiting to be invited. “The sign language gave it away, and let’s not forget that.” She swallows harshly at the end of her sentence before dropping her eyes to the crotch of my pants—the exposed crotch of my pants since I knocked off the pillow somewhere between being astonished by Melody’s call and blinded by jealousy. “What did she want?”
After covering the tent in my pants with a pillow, I arch a brow. “Do you really want to have this conversation now and in here, of all places?”
I stare at Phillipa with massive eyes when she touches her toes, twists her back, then does leg stretches like she’s about to run a marathon. “I’m not as nimble as I was in my college days, but this old girl should still be up to the task.” When she spots my whitening gills, she laughs. “I’m joking, BJ. Even if it’s been a while, you don’t have the equipment I need for an all-night romp-a-thon.”
“Huh?”
Phillipa motions for me to scoot across the mattress. When I do as asked, she discloses, “I’m a lesbian.”
“You’re a lesbian?” I apologize to anyone within a five-mile radius of my apartment building. I can’t help but shout. I’ve never been in the dating circuit, but I could have sworn she was giving me flirty kiss-me vibes earlier today.
Fuck, I’m in even more desperate need to get laid than I realized.
After slipping between the sheets of my bed, Phillipa slants her head to the side so she can peer at me with batting lashes. “I’m not a lesbian. But I’m more than happy to pretend I am if it saves my ass from spending another minute on your couch. Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean it is habitable, BJ. I paid a fortune for a bonsai garden to fancy up my patio, and it died within two weeks.”
Even though I shouldn’t laugh, I can’t help it. I’m so tired, deliriousness is the next logical step to full-blown craziness.
Phillipa waits for my chuckles to settle before nudging her head to my phone. “Are you going to show me what Melody sent you, or should I wait for you to fall asleep then hack into your phone?” When I give her a look as if to say, I’d like to see you try, the smugness on her face triples. “Melody’s birthday, am I right?”
When she scoops up my phone, I snatch it out of her hand, grumbling about how I have a knack for picking up annoying strays. Once I have my message app open, I scroll down so Phillipa can’t see I was unaware of Melody’s private cell phone number until now, then pass her my phone.
“That’s Kwan Turgenev. Why do you have a photo of him?”
The collision of our eyes is almost brutal. I’m desperate to find out how she identified the perp so quickly, and she’s dying to know why I have a photograph of him.
Since Phillipa had a nap, her stability is more noticeable than mine. I dive over her legs without the teeniest bit of concern my male parts brush her shins on the way by. I need my laptop, and I left it on the dining table when I gathered the bedspread for Phillipa.
Phillipa’s craziness jumps up a notch when I yank out a chair from beneath my dining table and take a seat in front of my laptop. “Whatcha doing?”
“Running a background search on Kwan Turgenev.” I raise my eyes to hers. “Does his first name start with a K or Q?”
“K…” I stop typing Kwan’s name into the search bar of the Bureau’s mainframe when Phillipa adds, “But you won’t find anything on him. He’s a ghost. Has been for years.”
With my lips twisted, I finalize typing his name, certain I have access to channels Phillipa doesn’t know about.
Ten minutes later, I’m chewing on my tongue. There’s not a single shred of evidence that a Kwan Turgenev exists, much less had an invitation to the campaign fundraiser I saw flyers for in the backdrop of the photograph Melody sent me.
“I told you he’s a ghost.” Phillipa slumps in the chair across from me before balancing her feet on part of the seat not taken up by her backside, so she can cradle her knees with her arms. Melody used to sit in the nook at her window the same way anytime she was tired. “It’s been like that for years. Other than a handful of long-range surveillance photos a few years back, his file is empty. I’m shocked you have an image of him. I doubt you would if he noticed it was being taken.”
Ignoring her underhanded comment that Kwan is dangerous, I ask, “Do you still have access to his surveillance photos?” Although the late hour could be playing havoc with my mind, I’m reasonably sure I’ve seen Kwan before. I just can’t recall where.
Phillipa lowers her legs to the floor before she leans across the table to seize control of my laptop. “How long after a suspension does access to my Bureau email remain?”
I smirk a smug grin. “If you know the right people, your access will never expire.”
3
Brandon
In a painfully quick thirty seconds, the images Phillipa mentioned are being uploaded to my laptop. I say ‘painfully’ as I wouldn’t have minded flexing some hacking muscle tonight. If I have a reason to brag, my head might stop striving to work out what Melody has been up to in the eight hundred and thirty-six seconds since she ended our call. If the knot in my stomach is anything to go by, I won’t eat for a week.
When the first image pops up on the screen, my brow arches. I’ve seen Kwan before, I’m certain of it. “How long ago were these photos taken?”
Phillipa’s lips twist. “I’m not sure. Around seven or eight years ago.” She swings her big, tired eyes my way. “Have you seen him before?”
I lift my chin. “Do we have any intel on how long ago he got his neck tattoo?” I stop just before I disclose his tattoo is the most telling sign that we’ve crossed paths before. It’s a match to the family crest Crombie had tattooed on his neck, meaning Kwan has links with the debunked Bobrov crew. The only thing I can’t work out is why he didn’t have his tattoo in the images dating back to when the Bobrov crew was still current. It makes no sense. Unless…
Phillipa’s eyes snap to mine when I garble out, “The Bobrov crew is reforming.” She watches me cross the room with her mouth hanging open. “Kirill Bobrov arrived stateside a few weeks ago. Grayson is undercover in his crew.” I show her the photo Grayson forwarded to my private email a few weeks ago. It shows Katie Bryne in the flesh standing directly in front of Grayson. She aged similarly to the composite sketch the Bureau funded years ago, but she doesn’t look malnourished and scared. She’s smiling in the picture, albeit apprehensively. “This could cause significant national security. Hence the CIA’s interest.”
“Alleged interest,” Phillipa corrects while removing Katie’s photograph from my grasp. “Does Grayson have direct conformation Kirill is stateside?”
I shake my head before arguing why that means nothing. “Kirill doesn’t go anywhere without Katie. You thought I was obsessed with Melody enough to kill for her. There’s no guessing with Kirill. He has killed for Katie. Many times.”
Phillipa gives off a range of emotions during my comment. She nodded when I said she believed I was obsessed enough to kill for Melody, screwed up her face when I admitted Kirill has killed for Katie, then looked on the verge of vomiting when I added an unnumbered amount to my confirmation.
“Unless we have credible evidence Kirill is stateside, I can’t take this to my father.” She wobbles Katie’s pictur
e during the last half of her statement. “Get me proof, Brandon, and then I’ll push for the privileges we swear we don’t have.”
“I’ll get you proof, and I’ll get it through him.” When I nudge my head to my laptop to point out who I’m referencing, the peanut butter that raced up my food pipe when Melody’s fiancé asked her to come back to bed coats my tongue. I knew I’d seen Kwan before, but it took me a few seconds to put the pieces together since it occurred the day my life was upended. He’s as big and as thick as he was in Melody’s photo, but the ones from Phillipa’s secret files show how different someone can look with a head full of hair.
“He was on the scene of the Greggs’ accident.” Phillipa swallows as forcefully as me. “He broke protocol to tell me which hospital they went to.” The width of my eyes doubles when another notion crashes into me. “He was at Melody’s house looking for her when Dr. Giorgio disclosed she wasn’t at the hospital.”
As bile burns the back of my throat, I snatch my phone off the dining room table before scrolling through my recently called list. In my panic, it takes me a few seconds to recall why Melody’s number isn’t displayed. She had texted me before we FaceTimed.
Once I have the Messenger app open, I hit the number at the top of the screen before squashing my phone to my ear. Melody’s phone rings and rings and rings and rings, only connecting when I’ve hung up and redialed for the fourth time.
“Where did you take the photo you sent me?”
I take a step back when a gruff male voice asks, “Who is this?” My panic had me forgetting Melody can’t answer my call, so this must be Julian—her fiancé.
The idiocies keep coming when I reply, “It’s Brandon. Is Melody there? I need to speak to her.” Of course, she’s there. You were just talking to her, dipshit.
“She’s not available at the moment, Brandon.” I don’t miss the quickest hiss of disdain when Julian speaks my name. “Is it anything I can help you with?”
I’m about to demand him to put Melody on the phone, but the quickest flurry in the corner of my eye stops me. Phillipa is pushing across the four photos she took of Melody when scrutinizing her from afar. The ones with a man in the background that we’ve yet to identify.
I hear Julian gulp when I ask, “Do you have a security detail following Melody?”
“Melody’s security is of utmost importance to me—”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” His silence speaks volumes. “How many?”
Phillipa silently begs for me to play good cop when my snippy tone wakes her from the dead, however, Julian doesn’t seem to mind. What good, upstanding citizen would? I’m not attempting to mow his turf, I’m endeavoring to keep his fiancée safe. Only a narcissist would have an issue with that.
“At the moment, I have one man shadowing her, but her security detail consists of five men in total.”
I choke on my spit. “Five? That’s a bit obsessive, don’t you think?”
He scoffs like I’m being outrageous. I’m not. I am pleased he’s taking Melody’s safety seriously. I just wish the burden wasn’t on his shoulders. It was the job I was born to fill. “She had a bit of a scare a few years ago on the metro. I decided from then not to take any precautions.”
“What type of incident?” I force through the fear clutching my throat.
Bare feet padding against wooden floorboards sound down the line as Julian replies, “She was assaulted. It’s safe to say it rattled her.”
I grip my phone so hard, I almost crack the screen. “She was assaulted?”
Julian must hear something in my voice I didn’t mean to express. “Not like that. She wasn’t hurt like that.” I swear he whispers, ‘this time,’ but since my pulse is raging in my ears, I can’t testify to that. “She bumped into a woman who wouldn’t know class if it bit her in the ass. She spooked Melody into a nervous breakdown…”
He continues talking, but I don’t hear what he says next. I’m too busy making my own assumptions. They all involve a guy in a sparkly gold cape galloping in to save the day. All men with money have a hero complex. Even without hearing the rest of Julian’s story, I guarantee you they’ve been together since the day he rode in and saved Melody on his white horse. I’m not surprised, just disappointed. I thought Melody was too smart to fall in the category of a damsel in distress.
I tune back into Julian’s dribble with barely a second to spare. “If this has anything to do with Melody’s safety, I can assure you she’s in safe hands.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Your security is so lagging, they missed her exchange with a suspected Russian militant last week.”
Julian doesn’t take my snappy attitude in stride this time around. “Henry Gottle approached her, not the other way around, and we left shortly after. She was never in any danger.”
Now I’m the one left gasping. “Henry Gottle approached Melody?” When an agreeing hum whistles down the line, I squeal like my nuts have never dropped, “When?”
“At the campaign function your father invited us to.” Even a person with a hearing disability wouldn’t have missed the disdain in Julian’s tone when he mentioned my father.
I snap my fingers at Phillipa, demanding a pen and a piece of paper. She rustles up a notepad and a pen from her leather briefcase, acting as if her ears aren’t pricked, eavesdropping on every word Julian and I share.
Once I have the pen and pad in my hand, I ask, more coolly this time, “Did you purchase anything at the function? A cocktail? Campaign pin? Anything at all you couldn’t use cash for?”
I can’t see Julian, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel his shock at the swift change in our conversation. “I purchased a handful of cocktails. Why?”
“Can you recite me the receipt details?”
Julian scoffs. “It was a twenty thousand dollar a plate function. They don’t hand out receipts for fifteen-dollar cocktails.”
Someone without as many digits in their bank account as me would whistle at the impressive per-plate figure he quotes. However, I feel sick about it. The money doesn’t go toward good, scrupulous causes. It funds corruption, political mongering, and keeps men like my father out of jail.
“What about your bank records?” I suggest in a hurry. “Even minute payments have traceable transaction numbers associated with them.”
Phillipa’s face lights up when she clicks to the reason for my inquiry. I’ve suspected for years my father’s campaigns for office were being funded illegally, but with the Bureau not responsible for that side of justice, I’ve never had the chance to prove my theory. Although a transaction number won’t give me all the answers I’m seeking, it will show me where I should be directing my questions.
Julian is either scrubbing his chin or his tired eyes. I don’t know him well enough to know his nervous traits. “Can this wait until the morning? I left my laptop at my penthouse, so I don’t have access to my banking codes.”
Disappointment should be the first thing I feel, but it most certainly isn’t. “You don’t live with Melody?”
Julian’s sigh is more revealing than his next set of words. “No, I don’t.”
If he’s worried I’m tempted to mow his lawn when he isn’t home, he has no reason to fret. I know what it feels like to be cheated on, so I sure as hell won’t put someone through the same thing even if I think he’s a douche. Isabelle and Isaac weren’t together when we kissed, so it technically didn’t count, but I still felt like shit after it.
Julian fights for the top spot on the podium. “Melody and I are holding back on moving in together until after we wed. We think that will make it more special.”
Confirmation of their upcoming nuptials is like a knife to the heart. It deflates my ballooned chest in an instant and has me more than eager to end our conversation. “Tell Melody I identified the man in the photo she sent me, and that I’ll email her the details within the hour.”
Julian’s sigh this time around is ten times more devastating than his earlier one. �
��She called you for help?” When I hum out an agreement, he asks, “Why didn’t she ask me?”
Even though he can’t see me, I shrug. “That’s something you two need to work out.”
After thanking him for his assistance, I disconnect our call then toss my cell phone onto the dining room table. I’m fucking wrecked, but I don’t see me getting any sleep any time soon. The dots are starting to connect, so I can’t shut down my mind now.
After a quick scrub of my eyes, wordlessly warning them to get with the program, I lock them with Phillipa. “He said Henry Gottle approached Melody at the fundraising gala.”
Appreciation for her honesty buzzes through me when she replies, “I heard. I’m just unsure how that factors into the theories I’ve been mulling over the past few months. They were in a public place, and Henry isn’t known for making mistakes, but I guess even the sturdiest man’s knees would have buckled in that situation.”
“Theories?” I query, shocked.
This is the first time I’m hearing about any theories.
Breathing out, Phillipa slips into the chair next to me while pondering on what to tell me. I assume she goes for honesty when she mutters, “The wire transfer receipt in Melody’s file has you worried that she was sold, but what if she wasn’t sold… more stolen? And the wire transfer receipt in her file was payment for an attempted recovery?”
When she spots nothing but confusion on my face, she digs into her briefcase for the umpteenth time the past sixteen-plus hours. “Do you remember how Tobias’s fridge was covered with photos?” I jerk up my chin, my stomach too swishy to issue a worded reply. “I took a closer look when I was investigating Tobias’s case.” She slides the picture of Isabelle and Katarina I took a snapshot of with my cell phone across the table. “Do you know who they are?” I lift my chin again since words are still alluding me. “What about the child in the far back corner of this photo?”
My heart whacks out a funky tune when she hands me an almost identical picture. The child next to Katarina isn’t Isabelle. Only half of her face is exposed since she’s been removed part the way through the photograph being snapped, and she’s barely a toddler, but I’m confident it’s Melody. I’d recognize her face anywhere.
