by A. S. Green
“Dammit!” Kevin cries. “I just wanted them to listen to my demo. Is that really so hard?”
I’ve got his gun trained on him as Garcia and Dugan move in and secure his wrists behind his back. “You two got it from here?” I ask.
“Got him,” Garcia says.
“I’ll check on the woman,” Dugan says.
I give them a nod. Nothing left for me to do but call law enforcement and file my report. After that, the men can finish up.
“Will someone give Grohl my demo?” Kevin asks. “It’s in my pocket.”
Jesus, I need to get the fuck home.
…
The next morning, I’m dressed and headed down the hall, jonesing for a cup of coffee. As I get to the break room, I run smack into Natalie as she’s coming out.
“Crap!” She holds out her arm and stiffens her body to keep her cup from sloshing over her hand.
“Watch out!” I check her hand, but I don’t think she’s burned. She’s wearing all black—nothing with a JSI logo yet, but already fitting in.
“You watch out,” she says, all snippy. She goes to get a napkin off one of the tables and dries the edge of her cup.
“What’s your problem?” I ask, giving her just as much attitude as she’s giving me. Thank God we’re alone in here and everyone else is out in command. I prefer to keep the drama to a dull roar.
“My problem?” she asks. She’s wearing a wide-neck black top that’s hanging crooked. Her one bared shoulder reminds me of the dress she was wearing when she found the Rodin. The job she did that day makes me proud—as if I have some claim on her—and I vowed not to have those thoughts anymore.
“Everything okay last night?” I move around her and head for the coffee urn. I press the lever to fill my cup and, as I turn, find that she’s still standing beside the table. Beautiful as ever, all curves, long legs, and flaming red hair out to here. Beautiful if you ignore the fact she looks seriously pissed. Or…hurt? I don’t think it’s about the coffee.
Shit. How did I manage to step in trouble before nine o’clock? Her eyes don’t leave me as I pass her on the way to the door. “What’s with the pissed-off look?”
For a second, I think she’s going to say, “Never mind.” A part of me prays she says, “Never mind.”
“Okay, how’s this?” she says.
So, here we go.
She moves toward the counter, turns, and leans against it. “I get that we’re establishing some professional boundaries here. That’s cool. But leading me on? Making me think you were taking me to the concert last night? Not cool.”
“Lead you on?” Did I miss something? She knew I was working. Thank Christ she wasn’t there last night. I couldn’t handle it if my life ever put her in the crosshairs.
“Uh, yeah,” she says, which means we’re moving into sarcasm. “I don’t recall you picking me up for the concert.”
“You knew I was working, right?”
“You made it seem like you were going to take me to the show.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” she says, pushing off the counter and stepping closer.
I take a step back toward the hallway. “How on earth do you figure that?”
“You said we were going to talk later, and then when I brought up the concert, you confirmed my assumptions, saying ‘I’ll see you tonight.’”
“I confirmed that I would be there, and I said I’ll see you later, not that we were going to talk at the concert. I was working.”
“How could you do that to me?” The words come out like a whisper, but they’re no less pissed.
“Do what?” I’m getting that caged-in feeling, and it makes me glad I’m the one closest to the hallway.
“You don’t even care.”
Now there are tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Fuck. How did we get here? Tears aren’t even her thing. I can’t deal with tears.
“You’re not making sense. How was I even supposed to know you wanted to go? I assumed you’d want some time alone after four days on the road and all the changes that have been going on.”
“You know the Foo Fighters are my favorite band.”
I exhale, because apparently we’re still doing this. “How on earth was I supposed to know that?”
“I sleep in their T-shirts, for cripes’ sake.”
“Wearing a T-shirt doesn’t mean anything.” I try to suppress the image of her in those ridiculously short nightshirts. I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the graphics when those long, shapely legs were in view.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She steps in, only inches away now.
All the air rushes out of me. She’s not intentionally using her sexuality to win an argument. She’s not doing anything innately sexy at all, but having her this close to me… It’s not her fault how my body reacts to hers.
“Would you wear a Wilson Phillips T-shirt?” she continues, oblivious to what’s going on below my belt. I clench my teeth, watching her mouth.
“How about Ricky Martin?” she asks. “Huh? Of course you wouldn’t. Those shirts are awesome for somebody—probably some fifty-year-old woman from Duluth, and I’ll be honest, even I have a soft spot for ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’—but you wouldn’t wear them because they’re not you. You broadcast a band’s name across your body, Jax, that says something about you.”
The statement would make me laugh if she wasn’t being deadly serious. I keep my face blank.
“The Jax I used to know understood that. What the hell happened to you? You’ve changed so much.”
“Everybody changes.” My heart stutters in my chest. I’ve changed too much. Too much to have what we once shared.
“I haven’t changed.”
I can’t argue with her there. Besides her hair color reverting from blue to her natural red, she’s gone from being a beautiful girl who’d do anything for a friend to a beautiful woman who’d travel across the country to help out someone she used to know.
I knew we’d get to this point sooner or later. I’d been hoping for later, of course, but it took me exactly twenty-four hours to prove to her that I’m not the same man she used to know, that I don’t have a goddamn fraction of the empathy necessary to give her what she needs. She’ll be leaving soon.
She huffs and pushes around me so she can exit the doorway. She stops in the hallway with her back to me. “Why have you never had a girlfriend, Jax?”
I let out a long sigh. “Do you really want to go there?”
“Yeah, I really want to go there.” She turns around, and I inhale sharply.
“Relationships are too…” I shrink inside myself. I’d rather walk across a minefield than have this conversation, because as insignificant as any other woman has been compared to what I’ve had with Natalie, they were all still too much. Too close. Too…terrifying. Everything Natalie is making me feel tenfold.
I refuse to be a coward in my own office, and the only way I know how to do that is to keep this from going any further than it already has.
I think that ship has sailed, Charlie’s voice says in my head. You’re invested, and you are acting like a real ass, Sparke.
Natalie takes a few steps toward me. My body stiffens.
“I understand this dance you want to do, Jax. I work for you. You’re my boss. But for six years I’ve regretted saying goodbye, not saying all the things I meant to say. I’ll be damned if I have another night like last night. Communicate with me. Be straight, and I’ll be straight with you.”
I bow my head and stare at the floor. I don’t know how last night could have gone any different. I think I communicated with her just fine. “Fair enough. Here’s me talking straight. Go see Morales. Get your assignment for the day.”
Her nostrils flare. “And that’s all you have to say?”
I don’t respond immediately, because my head is still as fucked-up as it was in New Orleans. She continues to challenge me, silently asking why I agreed to bring her here and
daring me to answer with…what? That I didn’t agree just so she could get off that claustrophobic island but rather because I wanted more time with her? I can’t admit to that.
When I still don’t answer, she rises up on her toes. My body heats as she closes the gap. She holds her coffee cup off to the side while she leans in toward my ear, whispering, “Don’t burst a blood vessel, Jax. You’ll come up with something.”
Her breath is warm against my neck. My fingers tingle with the urge to grab her by the hip and pull her close. But I don’t. I want to. God, I want to. But I can’t. I put one hand on her shoulder to keep her at bay.
She steps backward, hesitates, then turns away. After that, we both walk into command.
But not together.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Natalie
The Next Day
The door from reception slams open and hits the wall. I jump in my seat, and a raging male voice booms out, “Police brutality!”
I turn, shocked to find Jax pushing some white guy with obnoxious taste in 1990s mall clothes from behind. None of the other people working in command even look up from their screens.
“I’m not police,” Jax says as he muscles him through the command center.
“Then I’m going to report you for assault!” The guy struggles in Jax’s firm hold, fighting him with every step.
Jax keeps the guy’s arms pinned back in some kind of wrestling hold as he keeps pushing him forward. “Go right ahead.”
“That was two grand worth of product you kicked into the sewer, fucker.” The guy tries to swing an elbow, but he doesn’t have the range, and Jax doesn’t let go.
“Yeah? You gonna report that to the authorities, too?” They’ve rounded the corner and are headed down the hallway, but their voices are just as loud.
“You keep interfering with my business, Sparke, and you’ll get it up the ass. I promise you that.”
“Stop it, Bishop, you’re making me blush.”
After that, a door—presumably to the interview room—slams, and it’s hard to hear them anymore.
“Bentley Bishop,” Mo says, answering my unspoken question. He picks up his phone and hits someone on speed dial. “Local dealer.”
“Sells opioids, meth, you name it, at the high schools in the afternoons,” says Nisi. “Pisses Mr. Sparke off. He’s got zero tolerance for drugs.” She scootches in closer so only I can hear. “Because of his mother. She’s a real mess.”
I give her a short nod of acknowledgment. He doesn’t even call her Mom. He calls her Debra.
“Mr. Sparke picks him up if he catches him in the act. Holds him until NYPD has the time to come get him,” she adds.
From down the hall, there’s the sound of a body hitting a wall, and I surge to my feet. “Jax!”
“He’s fine,” Nisi says, but—excuse me—how the hell would she know?
Jax yells in a way that tells me this Bishop person has gotten the upper hand, and then there’s another crashing sound, so violent it makes the wall vibrate.
My heart lodges in my throat, and a second later I’m rounding the corner and racing down the hall. I get to the interview room just as Jax steps out.
Oh, God. His lip is bleeding.
I rise up on my toes, and my hands go to the sides of his neck. “You’re hurt.”
“Natalie,” he says softly. It almost sounds like a sigh.
“Are you okay?” My eyes glance over his face, looking for other signs of injury.
He gives me a half smile. Then he wraps his fingers around my wrists and, after a second of hesitation, slowly lowers my hands. “I’m fine.”
I breathe out and drop my heels. The deep timbre of his voice calms my heart. He still hasn’t let go of my wrists. “You’re sure? I thought…”
“You thinking that loser could take me…” He combs his hand into the side of my hair. “That’s what wounds me.”
“But I…I heard you yell.”
Jax exhales a burst of air through his nose like he finds me funny. Then he lets go and walks toward the break room. He gets a bottle of water out of the fridge, then raises his eyebrows at me to see if I want one. I shake my head.
He enters the command center while I continue to follow and check him over for damage.
He stops inside the entrance and calls out to Mo. “You called NYPD?”
“Done.”
Jax nods, then turns around, nearly running into me. His hand grabs mine as he looks at me with more sincerity than I’ve seen in a long time. “Thank you,” he says.
“Any time,” I say, not exactly sure what he’s thanking me for. For worrying about him? For caring? “Always.”
He squeezes my hand one more time, then strides down the hall toward his apartment.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Natalie
The Next Day
“I’m taking a break, Spencer.” I’ve been watching a street scene in front of a house for hours. One of Jax’s clients suspects her husband is making occasional overnight visits to the address. So far I’ve seen a newspaper delivery person and a couple of very amorous alley cats.
Spencer gives me a thumbs-up, and I head for the break room. As I approach, I hear men’s voices coming from inside. One of them is Jax. There’s also Denny, and another one I’m not sure of.
“…new client,” Jax says. “He’s an insurance agent. Thinks his office manager is skimming.”
“Why doesn’t he just fire her?” Denny asks, and I presume he’s trying to fill his coffee cup because the urn makes a sputtering sound to indicate it’s now empty.
“The office manager is his niece,” Jax says.
“Fuck,” says the unrecognizable voice. “So what does he want us to do?”
By this time I’ve arrived at the break room. The third voice is Rob Schmidt (or Schmitty), an ex-cop who works in the field with Jax. I pretend not to be listening as I go to the fridge and bend down to study the contents like I don’t already know I’ll be walking out of here with a Coke.
I feel Jax glance over at me, but he doesn’t move their conversation somewhere more private. “The client wants more proof before he confronts her. He wants us to set up cameras immediately—today, if we can swing it. I also suggested a keylogger.”
“Right,” Denny says. “I’ll send Garcia in tonight.”
“No,” Jax says. “He says his niece has gone back to the office after hours. First time she claimed she’d forgotten her phone. She doesn’t know that he knows about the second time she went back late. Very late. He’s concerned she could walk in on us if we’re wiring the place overnight.”
“So, then what?” Schmitty asks.
I take my Coke to the counter without looking at any of them, then open it over the sink.
“So we go in during the day. While she’s there. Right under her nose.”
“And you don’t think she’d clock one of us as being suspicious?”
“I could do it,” I say.
When I turn around, they’re all three staring at me.
“What?” I ask, knowing precisely what. My eyes are on Jax. “You saw what I could do in New Orleans.” To the others I say, “I could go in. Chat her up. Tell her I’ve just moved to New York and need to get renter’s insurance. Which is all true and completely believable with my Minnesota driver’s license. While she’s getting forms I could…”
Jax raises his eyebrows at me. Oh, shit. He’s right. I do have a bad habit of jumping into things without knowing all the facts.
“What exactly would you need me to do?” I ask, waiting for instructions, even though I haven’t actually gotten the assignment. Yet.
Jax studies me for a second, then seems to come to a decision. He jerks his head toward Schmitty and says, “Go get her a kit.”
“Seriously?” Schmitty asks. “She doesn’t have any training.”
“She has a knack. I’ve seen it. And she’s right. She won’t raise suspicion, and her backstory is legit. Nisi won’t h
ave to come up with any fake IDs. Natalie’s the best option on such short notice.”
Denny rocks back on his heels and seems to be fighting a smile. Schmitty shrugs, then leaves for only a few seconds, returning with a small black case I assume he got from the equipment room. He unzips it, and inside is a small cylindrical device with adapters on both ends, plus four rectangular devices: two black, one white, one silver, each about the size of a child’s thumb. One of the black ones is mounted on a three-inch pick.
Jax explains that the four rectangles are cameras. “This one,” he says, holding up the one on the pick, “can be put in a potted plant. Stick it down into the dirt. Lots of people will have plants on their desks, but if not, any plant that’s got a good angle on her.”
“What if there’s no plant at all?” I ask.
“These,” Jax says, pointing to the other three devices, “have adhesive backings. Pick whatever finish matches best. Stick them inside the shade of her desk lamp, or on the edge of a picture frame. Nothing obvious, but anywhere where the camera will capture her activity. The lenses are all wide angle so you don’t have to be exact.
“You’re only going to have a few seconds, so we’ll wait a bit for you to talk to her and scope out your best options. There will be a distraction in the back room. When she gets up to check on things, that’s when you do it.”
“Got it.”
“This,” Jax says, holding up the cylindrical device, “is a keylogger. If you have time, I want you to plug this into the back of her hard drive, through her cable connector. Murray, you practice with her on one of our computers first so she knows what to look for.”
“Absolutely,” Denny says.
“Time her, too,” Jax says. He’s starting to sound a little nervous.
“Got it.”
“What does a keylogger do?” I ask.
This time Denny responds. “If you get it hooked in correctly, it will record her keystrokes without her knowing. We’ll be able to convert them remotely and get a screen shot of what she’s up to. For example, transferring funds out of the company coffer into her own account.”
