Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  I hope the babysitter didn’t invite her boyfriend over.

  I’m way too old for this. What am I even doing here?

  If I work extra hours this weekend, then I can make up for taking tonight off. I have a memo due on Tuesday, but I only have a few pages left to write.

  I wish that you could still meet people the old-fashioned way. I’m so tired of the person who shows up being nothing like the person I was supposed to be meeting.

  “Earth to Wes,” Jordan said, poking his arm. “Hey. Stop listening so hard.”

  He jolted out of his mental reverie and looked back at Jordan, realizing that his seafood dippers had been placed between them. “Sorry … Was I spaced out? I was actively listening to thoughts for the first time. I know—you told me I’m not supposed to do that, but how else am I going to hear if someone is thinking about murder or worried about getting murdered?”

  Jordan picked up a dipper and dunked it into a white sauce. “It’s slightly more acceptable to listen to strangers’ thoughts. It is highly unacceptable to listen to the thoughts of someone you know well or someone you’re in a position of trust with.”

  “Like you.”

  “I guess I qualify, yes,” Jordan said, “because I’m working closely with you, and listening to me would be inappropriate. Anyway—what kind of things are you hearing?”

  “Boring things, honestly,” Wes said, picking up his own seafood dipper and testing it out. He couldn’t tell what sort of seafood was in the batter, but it tasted good. Though he preferred the red sauce to the white sauce. “People just thinking about their lives. Wishing they were somewhere else. Worrying about work. Typical stuff.”

  “Well, that’s what most people think about,” Jordan said, shrugging a shoulder. “Most people don’t walk around having scintillating thoughts. Have you thoroughly surveyed the room?”

  “I guess,” Wes said, glancing around. “I don’t see anyone familiar, and I don’t hear anything suspicious.”

  Jordan reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook. “Good. Then let’s get to work.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes. When the three days are up, I need to make sure that I do my job and cure you of your transposed thoughts. That means I need to know more about what exactly happened to start all of this.”

  Wes knew that Jordan thought this was an exercise in futility, but he refused to let that bother or deter him. She was playing along with him, so he would play along with her and give her the information she wanted. “It was a few months ago that I really realized what was happening,” said. “I’d had a few instances where I thought I was hearing strange things. Like voices that weren’t there. I didn’t realize that it was the thoughts of another person until I was at work one day, talking with my boss. I was in his office, and he was going through my schedule for the month with me. I was working on some pretty big projects at the time—projects where I was essentially supervising myself for months at a time. He had been talking to me, but then he turned back to his computer and he was looking something up. Out of nowhere, I heard his voice say, I’m glad I at least have one employee that I don’t have to worry about.”

  “And you realized that you were hearing his thoughts?” Jordan asked, her pen poised to write.

  “Not at first,” he said. “I know it sounds crazy. But I hadn’t been looking at him when I heard it, so I’d just assumed that he’d said it. So, I said something like … ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’ Whatever I said—I don’t remember. But I responded to him.”

  “And he didn’t know what you were talking about.”

  Wes nodded. “Yeah, he looked at me very strangely. He asked me what I’d said, and I told him I just appreciated his support. I still wasn’t sure what was happening, but he was acting so strange that I realized that he hadn’t said anything. I had heard him say something, but he hadn’t opened his mouth. I wondered if maybe I was imagining things, but then I connected the dots back through the times that I had heard whispers of other people’s voices, and I just ... realized. I realized I was hearing other people’s thoughts.”

  Jordan picked up her Guinness and took a long sip of it. “What was your reaction to that?”

  “I freaked out at first,” Wes said, thinking back to those few panicked days where he’d barely left his apartment except to work. “I thought there was something wrong with me. But I had to test my theory. So, I waited until the next time that I heard a voice that wasn’t my own. It was my coworker’s voice—his name is Garland. He was working, and he was thinking about some girl named Patricia. I asked him if he was seeing anyone new, and he said he’d been on a few dates with a girl …named Patricia.”

  “And that’s when you knew that you weren’t making things up,” Jordan said, writing it all down. “Okay, so that’s good to know, but now we need to back up. I need you to tell me if there was anything strange that happened to you in the weeks before you realized you were hearing other people’s thoughts. If you can’t come up with something, I have some common triggers to run by you, but I’d rather you come up with it on your own, rather than trying to figure out which trigger you remember.”

  Wes shook his head, putting down the seafood dipper he’d been eating. “No. We did your thing for a while. Now we’re going to do mine.”

  Jordan just looked at him, nonplussed. “Meaning you’re going to go back to trying to hear other people’s thoughts while I sit here?”

  “No,” Wes said, standing up from the table and holding his hand out to her. “We’re going to dance.”

  She laughed, as though he was making a joke, and it was very amusing, to say the least. “Like hell we are.”

  “Come on,” Wes said. He was no longer intimidated by her blunt responses to things, and he didn’t mind if she fought him on this a little bit. He was going to get her out on that dance floor. “It’ll be a good place to hear people’s thoughts. And get an idea of who is here. I need to see the room, and there are too many people in the way.”

  Jordan smirked and kept writing. “Okay, well, have fun dancing on your own, bud. I’ll be right here.”

  “You said you’d help.”

  “I didn’t say I’d dance.”

  “But dancing would be helping.”

  “But not dancing would be helpful to me.” She looked up at him and gave him a smile that indicated she had no intention of budging. “Buh-bye. Go find a new Bree to dance with.”

  Wes grabbed her hand, pulling her pen from it. She looked up at him in surprise, and he took his cue from Alana’s thoughts the night before. Women liked a man who told it like it was. “I want to dance with you. Yes, to hear other people’s thoughts. But also, to dance with you. I think you’re a fun person, and occasionally you laugh in this way that suggests you do know how to just let loose and enjoy yourself, and I want to see that. One dance with me. It’s not a slow dance. We’ll have fun.”

  Jordan stared at him as he spoke, apparently unsure what to do when someone else adopted her blunt manner. But she slid from her chair, standing up with him, and he led her toward the dance floor, spinning her around, as he picked up the beat of the song and began to dance.

  For a minute, Jordan just stood in front of him while he shifted from foot to foot in the classic dance that any man could pull off on the dance floor. But after hesitating, Jordan began to move a little bit, standing in front of him and mimicking his sway from foot to foot.

  “See?” Wes asked, smiling at her. “Not so bad, right?”

  “I know how to have fun.”

  “Yeah?” Wes asked. “Have you told your face that?”

  Jordan looked shocked, but then she laughed. “It wasn’t the drink last night. You actually are a smart-ass.”

  He shrugged a shoulder, knowing she liked it. “Maybe. When it’s called for.”

  “Being a smart-ass is always called for.”

  “You look nice tonight,” Wes said. He would have said she looked beautiful, but he wasn’t sure how she w
ould take it. “I like that …what is it that you’re wearing?”

  Jordan looked down at herself. “It’s called a jumpsuit.”

  “Ah,” Wes said, nodding. “Well, it’s nice.” And it was. It was a black jumpsuit with a belted waist, and capped sleeves, and V-shaped neckline that offered a hint of cleavage. She was wearing a pair of black heels with it, which surprised him, because he would have thought she was too practical for heels. But they worked nicely for her, and she really did look beautiful. Her short, maroon hair suited her face perfectly, and she didn’t need a stitch of makeup to put color in her cheeks and make her eyes seem wide and luminescent.

  Yes, she was definitely very beautiful.

  “Wes?”

  “Yes?” Wes asked, reaching for her hand and pulling her closer to him on the dance floor under the pretense of trying to hear her better. In reality, he found he just wanted an excuse to be a little bit closer to her.

  “There’s someone watching you.”

  Wes subtly turned his head, glancing in the same direction Jordan was looking. He couldn’t believe it when he saw who she was looking at. He immediately recoiled, his repulsion and anger entirely instinctive.

  “That’s Alana,” he said, his grip on Jordan tightening. “What is she doing here, two nights in a row?”

  Chapter 11

  Jordan

  Jordan found herself sizing Alana up without meaning to. The other woman was stunning. She was tall, and lanky, and curvy in all of the right spots. She had glistening blonde hair that was elegantly tied at the nape of her neck and glittering green eyes that were vibrant, even from across the room. Her lips were full and painted with a pale pink. Her cheeks held the same pink hue, and her eyes were swept and framed with perfect liner and a shimmering shadow. She wore a fitted black dress that hugged her lovely figure and tall heels that highlighted the miles of leg that the dress showed off.

  A moment ago, Jordan had felt confident in her appearance. It wasn’t just that Wes had complimented her. She knew that this particular outfit was a good look for her. The jumpsuit fit her well and showed off her assets, and the style was perfect for her overall look. She wasn’t the kind of woman who spent hours in front of the mirror, by any means, but she did like to look nice when she went out. And she had put more time than usual into getting ready to spend the evening with Wes, for reasons that she didn’t care to explore.

  Now his ex-girlfriend, [potentially the lost love of his life], was standing across the room looking like a goddess who had just swept in from her place in the heavens.

  “Is she still looking over here?” Wes asked, his hand on Jordan’s waist, as they made a pretense of dancing to the slower song that was now playing. Both of them, however, were completely focused on Alana.

  “Yes,” Jordan said, tightly. “She’s with some people. It looks like there’s a guy who is her date. He keeps trying to talk to her, and she’s ignoring him. She’s watching you with the kind of intensity with which someone might watch an endangered animal in a zoo exhibit. She seems fascinated by you, but also worried. There’s a crease between her eyebrows, and she is relentlessly tapping one foot. She might wear a hole in the floor, actually. That foot is going strong.”

  Wes laughed, slightly. “I never know what you’re going to say.”

  “Well, how about knowing what she’s thinking?” Jordan asked. “Any hints there?”

  “Oh,” he said, shaking his head. “Right. I’m not used to actually trying to hear people. Hold on. Let me see.”

  They danced, largely standing still and swaying, in total silence for a moment. Jordan kept her face carefully neutral, making sure to look around the room as she surveyed Alana, so that the woman wouldn’t feel as though Jordan was watching her. Of course, Jordan could hear everything that Alana’s date and friends were saying, but she couldn’t let Wes know that.

  While he listened for Alana’s thoughts, she listened to Alana’s date.

  “Babe, come on,” the big guy said, grabbing at Alana’s arm even as she pushed him off her. “I wanna do something fun. Come on—let’s dance. Or get another drink. I’m bored. I didn’t want to come out here again, you know. We’re here because of you, and you’re not even doing anything.”

  “Shut up, Ian,” Alana said, sharply. “I’m busy right now, okay?”

  “Look, babe,” Ian said. “This has been a fun time and all. You’re cool. Sometimes. But I don’t think this is working out.”

  “I literally do not care, Ian,” Alana said. “Go if you want to. I’m doing something.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re just standing there staring at your ex-boyfriend. Which is weird. And creepy.”

  “It’s doing something,” Alana said, tearing her gaze away from Wes and pinning it on Ian. “So, you’re wrong. Again. I told you not to come with me tonight. And not to bring your stupid friends either. So, go—go have fun somewhere else. Get a ride with one of them. Just leave the car for me.”

  Ian shrugged and turned away from her. “Guys, let’s get out of here. I’m done with this place, and with this bitch.”

  Wes let out a low whistle. “She just broke up with that guy she’s with. His name is Ian.”

  Of course, Jordan already knew that, but she couldn’t let Wes know that. “She did?”“Yeah—he’s walking away with his friends. She’s here for me,” Wes said.

  Jordan felt a strange rush of anger that seemed to have no reasonable origin. “And what does she want from you?”

  “She wants to talk. She wants to get back together.”

  Again, Jordan felt a strange sensation in her gut. “And how do you feel about that?”

  Wes let out a sharp laugh. “Not a chance. Three months ago, maybe. Now? No way. I had already decided that we weren’t right for each other, even before I found out about her and Jake. But now, knowing that she cheated on me? Definitely not.”

  Jordan felt a little bit better inside, but she was perturbed by the fact that whether Wes wanted to get back together with Alana or not was something that would have any emotional impact on her. She decided to put it down to the fact that the woman was clearly a narcissist and Wes was her client, who she was supposed to protect. She could protect him from hearing people’s thoughts, and she could protect him from getting back together with a woman who wasn’t right for him.

  “How did she know I would be here tonight?” Wes asked, suddenly frowning. “I’ve only been to this bar once, ever. It’s not like she would think it was a regular haunt for me. I just happened to see her here last night.”

  “Maybe she’s doing the same thing you’re doing,” Jordan said. “She didn’t know where to find you, so she went back to the last place she saw you.”

  Wes narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Who goes to the same bar two nights in a row?”

  “That’s literally your premise for being here right now,” Jordan pointed out, dryly. “You were hoping we’d find your murderous thinker.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said, his hand splayed on her lower back, as he guided her to the far side of the dance floor. His touch was warm and strong, distracting her from what he was saying. “Because I didn’t have any other leads to go off, and Alana knows where I work. She knows my friends. She knows where I live. She knows my phone number. She knows my parents. This would hardly be the right way to get a hold of me, especially without trying any of those other ways.”

  Jordan stopped thinking about his hands on her long enough to realize that he was right. “Okay, so you have a good point.”

  “I know I do.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” she said. “Maybe she’s monitoring you. Who did you tell that you were coming here?”

  “Nobody,” Wes said, looking down at her. “I’ve been avoiding all of my friends ever since I heard about Jake and Alana. I called my mom earlier, but I didn’t tell her I was trying to track down a murderer I had identified by hearing other people’s thoughts. I mean, I was going to tell her that, bu
t we got so caught up talking about her book club that there was no time.”

  Jordan smiled. She did like this man. He had a wit about him that was natural, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. “I hear book clubs are very time-consuming.”

  “You would not believe the toll a book club can take on a person.”

  “So, you and me,” Jordan said. “You and I were the only ones who knew that you were coming here tonight. Is that right? Don’t answer that.”

  “Don’t answer—what?”

  “She’s walking over here.”

  “Shit,” Wes said. “Why would she do that? Why does she want to drag this out? What in the world is she thinking? I mean, honestly—hello, Alana.”

  Wes let go of Jordan abruptly, turning toward his ex-girlfriend. Jordan cleared her throat, elbowing him sharply to indicate that she didn’t intend to be abandoned on the dance floor so that he could talk to someone else. He interpreted her gesture semi-correctly, placing his arm around her waist.

  “Hello, Wes,” Alana said, all smiles. If she knew that they had been watching her watch them with that dark expression on her face, she gave no sign of it. “Fancy seeing you here two nights in a row. I wondered if you would have a few minutes to talk.”

  Jordan looked up at Wes, waiting for his response and not understanding at all the strange look on his face. She wondered what in the world Alana was thinking, because whatever it was, Wes was hearing it loud and clear.

  Chapter 12

  Wes

  He has fallen so far so fast. Look at this little bit of a thing that he’s with. After me? God—I must have crushed his self-esteem, which means that it doesn’t matter that he knows about Jake now. He’ll take me back in a heartbeat. That girl last night didn’t compare to me, and this one doesn’t even hold a candle.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” Wes told Alana, barely keeping his voice civil. His words still came out punctuated with disdain, but it was nothing compared to the rage he felt at her disparaging thoughts about Jordan. And her complete and utter narcissism. “And I won’t ever have anything to say to you. You should go home with your new friends and your new date, because there is nothing for you here.”