by Shandi Boyes
The reason for her superhero nicknames comes to light when I open the folders. The Hulk reference is for the man we’ve surveilled with Isaac numerous times the past few months. His name is Hugo Jones. He’s practically a ghost, his file as scarce as mine. He doesn’t even have a Facebook page.
Harvey Dent is the man often referenced as Isaac’s college roommate/best friend, Cormack McGregor. His file is significantly more established than his roommate’s. His wealth is as substantial as Isaac’s, but his family lineage has saved him from the FBI’s scrutiny. For now.
The last file—the Barbie one—belongs to Rae: aka Regan Myers. Her file has the standard information you’d expect to find in any all-American girl’s record. I read it with interest, acting as if I haven’t perused it before. Her parents have been married for decades. She went to a standard run-of-the-mill school, kept her grades up enough, and received numerous offers of attendance to various colleges. She chose NY State. She has two siblings. Raquel is twenty-six years old and has recently relocated to the Ravenshoe area, and her younger brother, Ayden, is set to graduate Lennington College in a few months’ time.
“Who’s priority?” I ask Theresa, pretending I haven’t already chosen my target.
When I attempt to hand her back the file, she slices her hand across her body. “I’ve had agents on all three for months. I doubt you’ll unearth anything useful.”
“Had or have?” I question.
When Theresa’s eyes snap to mine, I strive to wipe the riled expression from my face. My attempts are borderline.
"Had. Is that an issue for you, Agent Rogers?" Her snappy tone tells me she didn't miss my irritation.
I half-heartedly shrug. “Not at all. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t treading on anyone’s turf.”
She drags her aviator glasses off her razor-sharp nose. "I don't care if you stomp on their prize gerberas. You have a job to do. If that requires you to trim your pubic hair, launder a goddamn suit, and lie down in a bed of fleas, you do it! Do you understand me?!"
Her reply pisses me off, but I dip my chin all the same. “Yes, Ma’am,” I reply, acting like the good little soldier I am supposed to be.
Pleased with my cowardly ways, Theresa puts her sunglasses back on then saunters away from me. I wait until there is a good distance between us before yanking my receiver out of my ear and throwing it to the ground. I’m acting like a two-year-old, but it’s better than magnifying my anger with violence.
I stop kicking up dust with my dress shoes when a snarky voice shouts, “And Alex?” Theresa waits for our eyes to align before saying, “Her favorite flowers are sunflowers.”
She smirks, ensuring I can’t miss the words she didn’t produce. She knew which candidate I was going after without a word seeping from my lips. That’s why she called Rae “Barbie,” as everyone knows Barbie is defenseless to Ken’s charm.
Chapter Seven
“Hold the elevator.”
My Saint Laurent Opyum black pump darts out to stop the elevator doors snapping shut without a thought crossing my mind. Country girls are already quick-witted, but the hustle and bustle of city life the past decade has doubled my perceptiveness. If you snooze in a town like Ravenshoe, you lose. I’m not exactly sure what eludes you, but it must be significant for how finicky the locals are about staying on top of things.
I like Ravenshoe. Isaac is transforming it from an unknown town to a metropolis, but nothing can replace the smell of fresh cow dung in the morning. It is amazing the things you miss when you no longer have access to them. My mom’s southern cooking. My father’s fake rooster call when the rooster stopped waking me up. My cell phone.
I sigh loudly at my last one. While darting to an appointment, my heel got stuck in a grate. In my endeavor to keep up with the thousands of residents pounding the pavement, yanking my foot out made my cell phone fly from my grip. I fumbled, cursed, then fumbled some more to save it but to no avail. Even if it hadn’t slipped between the steam vents, its brutal connection with the ground rendered it a lost cause.
“Thanks,” my new riding partner praises before stepping into the confined space.
A peppery cologne filters through the air from his brisk spin to the control panels of the elevator. “What floor?”
I peer past his shoulder, certain I pushed my desired floor when entering. I’m unable to see the panel past the broad span of his shoulders. “Fifty-three.”
“Ah, the penthouse. I should have known.”
The mirth in his tone has my brow rising. “What floor are you going to?” I nudge his hip with mine, moving him far enough away from the dashboard to see he has selected floor thirty. "The thirties aren't too shabby."
I sound as if I have a plum in my mouth. My response is accurate. Apartments in this building go for the high six figures, if not occasionally dipping into the millions.
"The west wing has nice views of the skyline at night. What section are you in?"
I bite the inside of my cheek. The only way my question could have sounded more seedy is if it were delivered with a pigeon call. I'm not striving for a date. My stance on the dating scene hasn't changed since my teen days. I'm merely intrigued at my elevator companion's inability to look at me while speaking. I know he is watching me. It isn't just the heat of his gaze; I can see his baby blue irises peering at me in the brushed stainless steel panel of the elevator dashboard.
“I can’t give an opinion on the views. I don’t live in the building. I’m just here visiting a friend,” he eventually answers.
“Oh.” I’d like to issue a more confident reply, but I’m a little lost for words. I don’t need him to be Pinocchio to know he is lying. I heard it in his tone. “What apartment number? The floors and apartment numbers are a little jumbled. They don’t always match up.”
I'm not lying. With the apartments growing in size with each floor, the numbering system is a little off. I've voiced my annoyance to Isaac many times. It isn't because I mind helping the lost residents of his building; I just don't believe in the whole Fengshui crap his latest designer is spouting. You create your own luck, not a frog with a coin shoved in its mouth.
“Ah. . . 34A?” The unease in the stranger’s tone makes his statement sound like a question.
I shuffle my feet to take in his profile more diligently. Just as the generous cut of his cheekbone comes into sight, he twists his torso away from me. Suspicion runs rife through my veins. From what I saw, he has no reason to hide his face. Just his pouty lips spiked my heart rate, much less the quickest peek at his bright blue eyes. Even seeing only half of his face, I can confidently say he isn’t ugly by any means.
“Are you sure your friend said apartment 34A?”
A beat of sweat forms on his nape as he replies, “Yep.”
Short and precise. How most lies are delivered.
“I am carrying mace in my purse and perhaps a weapon that will have bodily fluids leaking down your leg before you realize you need to pee. If that isn’t enough incentive for you to leave this elevator at the next floor, take a glance at my shoes. The heel alone is a perfect weapon to have your eye and brain becoming extremely friendly.”
When the pegs of his white teeth become exposed in the dashboard, I remove a stiletto. After the week I have had, I’m not in the mood for games.
His smile disappears. “Hey, whoa. Come on. There is no need for violence—”
“Push the damn button for the next floor.” My tone is brimming with heated warning.
“Maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps he said 44A?”
“There are no apartments in this building with the number four in them. The Chinese believe it is bad kosha as it represents death."
“Seriously?” He sounds more shocked than worried for his safety.
“Yes, seriously! Now push the button for the next floor. There are stairs on each side of the elevator.” After taking in an illuminated twenty-three above the brushed steel doors, I say, “You only have six floors to climb. I�
��m sure it won’t kill you.”
“I—”
His words stuff into his throat when I raise my heel into the air in silent warning. If I could reach the dashboard without leaning over his body, I’d push the button myself. But since he is hogging the panel like Mrs. Vermont from apartment 12B does anytime she rides with me, I have no other option but to resort to violence.
“Five. . . Four. . . Three—”
“I’m not a child; you can’t count down and expect me to jump to your command somewhere between two and one.”
I continue counting down like he never spoke, “Two. . . O—”
“Alright! Jesus Christ!” He stabs the button for floor twenty-five six hundred trillion times before spinning around to face me. “Happy?”
“Uh-huh,” I reply, my pulse quickening.
It isn't his rueful glare speeding up my heart rate. It is his deliriously handsome face. My god. Chiseled cheeks, a sculptured jaw covered by an unkempt beard, and blue eyes that are the color of the ocean. His blond locks are a little overdue for a trim, and the scruff on his chin should be immediately removed for the travesty it’s hiding, but he couldn’t be classified as anything less than perfect. This man isn’t partially handsome; he’s downright out-of-this-world gorgeous. His cocky smirk, thick arms, and Ragnar Lodbrok-inspired beard don’t just have my mouth drying up; they have my stiletto falling from my grip.
My eyes follow its slow track to the carpeted floor. It dings and bounces three times before it comes to a complete stop. Not eager to fight without a weapon, I bob down to gather my shoe. I don't know if he's clambering for safety or being a gentleman, but our simultaneous dive for my stiletto results in our heads knocking together.
“Oww,” I moan. “Your face is as hard as it looks.”
Panic rains down on me when my hand darts up to my throbbing brow. I’m bleeding. Not just a slight trickle. A full stream of vibrant red blood is gushing down my eye. It makes being mugged the least of my problems, as you can’t get any more frightening than death.
“Fuck,” my elevator companion grumbles under his breath when he notices I’m injured. Ignoring the ding of the elevator announcing its arrival on floor twenty-five, he throws off his suit jacket, unfastens the buttons of his blue dress shirt, then yanks his undershirt out of his trousers.
The wooziness in my head intensifies. He doesn’t just have a handsome face. He has an equally enticing body. Abs stacked on abs, a slim waist, and pecs that are thankfully missing the hair scattered along his sharp jaw—not that you’d be able to see it through the large tattoo on his right pec.
“Thank you,” I mutter, slightly disoriented when he places his wadded-up shirt on the laceration on my forehead.
My brain is throbbing against my skull, but it has nothing on the manic pulse between my legs. I’m being inundated with a manly, virile scent, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. This is pure torture to a woman as domineering as me.
“I’m sure it’s fine now. It doesn’t even hurt,” I lie, dragging his shirt away from my head.
Bile races up my throat when I spot how much blood has soaked his shirt. “Is that all mine?” My hand darts out to settle myself when my question arrives with a frantic rush of dizziness. “Woo. I’m a little woozy.”
Who the hell’s voice was that? I sound like a giddy drunk.
"I think you're concussed." The strange man peers at my wound with worry slashed across his features.
I’m fairly sure his assumption is right when I stammer out, “Concussed from being smacked with too much manliness.”
I laugh at myself. I’m fucking hilarious when I’m on the brink of collapse.
“Alright, Rae. Time for a trip to the ER.”
“Noooooo,” I whine. “I hate the doctomorphors.” That sounded nothing like it did in my head.
When the world moves beneath my feet without warning, I stumble forward. My companion catches me in his arms before the ground and I make kissy faces. After pulling me to his chest, he jabs his elbow into the security panel, redirecting our car to the lobby.
“If they give me a needle, I’m going to pierce your eyeball with my shoe.”
It takes three floors to issue my warning, but it was worth the effort when my savior says, “Duly noted.”
I nuzzle into his chest, wanting the mad beat of his heart to replace the thump in my skull. It is racing a million miles an hour but could lull me to sleep in an instant. It is already replacing the fuzziness surrounding me with a pleasurable, less flighty sensation.
“Excuse me,” I mumble a short time later, my lips as uncooperative as my drooping eyelids.
I wait for the stranger’s glistening baby blues to connect with mine before asking, “What’s your name?”
Halfway out of the elevator, he stills, amplifying the crazy beat of his heart. It pumps three long, panicked beats before he answers, “Alex. Alex Rogers.”
“Alex?” My tongue clicks my teeth when I test out his name. “Alex. Alex Rogers. I like the sound of that.”
I giggle again, my impersonation of James Bond too hilarious not to laugh.
With Alex’s steps matching the purposeful thuds of his heart, it is only a matter of time before I succumb to the blackness engulfing me.
Chapter Eight
“What was I supposed to do, leave her bleeding in the elevator with a concussion?”
. . .
Silence. Dead fucking silence.
. . .
“She has half a dozen stitches in her head because of me. Furthermore, my moral obligation to the public ensures I couldn’t leave her.”
. . .
More obsolete silence.
. . .
I drag my cell away from my ear, certain Theresa has hung up on me. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The clock is still counting down. She just wants me to stew.
Fuck her and her black heart. Fuck the world. I feel like shit, the pain tearing at my chest as strong as it was when the doctors advised me Dane would never walk again. He was alive but paralyzed from the chest down. To him, death would have been the better option.
Regan’s injuries are nowhere near as bad as Dane’s, but that hasn’t stopped guilt from gnawing at my chest. If I had continued watching her from a distance as I have the prior six weeks, she wouldn’t be in the hospital, high as a kite on pain pills.
“You told me to get close,” I mutter, using the only excuse I can find.
“No. I told you to monitor her. Not expose you are an agent,” Theresa rebuts, speaking for the first time since I called her to update her on Regan’s condition ten minutes ago.
I lick my suddenly bone-dry lips. “I told her my name. That’s it. No harm has been done.”
Theresa huffs, clearly peeved. “Then how was she seen so quickly? I know firsthand how the hospitals in Ravenshoe work. I delivered my son here. If you hadn’t flashed your badge, she’d still be waiting on the hard plastic blue chairs lining the waiting room.”
As I spin in a circle, my wide eyes take in the plastic chairs surrounding me. They are rigid and blue, just as Theresa stated. “You have an agent tailing me? Are you fucking insane?!”
“I have an agent on a target—not you. And this is your final warning, Rogers. Cuss at me one more time, and I’ll write you up for being insubordinate.”
My teeth grit. I’ll show you insubordinate, you fire-breathing motherfucking bitch!
Before I can flush my career down the toilet, a sing-song voice calls my name. When I crank my neck to the voice, I discover a nurse in a blue uniform and stark white shoes. “Regan is awake and asking for you.”
I cup the receiver of my phone. “Did she ask for me specifically or. . .?” I leave my question open for her to answer how she sees fit.
The nurse grimaces. “Not exactly. She asked to speak to the person liable for her plastic surgeon bill.”
“Oh.” –That’s it? A fuckin’ ‘oh’?!— “Tell her I’ll be there in a mi
nute.” That’s better. Stern, yet understanding.
Well, I thought it was. The nurse’s eyeroll weakens my assumption.
I wait for her to be out of earshot before returning my focus to Theresa. I should quit. I should tell her to shove her stone-aged antics where the sun doesn't shine. The only reason I don't is because of a pledge I made to Dane years ago. I told him I'd never stop hunting until the man responsible for his injuries is brought to justice. That man is Isaac Holt, and my ticket to him is holed up in an observation bay, waiting for me.
If it were anyone but Regan, I’d get pleasure knowing I’m the man responsible for taking down a member of Isaac’s empire. But since it is Regan, a woman who confuses me as much as she excites me, I’ll wait to crack open my celebratory drink until I have a more deserving victory. I want Isaac to suffer as much as Dane has the past five years, not the woman sheltering him from prosecution.
Although numerous reports have failed to link Regan to Isaac’s empire, my gut assures me I am following the right trail. Regan knows Isaac—the depth of their friendship, and if it started before Substanz is unclear—but I’m certain she is the key to unlocking Isaac’s deepest and darkest secrets. That’s why I chose to investigate her.
Well, that’s what I tell myself when snippets of doubt surface a hundred times every day for the past six weeks.
Ignoring my racing heart, I press my phone closer to my ear. “You instructed me to use any means necessary to bring Isaac to prosecution. I’m following your direct order, Theresa. You’ve read the intelligence; you know Regan is our way in, but if I don’t break through her wall of distrust, she’ll stay as guarded as Isaac.”
Theresa murmurs. It isn’t a conclusive agreement with my statement, but I am going to take it that way.
"If you want your man, let me do my job. If you want to pull me from the case, pull me from the case. But for fuck’s sake, give me a bit of breathing room. I aced the academy; I am singlehandedly responsible for the incarceration of thirty-one notorious men in a little over six years, but even Houdini couldn't break out of the restraints you've put on me. Give me half a chance, Theresa; that's all I am asking."
