Secrets of the Sapphires

by T. Sue VerSteeg

  “Uh,” he sputtered, his brain racing in a futile attempt to figure women out. “Sure.”

  Garrett escorted Lexie to his car, taking the opportunity of her walking in front of him to swipe his face clean with what was supposed to be a decorative hanky from his jacket pocket. After being seated, she proceeded to ignore him the entire short drive to the restaurant.

  As he opened the door for her, he mentally scratched his head as the apology tumbled from his lips. “I’m sorry for messing with your hair.”

  Her face lit up. “That means so much to me. Thank you, Garrett.” She stood up on tippy toes and gooped his face up with her gloss again, nearly sucking off his lips.

  He immediately regretted his request for forgiveness.

  Julio’s was a bustling mass of people. Wait staff dressed in starched white shirts, black pants and long aprons weaved through a menagerie of quaint café tables, old looking stone pillars, and checkered cloth covered booths. An overabundance of decadent aromas wafted around them, promising a mouthwatering Italian meal.

  The maître de led them to a round corner booth, waving the menus toward it. “Will this work for you tonight?”

  Garrett found himself biting his tongue not to ask for a less intimate table. Lexie, on the other hand, beamed her approval and slid all the way around the seat, pinning Garrett to the edge of his side of the booth.

  Draped across his arm, she traced her fingers over Garrett’s cheek and replied to the host without ever taking her eyes off of Garrett, “This is perfect.”

  He laid the menus on the table. “Can I start you out with something from the bar?”

  Garrett opened his mouth to order iced tea. Lexie’s hand groping his crotch changed his mind. “Double shot of Crown please.”

  “Great idea,” she purred. “Let’s get trashed. I’ll take a Jager and Red Bull.”

  Shaking off a shiver of disgust, he counted his blessings that he wasn’t really dating her and flashed a smile. He grabbed the waiter’s arm. “Don’t be a stranger. Keep the shots coming.”

  Obviously thinking he was referring to her drinks, Lexie rammed her tongue down Garrett’s throat and then said, “You don’t have to get me drunk to have your way with me.”

  No, but I’d have to be drunk…so very drunk. He cursed under his breath at his high tolerance for alcohol. He’d go broke if it came down to that.

  After he tossed her a wink, he unthreaded himself and turned toward her. “So, even though we’ve known each other for some time, I still don’t know much about you. Tell me about yourself.”

  Her grin stretched from ear to ear. They were obviously embarking on a subject she immensely enjoyed discussing. Anything that kept her hand from his crotch worked for him. He listened for the first few minutes to her talk about beauty pageants, cheerleading, and minor plastic surgery. Once she divulged that her breasts weren’t real—not that he was surprised—he began to tune her out and nod when she looked at him quizzically or touched his arm. The drinks went down smoothly and the food was beyond delicious, not that Lexie would know. He heard her explain that the drinks were more calories than she’d normally take in for a whole week while she pushed her lasagna around on her plate.

  “Wow, that meal was fabulous.” Garrett pushed his plate toward the center of the table and downed his fourth double shot of whiskey for dessert.

  Lexie pushed her full plate next to his empty one while looking at him through her lashes. “I have the perfect way to end the perfect meal.”

  His mind went directly to the dessert menu, until he saw her look around and slide under the table.

  Oh, shit. How many men in the history of time have ever had to work this hard not to get laid?

  Just me.

  He allowed his mind a brief moment to consider what the glossy, gooey feel of her lips would be like. When he started to respond to the image, he again switched his thought patterns to baseball stats and animal cruelty in an attempt to keep his junk out of her mouth.

  The waiter appeared at the table. “Would you like another drink?”

  “Oh, yeah!” His words were punctuated by the sound of his zipper coming down and her hand digging around in his boxers.

  Stifling a grin, the waiter muttered, “Right away sir.”

  Dear Penthouse, you’ll never believe what happened to me at Julio’s… Think, Van Deren! Of course…

  Garrett slouched into the seat and let his mind wander. He allowed himself to harden in her hands. When he felt her breath on his shaft, he did the unthinkable.

  He tucked her hair behind her ears again.

  A loud thunk resounded through the restaurant, shaking their table. A very angry Lexie slid back into her seat much to the amusement of people sitting next to them. Giggles and poorly hidden smiles behind jeweled fingers appeared around them which didn’t seem to faze Lexie.

  Lips puckered into a scowl, she announced, “What did I tell you about my hair?”

  Garrett’s hand flew to his mouth, forcing a wide-eyed look of shock to his face. “I guess I got caught in the heat of the moment. I’m a tucker, always have been.” He rearranged himself in his pants and zipped his fly.

  “Excuse me.” Lexie picked up her purse and scooted out of the booth, more than likely headed to the ladies room to fix her hair.

  Garrett released a huge sigh, dropped his forehead onto the table, and dug his phone out of his pocket. If luck was with him, Nia and Shrek already had the information, and he could feign a headache, backache, or, what the hell, even cramps. He’d admit to whatever it took to get him out of the nightmare.

  ****

  Nia paced the floor next to her desk. It was Friday and Levinson never worked late on Fridays.

  Except this one.

  If she didn’t figure out a way to get him out of his office, the system would lock them out. Nia glanced at her watch and panic shot through her gut. They only had forty-five minutes.

  Brandon kept peering out the side window next to his door. She shooed him back each time so Levinson wouldn’t catch him. Nia stayed late all the time; her presence was expected. Brandon Shrock always left at five o’clock on the dot. She envisioned him climbing his shelf units while intermittently pulling out his hair. One thing he hated more than anything was waiting with nothing to keep his mind occupied. This dead time was undoubtedly torture to him.

  Her cell phone chirped to life. She snatched it from her desk before the first ring ended. Garrett’s number on the screen caused her heart to skip a beat, filling her with a teenage giddiness. As she flipped her phone open to answer, she tugged herself into a more age appropriate stature. “Hello?”

  “Hey you,” he cooed, a forced calm detected in his voice. “Tell me some good news.”

  “I wish I could. Levinson is still here.” She attempted to keep her tone upbeat.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Wow, is she really that awful to be with? I mean, you’re in public. How bad can that be?” Nia flailed her free hand around, mild annoyance clenching her gut. After all, they were doing the hard work at the office.

  “Let me put it this way for you: I don’t think any man on the face of this Earth has ever had to fend a woman off like this. She slid under the table in the middle of the crowded restaurant, for pity sake!”

  “Excuse me?” Her mild annoyance fluffed to seething jealousy in a heartbeat. “You tell that skank to keep her hands…” Nia flashed to Lexie under the table and realized hands wouldn’t necessarily be the only issue, “…and mouth, and any other of her nasty body parts off of you. Do you hear me?” She started walking a hole in the floor again.

  “What are you doing?” Levinson’s inquisitive words sent shockwaves through her. She snapped her phone shut before turning to face him. He stared at her, concern wrinkling his forehead.

  Her mind raced for an excuse. “I think better when I pace. I’ve been trying to pinpoint the mole and wasn’t getting anywhere staring at the computer screen. Are you sure
you won’t give me temporary access to everyone’s files?”

  The only change in his expression was a raised eyebrow. “Positive. I’m looking into the new hires and combing files, don’t you worry. Why do you think I’m here on a Friday night?”

  Nia forced the smile to stay on her face. “You’re working too hard. I’ll make you a deal. If you go home, relax, and promise to put this on the back burner until Monday, I’ll finish up my work and go home too,” she lied.

  Levinson shook his head. “Are you feeling all right? You brought me coffee not once, but twice today. The first time shocked me; the second time had me worried about your mental health. What happened to your if-your-legs-work-get-it-yourself philosophy?”

  “I’m, uh, just glad to be back in one piece is all. Can’t I be nice to you?” She kept her words sweet. Inside her mind was screaming, “Go home already!”

  “And now your concern for my well-being.” He stared thoughtfully at her for a few moments. Finally, he shoved his hand in front of her face, shaking his head. “I’ll never understand women as long as I live.”

  “We work hard at keeping you guys in the dark.”

  “I don’t doubt that one bit. Okay, you promise to go home if I do?” He placed his fingers under her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes.

  Afraid he’d be able to read a blatant lie in her eyes, she compromised. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

  “We’ll take this up again on Monday then. Maybe I’ll let you sit with me and we can brainstorm on the suspects I have so far.”

  Nia looked up into the compassionate eyes of her boss again. “I have to admit that I’m lucky to work up a stiff mental breeze these days, but I’ll contribute what I can.”

  His laughter rang through the empty building. “I’ll take whatever you can offer.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Go home and eat whatever marvelous creation Jan has cooked for you. It’s probably getting cold as we speak.”

  “When you put it that way, it seems almost criminal for me to be here this late.” With a wink, Levinson disappeared into his office then reappeared with his coat and briefcase, locking his door behind him. “Promise?”

  Nia tucked one hand behind her back with fingers crossed. “Promise.”

  When the exit door creaked to a close, Nia took off in a jog to Brandon’s office and beat on the door. “We’re on!”

  He appeared, tapping his watch, a tote bag full of supplies slung over his shoulder. “What happened to this starting nearly an hour ago? We only have fifteen minutes.”

  “Levinson was working.”

  “He never works late on Fridays. That’s the night his wife fixes a huge supper for him.” Brandon stood before her, nose and forehead crinkled as though his boss had just committed a sin worse than murder.

  “I know. Trust me, I was shocked, too.” She grabbed his arm, took the new key he’d made for them, and unlocked Lexie’s office door.

  Brandon pointed to the security camera. “I could only put them offline until the system shuts down then the security system takes over. It’ll reboot them and come back online. I hope you realize, if Lexie isn’t behind this and we don’t get out in time, the cameras will show us in her office. She’ll literally make a Federal case out of this.”

  “Don’t worry. Lexie is as guilty as you are smart.”

  He smiled brightly, his shoulders arching back with pride. “Thanks.” Then a look of doubt clouded his happiness. “I think.” As he slid into Lexie’s custom-made pink leather chair, he snapped on rubber gloves, dumping the contents of his bag onto the pink accented desk blotter.

  Nia stood next to him, pushing around some of Brandon’s things. “Did you really need to bring your entire office in here?”

  His fingers came to a stop on the keyboard. “Who in this room knows how to get the information off of this hard drive?” He peered around the office and even checked under the desk before turning his attention back to her, a look of mild contempt on his face. “That’s what I thought. Now hush while I work.”

  Nia swiped away an imaginary tear. “I’ve never been more proud of you than I am at this very moment. The sarcasm, the way you owned the situation, even the commitment of making a statement with your smart-assedness. My little boy is all grown up now.”

  His latex encased fingers were flying across the keys again, as a lopsided grin crossed his face. “Thanks. I learned from the best.” He even tossed her a wink.

  “One of these days, if you can ever face a girl without turning beat red, you might actually find the woman of your dreams.”

  Brandon turned somber again. “Can we discuss my social life at a later date? I’m busy booting this computer off a live CD, so I can locate her password file and decrypt her MD five password hash.”

  “Wow, you haven’t even gotten into her computer yet?”

  Nia received a death glare from over the monitor in response.

  “Uh, sorry, I guess I’ll shut up.” She resumed her pacing in front of Lexie’s desk.

  “I got it.” The smile returned to his face.

  “The file?” Nia slid around the desk with anticipation gripping her gut but was greeted by a blank screen.

  “No, just her password. This woman really has a thing for pink. Her password is pretty-pink-petals with a few numbers mixed in.” He slid out the disk he’d been using and inserted a new one. “Now I have to reboot and log in under her name so I can access her files. We should be able to sort them by date modified and look specifically for the date the mission orders were issued.”

  Nia watched over his shoulder as the computer came back online. She inched closer to him with each new screen he pulled up and literally had her head on his shoulder when he came to a copy of the mission orders. Brandon’s body stiffened and she pulled her head back. “Sorry about that.”

  “Not…not…a problem,” he sputtered.

  After she scanned the document, Nia slammed her hand on the desk. “That’s a copy of the same orders Levinson had. A lot of good that will do us, even if it does show that it was modified. By the looks of the rest of her documents, she was at least smart enough to delete the original information.” Disappointment deflated her hopes.

  “Ye of little faith.” Brandon turned the chair to face her. “There’s a little thing called ‘disk recovery’ to regain deleted files. Unless she’s smart enough to use a government wipe on her hard drive, we should be able to find the original. Cross your fingers.” He turned his attention back to the computer, typing in a bunch of symbols and letters that made no sense to Nia.

  She resumed her pacing when she checked her watch. “Five minutes.”

  Brandon released a huge breath, his fingers flying into double time for several minutes then coming to a dead stop. His face remained stone sober. “I think I found something.”

  Nia slid around behind him again and read over his shoulder:

  Intelligence sources confirmed vampire intervention in the Time Warp group. Every measure must be taken to ensure Agent Garrett Van Deren and Agent Nia Brooks a safe return by taking possession of the structure in the lower level of Castle Ludwig as soon as humanly possible. The vampire covens have plans to convert or destroy all remaining Time Warp constituents by the end of the week. Time is of the essence in this mission.

  “Wow. Can you copy this file and prove that it came from her hard drive?” Nia whispered in his ear.

  “I’m on it, like a fat kid on a cupcake. You might find some of these other emails and files of interest as well. Seems Lexie has been working for one of the vampire rings for some time now and was stupid enough to have them email her here. Look at this.” He pointed to an email from a while back titled Hit.

  Surely Lexie isn’t that stupid. Shocked at the name she read and explicit directions on how to kill them, she muttered, “No way.”

  “I guess she really was unaware of the fact that the computer saves everything, even deleted items, until it needs that space for something else.” />
  “Shit, this is huge! Can you copy it all?”

  “That was the plan from the beginning and why it’s taking so long.” Brandon glanced at his watch. “One more minute and the system will lock down. Come on, baby. Don’t fail Daddy when he needs this so badly.”

  Nia panicked. “What can I do to help? Is there anything to make it go faster?”

  A puzzled look greeted her over the monitor again.

  “What? Should I hang something over Lexie’s camera then?” She pointed at the gray box over her door.

  “Gee, that won’t look suspicious in the morning.” He rubbed his hand over the CPU and the system beeped. “You really do love your daddy, don’t you?” The disk slid out of the computer after he hit the eject button. Brandon grabbed the disk as the system shut down and the drive closed on him.

  Nia’s knees went weak when the red light of the camera flickered on. She turned to Brandon. “Guess it’s a good thing we got a ton of dirt on Lexie since we’re now on record as being in her office.”

  Brandon kissed the disk. “I can’t make any copies tonight. I’ll hide this in my office until tomorrow.”

  “Let me hide it. Your office is too risky. There’s a camera in there too, you know.” Nia held her hand out toward him, wiggling her fingers in urgency.

  “There are more cameras in your area than any other section of the agency.”

  “I won’t be hiding it there. Do you trust me?”

  He heaved another breath before handing her the disk. “Do I have a choice?”

  “At this point, not really.” Nia blew him a kiss before she ducked out the door, down the hall toward the gymnasium. She made her way through the darkness into the ladies shower room.

  To the best of her knowledge, there were no cameras allowed there. Just in case, she refrained from turning the lights on, fumbling her way through the dark room. Feeling her way along the row of lockers, she came to a stop in front of hers and hastily tried to enter her combination.

  After two more failed attempts, she muttered, “Damn it,” slowed down and popped the lock off.

  Being careful not to disturb or scratch any of the other adjoining metal, she pried the back of her locker off enough to reach the three loose bricks she’d hollowed out behind it. Nia slid them free and placed the disk inside with the sapphire she’d been sporting between her breasts, all the while standing under the cover of the metal walls. As she replaced the bricks, she felt like a ton of them had been taken off her chest. No one knew of her secret stash. She hung her workout clothes back in place after silently sliding the back of her locker into position.