by J. Kenner
“A sub-basement would make an interesting stage for the auction of extremely high-quality merchandise,” Liam commented, using the language that Denny had run across in the forums.
“Yes,” Ryan says, “it would.”
“I’ll get Mario on it,” Denny says. “If he can’t hack into the security feed, then it can’t be done. But if it did show Emma stealing away with our girl, then I bet I’m going to find that large chunks of time are missing.”
“Check traffic cams, ATMs, private security feeds,” Quincy suggests. “We’re just looking for confirmation at this point.”
She nods.
“As for Lassiter, I think it’s time we had a little chat.”
“He may be a pawn in all this,” Ryan says. “His parties at The Terrace are an open secret and technically legal. A bit risky to add sex slave auctions to his repertoire. Especially at this level. The kidnapping of a princess won’t exactly fly under the radar.”
“He hardly has clean hands,” Denny notes. “That disk we got is a blueprint to money laundering and blackmail. Enough to put him away for a good long time.”
Quincy nods. “So we talk to him, find out what he knows about Emma or the princess, if anything, and then turn him over to the authorities. Ollie?”
My head is spinning watching them talk and plan a mile-a-minute. Granted, I’ve seen Emma in full-on investigative mode, but it’s been a while. It’s invigorating, but it’s also exhausting.
I lean over and whisper to Quincy, “Who’s Ollie?”
Apparently, I’m a louder whisperer than I realize, because Ryan explains that Orlando McKee is a good friend of Damien’s wife, Nikki. A former lawyer, he’s now with the FBI. “Should be a solid feather in his cap. And if we bring Lassiter in now, then there’s less chance he’ll discover the breach of his disk and report it back to Corbu.”
“Liam and I will go talk to him,” Quincy says. “And by talk, I mean bring him back here and into holding.”
Liam grins. “Sounds about right. And then, my friend, I think you should be the one to do the talking.”
Quincy shifts so that he’s looking right at me. Heat spirals through me, so vibrant that for a moment I can’t even breathe. Suddenly, it’s as if no years have passed at all. I know exactly what he’s thinking. I know that he’s remembering the way Lassiter had his hands on me. The way he’d sidled up next to me, and tried to claim me.
“Oh, yes,” Quincy says, leaning back in his chair. “I think we’ll have a jolly good talk.”
14
“Make a right here, and then a left at the light,” I tell Denny. It’s just past noon, and we’re in Venice Beach. I’d texted Lorenzo to tell him we were on our way, and he’d responded immediately with a Thank God, girlie. You’ve taken ten years off my life.
Considering he hadn’t called, texted me, or emailed me—at least not according to my shiny new phone—I thought that was a tad melodramatic, but I’d been so nervous about the party at The Terrace that maybe I’d gotten my wires crossed. For all I know, the standard protocol for an operative walking into a sex party while pretending to be a call girl is to contact her handler post haste, and under no circumstances does said handler contact the girl.
At any rate, I’d see him soon, and I was ridiculously happy about that.
“So how much does Lorenzo know about you and Quincy? I don’t want to put my foot in it.” She flashes me a grin. “I have a talent for doing that.”
I frown as I consider the question and all of its implications. “Nothing, really. Just that we dated in London a while back. And he dumped me.” Lorenzo is like a dad to me, but there are some things that parents don’t need to know. “Um, how much do you know?”
She lifts a shoulder then lets it drop.
I’m not entirely sure how to interpret that, but my best guess would be everything. I frown. “Um, Quincy told me—I mean, are you two involved?” Quincy said they weren’t, and I want to believe him. But I’m not entirely on board the Quincy-Trust Train.
Denny hits the brakes harder than necessary and I jerk forward at a red light. “Oh, crap, no. Never. And don’t be mad. We’ve been working together for a while now, and we’ve gotten to be really good friends. He—well, he’s been through a lot of shit, you know. So he gets my moods.”
“Moods?”
She shoots me a sideways glance as she pulls into the intersection. “There’s this situation with my husband,” she says. “It’s been a little rough.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Are you—I mean—” I shut up, because I assume that she’s talking about a separation or a divorce, but I don’t quite know how to phrase the question.
For a second, she looks confused. Then her eyes go wide. “Oh, no. No, no. I—we’re happy. We’re just apart. Really, really, really apart.”
She sighs loudly, and I don’t understand any more than I did a few moments before.
“He’s a field agent. Off-the-books, high-level operative that I can’t talk about because if I did, they’d hunt us down and kill us.”
“Good plan.” I clear my throat. “I guess he’s away a lot.”
“Going on three years now.” She glances sideways at me. “It kind of sucks.”
“But you can FaceTime and Skype and email and stuff, right?”
She shakes her head.
“Not a word? Not anything?”
For a moment, she says nothing. Then she lifts a shoulder as she veers right, following my gestured instructions, which are totally unnecessary since the GPS screen is showing every turn. “That pretty much sums it up.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not looking for pity, really. I’m just telling you that Q and I kind of bonded. Being so long away from the people we love.”
I sit back, my chest so tight it’s suddenly hard to breathe.
“It ripped him up, you know.” Her voice is gentle, but I don’t find it soothing.
“Stop.” The word is out before I can call it back. “Do you think you’re helping? If it hurt him so much, he shouldn’t have fucking left in the first place.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I—”
“Do you know?” I turn violently in the seat so that I’m facing her straight on. “Do you know where he was? What happened to him? Do you know if there is one shred of a reason that I can hold up against the wound he left in my heart to staunch the flow of blood? Because if you do, then tell me. Otherwise, please, just shut up, because it hurts too damn much.”
Tears prick my eyes, and I scrunch them shut as I slam myself back against the seat and pull my knees up to my chest. I will not cry. I will not cry.
But I’m so afraid I’m going to lose that battle because between losing Emma and finding Quincy I am completely raw inside.
“I’m so sorry. And my timing sucks, too. But we’re here,” she says, at the same time that the GPS announces that we’ve arrived at our destination.
She passes me a tissue. “Do you want to wait a bit?”
I shake my head, hating that she has to tend to me. I need to be focusing on Emma, not on Quincy. Do that, and maybe I can keep my shit together. I push the door open. “No. Let’s go.”
Once I’m out of the car, I can’t get to the front door of Double-T Investigations fast enough. Tate and Tucker, for Lorenzo and Emma. Not the catchiest name, but they never seem to lack for business. Part of that is because Emma gets so many referrals from her friends in intelligence. Lorenzo just thinks it’s because of their growing and stellar reputation.
The building itself is a plain office in a strip center located on a street that runs straight to the ocean. Not that you can see the Pacific where we are. On the roof, you can sometimes see a patch of blue if the sky isn’t hazy, but that’s about it. Not every corner of Venice Beach is as advertised. But it’s home, and the office is owned outright by my sister, who made the first payment back when she was only sixteen years old. Life tried to squash her, but Emma kicked its ass. She’s tough that way. An
d that’s why I know she’s got to be okay. Because after everything we’ve survived, I absolutely can’t lose her now.
Denny and I have just about reached the door when it bursts open and Marissa races toward me. Just shy of twenty, Lorenzo’s only niece started working for the firm about six months ago when her stepfather announced that she needed to understand the value of a dollar. Considering she’s decked out entirely in designer clothes, I’m thinking the lesson is getting lost and her salary is going to Nordstrom.
“Eliza! Thank goodness, Uncle Lorenzo was so worried about you last night.”
“Was not,” the gruff voice says from the doorway. He winks at me. “I know she can handle herself.” His bushy brows move as he squints at Denny. “And who the hell are you?”
“Denny,” she says easily. “I’m going out on a limb and saying that you’re Lorenzo.”
“Smart girl,” Lorenzo says to me. He cocks his head, ushering us inside. It’s basically one giant room with four giant office-salvage desks for Lorenzo, Emma, Marissa, and anyone else who needs a workspace.
I hoist myself up onto the spare as Denny drops into one of the guest chairs. Marissa sits cross-legged on top of hers, and Lorenzo settles in behind his desk, his elbows propped on the laminate surface.
He points at me. “I know you didn’t take your phone to The Terrace, but why the devil didn’t you text me back this morning? Not that I was worried,” he adds, shooting a narrowed-eye glance at Marissa. “I just wanted an update.”
I meet Denny’s eyes, and she fields that one. “Her phone was stolen. Sounds like they deleted anything that came in before we were able to wipe it.”
“Great,” I say, wondering what else I’ve missed … and what personal info they now have on me.
“Stolen?”
“Out of Emma’s apartment,” I explain. And then, because it’s all so complicated, I start at the beginning and give him a rundown of everything that’s happened. Including Quincy.
“The lousy little prick?” Marissa asks, her eyes widening when Lorenzo zings a rubber band her way. “What? That’s what Emma called him. He’s the guy you dated in London, right? And he totally dumped you.”
“Doesn’t mean you say he’s a prick out loud,” Lorenzo says. “Didn’t my sister teach you manners?”
“Sorry.”
“‘Course, you’re right,” Lorenzo says. “Anybody hurts one of my girls, they go on my shortlist. I don’t care if this Quincy Radcliffe is the queen’s right-hand man. He hurt my Eliza. That makes him a prick.”
In the chair beside me, Denny shifts uncomfortably.
“He’s helping me find Emma,” I say. “So is Denny. They’re friends.”
“But for the record, you’re right,” Denny says. “And Quince would agree. He’s beat himself up a lot for what happened in London. He didn’t mean to hurt Eliza.”
“Well, then he’s a prick and an idiot. What did he expect? Congratulations and a parade?”
Denny grimaces. “Well, for the record, he’s on-board now. Looking for Emma, I mean. And so am I.”
“Why?” Lorenzo asks, shifting his attention from Denny to me.
I’m taken aback. “Why is he helping?” I don’t know how to answer that. To make amends? Because he still cares about me? Because Emma’s disappearance overlaps his own case?
I only know for certain that the last one is true, and that’s the one I can’t tell Lorenzo.
“Why is he involved at all?” Lorenzo asks. “The man’s a banker. Or that’s what Emma told me.”
“You must have misunderstood,” Denny says easily. “Quincy works in corporate private security. When he and Eliza met, that’s what he was doing for an international investment firm.”
“Right,” I say, eagerly adopting the lie. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, you guys. All that matters now is finding Emma.”
I want to tell him about The Perlmutter Hotel and the princess, but everyone from Quincy to Ryan had drilled into me that I couldn’t share. I’d gotten there on my own, of course. Basic rule of thumb: when an EU task force and missing royalty are part of the equation, you have to keep the details to yourself.
“Have you heard from her?” I’m sure the answer will be no, but instead, he breaks into a broad smile. “What?” I demand. “When? And why didn’t you say earlier?”
“I’m saying now. Marissa got a text from her a little bit ago. At least, we assume it was her.”
“We don’t have a clue what it means,” Marissa adds.
“Okay,” I say. “Tell me.”
Marissa holds out he phone, and I hop off the desk to go get it. I read the cryptic text, then look between him and Marissa. “What the hell?”
“I know,” Lorenzo says. “Doesn’t make a bit of goddamn sense.”
I read the words once again, making sure to keep my expression blank. Because it makes perfect sense to me, and right now all I want is to get the hell out of here and go find my sister.
15
Tell my friend who talks to the animals not to drive angry, but to circle the wagons.
Quince scowled at the screen as he read the text for the third time. No luck. It still didn’t magically translate into something that made even the tiniest bit of sense. For a moment, he wished that Denny hadn’t already headed back to HQ. She was always handy when faced with a puzzle.
Finally, he shook his head. “All right. I give up. Which one of you is going to interpret?”
“They don’t get it, either,” Eliza said, then pointed a finger at Marissa, a lanky college-aged girl with a habit of twirling her hair around her forefinger. “You should, though,” Eliza said. “You’ve been there, after all. Twice.”
“Dammit, where?” Lorenzo asked.
Quince had arrived fifteen minutes ago, after Denny had called and told him to get his butt to Venice Beach. Since things with Lassiter had gone far swifter than he’d anticipated, he’d been able to come right away.
For the first ten minutes after Quince arrived, Lorenzo had offered him a perpetual scowl. Now, at least, he seemed more wrapped up in the mystery and less in vetting Quince.
“The ranch,” Eliza said, as if that should make sense to everybody. Though judging from the loud exhalations and chorus of, oh, of course, it finally did make sense to both Lorenzo and his niece.
“Explain, please,” Quince said, a little frustrated at being the only one in the dark.
“My friend who talks to the animals…” She trailed off with an expectant glance toward Marissa.
“That’s Eliza,” Marissa said. “Emma’s talking about Eliza.”
Quince looked to Lorenzo and was happy to see the older man looked equally gormless.
Marissa rolled her eyes and sighed. “Talks to the animals, right? Dr. Doolittle. I mean, hello? The guy’s even British. You should totally get it.”
“Well, I’m not British and I still don’t get it,” Lorenzo growled.
“Dr. Dolittle. Eliza Doolittle. My Fair Lady, right? And her name is Eliza.”
From where she perched on the desk, Eliza lifted her shoulders and nodded. “Yeah, that part refers to me.”
“I'll take it on faith,” Quince said. Maybe it was a sister thing. “What about driving angry?”
“Not sure about the angry part,” Eliza said. “But drive means just what it sounds like. I’m thinking angry means driving fast. So she’s saying that we don’t have to hurry. Because clearly she’s hidden away safe somewhere.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“Circle the wagons means the station wagon,” Marissa said. “Because that’s how we’d get there. In that hideous old station wagon Emma had. And there’s a circle of stones near the front of the house,” she added as an afterthought. “We pretended it was a fort.”
“See?” Eliza said, but to Marissa, not him. “It was easy. Why didn’t you get it right away?”
Marissa’s shoulders hunched. “Dunno.”
Eliza turned to Quince. “Clear as mu
d?”
“It’s about the most buggered up message I’ve ever run across. But, yes, it makes sense now that you’ve translated it. Assuming you know where this place is.”
She laughed, and her whole face lit up. For the first time since he’d seen her at The Terrace, he saw no hint of worry when he looked at her. As far as she was concerned, her brilliant, self-reliant sister had made a clean break.
He wasn’t as optimistic, but there was no way in hell he’d say something that would erase that expression of joy.
“Of course I do. It’s our ranch house.”
A chill shot up his spine. “Our. As in you and Emma own it?” That meant property records. And that meant they could be tracked. Odds were good Corbu’s people were already there, coded message or not. “We need to get going.”
“We do,” she said. “But not because of what you’re thinking. It’s not in my name or Emma’s. It’s not even in our father’s name.”
“But it’s yours? As in it belongs to you?”
She nodded.
“Then you can explain all that on the way.”
“I’ve got a cooler in the back and some sodas and chips you can take,” Lorenzo said. “Sleeping bags, too, in case you need them.” He pointed to the women. “You two go pack up his car. I want to talk to the boy.”
Eliza flashed an encouraging smile as Quincy stepped toward Eliza, feeling more like a boy than he could ever remember being. “Yes, sir?”
“I don’t know what happened between you two in London. And I don’t know what’s going on with you now. No,” he held up a hand. “Not my business. I just want you to know that that girl and her sister are like daughters to me. You hurt her—you hurt either of them—and I will hunt you down like a rabid dog and kill you with my bare hands.” He narrowed his eyes, his bushy brows coming to a point over his nose. “We understand each other?”
“Yes, sir,” Quince said. “We understand each other just fine.” He gave Lorenzo a nod, then stepped toward the door. He paused, then looked back. “For the record, sir. I think she’s lucky to have you.”
