Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  Undeterred by what my nose had been telling me, I walked right up the counter, to the cute little blonde girl that was working the hostess stand. She smiled warmly at me as I approached. It was something I’d gotten used to over the years.

  “Table for one?” she asked in a bubbly voice, batting her eyelashes.

  “Actually,” I said, leaning down a little closer to her. “I’m looking for a guy named Reggie the Gap. You heard of him?”

  She rolled her eyes a little and sighed. “Sorry, we can’t give out information on employees.”

  “Oh, so he’s an employee here? Good to know. A buddy of mine, a mutual acquaintance of both mine and Reggie’s, told me I could find him here. Do you know when he’ll be in?”

  She pursed up her lips a little, her eyes shifting down to the hostess podium in front of her. “You know, I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about him, period. The boss doesn’t like us to talk to strangers asking around. Says you might be cops.”

  “Come on, do I look like a cop to you?”

  She looked me up and down. “No, not really,” she admitted.

  “Well, I’m not. I’m a friend of a friend, that’s all.”

  She twisted her mouth to the side, a cute little expression that would have had an effect on me if I hadn’t just met Rebecca. Now? Nothing. “I think he’s in back, to be honest. I heard my manager Louie talking to someone earlier, and I think it was Reggie.”

  “So Reggie works here as—what? A cook or something?”

  She shrugged. “I guess he’s kind of like a manager or something.”

  They were probably using the restaurant as a front, and Reggie was the one from Denver that ran the underground side of the business. They could keep his cash trail clean by paying him through the pizzeria, especially since a place like this probably made a lot of cash transactions.

  “Mind if I step in back and talk to him?” I asked, nodding to the nearby swinging door that led into the kitchen. “I’ll be real quick, I promise. Just for a minute.”

  The hostess started to shake her head. “I don’t know, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Come on,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my back pocket. “Just need to drop something off with him real quick, that’s all. It’s important, but it won’t long.”

  She sighed, rolling her eyes again as I dropped a stack of twenty dollar bills on the podium. “Okay,” she said under her breath as she leaned forward and scooped up the cash, “he’s in back. But make it quick. If my manager finds out, he’ll freaking freak and have my ass for lunch.”

  “I’ll be fast,” I said as I swept past the hostess stand and strode for the door.

  The kitchen in back was your typical commercial kitchen for a restaurant. Mostly chrome, and stock pot after stock pot full of red sauces and marinara arranged on the kitchen range, all with a layer of shimmering heat shifting in the air. I even smelled a nice meat sauce back there, some Chicken Parmesan cooking in the oven, and a big, half-empty tray of lasagna. There was a swarm of cooks that didn’t even stop to look my way, all bustling through the hellish temperature as they struggled to keep up with the orders coming in from the restaurant floor.

  I pressed further into the kitchen. “Reggie the Gap, everybody,” I said. “Looking for Reggie the fucking Gap real quick.”

  I’d learned a long time ago that sometimes the best way to get into a place is to just pretend you’re supposed to be there. Most people don’t bother you if you’ve got a clipboard and an orange vest on, and others don’t think much of you asking for someone by their nickname.

  The cooks all exchanged looks as a man came bustling out of the back. He was tall and lanky, with a big limp muskrat of a mustache dropping right beneath his nose. “Hey! What the fuck you think you’re doing back here? Who you looking for?”

  “Reggie the fucking Gap,” I repeated. “In town from Denver, gotta talk to the man himself.”

  Muskrat Mustache seemed to stop and consider me. “Denver, you said?”

  “You heard me right.”

  “Well go on back, man. Reggie’s in the back doing some business.”

  I nodded my thanks and headed through the kitchen, dodging grease splatters and flying pasta water at every turn. I hit the back door of the kitchen and pushed through with one hand while I patted my phone with the other. Hopefully that thing was still on. I didn’t have time to check.

  “Yeah, Jimmy, that’s what I fucking said–” Reggie the Gap shut his mouth the moment I walked in, and just glanced up at me from where he sat at a little desk, his crossed feet kicked up on the desktop. “Hey, Jimmy, let me hit you back in just a minute, alright? Some motherfucker just walked in unannounced in my office.”

  “You Reggie the Gap?” I asked as he turned off his phone and tossed it on the cluttered desk.

  “Depends on who’s asking.”

  “I am.”

  “Well then, smartass, depends on who the fuck you think you are.”

  “I’m here from Denver,” I lied. “Surprise fucking inspection.”

  His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and I smelled him begin to sweat a little more than he already was in the steaming room. Reggie here must have been pretty shit at cards. “Ain’t never seen you before, man.”

  “New guy Trigger Thomas brought in before his little incident with the wolf. Mattie Jones.”

  “Trigger?” he asked, swallowing hard as he brought his legs down from the desk. “He brought you in?”

  Reggie was buying it. Honestly, it was nice to see that the fear of Trigger Thomas was still alive and well, even if he wasn’t. “Yeah,” I said as I came around sat on the edge of his desk so I could loom more properly over him. “Trigger brought me in. They’ve got me, uh, working on some auditing. Make sure you’re working the game down here like you’re supposed to, reporting all the right numbers on the books.”

  “Reporting everything right?” he asked, laughing. “What? Lorenzo think I’m fucking him over now or something? Think he sent me all the way out here and I need a handler?”

  “Nah, ain’t nothing like that,” I said, fixing him with a stare. “He’s got me doing this between, you know, other jobs they got me handling.”

  He swallowed again. What was probably going through his mind, I had no idea. But I could smell an extra ounce of fear coming out of his pores when I mentioned “other jobs.”

  “Jobs?” he asked.

  “Well, Trigger ain’t exactly working any right now, is he?”

  He reached up and scratched his collarbone. A fat bead of sweat rolled down his temple, leaving a wet streak down his cheek. “Yeah. Guess not.”

  “So, how about it? You doing any work in the area? You doing what you need to be doing?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I even got a guy I’m meeting tomorrow, at a little bar north of here. He’s even thinking of looking at the liquor and stuff, too, the beer.”

  “And he’s paying the insurance?”

  He nodded furiously. “Yeah, oh, yeah.”

  “Cause you weren’t reporting anything on that gig for a while, were you? Now all of a sudden, what, you start busting your ass to make Lorenzo his money? Is that what I’m hearing?”

  “No, Mattie, you don’t understand,” he said, his eyes frantic as he searched around the room. “We did one right up there, in fact, just a few weeks ago. Old man, he, uh, pulled a shotgun on me, so we lit his place up. Everybody’s practically falling over each other to give us money now, hoping their own little shops don’t go up like campfires.”

  And Bingo was his name-o. “A few weeks ago, huh?” I asked. “Where at?”

  “Little town, Enchanted Rock. Small, you know, but they get a lot of tourist money up there. Cops up there are a joke, you know? They even arrested the owner of the hardware store we set fire to, and everything.”

  “So you did it, then?” I asked, shifting so the phone in my pocket was a little closer. I wanted this loud and clear on the recording.

/>   “Yeah, man, went up there, and, you know, got it going.”

  Shit, that was vague. But it was pretty much an admission of guilt.

  “Alright,” I said. “Just wanted to make sure you’re down here taking care of business. Lorenzo, he’s watching you, and generally, I’ll say he’s pretty happy. But I like you Reggie, you seem like an okay guy.”

  “Uh, thanks, Mattie,” he said, letting out a deep breath of relief. “That means a lot coming from a guy Trigger brought up.”

  “Don’t mention it.” I took a moment to look around his cramped little office. I turned back and let my gaze settle on him again. “Look, buddy, I’m gonna level with you. I don’t want to come back down here on any of my other jobs. You get me?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a rapid nod. “I get you. Loud and clear, I get you. Makes you feel better, I don’t want you to come back on any of your other jobs, neither.”

  “Glad we understand each other,” I said as I stood up from his desk.

  “Like fucking crystal, Mattie. Like fucking crystal.”

  “Good,” I said as I turned to leave.

  “Hey!” he called as I put my hand to the door. “This means you’re gonna give Lorenzo a good report, right? I mean, if he asks.”

  “Yeah,” I said back over my shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re telling the truth on everything, right?”

  He paused. “Well, yeah, of course I am, Mattie. I mean, why wouldn’t I be?”

  I nodded. “Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?”

  Before he could respond, I pushed through the door and headed back into the kitchen. I breezed through, with none of the cooks even glancing at my face. They didn’t know who I was, and they sure as hell didn’t want to know. Not if I’d walked in there to talk to Reggie and walked right back out so quickly.

  My supernatural hearing, though, could still hear Reggie back in his office as he grabbed his phone.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” Reggie said. “Got a question for you. You know if Lorenzo sent a guy down here to check on me? To see how things are going?” He paused for a moment. “No, no. Talking about business. Just, you tell me. You know who Mattie Jones is or not?”

  Something told me this wasn’t good.

  I hustled back out through the front of the restaurant, giving a little smile and a wink to the little blonde hostess. Less than a minute later, I was back outside and out of earshot of Reggie’s conversation with Jimmy. Fifteen seconds later, I was rejoining Rebecca back in the cab of my pickup.

  “Well?” Rebecca asked, her eyes practically dancing in her head with excitement as I rammed my keys into the ignition. “What’d you get? Was it good?”

  “Damn near a confession.” I pulled the phone out and started to play the conversation back.

  Just as my thumb hovered over the play button, though, Reggie the Gap came bursting out of Joey’s Pizza and Pasta, pistol in hand.

  “You motherfucker!” he screamed, his voice almost cracking, as he stomped across the pavement toward us. “Who the fuck are you? You a fucking pig?” He stopped between two cars parked in front of us and racked his gun. “You a motherfucking pig?”

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Rebecca chanted like a weird mantra. “Oh, God, Matthew!”

  Adrenaline pumped into my veins, and my mind began to fly. I needed to get us out of here.

  “You a motherfucking cop?” Reggie yelled again, pistol still raised.

  “Time to go!” I shouted as I turned the ignition and my pickup rumbled to life.

  “Fuck you!” Reggie screamed, raising the gun and leveling it at me at a slight angle with no brace on his wrist.

  With one hand, I stuffed Rebecca down into her seat’s foot well, knowing the engine block would protect her when, not if, the bullets started flying. “Stay down!” I yelled as I slammed my foot on the gas.

  The mobster screamed again in wordless rage and pulled the trigger. Three shots fired, bullet after bullet shooting at my pickup. Down in the foot well, Rebecca screamed, her voice joining Reggie’s. My arm stung suddenly, like I’d just been burned by a red hot poker.

  I winced, grabbing my bicep.

  Hot, sticky blood began to well between my fingers, spilling down my arm.

  “Hold on!” I shouted as I careened through the lot, narrowly missing a parked car.

  Reggie ran behind us, shouting, shooting, and screaming. This time around, though, all his bullets went wide.

  My pickup hopped the curb and I flew out into the street, my pickup fishtailing into traffic.

  Horns blared around me as brakes locked and tires squealed in protest.

  “Jesus Christ, Matthew! What the hell was all that?”

  “Guess Reggie didn’t like being lied to,” I said, glancing down at my arm to check the damage.

  Rebecca climbed back into her seat. “Matthew! You were hit!”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Really, it’s just a graze, probably just a flesh wound No big deal. Believe me.”

  “We need to stop the bleeding, don’t we? Isn’t that what we need to do?”

  I gripped my arm tighter. I wasn’t worried about the arm. Far from it. Shifters heal incredibly fast, even in our human form. In our wolf form, of course, we’re nigh invulnerable to anything but silver or natural weapons like antlers, claws, and teeth. No, what worried me most was how she was going to react when I was completely healed by the time we got back to Enchanted Rock.

  That was going to take some explaining.

  Chapter Twenty-two – Rebecca

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Matthew said as he patted my hand as I held a balled up white undershirt from the go-bag he kept in the cab of his truck against his bleeding arm. “Just keep applying pressure, and I’ll be fine. It was just a nick.”

  His reassurance didn’t help, and I could feel myself going faint at the sight of his drying blood. Coagulating, clotting. The only time I’d ever seen anywhere close to this amount of blood was when Sandy, my roommate in college, had stepped on a shard of glass while she’d been in a drunken stupor my freshman year. She’d smuggled in a few bottles of Boone’s Farms, and we drank them all by ourselves. Well, she’d drank most of them. When she’d gotten up to get her shoes so she could use the bathroom down the hall, she knocked over her short tumbler-turned–makeshift-wine glass and stepped right on it.

  Surprisingly, her reaction had been about the same as Matthew’s. Calm, detached.

  In Sandy’s case, though, she’d been drunk as a skunk. She’d barely flinched as the blood came pouring out of her foot, drenching the towel I’d had to nearly tackle her to the ground to apply. She just kept saying she needed to pee as I dug the shard of glass from her foot before trying to get her to the emergency room.

  Matthew’s reason? I had no freaking idea. He just didn’t seem to be hurt at all by it. “How’s it looking?” he asked as we continued up the highway to Enchanted Rock.

  “I-I-I think it’s okay.”

  “Freaking out?”

  “A little,” I admitted.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You know most people survive gunshot wounds, right? It’s not like the movies at all. Something like eighty to eighty-five percent. This was just a graze, no vitals hit. All you’re doing is making sure my blood will clot on its own so we can see if I need stitches or not.”

  “Stitches or not?” I asked, laughing nervously, my eyes traveling down to my blood-soaked fingers. It was like the red from my polish had somehow just leaked all over the rest of my hands, that was all. Yeah, I reminded myself shakily, that was all. “Oh, you’re getting stitches. We’re going to the clinic first thing.”

  “Seriously, this is just a flesh wound.”

  “Who are you? The black knight?”

  “Monty Python fan, then?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “Uncle Zeke’s got good taste in comedy,” I said, pressing the shirt down harder.

  He didn’t even wince. “Well, we’re not going to the clinic
. We’re just going to head into the office. I can call Peter to meet us up there. He’s good with a needle.”

  I gritted my teeth a little tighter and pressed down harder in frustration.

  “Hey!” This time he did wince.

  “Sorry, just checking to see if that was too much pressure.”

  “Alright there, Hulk, why don’t you pull it back and see how the bleeding looks.”

  I sucked in a breath and shook my head. “I don’t know about that. Come on, you got shot! I think we should still keep the pressure on!”

  “Have you ever been shot?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. What kind of question is that?”

  “Well, I have,” he said, a small grimace on his face.

  I looked hard at him, and saw that he was messing with me. “Oh, you have not. You made it through the war just fine.”

  He broke into a grin. “Well,” he said quickly, “I’ve seen other guys get shot. I have been through explosions, though.”

  “What was that like?” I asked as I kept up the pressure on his arm.

  “On a scale of fun to not fun, I’d say not fun.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked as I looked down at the crimson and white shirt and saw that the blood blossom had ceased to spread.

  “How’s it look?”

  “I think it stopped bleeding.” I pulled the makeshift compress back, producing a wince from him. At first, I almost thought that he was faking, but convinced myself I’d just imagined it. “Does it hurt?”

  “A little. Not too bad, though.”

  “I still think we should take you into the clinic.”

  “They’re not going to do anything other than clean it out and stitch me up, not for something that was just a graze. Probably didn’t even lose that much blood.”

  I glanced down at my bloody hands and at the soaked-through undershirt I still held. “Not a lot of blood?”

  “I’m a big guy. I have a lot of blood.”