Authors: Fiona Quinn

Cuff Lynx (18 page)

“Off the top of your head, why would someone want our art? And they replaced it, right? They brought in other paintings that went on the walls?”

“Yes, sir. Um, pulling ideas from the air? Maybe they were mapping our interior. Or were planting bugs. Identifying our players, eavesdropping, stealing files? Planting malware? Yeah, there’s my list. Right now, pretty much everything I come up with boils down to corporate espionage.”

“Shit.”

Twenty-Two

“H
ey, Chica, I’m taking advantage of a traffic jam to call and check in. Is everything alright?”

I climbed onto the counter stool and rested my elbows on the cool marble of Striker’s breakfast bar. “I’m good. And you? Oh, before I get side tracked, did you get my text about your sister taking a vacation?”

“I did, thank you. And I’m fine. Just tired.”

I picked up a pen and twiddled it back and forth. “It looked like you had a great time in New York at the Kennedy Center.” It popped right out of my mouth, even though I had decided to let it rest.

“You saw the paper.” His voice tightened.

I didn’t mean to put him on guard. “You were absolutely edible.” I used my best Marilyn Monroe voice. “You do good things for a tuxedo, Commander Rheas.”

Striker laughed quietly. “Well, thank you.” He paused. “I’ve been worried about you. How are you healing up? Are your ribs doing better?”

“Better, yes. My wrists are mostly healed. I’m still wearing my clothes with the longest sleeves, though. If people saw the marks, they might speculate about my private life in ways that don’t need to be part of the rumor mill.”

“There isn’t supposed to be a rumor mill happening at Iniquus. Company policy.”

“You can’t really stop people from gossiping about personal lives. That policy is aimed at our work load.”

“We don’t have personal lives, Chica. Anything and everything can have ramifications, sometimes in unexpected ways. Let’s say, for example, the rumor was that you have marks on your wrists because you get off on being tied up and spanked —”

“Good thing you’re my fiancé. I wouldn’t let just anyone chat bondage with me. Besides, if I actually started doing honest-to-goodness, do-or-die field work, I’d need a new contract and probably a new code name. What do you think about Cuff Lynx?”

“I can tell you’re grinning about this, but think it through. If there were rumors that you went in for the more exotic sexual activities, then Command might assign you to a case that had a target from the S&M scene, because they would assume you knew the lingo and the culture and could fit right in. But you wouldn’t have that information, so there’d you’d be in your pleather cat suit and dog collar, prancing around. As soon as someone approached you with a clothespin in their hand, you’d pull one of your kung fu moves and put them on the ground under your seven-inch heel and blow your cover.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “You had fun with that visual.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“I’ll make sure to cover my wrists,” I said, pulling the note pad closer so I could doodle.

A long stretch of silence followed.

“Now what are we going to talk about?” I asked.

“Tell me about your day.”

“I’m not sure how that’s going to work. I mean, all I do all day is try to solve my case—same for you. I’ve been told I can’t leave the campus, so I can’t even tell you about anything from the normal world.” This felt like another minefield we’d have to navigate as a couple. What is there to talk about when you’re not allowed to talk?

“Whoa. Wait. You’ve been sequestered again? When the heck did that happen? Did Spencer give the order?”

“No.”

“Grant, then? He usually coordinates our international contracts. That’s not your ball game.”

“Shhhh, I have a question. How did Deep get his call name?”

“Uh-uh, sorry. I can never share that story. If you weren’t there the day he was christened, you will never know.” Then Striker’s full body laugh filled the phone. Whatever the story was, it was obviously a good one.

I smiled, knowing my question had balanced the dark with some light for him. I, on the other hand, hadn’t laughed in days. Or grounded myself. Or meditated. As Spyder said, one must practice the fundamentals to keep one’s mind centered and flexible and get the job done. I drew the symbol for Om to remind me to do some yoga later. “Okay, that leaves us with the weather. Wet and chilly is great reading weather. Have you read anything good lately?”

“I worked on Lee Child’s newest on the plane.”

“The whole thing?”

“No. I’m almost done, though. I have a few chapters left.”

“So you must be on the West Coast. Are you still coming back tomorrow?”

“I’m coming in — should be there in time for dinner. How do you figure I’m on the West Coast?”

“People on the East Coast are heading to bed. You said you’re stuck in traffic. Minus three hours from here, it’s the end of a long work day. And based on your rate of reading, you should have finished the book during a transcontinental flight, but if I subtract the time Vine spent trying to engage you in conversation—taking you down memory lane, reminding you of the fun times you had together—there must have been a few chapters’ worth of good times she pulled out. That puts you West Coast.”

“I can’t talk to you.” He chuckled. “Everything I say can and will be put through your computer system, extrapolated out, and fed back to me as if I’ve breached protocol.”

“I don’t know where on the West Coast.”

“So I’d better shut up. If I tell you what I’m wearing or that I have a headache, you’ll announce my GPS coordinates.”

“If only I were that good.” A wave of melancholy washed over me. “I miss you. I’m sorry you have a headache. Sure wish you were here. I was thinking about you when I bought a bag of potato chips. I ended up eating the whole thing all by myself. It was very unsatisfying.”

“Poor baby, you must have been stressed. Tell you what; I’ll help you work off the extra calories as soon as I get home. Promise.”

I smiled.
That’ll be fun.

***

Leanne drove us back toward Iniquus after our Thai food. I’d worn a ball cap by way of disguise, and I guessed I could count Leanne as a guard—of sorts. Okay, I was stretching the confines of my orders, but a girl can only stand so much. I needed a breath of non-Iniquus air to clear my head so I could think better. A shame, though, that my trip off-campus hadn’t tasted better. Spyder had spoiled me with his cooking and his list of authentic and yummy restaurants. The one we just experienced would never make the list.

Leanne’s stiletto perched next to her on the console. She wore a single right tennis shoe for driving. She seemed to like her little rituals of organization. The more time I spent with her, the more I realized how important she found her linear and very defined lifestyle – where she got her information, what she found to be entertaining, the lineup of shows that she could not miss on Thursday nights. She probably very much enjoyed that she wasn’t in a need-to-know loop.

“I didn’t want to upset your appetite, Lynx, but I did want to ask how you’re feeling. I was very worried when you passed out in the file room. You were so still and pale, I thought you were dead.”

I slapped on a happy-go-lucky smile. “I’m good. Just had a little bit of a weird experience. Thank you again for your concern.”

Leanne shook her head. “I can’t imagine having been through what you went through. And if I hadn’t seen the drawings, I wouldn’t believe it was true. I mean, you don’t look that different from the time you went away until now. There are subtle changes—you don’t look older, but you do look more mature. I took you for a teenager when you first started working here.”

My mind caught on the word “drawings.”

“I asked my church to pray for you.” She gave a quick glance over her left shoulder, then offered up a wave as she changed lanes. “I didn’t know what else I could do. I knew that was okay for me to share with my church, since the reporters announced the story of your disappearance on the news. I told our pastor that I knew you, and we put you on the prayer list. We have a group of retired parishioners who go to the sanctuary every day and pray for the people on the lists. I knew God had your name in his ear.”

“Thank you.” I rubbed my palms down my thighs and cleared my throat.

“We were all hopeful. Your team–wow. They were rabid about it. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” She sent me a glance; her eyes seemed a little sad. “I guess every girl wishes for that kind of display of loyalty.”

I nodded my head, not sure how to respond. I guessed maybe Leanne misinterpreted my silence because she jumped back in. “Not that I would go through what you did to have that become a reality.”

“Leanne, a second ago you said you had seen drawings of me. You saw drawings? Not a video tape?” I asked as Leanne tucked her car neatly into her assigned spot.

“I knew there was a video—I overheard Command discussing it with Striker. But General Elliot had drawings of you.” She frowned. “I wonder who drew them. Maybe one of the guards at the Honduran prison?”

That didn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense. “Are the drawings in a file somewhere? Can I see them?”

“I can check and make sure your name is on the access list for the file. But if it’s not, please don’t go asking someone else about them. I assumed you had seen them so–gosh, I don’t want to get in trouble. I shouldn’t have said anything. Those drawings are classified.” She pulled off her sneaker and bobby sock, then slid on her high heel and adjusted her stockings. Her face bore the storm cloud expression of someone cussing themselves out for making a royal mistake.

“Why don’t I go to your office with you, and you can check the security clearance?” I asked.

I waited impatiently outside of General Elliot’s file room. Finally, Leanne moved back through the anteroom and put her hand on the panel to close up the file room. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. I thought I was going to get some insight, but the door glided closed on the opportunity.

Leanne flipped her hair and sent me a glance. “I have to close out, then I’ll put in the visitor code, and you can go in the same as last time. I put the file of drawings on the reading table.”

My heart tripped over a beat. The door slid open, and I walked in to have my biometric markers identified. As the second door slid open, I glanced appreciatively up at the Tsukamoto mobile, then to the desk with a very thin file.

I sat down in the chair, adjusted myself, and pulled on the nitrile gloves that Leanne had lain out, giving myself a couple extra seconds before I looked at the drawings. My muscles braced and with a shaky hand, I opened the file.

Twenty-Three

I
had opened the file backward, so I would be moving in a linear progression from the first piece of information to the most recent, knowing that Leanne filed the most recent on top. A manila envelope, closed with a toggle, came first. On the front, someone had penned the numbers 55569921 in cramped precise handwriting. Inside, I found my Iniquus ID picture. I turned it over, where someone had written “Female. Identify location and condition.” I replaced the photo and positioned the envelope on the desk to the side. I turned the next piece of paper over. My eyes read over the page:

Session: CRV.HET/02:12:14/10:23hrs/55569921/91449715/01

Monitor: Your target is a specific woman. Describe her state.

HET: Winking. Okay. Human. Female. Blonde. Young. Blood. Got her.

Monitor: State of being?

HET: Alive.

Monitor: Physical state?

HET: Elevated cortisol. Elevated adrenaline. High ketones. Increased Specific Gravity. Bruising. Exhaustion.

Monitor: You mentioned blood.

HET: Non-life threatening.

Monitor: Mental state?

HET: Confusion. Guilt. Shock.

Monitor: Location?