Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jorja carried her coffee mug and two bottles of freshly squeezed orange juice into the war-room. There was absolutely no way she was drinking the sludge Remi had forced on her yesterday. She’d rather have the Red Bull and fly around on the wings it supposedly would give her. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Remi grunted. He already had his headset on and was watching a computer screen.
She placed one of the juice bottles in front of him, caught a glimpse of Gunnar out of the corner of her eye, and lifted her gaze to watch the screen.
“Cameras from one of our interrogation rooms in Morocco.” Remi picked up the bottle and unscrewed the top. “Thanks for this.”
“You’re welcome.” She studied Gunnar, looking for any evidence of the shot he’d been skimmed by, and breathed out a sigh of relief when she couldn’t see any.
Although, with how he was propping up against the wall and wasn’t walking around, she couldn’t really tell. “Look at him, looking all badassery.”
“Do not perv on my brother when I’m right here,” Remi spluttered as the juice went down the wrong pipe. “My ears don’t need to hear that shit.”
“Oops, my bad.” She wasn’t one bit sorry.
There wasn’t one of Gunnar’s brothers who didn’t need a little more teasing in their lives.
If she was going to be their oldest brother’s someone, then teasing fell squarely in her department.
But that would have to wait a bit; they still had work, and after checking her wash bag earlier this morning, she had questions which needed answers.
“What’s the deal for going to the store? ”
“We go when we need something,” Remi deadpanned. “Like the normal people we are.”
She gaped at him in shock and pointed to the screen. “Newsflash, Remi, when it comes to you guys, there isn’t a normal one in the bunch. That’s like claiming Rambo is normal and GI Joe isn’t a plastic doll with a bunch of toy weapons.”
“Quit bitching.” Remi moved one of the earpieces off his ear while keeping the other one in place. “Grab what you need from the kitchen.”
“Unless you store birth control pills in the kitchen drawers, I need to go get my prescription refilled if they’ll do it here without seeing a doctor.
” She fought down the urge to blush just as she had every damn time this morning when she’d rehearsed this conversation in the mirror and waited for Remi to take another sip of juice.
She needed the insurance of him spluttering in case she lost the blush battle before adding on, “Or you get to tell your brother he better buy condoms on the way home.”
“Jorja, fuck.” Remi choked, coughed, and spluttered. “That’s way too much TMI when I’m…” he waved at the screen, “listening to that. Can you order them online?”
“Nope. Girlie shit, remember, Remi? Unless you are going to go find me a doctor and pick up my pill prescription…”
“Lemme call our usual Pharmacia,” Remi muttered when he stopped spluttering. “You might not need one.”
She really hoped that was true. The last thing she wanted to do was go to a strange doctor and explain all her personal stuff. Hell, she didn’t even like going to her regular doctor at the best of times. “If I don’t, that would be awesome.”
Remi nodded and picked up the phone. After a short conversation in Italian he asked, “What brand?”
She gave him the name and listened to the one-sided conversation, only picking up a word or two here and there, one of which she thought was passport.
“They have it.” Remi hung up the phone. “You can go down and pick it up once you have your passport with you.”
“Umm, no, no, I can’t,” she reminded him, “I don’t have my passport, as it’s back at the hotel in Pisa.
What’s his name? Marco forgot to bring it when he brought my stuff from there.
He didn’t have time to pick it up before they all left for there.
” She waved toward the screen. While it would be awesome to be able to wander around town on her own, she wasn’t sure Remi was seriously going to allow her to just drive or walk out of here all by herself.
“I’ll go pick your stuff up when I’m done here,” Remi decided. “We probably need some other shit too.” He glanced at his watch and frowned. “Maybe not. They close at twelve on a Sunday. I have to stay here.”
She was just about to say they could wait until tomorrow when Remi reached over his desk and plucked a set of keys out of a box.
“Here, take my truck and go grab them. At the end of the street, go right, then straight through the next roundabout,” he explained.
“You’ll see a Eurospar on the left. The Pharmacia is in the same complex. ”
She gaped at him for a second. Was this how they did the jobs they did?
Keep everyone on their toes so the people they chased didn’t know which way was up?
If so, it was a good way to do it, because she didn’t have a clue what was happening most of the time and it felt like she was stumbling around in the dark half the time.
“Uh—thanks.” She grabbed the keys, picked up her purse, and turned to the door.
“If you get stopped by the cops,” Remi said, “give them this.” He handed her a badge. “It verifies you have all the correct documentation. I have a copy of your passport.” He hit print on something. “Grab it off the printer and you’re good to go.”
“How do you…” She trailed off. Of course, he’d checked who she was. She was an idiot not to have realized it sooner. She grabbed the photocopy and stuffed it in her purse. “Do you need anything while I’m at the pharmacy?”
“There’s a list on the fridge. If you can grab what’s on it, that would be awesome.”
“List on the fridge, got it.”
Five minutes… it had taken all of five minutes to grab Remi’s shopping list and figure out which truck she was to take.
Thank you blinky lights when the alarm is hit.
But this adjusting the seat crap was just ridiculous.
“Move, dang it.” She pushed the lever and scooted forward to get her feet on the floor of the truck.
“Was this made for freaking sasquatch? Jeez. Tall men should provide booster seats when short women need to drive their freaking cars. A step ladder to get in would have been helpful too.” Muttering and bitching, she finally got the seat adjusted to where she could safely reach the pedals and started the truck.
She drove toward the front gate and paused in front of it as it started to open.
“Is this some kind of magic juju?” She kept her foot on the brake and half stood to look out the side window.
Yup, there it was, a sensor stuck into the grass almost at the nose of the truck.
Once she was on the other side of the gate, she waited for it to close behind her before carefully navigating the narrow streets, wincing a couple of times because not only was she driving a strange vehicle, but she couldn’t see the end of its nose. “This isn’t dangerous at all.”
There were exactly six close calls where the wing mirrors had narrowly missed some crazy driving like a damn loon, and Jorja blew out a breath of relief as she drove the truck into the first drive-in spot she found in the parking lot of the shopping complex, and into the spot in front of it.
There wasn’t enough chocolate in the country to make her want to reverse this monster out of a parking spot.
“I can walk across the whole lot. It won’t kill me.
” If she’d known it was this freaking close to the house, she would have walked and avoided the trauma of wondering if the damn wing mirrors would make it past the church without scraping off the paint from either one.
Hopefully the pharmacy and grocery shopping would be less of an ordeal.