Miles #2
“And, um, how exactly are you going to find him?” He toys with the hair at my nape, and my fingers twitch, my first instinct telling me to rip them off and push him away.
Get him out of my space. I swallow hard and push through it, searching for the pleasant aspect of the touch.
A reminder that my aversion has nothing to do with him.
It’s not the touch itself that I’m responding to, and when I sift through all of the initial thoughts, I don’t dislike the way he feels on my skin.
Reminders of last night, not a lifetime of isolation as he so eloquently puts it.
Touching is not the same as being touched, but it’s a start.
He moves on to my ponytail, tugging lightly on the strands as he plays with it. It brings me some relief and a weird sense of loss. The sensation isn’t terrible. Far from it, in fact.
“Among other business ventures, Roger smuggles drugs into the country. Sporadically, and never with a pattern someone can follow. However, there’s always a paper trail.”
“So you’re looking for the paper trail?”
“I’ve found it, in a manner of speaking. There’ll be a shipment soon.”
“And you think this Lester will be at the exchange?”
“He’s always there for the big ones; Roger is too paranoid to think it will go smoothly without his direct supervision.”
“So why doesn’t he go?”
“He’d hardly sully himself doing grunt work.”
Matthew scrunches up his face, like he’s just sucked on a lemon. “When is it coming in?”
“A good question. There’s no exact date or location on any of the correspondence or the numbers.
” Roger really is getting smarter. Guess you actually can teach an old dog new tricks.
Annoying. He still hasn’t learned that no information is gone forever, though.
“There’s a man who works at the docks who works for Roger.
If we find him, we can get the rest of the details. ”
Matthew shifts, settling properly on his chair, our thighs brushing. “Put me to work,” he declares, smiling widely and looking far too cheerful for this time of morning. For any time of the day.
“There isn’t anything that you can do.” It’s not a two-man job.
The disappointment is palpable, and I sigh heavily before keying in the code and handing him my phone.
“Just like that? What if I want to go snooping?” he asks, blinking at it. “Aren’t you a super-secret spy kind of guy?”
I’m not sure that I would have put it quite that way. “There’s nothing on my phone that anyone can’t easily find elsewhere. Turn it over.” He flips it automatically, with no hesitation. “Feel the side with your thumb.”
His face twists in confusion as his thumb hits the middle. “There’s like… a bump?”
“Using the right code, it will set off a small charge through the phone that will destroy the electronics and make it useless.”
“How do you put a code into a button? Don’t you need a keypad or numbers or something?”
“Morse code.”
The way his lips part in surprise, a shine of wonder in his gaze, shouldn’t be endearing. It shouldn’t be anything. Sleeping with him doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly in love or ready to exchange heartfelt declarations. He’s Hunter and Xavier’s pet project, not mine.
I find myself saying, “Would you like to try it?” anyway. I turn away immediately, wishing there was a way to take back the words. Not because I care about destroying my phone—I don’t—but because my first thought was to indulge that childlike excitement.
“Uh, not if it means wiping your phone. But I’d love to learn Morse code.”
“It’ll take more than one night.”
He nods so seriously I almost kiss him. “Right, we’re working. What do you need me to do? Do you have apps on here that can search police databases or something?”
“Just Google,” I say, amused. “Look up the name Terry Inman. He probably has a LinkedIn or is listed on a website with contact details.”
“Huh. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“You’re overthinking it.” Not everything is hidden behind firewalls and passwords. The amount of information that’s readily available about everything and anything would make most people acutely uncomfortable.
Matthew smiles shyly at me and then swipes my phone open.
While I continue going through Roger’s business accounts, Matthew thumbs through my phone. He’s concentrating so hard that his eyebrows are creased, mouth scrunched up. The wrinkles at the bridge of his nose are more adorable than they should be.
He lifts a knee, resting his chin on it, still scrolling. Then he frowns. “Oh.”
“What is it?”
“I think he’s in jail? There’s someone that might be a sister—or his mum?—talking about it on Facebook. A hit-and-run he’s being falsely accused of.”
“Doubt it’s false.” It only takes a few minutes to find my way to the information I need. “He’s still in custody.”
Matthew closes my phone and carefully places it beside the laptop. “So what happens now? If he’s in jail, doesn’t that make him a dead end?”
“Not in jail yet. He hasn’t been convicted; he’ll just be in a holding cell at the prison.” I tap my thumb beneath the space bar of the keyboard. “Hunter has someone that can bring him to us, hand delivered, with wrapping and a pretty bow.”
“I hope that’s a metaphor.”
The corner of my mouth tips up lightly, and I don’t answer. He can speculate if he wants to. “It won’t take much to make him sing, and then we can get to Lester.”
“Um…” Matthew wrings his hands and chews on his bottom lip. “How would—how—when you say sing, what do you mean? Are you—are you going to hurt him?”
“If we have to.” No use sugarcoating it. “I doubt we will. Men like that respond better to dollar signs.”
Matthew’s shoulders drop in relief. “When will you go speak to him? I have school tomorrow. I’m allowed to go to work, right? Will they find me there?”
“They won’t come for you in broad daylight.” He gives me a look, and I revise my statement. “With witnesses. A school is too populated. Besides, I’ll be there.” Xavier and Hunter are the ones who will run down that lead. I don’t do lawyers.
His eyes widen. “What are you going to do, just sit in the corner of the classroom? You can’t do that.”
“I’ll wait outside.” Going inside would only draw attention to me.
“All day?”
I nod. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve spent that long on surveillance. It wasn’t that long ago I was following Hunter around. He moved around more, but I have no problem sitting still for long periods of time.
“Won’t you get bored?”
“No.”
He beams at me. “I can bring you snacks.”
He’s so innocent. Too innocent. Being in our world will destroy him.