Chapter 21 #2
“The bloodwork was wrong,” I muttered. “It was taken after a late night and several travel days. This is Roberto’s revenge on me for bogus infractions.”
Jett’s easy laughter helped loosen my shoulders again.
He returned to the table and brought another large salad that matched mine.
“I chose to join you in solidarity. Mostly because this looked ten times better than the sandwich option they had. Stop bitching and start eating. It’ll help your headache. ”
“Mpfh.”
I begrudgingly forked into the pile of weeds, making sure to spear a slice of grilled chicken as well.
“How’d your game go?” he asked after a couple of minutes. “Did you win?”
I shook my head. “A winner’s not declared in a single morning. We play a long game.”
Jett’s fork poked through his salad until it found a strawberry. “When do you pick it back up?”
I watched the strawberry’s route toward his mouth and the way his lips opened to pull it off the tines of the silver fork.
“Hm?” I asked.
“The game. When do you have to be back for it? I can set an alarm.”
I glanced up at his eyes before refocusing on my own food. “They’ll send for me. In the meantime, I need to work.”
“Right. You mentioned I might be able to help?”
I thought about it for a long moment. I’d meant that Jett could help me stay focused and de-stressed. But the man had proven to be remarkably intelligent the other night while learning Paxis. He really could help with this.
I shoved the salad bowl away and reached for the small plate of cheese and crackers he’d also brought. “I need you to find me an isolated spot along the Kiel Canal.”
Jett’s fork paused halfway to his mouth with a sprig of greens hanging off it. “The Kiel Canal?”
I nodded. “It’s in Germany.”
“What do you need this spot for?”
“In case one of my ships needs to pull over for an emergency.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Just find me a spot.”
He was quiet for a moment. I looked up to see his eyebrows furrowed.
“Problem?” I asked. “Use Google Maps. Look for areas that aren’t close to population centers. That’s all I need.”
He cleared our dishes away, retrieved his own laptop, and retook his seat across from me.
Within the hour, my contact at Bakker called.
“Locke, what the fuck is happening up there? Just today, I’ve had two ships boarded in Skagerrak Strait!”
We commiserated for a few minutes before trying to determine at what point it would make more sense to use smaller ships in order to use the Kiel Canal instead of the North Sea.
“I will reroute through Kiel,” I insisted. “At least for the time being. Hopefully, the inspectors will lose interest soon.”
When we ended the call, I felt Jett’s eyes on me.
“What’d you find?” I asked. “Anything good?”
“Not yet. What’s this for?” he asked, closing the laptop. “It sounds like something’s going on. Does this have to do with inspections? Like cargo inspections?”
I took a final sip of the coffee he’d brought, realizing my headache was receding. “There’s an increase in NATO agency inspections on maritime traffic in the North Sea. Inspections cost precious time. I’d rather avoid the risk and use an alternate route.”
“The Kiel Canal,” he supplied.
I nodded.
Jett studied me. “But… why are you concerning yourself with the routes your ships are taking? That seems… way below your pay grade. More of a job for operations.”
The man would make a shit soldier. He’d mouth off to his commanding officer before doing a damned thing he was supposed to.
I reminded myself I wasn’t his commanding officer. I wasn’t his anything, really.
“You suddenly know global shipping management? Did you learn that on Duolingo, too?” I huffed and nodded at the laptop. “You said you wanted to help. So help.”
Jett made no attempt to open the laptop. “I know a little bit about a lot of things. I’m smarter than I look. And I do want to help. But I can help better if you tell me what’s actually going on.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that Jett had already impressed me with his intelligence more than once. But instead, I sat back in my chair and crossed my legs, watching his teasing, bow-shaped lips and trying to read them for the truth.
“Impress me, then, with your knowledge of global movement of goods and the tech that keeps half a million metric tons of cargo moving across the world’s waterways every day.”
Jett’s teeth scraped his lip while he hesitated. I considered how to release him from the small moment of awkwardness and potential embarrassment.
But then he opened his mouth and spoke.
“I went to high school with Hunter Berringer.”
The last name got my attention. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“He’s Cy Berringer’s son. Cy runs Lowcountry Hazard Transport. They handle—”
I barked out a laugh. “I know what they handle, Jett. But being friends with a kid in high school doesn’t give you—”
“He’s my brother’s best friend. I spent half my time at his house growing up. His mom was good friends with one of my dads.”
I stared at him. “One of your dads.”
His eyes opened infinitesimally wider. “Um, yeah. I have two dads. I thought I told you that?”
What was I supposed to say? Your extensive background check revealed a single mother and no siblings, so what the actual fuck?
“So explain what kind of exposure you had to hazmat shipments. As a high schooler.” I folded my arms over my chest.
He sucked in a loud, annoyed breath. “Hypothetically, I was around when he had phone calls about finding creative ways to evade inspections, ducking into unexpected ports to wait out unpleasant traffic, timing certain runs to deliberately hit bad weather. I know that sometimes certain ships pull the fuck over to avoid getting caught doing shady shit. I know that the shipping business sometimes… skates the rules.” His eyes met mine. “A little like privateers.”
I huffed. “I’m not Cy Berringer. Maris doesn’t do ‘shady shit’ anymore.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You’re no angel. You hired a fucking prostitute, for god’s sake.”
His last sentence was a gut punch that literally stole my breath.
When I’d asked Jett to accompany me, he’d joked about being my whore. The comment had rankled, but I hadn’t rebutted it. In fact, I’d told myself it was better for both of us if we looked at our arrangement that way.
Then I’d reminded myself over and over, these past few days, that Jett was someone hired to do a job. Someone who didn’t genuinely like me. Someone I couldn’t trust. Someone I didn’t have to give a shit about.
But hearing that word come off his tongue now felt wrong on every level.
“Watch your mouth,” I growled. “I’ve never once called you that, and you shouldn’t call yourself that either.”
Jett’s eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but notice the way they caught the warm light from the open terrace doors. They were ten times more compelling than the actual water beyond the terrace.
His expression softened. “My point is, whatever you’re doing in the Kiel Canal, you’re not going to shock me. I can help you better if you tell me what’s going on.”
I hesitated.
Jett stood up and moved behind me, clasping the muscles of my shoulders with his strong hands and digging his thumbs in to massage tight muscles. “I signed an NDA, Locke. If you trust me not to tell anyone about the dick sucking, trust me not to tell them about the shady shit.”
“I don’t do shady shit,” I grumbled. “I mean it.”
The sound of his laughter helped ease the tightness in my shoulders. “Fine. I promise not to tell anyone about the strictly legal way in which you’re planning in advance for one of your ships to pull over for an emergency.”
I grunted noncommittally. Then I closed my eyes and allowed myself to enjoy the massage for a few minutes. After a while, Jett began humming something almost under his breath.
“What’s that song?” I asked, tilting my head back to rest on his stomach as his hands moved to massage my chest. It felt ten times better than the massages I got regularly back home. “I know it.”
He laughed softly. “Because it’s played fucking everywhere. You can’t escape it. Like an earworm from hell.”
“What is it?”
“‘Not Mine’ by Lyra Vale.”
“Mm, right. I saw her play the Super Bowl show last year with my grandfather.”
“Tell me more about your grandfather. Aside from Paxis and football, what did you do together?”
I tugged his hand until he came around to face me. “We worked,” I said regretfully. “Which is what you and I need to get back to. Sit.”
Jett seemed a bit disappointed, but he didn’t prod me again as he returned to his seat at the table. And maybe it was because he didn’t press me that I felt comfortable giving him a little bit of the truth.
“I need to find something in a ship,” I explained.
His brows furrowed. “Like what?”
I clenched my teeth as the tension Jett had massaged away immediately returned to my neck and shoulders.
There was no way I was giving Jett the details of the weapons and nerve agent antidote. I couldn’t begin to imagine the risk if he had information like that—not just risk to others if it got out but risk to him for having it. And I didn’t want to scare him either.
“I’m not sure. But I have technology that can scan the containers if I can get close enough.”
Jett’s eyes met mine, and I wondered yet again how it was possible the man hadn’t been discovered by a modeling agency somewhere along the way. He was fucking beautiful.
Distractingly so.
“Smuggling,” he repeated. “You’re forcing ships into the Kiel Canal so you can search them for whatever’s being smuggled. And you need a place to send your team with the scanning technology.”
“Hypothetically.” I met his eyes. “Find me a place.”
Jett opened his laptop, muttering. “The Kiel Canal sees ninety ships a day. Can your tech scan them all?”
“I might not need to. I have people reviewing surveillance video to find out which ones could have been loaded with contraband.”
He nodded and got to work.
And for some reason, it didn’t occur to me to wonder why he knew the daily commercial volume of one of the world’s most vital waterways.