Chapter 12
Zane
Getting to sleep last night had been a bit challenging, but at least this morning, I hadn’t woken up to any damage. Knock on wood.
I rapped my knuckles on the wood of the doorjamb as I crept out of my room. Passing the door to the guest room Peyton was in, I halted for a second. Had she had the same difficulty getting to sleep, or had she merely been relieved to have paid her debt to me?
It seemed impossible to know. So I moved on and left the house silently, while Mom and Peyton slept.
During the drive to work, the same two questions nagged at me. What was Peyton running from, and had our kiss changed anything between us?
Arriving at the Hawk Securities building before anyone else, I hit the gym. Working the machines and straining my body always burned away anxiety. I was banking on Lucas being the first one in.
“What do you want from the boss?” Old Joe asked as he peeked into the gym.
“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty,” I gritted out as I finished my set on the chest press machine. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“People only beat him in here if they have something to ask.”
I grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off my face and neck. “Guilty as charged.”
Joe checked his watch. “You can head up to his office now. You shouldn’t have to wait more than about five minutes.”
Grabbing an extra towel, I took his advice and went up to park myself outside the boss’s office.
Lucas and Winston were the next to arrive. It had been four minutes. Joe sure had the timing down.
“Morning, Zane. You don’t need to get in this early to impress me, you know.” The boss had his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup in hand.
This was classic Lucas Hawk. Where the rest of us tended to stop at Starbucks or Peet’s, he chose the low-cost option.
“I’ve got a request,” I told him.
He unlocked his door. “Come on in and lay it on me.” He circled the desk and sat down.
I took a chair in front of his desk, nervous as a schoolboy in the principal’s office.
“Spit it out, sailor, and no bullshit. I’m not on Navy time here.” He lifted the coffee and took a sip.
No, Lucas Hawk had been Delta, and was Army through and through.
“I’d like to put some resources into figuring out who is after Peyton Smith.”
He put the coffee cup down. “The way I hear it, you already requisitioned some resources for that project.”
“Sir?”
“I understand Constance spent last night pulling prints from the Smith condo for you.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
He cut me off with a fist slammed on the desk. “If nobody got hurt, don’t ever fucking tell me you’re sorry.”
Duke had warned me not to piss off Lucas, and here I was learning why. Right now, I’d rather be facing down a tango with an RPG than sitting across from an angry Lucas Hawk. His voice alone was cause for real sphincter puckering.
“Here at Hawk,” he said, pressing a finger into the wood of his desk—the same finger I’d heard stories about. I’d heard Lucas had been with Omega, and I’d been warned that nobody in his right mind, not even an armed SEAL, took on an Omega guy one-on-one.
“You’re expected to take initiative and responsibility,” he continued.
“I don’t hire pansies, and I don’t want to be called on every stupid little thing.
You own what you do, and the decisions you make.
No bullshit. If you fuck up, you say so and own that as well.
So, you said you’re sorry. Does that mean you fucked up and somebody got hurt? ”
Just like I was back in boot camp, I sat ramrod straight. “Sir, no, sir. I was pointing out that I didn’t ask for permission.”
His dark eyes bored into me, and I was damned glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. “Now that you understand you don’t always need permission, tell me if you regret what you did.”
“Sir, I do not, sir.”
He relaxed into the chair. “You can drop the sir as well. Go through it for me. Tell me what’s going on and your plan.”
I followed his cue and relaxed. “I believe Peyton Smith is under attack, and since she works for Grace, and Grace is with Terry, and they’re worried about her, I—”
Lucas stood up so fast his chair rolled back and hit the wall. “I told you we don’t do bullshit here. Bullshit gets people hurt.” He pointed at the door. “Now get the hell out of my office and come back when you understand the meaning of no bullshit.”
I didn’t leave, but I did stand at attention.
“I am worried about Peyton Smith. I feel responsible for her. We know that her name is fake, and she won’t discuss her past. She’s scared.
She’s on the run from someone. I think the probability that she was the victim of a random mugging and her condo got burglarized all in twenty-four hours is nearly zero. ”
“I hate people who prey on women,” he snarled.
Everyone in spec ops knew the story. Once, Lucas Hawk had delayed a mission for a few hours to visit a drug kingpin running a rape house.
That asshole and four of his lieutenants had ended up buried under a pile of rubble, and the women had been freed.
Men abusing women was a hot-button issue of his.
“Why target her?”
“I think it’s most likely related to what or who she is running from. The burglary had the hallmarks of a search for a specific item, a small item that would fit into a kitchen drawer. It wasn’t local kids looking for a laptop or jewelry to sell.”
“Wouldn’t she have said if the guys who jumped her were the people she was running from? Couldn’t they have been random muggers?”
“They might not be the individuals she’s running from, but I think it’s all related—an attack disguised as a mugging. They’d gotten her watch and purse and still attacked her.”
“And you think this will continue?”
“It’s not over.”
“In your opinion?”
“Yes. In my opinion.”
“That’s better. You’re the closest to the situation, so it’s your opinion that matters.”
I pulled in a relieved breath.
“Sit down, son.” He rolled his chair back to the desk and sat. “Jordy told me about her identity issues.”
“She refuses to get the police involved, and she spun a story about an ex-boyfriend who was shot by cops as an excuse, but I don’t buy it. I also saw her chart at the hospital last night, and she didn’t use the name Peyton Smith when checking in.”
“Beyond having Jordy check out her and her neighbor, what do you want?”
As I should have expected, Jordy kept his brother Lucas well informed.
“I think Duke and I should have a chat with her neighbor, Frankie. There’s something off about him, and I’d like to see what the fingerprints tell us.
In addition, I’d like Jordy to check whatever local video feeds are nearby to see if we can get a look at who broke into the condo.
We know they took a backpack, and if they didn’t ditch it in the building, we may catch them carrying it away. ”
He steepled his hands. “That’s it?”
“For this morning, yes.” My phone announced that a text had arrived, and I silenced it.
“Two problems. First, Duke has an assignment already that I don’t want to upset, so take Winston along with you.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Second, we need to learn what she’s afraid of, who she’s running from. That’s for you to press her on.”
“I have been, and I’ll keep it at it, but if I push too hard, I’m afraid she’ll run.”
“I didn’t say it was easy, but we have to know.” He waved me away. “Get on it. And…” He slid a sheet of paper across the desk at me. “This is Constance’s report on the fingerprints.”
“Thank you.” I took the paper and strode to the door.
“Oh, and Zane…”
I turned.
“Remember, we don’t bullshit each other.”
“Copy that, boss.”
Winston was at his desk when I made it down the hall. “Sounds like you got the intro lesson.”
“I guess.”
“He can be scary, but that’s because he doesn’t like repeating himself.”
“Is the scuttlebutt about him true?”
Winston leaned back in his chair. “Depends on which one you’re asking about?”
“That he killed a tango with just one finger?”
Winston answered with a slight chuckle. “Duke says the Omega guys all swear it’s true, and it doesn’t pay to disagree with them.”
I nodded like I knew all about Omega. “Ain’t that the truth?” The group was so secret that it hid behind a reference from the movie True Lies, and nobody knew where the line between movie fiction and reality stood.
I opened up the paper from Constance and read it.
She’d initially found three sets of fingerprints in the house, which she assumed were Peyton and the owners, since they matched prints on hair brushes and toothpaste tubes.
Two women and one man, she’d guessed by the print sizes.
That matched up. But there was also one other print and multiple smudges left by someone wearing leather gloves.
At the bottom of the sheet was a question. Do you want to run all of them?
I pivoted to Winston. “I’d like your help interrogating Peyton’s neighbor. He strikes me as odd.”
“Sure. When?”
I liked that I didn’t have to justify myself to the former FBI special agent. “This morning. I’ll give you a call. I’m taking Peyton to work, and I’m wondering if we have his prints in the condo.”
He raised a finger in salute. “You got it. Just let me know.”
I changed quickly in the locker room and then checked my messages on the way down to my car.
MOM: You need to get back here. I thought you were guarding your girl.
It wasn’t worth correcting her again that Peyton wasn’t my girl.
ME: A colleague is outside on guard duty until I get back. His name is Duke.
MOM: I’m going to cook pancakes for you and her, so get your behind back here.
ME: On the way. Make enough for Duke too.
I left a note for Jordy and headed home, hoping to hell that Mom hadn’t scared off Peyton. My girl. I liked the sound of that.
On the drive, I chanced waking up Constance.
“What do you want?” she answered groggily. “I finished the condo and cleaned up only a few hours ago. Lucas has my report.” She hung up.
Laughing, I dialed again.
“What do you want now? I was sleeping.” Her mood hadn’t improved.
I stuck with Jordy’s warning from before about invading Peyton’s privacy. “Only run the print set we think doesn’t belong and not the three we think are the occupants.”
“Okaaaaaaaaaay,” she groaned, and the line went dead again.
Since I had enough time, I dialed the contact I’d set up for just such an instance, but only used once before.
“Rosie’s Roses,” a chipper voice answered.
“Hi, Rosie. Zane March. I need a delivery first thing this morning of a dozen white roses to Constance Collier at Hawk Security.” I gave them the address. “Put it on my account.”
“What would you like the card to say?”
I took the final corner to get back home. “Thank you. No name.”
“You’re a scoundrel, you know that?”
“Maybe.” Was scoundrel really that bad a term? I wouldn’t have minded being a pirate in a prior century. “Hey, Rosie. Add a second dozen and send them to Peyton Smith at SpaceMasters. Same address as last time.”
“You like this girl.” Her intonation was statement, not question.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
I’d started out intrigued, but the way I’d felt when I saw those muggers after her was a clear signal that I’d gone beyond that. Then, the kiss had taken it up another notch, and I was definitely in like-a-lot territory.
“Flowers twice to the same woman deserves a card,” she prodded.
“Okay. No name, but put, We should have dinner. Nothing more than that.”
“If that’s your message, maybe you should up your game and go with red, instead of white.”
“You think so?” I thought about it for a second before turning into my driveway. “No. White. I don’t want to push it.”
“Rush delivery on this as well?”
“Please,” I answered as I shut down the Porsche’s engine.
“How about pink instead of red?” Rosie wasn’t done with me yet. “It’s not a full-blown love message like red, but does give a definite I-like-you vibe.”
“Okay, pink.” I had to bet Rosie had a better feel for these things than I did.