Chapter 16
Holt
I softly take her hand in mine. Piper hides her nerves well.
Most of the time, if you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t realize she was stressed.
I have been watching her for a while now though, and she has a couple of tells.
She is either twirl-tugging on a section of hair or abusing her lips by biting on them.
“Have you had anything to eat today,” I ask her. She looks up at me briefly. Then she sighs.
“Does coffee count,” she jokes. I shake my head and pull her behind her counter. There are a couple of pre-made sandwiches back there. I grab the turkey with apples and cheddar and a bottle of water. I pull the stool around and have her sit.
“You know, I can take care of myself,” she sputters a bit. Her cheeks have a pink tint to them, and her bangs are falling in her eyes. I reach up to swipe them behind her ear again and she stills but doesn’t push me away.
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” I say as I unwrap the sandwich and hand her half. She takes it from me and bites into it, almost spitefully. I twist the cap off the bottle of water and set it down next to her.
She chews the bite in her mouth and takes a gulp of water. And repeats this process about 6 times. Once she finishes the half of a sandwich, she looks at me.
“There are you satisfied now,” she asks bitingly. Only once the question leaves her plush lips her cheeks go pink again. I grin at her, but give her a pass. I can make anything sound dirty.
“Yes, now eat the other half,” I prod her. She looks at the clock. It is almost time for the lunch rush, but I want her to finish this first. She sighs and nods. I take this moment to lean down and kiss her forehead. She gasps. Before she can say anything, I am backing away.
“I’m going to check in with the guys, I’ll be right over here,” I explain to her. She nods at me with a faraway look on her face. Turning around I reach Carter’s station. I can see the glint in his eyes. He wants to comment about that interaction so badly.
“Shut up, man. What have you got,” I ask. I move us away from the topic of him giving me shit.
“Fuckin’ nothing, that is what I got,” he says tersely. “There are no cameras that I can hack into in a 2-3 mile radius, none of these businesses have any. The camera at the intersection hasn’t been installed yet either. So we have nothing to go on,” his tone has turned grim.
I know what he is thinking. I don’t like it, but more than likely we will have to wait until he tries to do something else, and hope that he fucks up. It isn’t the way I like to do things, and I like it even less when it involves Piper.
“You’ll have to be her shadow man. I can’t imagine that this would be the end of this,” Carter is looking over at Piper as he speaks.
I know he is right. While I love the idea of being stuck to her side, I hate the fact that it is because she is in some kind of danger.
The door opens and we both look up quickly. It’s Meg, my shoulders relax a bit.
“Piper! Are you okay,” she asks. She is looking at the door wondering what happened. I watch the interaction with interest.
“I’m fine, some idiot tossed a brick through it,” she says easily. She is rolling her eyes and putting the cap back on her half finished water. I see that her sandwich is gone.
“Who would do that,” Meg asks the million dollar question. I see Piper shrug and Meg walks over to her quickly. Their exchange gets quieter. Sterling appears next to me again.
“Well, we are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this,” he states. He sits down heavily in the chair next to Carter. Carter shuts the laptop.
“Nothing here either,” he states sourly. Carter hates being bested, it doesn’t happen often but when it does it puts him in a foul mood for days. A pissed off Carter is also a determined one.
“No one saw a damned thing, and we have no outside sources. Do you think it was random,” Sterling asks. The tone in his voice suggest he doesn’t believe it, but I get why he would ask.
“I don’t think it is random at all. I think we have a problem,” I share. I then tell them about yesterday, and how Piper thought she was imagining things. Both Carter and Sterling are swearing under their breath.
Sterling lets out a low whistle. “Well, it ought to be interesting around here for a while,” he muses. He studies me briefly as if he can see right through my fury, fear, and worry. He probably can. He just went through this with Meg a few weeks ago.
I look up and see that Piper and Meg are talking behind the counter. Meg looks concerned and looks over in our direction. The door opens again and a few customers file in. The first sign that the lunch rush has begun.
“Piper interacts with hundreds of people. It could be anyone,” Carter grunts. I nod. It is true, she has a lot of customers. Sterling speaks before I can.
“This is true, but it has to be someone that she has come across in the last few months. She hasn’t had any issues before,” Sterling’s comment makes me think.
“Not a bad idea. I’ll start researching current customers and new faces. Someone may jump out,” his fingers start flying over the keyboard before he finishes his sentence.
“I’ll talk to Piper tonight, see if there is anything else that may stand out as odd to her. She chalked yesterday up to her imagination. Thought she was losing her mind,” I explain.
“Meg was the same way, couldn’t believe that she would be tied up in shit like that” Sterling acknowledges. Carter hums in agreement.
“Makes sense, they are pretty drama free,” Carter points out. I nod quietly. I hope Piper can remember something tonight that will give us more to go on. I just am not sure she will be able to.