Chapter Three | NOA #3
“You can be anything you want, from what I’ve seen. Usually trouble.”
“Do you say that to all your clients?”
“I’ve never had a client steal evidence back from me and then threaten to maim me before breakfast.”
“It’s not breakfast.”
“It will be soon enough.”
He moved to the desk, taking the chair instead of the bed. It should have helped. It didn’t. Six feet of room between us was nothing when the whole place smelled like lilies, expensive soap, and him.
His phone buzzed.
Torin answered. “Dempsey.”
Landon’s voice came through the receiver, low but clear enough in the quiet room. “Pattern overlap confirms an insider protecting the laundering operation. No identity yet.”
“How close?” Torin asked.
“Close enough to know there’s reach into official channels,” Landon said. “Legal, law enforcement, federal, or all three through favors.”
“No, that’s not a name,” Torin said. “Keep digging.”
“Hold position,” Landon said. “I’ll call when I have more.”
“Fine. We hold position.”
He ended the call.
I sat up. “You don’t get to do the silent-bodyguard thing now.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good, because I’d make it unpleasant.”
“I’ve no doubt.”
“What does that mean?”
Torin set the phone on the desk. “His team found enough pattern overlap to confirm there’s an insider protecting the laundering operation, but they don’t have the identity yet.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere with reach into official channels. Legal, law enforcement, federal, or someone who can touch all three through favors. Landon’s narrowing it.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“It isn’t meant to be.”
“And we hold position.”
“For now.”
“For now isn’t a plan.”
“It’s the piece before the plan.”
“I hate that.”
“You hate most things I say.”
“You make it easy.”
He leaned back in the chair, legs spread, completely at home in a room that wasn’t his, during a crisis that would have sent better-behaved men sweating through their shirts.
“The drive stays with you,” he said. “No official handoff until Landon gives us a clean channel. No calls to anyone outside HPG and Claudia. No opening the door unless I’m standing between you and whoever’s on the other side.”
“Do you ever get tired of sounding like a man issuing commandments from a mountain?”
“No.”
“At least you’re consistent.”
“I’m also right.”
“There it is.”
“You’d miss it if I stopped.”
“I would enjoy the silence.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
The terrible thing was that he was right again.
I lay back down because sitting up made my body think action was an option, and all the available actions were bad. The city threw amber light across the ceiling. The fog blurred the windows until the world outside looked distant and unreal.
“They killed Sawyer Price,” I said.
“They did.”
“They burned the safe house.”
“They did that too.”
“They tracked us once. They may track us again.”
“They may try.”
I looked over at him. “You sound excited.”
“I like when people make the mistake of coming at me twice.”
“That isn’t a healthy personality trait.”
“It’s kept me alive.”
“It may also get you shot.”
“Many have tried.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Clearly. I’ve an excellent voice.”
I shouldn’t have laughed.
It came out before I could stop it, short and unwilling, and Torin’s face changed when he heard it. Not soft. Hungry. Like he had found a new way to make trouble and intended to keep it.
My pulse kicked hard.
He stood, crossed to the door, checked the lock again, then the window, then settled back into the chair with the kind of patience that felt more dangerous than movement.
“Try to sleep,” he said.
“Don’t boss me while I’m horizontal.”
His eyes moved over the length of me in his shirt.
“I’m showing heroic restraint, so you might let me have one command.”
My skin went hot everywhere.
“You’re trouble.”
“I’m memorable.”
“Unfortunately.”
“That one was almost a compliment.”
“You’ve got a generous imagination.”
“I’ve got excellent instincts.” His voice dropped. “And right now every one of them says you need rest.”
I turned onto my side, facing away from him because looking at him was becoming a tactical error.
The room settled. The city hummed below us. Somewhere in the walls, the air system whispered cool and steady. I kept one hand on the jacket beside me, feeling the hard shape of the drive through the fabric.
A long time passed.
Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe an hour.
His phone buzzed again.
Torin answered before the second vibration. “Dempsey.”
Silence.
Then his voice, lower. “How long?”
Another silence.
His eyes came to me across the dark. I could feel the look before I turned my head.
“Grand,” he said. “Get me a name.”
He ended the call and sat still.
I pushed up on one elbow. “Torin.”
He looked at me then.
The use of his first name landed between us harder than it should have. I saw it hit him. I felt it hit me too.
He said, “Landon’s people have narrowed the access point. They’re close, but they still don’t have the identity. Until they do, we trust no official channel and we don’t move unless the hotel is compromised.”
“That’s the whole update?”
“That’s the whole update.”
“And if the hotel is compromised?”
His smile came without humor. “Then I get you out.”
“I help.”
“You help by doing exactly what you did at the safe house. You move fast, stay sharp, and don’t argue with me when seconds matter.”
“I argued before seconds mattered.”
“And beautifully.”
The compliment hit somewhere dangerous inside me.
I lay back down before he could see too much of it.
Dawn was still hours away, the drive was under my hand, and Torin Dempsey sat between me and the door like the worst idea I had ever wanted.
I should have felt trapped.
Instead, I felt furious and awake and lit up from the inside, wanting the one man in Halo City guaranteed to make every part of my life more dangerous.
It was a long time before sleep finally came to claim me for what remained of the night.