Chapter 14 #3
Trixie took it with shaky hands. Was Geordi’s gift a coincidence or had Cayden somehow orchestrated this?
A single red rose from Peggy’s garden had been Cayden’s traditional gift to her but…
How could it have been from him? Geordi was too unreliable to keep a secret like seeing Cayden again. But…a red rose?
“Don’t you like it?” Geordi’s face fell when she didn’t take the offered flower from him right away.
Trixie quickly snapped herself back to the present and took the gift. “Thank you, Geordi. It’s beautiful.”
“I clipped the thorns for you,” he said proudly. “Just like I did before, so you don’t prick your fingers.”
Her eyes narrowed. Like he’d done before? For Cayden when the roses had been from him? She wanted to ask but Peggy was too close where she was speaking with Jeff for Trixie to interrogate Geordi, even stealthily.
“Thank you for the Christmas cookies, Geordi.” She reached into the tin and took one out without looking at what type it was. She bit into it, saying truthfully. “They’re really good.”
He beamed. “Thank you, Ms. Trixie!” He turned to go back towards Peggy and then paused. “He said you were too thin, and he’s right, Ms. Trixie. You need to eat more.”
Trixie’s jaw fell open, exposing the piece of half-chewed cookie in her mouth.
“You need to eat more, baby. You’re too thin.” It had been one of the last things Cayden had said to her before he’d left the other night. How the hell…?
Trixie wanted to go after Geordi, but he was already back with Peggy. Fuck. She couldn’t talk to him about Cayden now. How the hell had Cayden gotten Geordi to bring Trixie food?
Geordi was a safe intermediate because he’d been stopping by on and off with Peggy or Greg since Cayden’s departure, but Trixie worried that Geordi wouldn’t be able to keep from talking about speaking with Cayden.
It was risky, but she still had to say something. Everything could fall apart, and Geordi could get into serious trouble if the Wynns learned Geordi had been in contact with Cayden.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the showroom counter.
Geordi went easily, happy to follow her.
She took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to word her warning so that Geordi understood but also didn’t think he was in trouble.
“I really love the cookies, Geordi. Thank you. I’ll eat them all.
” His grin was so wide and innocent, it made her struggle over what she had to say next.
“Look, Geordi, when you said that he said I was too thin, did he tell you to be careful not to tell anyone you’ve spoken to him? ”
Geordi’s glee dropped into confusion. “No. Why can’t I tell anyone I talked to Paul?
I’m allowed to talk to Paul. Mrs. Wynn said so.
She said that Paul is going to be working for the FBI now!
Did you know that? That’s so cool! Paul says once he’s settled, I can come visit and I can come tour the building!
I’d like that because I’ve always wanted to see the FBI building.
” Suddenly he scowled. “Does that mean Paul will have a gun? I don’t like guns. ”
Trixie stood there stunned during Geordi’s babble.
She ignored everything he said after the name Paul.
Paul the hacker. The nineteen-year-old parolee she’d sat across from at Sunday dinner seven months ago.
The man would be free now, and hopefully living with his wife and daughter.
Did Geordi say FBI? Wow, she wondered how Paul had pulled that one off.
Why would Paul tell Geordi she was looking thin? How the hell would he possibly know that? When was the last time he’d seen her?
Slowly, her eyes landed on the black spherical camera in the corner of the showroom behind Geordi. The lens seemed to be fixed on her, though she knew that was only her imagination.
Or was it?
L and S hadn’t figured out how Cayden had gotten past their system. Cayden wasn’t a hacker. He hated computers. His love was cars. The other day, he’d said he’d put the cameras on a four-hour loop. That would have taken time, but he’d been with her.
Son of a selfish bitch, that sly bastard!
Cayden had somehow gotten Paul to hack into her security system.
The job at the FBI. That had to be Lee’s doing.
Paul was a hacker with a record. He couldn’t just fill out an application for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and expect anything more than laughter in return.
But if he had a recommendation from a former Marine, from a current cop…
Maybe. She didn’t know how that technically worked, but Paul would certainly have a better shot.
Cayden or Lee had been in contact with Paul, who had contacted Geordi, who had shown up today with cookies and a rose, thinking they were his own gifts to her when they were, in fact, Cayden’s. She didn’t know if she wanted to kiss her man or kick him for this elaborate scheme.
She put the heel of her hand to her forehead. She was getting a headache.
Cayden jumped down. He landed with his knees bent, his fingers just barely brushing the floor of the garage to keep him balanced.
With how fast his heart was racing, Cayden tried to keep his breath slow and steady.
Thoughts of Trixie flashed before his eyes, but he pushed those away.
He did not need that sort of distraction now.
As much as the idea of Trixie calmed him, she also excited him beyond belief and he needed to concentrate on his task at hand.
This was it. Tonight, they would either have Carver or they wouldn’t.
To say Carver was after a motorcycle was to say the Grand Riyadh was just a hotel.
The Raiju —named after the Japanese mythic creature made of lightning— was a slick, high speed electric feat of vehicular engineering that was being prepared to be launched in the next year’s market.
Its dual tire system gave it a unique design, and it was rumored to be faster than even the Ninja H2R.
Cayden had to admit. The thought of driving this motorcycle got his blood pumping nearly as hot as the sight of Trixie bent over a dismantled engine did.
For as valuable as the Raiju was, Cayden had been shocked to learn that Carver didn’t plan on keeping her.
He planned on selling her to the highest bidder.
Opening bid for the auction would start at half a million, though Cayden had no doubt it would quickly break seven, maybe eight, digits.
The Neiman Marcus LE Fighter sold for eleven million at auction.
Competing companies would kill for the chance to take the Raiju apart and figure out how she runs, but they wouldn’t be the only ones bidding. Collectors would be too, as well as weapons companies who could care less about the motorcycle and were only interested in the battery technology.
Lee wasn’t with Cayden. He’d been able to convince Trixie’s brother that he’d only be a liability. As protected as the Raiju was, Cayden was better working solo. Having Lee along was a distraction he didn’t need and couldn’t risk having.
Therefore, Lee and Captain Holloway, Lee’s superior officer and former Marine friend, were waiting for Cayden’s signal that Carver had the motorcycle and Cayden had eyes on the drugs, and then they were to swarm Cayden’s location with the locator he had in his shoe.
As much as it irked him, the company who owned and designed the Raiju were aware that Cayden was going to steal it tonight and they’d put a duplicate in her place, so Cayden wasn’t actually delivering the real prototype.
Instead, the vehicle he would be driving would be one of the original prototype that hadn’t passed inspection, but Cayden was assured it was still safe to drive.
The police department wasn’t prepared to assume the liability required to guarantee the safety of the real vehicle. Therefore, for them to sanction Cayden committing the crime, it had to be a fake bike.
Never knew stings needed to be this complicated, Cayden had found himself thinking over the course of his undercover work. No wonder criminals get away with so much. The cops are fighting us with their hands tied behind their backs.
Cayden saw too many problems with using a fake, but the biggest one was that Carver was too smart to fall for a duplicate. Additionally, the more people who knew a secret, the less likely it was to remain a secret.
Cayden didn’t like it, which was making his blood spike all the more.
As soon as Cayden entered the garage, he got a sinking feeling in his gut.
It only increased the closer he got to the Raiju.
So many things could go wrong, but… This was also it.
After tonight, he was free. Deal done. He could go back to Trixie and start their life together.
Lee swore to Cayden that Carver was leaving tonight in cuffs or a body bag.
Taking down Carver got Lee one step closer to Massey.
Cayden understood this, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
Lee was seeking justice, but maybe he was going about it the wrong way?
Cayden had once asked Lee if he knew who had killed Marco.
Marco might have witnessed Massey’s crime, but had he actually been the one to kidnap and torture Marco or had he just ordered it done?
Lee had just remained silent, making Cayden think that whomever those men were, they were long dead.
Cayden walked up to the Raiju replica, and rolled his eyes. The company had left him the damn keys. What sort of heist was this? This was no test of his skill whatsoever. If his stomach wasn’t churning so badly, he’d go as far as to call it boring.
He hesitated only for a moment before he took out a small notepad, wrote a quick sentence, and then he held it up to the security camera in the corner of the garage.
Paul had done something to the cameras so the guards in the security room couldn’t see Cayden, but Paul still could.
Cayden had spent his late teens and early twenties relying on his gut, and something just wasn’t right.
What he had to say, he didn’t want the whole of the police department to overhear anyway.
What was he supposed to tell Lee anyway?
Hey, man, my tummy hurts. Want to call this whole thing off?
Cayden scoffed at his own inner sarcasm that sounded far too much like Trixie to help him keep his focus on the job at hand.
Cayden pulled out of the garage, down the back alleyway, and through the gates that Paul opened for him.
Like he said, boring. As soon as he pulled onto the main road, he could tell he was being watched.
The cops only had a single unmarked keeping an eye on him.
They knew where he was; they didn’t know where Carver’s drugs were and therefore felt it was better to spread out their forces through the city so they could converge once they had a location. Besides, the gaze didn’t feel friendly.
Cayden texted Carver that he had the Raiju and waited for the man to respond with the location of the exchange.
As soon as he had it, Cayden destroyed the phone.
Carver probably had the phone bugged or something.
He passed on the location of Carver’s meeting to Lee through the wire.
He felt only slightly better knowing that the cavalry was now also on their way.
Cayden’s eyes glanced at his mirrors. Something wasn’t right, he said to himself just as he merged onto the highway. He barely went a mile before the road was lit up with red and blue flashing lights and the path in front of him was being rapidly blocked by barricades.
“Driver, pull over your vehicle!”