Peak #3
“Was Mercer right? Did she have cancer?” he asked.
Maeve lowered her head. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yeah, me too,” Maeve said. Silence settled over the room again, and he wondered if she was going to answer his original question.
“And the reason Mercer said that he interviewed me in Richmond is because he did. I applied for a job with the government in cybersecurity. That was the first time I met him. He was part of a team that interviewed me for the position. I didn’t get that job, though.”
“But it put you on Mercer’s radar,” he said.
“Yes,” she breathed. “My sister, too. She was the one who got that position. I’m betting that’s why they took her and why Mercer is coming after me.
” Peak agreed, but the question remained—why Mercer was coming after him.
He had never worked for the government—well, not officially.
Yet, Mercer said that his clubhouse was attacked because of him, and not Maeve.
Peak reached for his shirt and Maeve slapped his hand away. "I'm not finished."
He raised an eyebrow. "You always this bossy?"
"When people are bleeding, yes,” she said.
He chuckled. "Remind me never to get hurt around you again."
"Let’s hope there’s not a next time,” she said. “But if there is, I’ll fix you anyway, even though you’re complaining like a man-baby right now.” He laughed—actually laughed.
Maeve looked up at him again. "You laughed. It sounded different this time.”
Peak frowned. "What?"
"When you forget you're supposed to be guarded, you laugh differently,” she said.
"I don't know what you're talking about,” he insisted. She was right, though. There was something about hanging out with Maeve alone that made him feel more at ease.
"You smile with your eyes, too,” she continued. He stared at her, and she looked back down at the bandage. "I notice things.” She shrugged as though it wasn’t a big deal, but it was.
"So I've gathered." His phone buzzed, and Captain's name flashed across the screen. Peak answered immediately. "Tell me something good."
Captain snorted. "We found three more tunnels."
Peak's smile disappeared. "What?"
"They connect to old crab packing warehouses,” Captain said.
Peak leaned forward. "So they weren't just using our property."
"No, they've been under us for years."
Peak rubbed a hand over his face. "Anything on Mercer?"
Captain hesitated. "He's talking."
Maeve froze, and Peak noticed immediately. "What'd he say?"
"Not much." Captain sighed. "But enough."
Peak waited. "Mercer works for somebody called the Director."
Peak frowned. "Who the hell is this Director?"
"Don’t know. That's all he'll give us,” Captain said. "He’s not giving us a name, description, or a location."
Peak looked toward Maeve. She'd gone completely still. "What aren’t you telling me, Maeve?” he asked.
"I know that name,” she admitted. She slowly shook her head. "I wish I didn't."
Peak put Captain on speaker. "Tell us what you know." Maeve sat down in the chair across from him; her hands folded tightly in her lap.
"When Wren disappeared—” She swallowed. "I hacked into one of Mercer's encrypted servers."
Peak leaned forward. "You’re just telling us that now?" he asked.
"I never had the chance to tell you before. I didn’t know that it would matter." Captain stayed silent, and she continued. "I found hundreds of messages. Every single one ended the same way." She closed her eyes as though trying to remember what they said. "'Report sent to Director.'”
"So Mercer reports to the Director,” he said.
Maeve nodded. "But Mercer isn't high enough to know who the Director is."
"What do you mean?"
"He takes orders, but he doesn't make them."
Captain cursed softly. "So we're still chasing ghosts."
"No." Maeve opened her eyes. "We're chasing one ghost."
“It doesn’t matter how many we’re chasing; we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Captain said. “I’ll be in touch soon, and I’ll send you the coordinates to the temporary clubhouse,” Captain promised to move Mercer before dawn and ended the call before Peak could ask how everyone was.
Peak didn’t trust that the motel would stay secret for long, and he knew that they’d have to move before getting too comfortable.
He knew that running back to the temporary Grave Prowler’s clubhouse wasn’t a good idea.
It would just put everyone there in danger again, and he couldn’t do that.
Instead, he and Maeve would have to find a place to lay low on their own.
The fewer people who knew about it, the better—especially if they had a leak in the club.
Peak slipped his phone back into his pocket. "You hungry?"
Maeve looked surprised. "I—” Her stomach answered for her. A loud growl echoed through the room, and Peak grinned.
"I'll take that as a yes."
She buried her face in her hands. "Can we pretend that didn't happen?"
"No,” he breathed.
"Please?" she begged.
"I absolutely will not forget that happened, honey,” he said.
She laughed. "I kind of hate you."
"No, you don't,” he countered.
"No." She sighed. "I really don't." The words slipped out before she could stop them, and their eyes met, but neither spoke nor looked away. Something shifted in the air. The attraction that had been simmering beneath every sarcastic exchange finally surfaced. It wasn’t because either of them admitted to liking the other, but the silence between them no longer felt awkward. It felt comfortable.
An hour later, they sat cross-legged on the motel bed sharing greasy takeout from the only diner still open after midnight. Peak reached for one of her fries, and Maeve smacked his hand with her own. "I was eating that."
"It was on my side of the plate,” he said.
She stole one off his plate in retaliation. "There, now we're even."
Peak laughed. "You fight dirty."
"You have no idea,” she drawled.
"I've started figuring that out." She smiled around another bite of fries. For a few precious minutes, they weren't hunted hackers; they were simply two exhausted people sharing terrible motel food.
Peak realized something then. He hadn't thought about the firefight, or Mercer, or the club for almost ten minutes.
Maeve had somehow quieted the constant noise in his head.
The realization should have terrified him, but instead, it made him wonder how long it had been since he'd enjoyed someone else's company this much.
A sharp knock at the motel door shattered the moment.
There were three slow knocks, followed by two quick ones.
Peak's expression hardened instantly because he knew that it had to be Captain.
That was the emergency knock the Grave Prowlers had used for years.
The only problem was—Captain didn't know where they were staying.
Peak slowly reached for his pistol and noticed that Maeve had already drawn hers. Someone outside knew exactly where to find them. The question was—who was dumb enough to knock on their door?