8. Chapter 8
“You know you can come stay with me or I’m sure you could have a room upstairs if you wanted it,” Luna said as she kicked off her heels and put her feet up in the other guest chair across the desk from Melanie. “This place is like a fortress you wouldn’t even have to leave for anything. There’s food, a gym, laundry, and housekeeping.” She laughed and took a bite of her salad. “It’s like a really safe hotel.”
“Or a prison,” Melanie said, pushing her rice around her plate. She enjoyed her meetings with Luna and even when they shared lunch, but today it was grating on her nerves. A single mention that someone was playing games with the buzzer to her building last night had turned into a discussion about her stalker. Apparently everyone in DeLaney knew about it. “I’ll be fine. So tell me what’s new in your life.”
Luna took a big bite and looked to the door and back. It was closed. There was no one else here. But when Luna plopped her feet back down to the ground and leaned in, she knew this was going to be good. “I joined that club,” she lowered her voice even lower, “Divinity.”
She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing but she smiled. “And how is it?”
“Divine,” she said as she wiggled her brows.
That time she laughed. “I’m sure it is.” Divinity was a sex club. More specifically, it was a BDSM club that had opened up last year. Axel Hayes, the man who owned it was an author and apparently a very sought after Dom from what she’d heard. The club was a space where people could rent out rooms to ‘play’ in. It was way too scandalous for Melanie’s taste. For Luna, it seemed exactly the type of thing she would try. Before she could even think about how to phrase her next question, there was a knock on her door. “Come in.” As soon as she saw his shaggy blonde hair, her stomach did a flip flop.
“He’s divine too,” Luna said under her breath and stood up to put her shoes back on.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Levi said. “I can come back if this is a bad time.”
“Absolutely not, we’re done. Right, Mel?” Luna turned and mouthed WOW to her.
“Yeah. Just get the estimate to me when you can so I can get approval to write the check,” she said. It was the reason Luna had come to her office in the first place with food to butter her up.
“You got it.” In a fashion that only Luna could pull off, she juggled her big purse, food box, three file folders, and two cell phones without dropping them while still reaching out a hand to Levi. “I’m Luna. I run the hotel and restaurants.”
He shook her hand and grinned. “I’m Levi. Good to meet you.”
“Oh! You’re Mr. Intelligence.” Luna laughed and stepped into the hall. “Feel free to investigate me anytime,” she said with a wink and another laugh as she disappeared down the hall. Only Luna could get away with playing the ditzy blonde without making everyone want to roll their eyes. Truth was, she wasn’t ditzy at all. In fact, Melanie quite liked the way Luna’s brain worked. So what if she was bad with filing paperwork and always made it seem like she was carrying too many things at once. She was a brilliant hotel manager.
“I’ve met her twice before during events at The Monarch and every time, she hits on me,” he said, pointing out the door.
“She hits on everyone,” she said, trying not to sound at all jealous. Pushing her lunch aside, she grabbed her notepad and pointed to the seat across from her. “So what was the bid?”
“Right.” He sat but didn’t give her the papers yet. “Can we talk?”
“About the bid and your budget, yes. Everything else, no.” This was her work. Reasons like this were why she never dated coworkers. It just made things messy. She didn’t like messy.
He got up and shut the door. Then he walked around the desk and knelt down beside her so he didn’t have to talk so loud. It made her uncomfortable for him to be this close. Her willpower wasn’t good enough for this. “You need to know that I don’t just disclose the fact that I know Andrea to anyone. I wasn’t keeping it from you because I didn’t want to tell you.”
“But you knew you were coming to work here.” She shook her head and looked at her hands because she couldn’t look in those blue eyes any more. “You investigate people and keep secrets for a living, Levi. I have enough trust issues as it is.” When he put his hand on hers to make her stop picking at the skin around her nail, she pulled away and stood out of her chair.
He got off the floor and backed away. “I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable, it looked like you were going to make your finger bleed. Sorry.”
“Can we just talk about work?” She still needed time to decide on everything else.
“Yes.”
She sat back down and pointed to the seat for him. “Now what was the bid?”
“$150k not including furniture.” He handed over the papers. “They said they can start tomorrow which is crazy because I know those guys are booked out for like two years.”
Melanie nodded as she flipped through the pages. “The architects firm handles all of DeLaney’s projects. We come first. I’ll leave how that works up to your imagination.”
“Deep pockets and no payment plan?” Levi asked with a grin.
That was part of it. She wasn’t going to tell him the rest. If he wanted to find out, then he could investigate. “This says they’ll have to reroute one of the communication lines that goes to the seventh floor Control Room.”
“Yeah I saw that.” He sat forward. “I honestly thought it was high.”
Melanie bit her tongue to not say how much redoing the eighteenth had cost them last year. It wasn’t her money, and Andrea had particular tastes. Even if this was going to be a bunch of men who wouldn’t give a shit if they worked out of a cardboard box, DeLaney had standards. “I’ll run it by Andrea and let you know later, but I’m sure it’s fine.”
For anyone else, that would’ve been a cue for them to leave. Instead, Levi pulled out his phone and typed something. It annoyed her he thought he was going to camp out in her office until she wanted to talk.
“You can go,” she said to prevent that from happening.
“One sec.” He turned his phone around. “Do any of these guys look familiar?” He swiped through four pictures.
“No. Should they?”
“Just checking.” He did something on his phone, and there was a loud screeching noise.
It made her cover her ears. “What the hell?!”
He moved around until it got even louder, pushing her chair away from the desk. Even after he shut off his phone, her ears were still ringing. He picked up the piggy bank on her desk and flipped it over. “Who gave this to you?”
“One of the guys a couple of months ago when he came to me for tax help.” She stood up and looked at it. “Why? What is it?”
In a completely unexpected move, Levi threw it on the ground. When it smashed into pieces, there was also a battery with a device connected to it. He bent down and picked it up. Before he answered, he pulled the battery out. “It’s a listening device.”
“Someone’s been listening to me?” She was going to throw up. “Fuck.” Sitting back down in her chair her body went hot. It felt like she was going to sweat. Andrea was going to kill her. All the things that mic had picked up could ruin them financially.
“Hey, it’s ok,” he said and knelt in front of her. “This guy is just keeping tabs on you. He doesn’t care about the business or he would’ve already done something about it.”
That didn’t make her feel any better. “Taylor White. Everyone calls him Nacho.” He was nice. No way he could be the one leaving her dead birds and sending disgusting letters to her. Could he?
“Ok. Let me go find Taylor. Do you want me to have someone take you home?”
She looked around her office at the stacks of things she needed to do. Plus, she promised Andrea to send the estimate. “No. Is that the only one?”
He pulled his phone back out and did whatever he did. Nothing happened this time. “Yes.”
“Then I need to get back to work.” Work was the one thing she could control. There was always something to do. If she went home, she was just going to clean.
“It’s ok to take the rest of the day, Melanie. Everyone will understand.” He looked sincere, but she didn’t need people to understand. She just needed this guy to leave her alone.
“I’m fine.” She made a motion for him to move then scooted to the desk. When he bent to pick up the shattered pieces of the piggy bank, she stopped him. “Leave it. I’ll do it later.”
“I need them,” he said and scooped up the rest of the pieces. “I’m going to go find this guy before he realizes we found this. Call me if you need to.” He didn’t stick around to hear her reply.
A second later the phone on her desk rang, making her jump. She laughed at herself and shook her head. “You’re fine,” she said to no one. Then she answered, “This is Melanie.”
“Girl! I just saw Levi storming down the hall looking super pissed. Do I need to give you some tips on pleasing a man?” The laugh that filtered through made her smile.
“No thank you, Luna. Go back to work!” Then she slammed the phone down. That chick was too much sometimes.
Knocking on the door to Scarlett’s office felt weird. Day one at DeLaney and he was jumping in feet first.
“Yeah!”
He pushed it open then closed it behind him. “I don’t know how everything works yet, but I need to find Taylor White. Apparently his nickname is Nacho.”
She put her feet down off her desk and put the papers she was looking at down. “Why?”
He held up the broken piggy bank. “He put a bug in Melanie’s office.”
On her feet now, she came to look. “I’m gonna be honest with you. He’s an idiot. I don’t think he’s capable of this, but let’s go find out.” She grabbed her phone and radio off her desk.
“Why do you say that?” It was their only real lead. If it went cold, that was going to be disappointing.
As they walked out to the elevator, she pulled up the schedule on her phone. “He’s been with DeLaney for four years and he’s still just a tunnel guard. During his evaluation he told us he was happy staying in the tunnels. Plus, he lives here in HQ.”
Then he probably wasn’t the guy. Damn. They stopped by a supply room and got an evidence bag to free up his hands. Scarlett also sent Victor a text telling him to meet them at 8D in the tunnels.
“I have a feeling that when we figure out who this guy is, we’re all going to be shocked,” she said as they walked through the tunnels.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s going to be someone we trust a lot more than a fucking tunnel guard.” She shined her flashlight over at him and shrugged. “This has been going on way too long with no mistakes. He’s smart. And smart people don’t stay in the tunnels.”
He nodded his agreement. They didn’t know each other yet, but her assessment was probably right. There was no point in him pointing out the flaws in Victor’s investigation. The fundamental flaw being that they hadn’t put a lot of effort into it. An organization with this many people should be able to spare a few extra to put on it full time. His assumption was that Victor didn’t think it was a priority. Maybe it wasn’t for them, but he saw things differently.
“Nacho!” Scarlett said when he came into view.
“Yes?” He stood up off the flood door he had been leaning against.
Victor emerged from the other side and turned on his light.
“No one has been through here, boss. Did I do something wrong?” Nacho asked nervously, looking between them all. Levi knew he wasn’t the guy. Their suspect was going to be more confident than that.
“That depends. Did you give Melanie, the accountant, a piggy bank?” she asked.
He nodded and swallowed harshly. Victor moved closer and pulled the gun from Nacho’s waist. “Just until we finish talking,” he said, calmly.
“Why did you give it to her?” Levi asked.
“Uh,” he glanced around and shook his head.
“It’s ok,” Victor said. “We just want to know why. It’ll stay between us.” It seemed like he had a soft spot for the kid.
“She’s always nice to me,” Nacho said with a shrug. “People think I’m weird, but she’s nice.” Well, that was more stalkerish than he anticipated.
“Where did it come from?”
Nacho sighed and leaned back against the door. “Why? What did I do wrong? Did she file a complaint or something? I swear I was just trying to be nice.”
“We just need to know who gave it to you, Nacho,” Scarlett said impatiently.
Levi could tell the kid was worried he was about to die or something. “There’s no complaint against you.” He held up the bag for him to see. “She liked it and had it on her desk, but there was a listening device in it. We don’t think you put it there, but we need to know who gave it to you.”
He actually looked relieved which was strange. “Tim gave it to me. I mentioned I wanted to get her something for helping me out with my tax stuff.”
“Tim Addison or Tim Klein?” Victor asked.
“Klein.”
“Now that makes sense,” Scarlett said, looking over at Levi. “He’s more likely.”
“Will you tell Ms. Melanie I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Nacho said and shook his head. “I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt her.”
“Of course,” Victor said and gave him his gun back. “Don’t tell anyone about this conversation, ok?”
“Yes, boss.”
As they walked away, Levi looked over at Scarlett. “Why’s he a better choice?”
“Because he was kicked off Valerie’s extended detail. Bril said he made her uncomfortable.”
“And the Boss told him more than once to quit bringing Avrie toys,” Victor added. “We moved him to HQ security.”
Levi nodded. “We should check the toys he brought Avrie.”
“No need.” Scarlett laughed and looked at Victor.
“The Boss used them for target practice in the range,” he said with a smile. “She doesn’t like just shooting paper anymore.”
“Ok then,” Levi said with a shake of his head. There hadn’t been any gun fights in a couple of years, he guessed she missed that to a certain degree. “So where is this Tim guy now?”
“We’ll have to check the schedule when we get out of the tunnels,” Scarlett said, holding up her phone. “No signal.”
Right.