Mine to Keep: Protection Series Book 4, page 25
“Can I see a menu please?” I asked quietly, but my question seemed to echo in the large empty area. I winced and tucked my busy fingers beneath the bar top. Chewing on the corner of my lip, I checked over each shoulder as he placed a thick leather-bound booklet on the bar top.
“You should order champagne, the good stuff,” Charlie said in my ear.
I rubbed the side of my head against my shoulder to quell the itch the vibrations caused. This, going undercover, was not my forte. Give me clues, evidence, and a murder board all day, every day over this. But what I was good at didn’t work for this case, so this had to.
“And why champagne?” I muttered loud enough for the two listening in to hear.
“Because this is your one night out on the town. You’re celebrating the upcoming fuck-fest—”
“Stop it,” I said, laughing. When I caught the bartender staring like I was a crazy person, I covered the laugh with a cough. “But it sounds good.” Pushing the book toward the bartender’s side of the bar, I smiled. “Champagne. The good stuff.”
“Atta girl. Spend the taxpayer money on the good shit.”
“Lucky her,” Bryson snarked. “She gets good booze, and we get McDonald's.”
I groaned, my stomach rumbling. Casting a quick glance to the bartender I waited to respond until he was farther down the bar helping a newcomer. “That’s my favorite. Did you get a drink, with their thick straws?”
“She likes everything thick,” Charlie said.
“Hey-o.”
“You two realize I’m listening in to all this, right? Not just when you’re talking directly to me.”
The other side of the line went silent. Apparently, they’d forgotten to press the mute button earlier.
Shaking my head, I shot a thank-you smile to the bartender, who had yet to meet my eyes. I supposed if you were doing something bad, aka meeting up with someone to cheat on your spouse, anonymity was great, but for me it felt dismissive, lonely even.
Tiny dancing bubbles exploded in my mouth, the crisp, dry liquid coating my tongue with flavors I didn’t know existed in alcohol. Taking another long swallow, I studied my reflection in the golden-veined mirrors behind the bar. There was a flush to my face I hadn’t seen in my reflection in years and a sparkle in my eyes that I assumed was gone forever after years with Brian.
Happy. I looked happy. I wasn’t even smiling, but there was a light in me that only truly happy people radiated.
Charlie did that to me. Made me this.
“Looks like you’re about to have company,” Charlie said cryptically.
“Thank… wait a second,” I whispered into the champagne flute. Setting it on the bar, I swiveled around on the stool to scour the corners and molding for cameras. I spotted one farther down the bar, but its view of where I sat was clear. “You hacked into their system.”
“Can’t prove it.” I chuckled at the cockiness in his tone. “We needed eyes on you as well as ears, so I made it happen. Nothing too illegal.” I wanted him to emphasize on the too part, but just as he’d indicated, a presence drew closer, dragging my attention away from my hacker boyfriend.
Boyfriend.
Whoa.
That’s a big step from… well, whatever we were on the drive to Louisville.
“You’re either here very early or haven’t left yet.”
Turning back around to face the bar, I kept my smile pleasant as I turned to the woman now occupying the barstool beside me. Bright, warm eyes immediately put me at ease. Add in the calm smile and the nerves she’d initially incited fell away.
“Very early,” I said with a deprecating huff. “Story of my life.”
“Remember your cover,” Bryson muttered in my ear.
The cover wasn’t anything in-depth; I just needed to play up the fact that I was there to cheat on my husband. Which really sucked, making me feel all icky inside, even if it was a lie.
“Guess I’m excited,” I tagged on after a long pause. “This is my first time doing this.”
The woman nodded, her smile changing to something more sympathetic and… optimistic, maybe making her appear less genuine and more haggard. The lines on her face were more pronounced, deep wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“Trouble at home?” she asked into her nearly empty highball glass before finishing the last few amber drops. She slid it across the bar and motioned for another. When she caught my calculating gaze, she lifted a shoulder. “Trouble at home brings us all here. Makes others look elsewhere for the passion or comfort they no longer get from their spouse.”
I nodded but took a drink of champagne instead of responding.
“You don’t look like the typical first-timer,” she said, turning on the stool, fresh drink in her hand.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, now worried I wouldn’t be able to pull this sting off after all. Shit, what if it was my dress? Too conservative maybe? Knew I should’ve gone for the more revealing one, but Charlie said it wouldn’t cover the wire. Which was a lie, but I let him win that one. “Is it the dress?” I asked in a rush. Charlie and Bryson both whispered in my ear to calm down. “It’s too conservative, isn’t it?”
She reached out and rested her hand on my shoulder. “No, the dress is perfect. It’s just you’re too….” She leaned back to study me from the new angle. “Happy. Yeah, that’s it. Most of the first-timers are more nervous than happy to be here.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” I stammered. Taking a drink, I gave myself a few seconds’ reprieve to come up with a viable answer. Good thing I had a backlog of memories from a terrible relationship to shuffle through for inspiration. “I guess things have been so bad with my husband that the thought of sex outside the missionary position makes me happy. After feeling alone for so long in a committed relationship, I don’t feel bad doing this if it will give me something to look forward to, you know? Yeah, it’s”—I glanced around the bar, checking for listening ears, but found none—“technically cheating, but is it really when the other person isn’t giving you what you need?”
“Should you be concerned that Rhyan just came up with a great backstory on the fly?” Bryson said.
“Fuck off, man,” Charlie replied. “She’s not talking about me. Isn’t that right, baby?”
Knowing he could see me, all I could do was nod so the woman beside me didn’t think I was a lunatic for talking to myself.
“Some see it as the victimless crime,” she said, now staring into her drink like it held all the answers in the world. “But that’s a lie they tell themselves. There are victims.” I wanted to tell her that hell yes, there were victims, and a couple were in the Louisville morgue right now, but I bit my tongue. “The ones who didn’t know they were failing in an area and thought things were fine only to one day find out they weren’t.”
Whoa, sounds like this woman hurt someone she still cares about with her affair-ing life.
Affair-ing. Can I turn the word into a verb by just adding an -ing?
Sure. It works in this case.
Pun intended.
“They should’ve laughed more,” I said randomly.
“Excuse me?” my new, slightly drunk friend said.
“They’ve proven that laughter can lead to more intimacy and closeness between partners. So if people are unhappy, they should laugh more.”
“Did you try that with your husband before deciding an affair was the best course of action?”
Is that anger and resentment in her tone?
That made little sense.
“Yeah, I tried a lot of things,” I said, staring at my empty glass. The woman motioned for the bartender, who returned with a full flute for me and another full glass for her. “Laughter, therapy—for me, of course, because he’d never go—being in the way, staying out of the way….” My hands trembled slightly when I raised the glass to my lips. “It was never enough. I was never enough, I guess.”
“Was? Aren’t you still married?”
Shit.
“On paper, yeah. I guess I’ve already moved on in my mind.”
“Why not just get a divorce, then?”
“She’s quite nosy,” Bryson said on the radio. “We should run a background on her.”
“Because she’s nosy?” Charlie said skeptically.
“Yeah, seems off for a hotel that caters to those who don’t want their business known. Wouldn’t all guests and patrons want to keep their private lives to themselves?”
“Okay, I’ll take a still picture the next time she turns this way and run facial recognition. Though if anyone asks where I got her picture….”
“I’ll say you were in the corner behind a plant or something, not that you hacked past their three layers of firewalls.”
“Four.” Charlie scoffed. “It’s why it took me the full five minutes to gain access.”
“Please stop,” I said—out loud, unfortunately.
The woman winced. “Sorry, I was just—”
“Sorry, not you,” I said and pointed to my head. “Anxious brain, always working overtime.” With an awkward laugh, I downed the rest of the champagne. In a blink, another full flute was in its place. “I shouldn’t have this third one.”
“Agreed,” the two men said in my ear.
“It helps,” she said with a half-smile. “Takes away the nerves of what’s coming.”
“Nerves?” I asked, suddenly very interested. “Are you saying you’ve been in a dangerous situation doing this before?”
Maybe she’d been with our unsub, felt something off, and left.
“I’ve done this a few times, but the unknowns of the night always make me jittery. Excitedly.” Her hazel eyes turned to me. “Did you get the hotel room, or did he?”
“He did.”
She nodded like that was a good thing. “Good, make them take on the expense. Makes it harder for your spouse to trace later if he gets suspicious. If he can’t track you to here, then you can keep him in the dark longer.”
“The parking,” I said, a light bulb blazing brightly in my mind.
“Oh no, you didn’t park here, did you?” she asked, slightly disappointed. “Rookie mistake.”
“No, I didn’t park here. Down the street, there are several pay-by-the-hour cash lots.”
That was a lie. I rode here with Charlie and Bryson, but since our other victims had parked in the various cash lots, I used that bit of knowledge from the case files to keep up with my cover.
The woman nodded. “Yep, it’s where a lot of us park who don’t want to be tied to this place.”
It was all coming together now. Our unsub knew if he paid for the room, his victim wouldn’t park here to reduce risk of the affair being discovered.
“Running facial recognition on the photos Bryson’s taking of the men entering the hotel through the front door,” Charlie said over the line. “I’ll cross-check them with the names on the list we compiled based on the profile.”
The clink of ice against glass shifted my attention back to the woman beside me.
“Well, that’s enough for me, or I won’t be on my game.” The empty tumbler slid easily along the bar. “Thanks for the chat. Good luck tonight. Hopefully we both get what we want.”
“Yeah, bye.”
Eyeing the half-empty champagne flute I didn’t remember drinking, I watched the bubbles dance.
“You okay, Rhyan?” Bryson asked.
“Yeah, just floaty.”
“That’s not good.” I rolled my eyes at Charlie’s panicked tone.
“We should pull her.”
“I’ll go in and—”
“Guys, it’s fine,” I whispered, cutting Charlie’s overreaction off before he stormed through the doors and carried me out of here over his shoulder. My stomach quivered, loving that idea if future lives didn’t rest on me sticking around. “I still have an hour before I meet my mystery date—”
“It’s not a date,” Charlie corrected.
“Fine.” I sighed and went to adjust my glasses, only there was nothing there. Though I preferred my glasses over contacts, I always brought some along just in case. Which for this case my anxiety-induced over-preparedness paid off. “Mystery person. I’ll be fine.”
“Did you eat today?” Charlie questioned with a frustrated growl.
“Yeah, sure…” I drawled, clearly lying. I was too nervous all day to get anything down. Even now, the thought of food sounded more repulsive than satisfying.
“Rhyan,” Charlie warned. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I’m sure you can get creative,” Bryson said, his laugh making my own lips twitch upward.
“Damn straight.”
“What’s with the tongue ring, by the way?” Bryson asked, clearly no longer talking to me. “Did you lose a bet or something?”
“Hey,” I chided. “I like it.”
“Yeah, you do,” Charlie said with a purr. “And there’s the answer to your dumbass question.”
“Sorry I asked,” Bryson grumbled. “Did it hurt?”
“Thinking about getting one?”
“Not soon. Wouldn’t have a need for it. It’s hard dating as a single dad who works ninety hours a week.”
On and on the two talked, providing the distraction I desperately needed with their random conversation and banter.
Pressing the tips of two fingers against the base of the champagne flute, I pushed it toward the other side of the bar to keep me from absentmindedly finishing the delicious liquid.
I needed to be on point. No more drinking.
I had a date with a serial killer, after all.
23
CHARLIE
Thick drops of rain smacked the vehicle in erratic repetitions along the windshield and roof. Each loud thunk spiked my already high impatience. No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, the inconsistent noise filtered through. With a string of curses, I slammed a fist to the roof as if that would do anything to stop the pitter-patter of rain along the metal.
“You need to settle down,” Bryson chastised from behind the digital camera. A heavy telephoto lens jutted toward the windshield, capturing an up-close image of every pedestrian who walked past The Black Rose. With the quick click of the shutter, several pictures appeared on the laptop screen, automatically uploaded from the digital camera.
“It’s the damn rain,” I grumbled, the words almost lost under my pounding fingers nailing the keys. After uploading the new pictures into the facial recognition software, I checked the results on the previous few that were processing. “The last two you sent triggered results, but their names aren’t on the list I compiled from Rhyan’s search parameters. Running this new picture now.”
“It’s not just the rain that has your panties up your ass, and you know it. Let’s talk about something else to distract you.”
“That’s the last thing I need right now, to be distracted while she’s in there without me.”
Bryson pulled the camera away from his face to shoot a pointed look to another screen, where the security feed from inside the hotel was streaming.
“I mean without me in there, protecting her.” Bryson snorted and shook his head. “What?”
“Have you ever dated a strong, independent, smart woman before?” My lips parted, ready to defend myself, until I couldn’t come up with one name. I snapped my mouth shut. “I’ll tell you this, because I have some experience in the area. My wife was brilliant, independent, and all around the best woman I’ve ever met and probably ever will.” A wash of sadness took over his features. Fuck, now I know what Rhyan meant about not wanting to see a good man like Bryson so fucking sad. “They don’t need your protection, but when you’ve earned their trust and respect, they want it.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Women like my wife and Rhyan don’t need us, and that’s what makes them attractive to men like us. We want a woman to want us, not need us. If you go in there dick out, cape on, you’ll scare her off.”
“That description scared me off.”
“I’m being serious, man.”
“Me too. Can you imagine my dick wearing a cape? Talk about awkward.”
He cut me a look full of irritation, but we both ended up chuckling.
“All I’m saying is let Rhyan come to you. When she does, when she sets aside that strength that has gotten her this far in life and leans on you, it’s fucking amazing. But you can’t rush it. You’ll lose her respect and a slice of her own confidence if you do.”
“You got another one,” I said and hitched my chin to the man heading down the sidewalk hidden beneath an umbrella.
“This is when I hate the rain. I only have two seconds between them shaking out the umbrella and entering the hotel to take the shot.” Another series of clicks, and several new photos populated on the screen. “She’s holding her own in there, though. That other woman at the bar had no concept of personal space.”
I nodded in agreement. Flicking back to the still shot I captured of the mystery over-talker, I checked the facial recognition for any hits, but nothing had populated—yet. Unless this woman lived under a rock since the digital age and didn’t have a single ID with a photo, the search would find something, though it might take a while.
“So, dating as a single dad,” I said to transition the conversation away from me and Rhyan. What he said made sense, especially since he spoke from experience, but that didn’t mean I liked it. I wanted to take care of Rhyan, wanted to be her protector and make sure she never had to worry about being hurt again. This was new—well, slightly new. I felt some of the overpowering need to protect a while back in Texas when my friend’s girlfriend went missing and was in the hands of a killer.
“It’s nonexistent,” he grumbled, answering my previous question, and leaned back against the cheap paneled van’s driver seat. “Though I’ll admit I put a lot of blame on Vic and my job, though that’s not the real reason I’m a fucking monk these days.”
