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“Relax.” Harper hit send. “I told her I’ve got a meeting, but my afternoon plans just got scrapped.”
“Okay… You want to take her out somewhere?” Samuel immediately reached for a binder sitting on the table next to him. They’d scouted a number of locations since arriving, places where Samuel could set up to record or take pictures easily.
“Hold your horses.” Harper’s phone chimed again. “Interested in hanging out at my place? Everyone’s off shopping and this dreary weather makes me want to stay in.”
“Hot damn,” Samuel muttered.
Harper pumped his fist. “Score!”
Samuel leaned an elbow on the table. “You know what this means?”
Harper sighed and sat up. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Shit.
They were not thinking the same thing.
On one hand, spending time with Robin was no hardship. On the other, Harper knew exactly where Samuel’s head was. Whereas Harper’s mind went to picking up where they’d left off, Samuel was thinking about the job. Access to the family home was a great opportunity to plant listening devices.
“Do you know if they have staff?” he asked.
“No idea.”
“It would be great if you could leave a door unlocked for me, but I don’t think we’re ready to take that kind of a risk,” Samuel muttered as he began unloading a duffle bag of surveillance gear.
Great.
Harper was going to have to juggle carrying on with Robin while bugging her house. This sort of stuff had sounded easy sitting in Zora’s office. Actually doing it was another matter. Add to it he hadn’t factored in his conscience. He’d assumed that Daar’s family would be like him. Guilty. But Robin couldn’t be more different.
What other choice did Harper have?
If their intel was right, Daar was one of the people issuing orders to Skilton. And they all knew nothing good came from that. There would be time to feel like shit later, after the job was done.
Harper pushed to his feet and headed for the bedroom, ignoring Samuel for the time being. Harper ran a comb through his hair before focusing on his clothes. Hanging out at her place was a casual invite, but he would in theory be coming from work.
He pulled a pair of nice jeans and a button down out of his closet. If he threw a sport coat over it, he’d look the part.
It would have to do.
He set about getting dressed. Robin texted him twice more inquiring about his beverage of choice. Simple, thoughtful stuff.
Did she have any idea she was playing into their hands?
Yeah, he was a terrible person, but this was necessary.
He closed his eyes and drew in a breath.
Like it or not, they were engaged in a covert battle. People had died and would continue to die if something wasn’t done. He might not like the means they were forced to use, but if it prevented loss of life, he’d live with himself. Robin wouldn’t forgive him when the truth came out. The best thing he could do for her was to prove she was innocent in all of this. He couldn’t let his feelings get in the way. He was a cold, ruthless bastard.
Samuel spent the next hour doing a rundown of all the equipment at their disposal, especially the listening devices. There were a surprising number of them, in all shapes and sizes. He’d even thought about how to transport nearly a dozen of them in the lining of a hard sunglasses case. Given the dreary day, Harper didn’t have need of the borrowed designer shades, but he doubted they would draw any interest from anyone who saw the case. If someone spent five hundred bucks on sunglasses, it stood to reason they’d go in a damn case.
Harper headed out first, leaving Samuel to follow in the surveillance van a little ways behind him.
Sitting behind the wheel, the mission felt real. Up until now everything had seemed more like some weird game of tag. Planting the listening devices changed things.
This time he parked behind the house, per Robin’s directions. He was a little concerned to see the gate just standing open, but decided it might have been intentional on his account. Then again, Robin had snuck back inside without incident.
Damn.
