That could be the trap.They could be using Rita without her knowledge.Did he want to think that?Maybe.
For now, they needed to remove the two guys’ ability to track Rita, then they could figure things out.It was a bit sad that so far they hadn’t really figured out the big things.A part of his brain mocked his assumption they could figure things out.There were more moving parts than on a Pitts Special and he was flying half-blind.
And when, he wondered, had the thought occurred that they might be able to use the metal detector to find Rita’s device?Did that make him creepy or forward thinking?
He still wasn’t sure when they reached the place where she’d rented a room—a room that was stuffy and dim when they let themselves in.He watched Rita study the room without moving further inside.
Her ninja skills weren’t bad.
With no sign of relaxing her high tension level, she picked up a backpack and put it on the bed.
“Let’s start with this,” she said.
So Con scanned her backpack.It had a lot of metal parts.Luckily who ever had planted the device hadn’t thought to put the device next to one of them.
It was always the little things that got you, in the air or on the ground.
What he found even more interesting was the fact that a 1940s metal detector could find a high-tech tracker.He stared at the small device he cut out of the cloth, wondering if it could be tracked through time, or if they had to be in this time to find it.Then Rita had asked him if anything was wrong.
“It’s so small.”He turned and set it on the desk.This next part put color in his cheeks before it even started.Okay, he felt creepy scanning her body.
But now that he knew what sound to listen for, and focused on that it got—not easier, but doable.
Well, not exactly doable either.
She looked…well, it was better not to think about what she looked like lying there.
He’d asked her where she thought it was, somehow managing to get the words out past a dry throat.She thought it was her back, but they’d drugged her, she said.They probably wouldn’t want her to know, if she really was an alien, but he figured it was probably her back.One more clue to her time traveler status?It felt like it was.
He gave himself a stern, internal lecture and focused on moving the detector slowly along her lower back—better not to think in terms of body parts now—and got a good wail when it moved over her right shoulder, just down from the collar bone.
The back for the win.Okay, for the “pretty sure.”
He moved it away, then back to the spot.
“I think that’s it,” he said.He hoped he was right.He wasn’t sure he could handle it if she had to roll over onto her back.She’d be able to watch him watching her.And it would ruin his time traveler suppositions.But that felt less important than seeing her lying there.
It was, he realized, his first time in a motel room with a woman who he wasn’t related to.
“Where?”Her voice was muffled against the bedding.
Pointing wouldn’t help.He took a careful breath and touched her shoulder in the general area.
“Can you see it?”
He blinked.“No.”Did she think he had x-ray vision?
“Oh right.”Her muffled voice now held more than a hint of humor.“Sorry.Can you pull my shirt down far enough to see it?”
Con studied her shirt, then shook his head.Right, she couldn’t see that either.
“I don’t think so.”
She sat up and unbuttoned her shirt, then pulled it down to expose the shoulder.
“Better?”
Con had averted his eyes, though not fast enough.He’d caught a glimpse of under garments he’d only seen hanging on the line.
