Leaving Regan in the shower to shampoo her hair, I make my way back to the main area of our room. I whip off my towel, dump it halfway across the room before throwing on a pair of jeans and a casual shirt. I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry to get dressed. Anyone would swear she hacked up my ego instead of my heart. I guess to some people they are one and the same? Unfortunately, I am not one of those men. I’m confident enough to proclaim that I rock her world between the sheets. Outside of them. . . clearly I need to up the ante.
When I throw open my bedside drawer to gather some socks, my eyes drop to Regan’s cell phone sitting on top. It is flashing the same alerts it had earlier this morning. She has six unread messages and four unanswered calls. Although I’m highly suspicious all the messages are from Isaac or someone on his team who can’t stay the fuck out of Regan’s life, I pretend they’re for me. It makes it less guilty this way.
The text messages are as I anticipated. They’re all from Isaac. The first three are requesting an update on how she is. The last is approval for Regan to have a support beam installed in her bedroom as per her request earlier this week. Although my inquisitiveness piques from her request for a load-bearing beam, I set it aside for a time when I’m not confused. I’m swimming in so much confusion right now, I feel like I’ve drunk a gallon of whiskey. Considering I haven’t drunk a drop of alcohol in over six years, you can be assured that isn’t the case.
After switching Isaac’s messages back to being unread, I dial Regan’s voicemail. A slight trickle of deceit seeps into my veins when my eyes stray to the bathroom door to ensure Regan is still in the shower. She hasn’t done anything to grant my distrust. It’s just habit.
The first three voice messages follow a similar path as her text messages. They are Isaac—again.Checking in—again. I delete his messages, more to cover my ass than the jealousy burning in my veins. I don’t know how to make voicemail messages appear unheard, so I’ll tell Regan he called before suggesting she call him back.
The tightness in my jaw firms when the final message plays. Although the person isn’t speaking, I recognize his heavy wheezing.
“Fuck. . .” A long delay ensues before Brandon adds on, “You need to get a new phone. Preferably one without trackable content installed.” His voice is snarky, clearly unimpressed he can still only reach me via Regan’s cell.
I hear him take several steps before a door shutting bellows down the line. “Call me on this number as soon as you get my message.” He rattles off a New York cellphone number before disconnecting our call.
Although I don’t have a piece of paper or pen at my disposal, I don’t need one. The panic in Brandon’s tone ensures I don’t miss a single cryptic clue in his message, much less the number he requested me to use. He was climbing the stairs of our dungeon-like office. How do I know this? The faint chime that squeaked down the line just before he slammed the door. I set up tripwires on the back entrance of our office during the first week of my placement. The bell’s chime is extremely faint, but for an officer trained to assess every noise, it doesn’t need to be loud.
That’s another reason I’m stumped on how someone snuck up on me. The janitor couldn’t have entered HQ without me hearing him because I have every entrance wired with barely audible alarms. There is only one way he could have snuck up on me unaware. . . he was already in the building.
Fuck.
Before my notions can run wild, Brandon answers his ringing cell. Just like every time he’s taken my calls, his greeting isn’t what you’d expect. “Where are you?”
Not a peep escapes my lips before he quickly adds on, “Actually, don’t tell me that. I can’t guarantee there aren’t any ears in this room.”
I hear a chair scrape down the line before Brandon starts walking again. This time, he doesn’t exit the back entrance of HQ, he escapes via the front door. The humming of heavy traffic and the squawk of hundreds of pedestrians assure I can’t be mistaken.
Once the droning noises kick up to an ear-piercing level, Brandon says, “I followed Isaac’s head of security through a back entrance last night. He was seeking the same time frame of data I was.”
My teeth grit. “Regan mentioned something about him having her followed home. For safety or something. . .”More like Isaac’s inability to cut the cords he strangles all his staff with.“Did he find anything?”
“Yeah. There’s a CTV camera in a building across the street. He found footage of Regan and you exiting the alley.”
“Isaac has footage of us. . .together?” My eyes stray to the bathroom door as my heart rate picks up speed. My ruse is coming undone more quickly than I’d like.
“Had,” Brandon corrects. “It took a bit of work, but I got two steps in front of his hacker. Anything he got is either unreadable or old footage.”
“Old footage?” Confusion rings in my tone.
“Yeah. Last night wasn’t the first late night walk Regan has taken through Ravenshoe.”
I swear I’ll have no teeth left by the end of today with how hard they keep clashing together. “So what’s with the urgency? Your demand for secrecy made it seem like you had more than a desire to fan your peacock feathers.”
Brandon takes my dis in stride. “I do.” Another succession of footsteps bellow down the line. “I wasn’t the only one piggybacking off government servers last night. There was another source. I followed the trail they left behind. It took me straight to. . .”
“HQ,” we say in harmony.
“Yes. How did you know that?”
I smirk, fond of the shock in his tone. “When listening to your message, I heard the bell above the back door of HQ ding. That didn’t happen the night I was jumped.”
“You boobytrapped HQ.”
Since Brandon isn’t asking a question, I don’t answer him.
My swollen chest grows when he faintly murmurs, “Fucking brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”
I could give him a few pointers, but there is no time for that. I just heard the conditioner lid crack open. We’ve got five, ten minutes tops.
