Page 134 of Oddly Fine

Hayes licked into Beckett’s mouth, only too happy when the other man melted against him. He wrapped a hand around the back of his head, deepening the kiss. Beckett hummed against him, as one of his hands ventured towards Hayes’ crotch.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and pushing Beckett’s hand away.

“But you—” he began, but Hayes shook his head again, his breath trailing across Beckett’s skin as he kissed the underside of his jaw. “It was just to take the edge off—so you’d last through the pounding I need when we go to bed later,” Hayes confessed, licking the beads of sweat trailing down Beckett’s temple and feeling his gut stir with need all over again.

“Fuck,” Beckett moaned. “When did you get so fucking filthy?” he asked, clearly enjoying Hayes’ completely uninhibited side.

“Ah—” he whispered against Beckett’s jaw, still placing butterfly kisses randomly against his skin. “I met this C.U.N.T., you see, and fell madly in love.”

Beckett pulled back and snickered, his green eyes shining with amusement—his usual look—but with something else had been added this time: a wealth of fondness, a deep pool of it.

“Drive then,” Beckett growled, sitting back in his seat and pulling himself back together.

Hayes put the car in gear and smiled—God, his smile spoke for itself.

Chapter 24

“So, we’re back where we started,” Hayes said, hands on his hips as he examined the evidence they’d assembled and wondered what they had overlooked.

Beckett had gone into full detective mode, frowning with concentration as he industriously taped printouts to the wall. He hadn’t gone so far as to use a red string to connect the dots, but it had been a close call.

“There’s nothing in that place,” Matthew insisted once again. “The factory recycles old, used materials and produces new doors, windows, and hardware. It’s nothing illegal. My uncle probably uses the Serbians because they’re cheap labour and already on the payroll in New York.”

“What about the coffins?” Beckett asked, tapping his index against the cartoon image of an old fashioned coffin he’d printed off the Internet.

“What about the coffins?” Matthew repeated, thoroughly puzzled by the question. “We already knew about them. I told you—Mario’s obsessed with not aging. He puts stock in the paranormal—that’s simply an eccentric millionaire spending money on ridiculous shit.”

“But why was that armored truck left unlocked? If the artifacts themselves are worth something to him—why wouldn’t he secure them?” Hayes asked impatiently.

Beckett couldn’t figure out what Hayes was up to. He knew it was bugging him, but he wasn’t sure why. Except that Hayes was so fixated on the security issues, there had to be something worth pursuing or Hayes wouldn’t act like this.

“I don’t know, Agent Monroe, maybe because it was parked in a highly secure location!”

“No,” Hayes said, shaking his head. “I’m not buying it.”

Matthew started to say something in response when he was interrupted.

“It has a basement,” Adeline observed.

“At the bottom of it? Yeah, we’ve established that,” Beckett said, running a hand over his face. He was beyond tired of running around with no idea of what they were supposed to be looking for.

“No, you moron! The factory, it has a basement,” she said, lounging casually in her desk chair, snacking on chips. Nickel—predictably—was sprawled comfortably in her lap.

Matthew frowned at her, looking increasingly annoyed with all of them.

“Yes, of course it does. That’s where we store the waste until it gets picked up,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“No—you’re not listening. The factory has a condemned basement. Beneath the existing foundation.” She turned one of her monitors towards them. She’d pulled up the blueprints of the building, except they weren’t the same ones Beckett had printed out and pinned to the wall.

“Those aren’t—” Matthew stuttered to an abrupt halt, looking back and forth between both sets of plans.

“Those are the blueprints the city has,” she said, waving her hand at the wall. “These are the original blueprints prepared at the start of the reconstruction. Since they condemned that area, they removed that section when drawing up the final plans.”

“Why?” Beckett asked.

“Common practice. The official blueprints make rescues easier for first responders,” Hayes said.

Beckett was mystified as to how in the hell Hayes knew obscure stuff like that.