AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My main concern now is blowback. Being implicated,” he said, ignoring the question that started a tic in his jaw. “I need to know what can be traced to me, which means I need to know what Corcoran knows.”
Right now he’d be happy to know what exactly Corcoran was.
“You going to plant a device in their headquarters?” Colin asked as his jumping around subsided.
Normally that would resolve the issue. Gary would devise a way in, have his best people set up the equipment and collect the data. But that didn’t work with a company like Corcoran that thrived on playing the clandestine card. “I assume they’d find it, and that’s under the assumption I could even get past whatever security they have and get it in there.”
“Understood.”
Gary doubted that. “No, I think there’s only one way to get this done in the time we have left.”
“How?”
Gary no longer had a choice. “I’m going to walk through the front door.”
“What?”
“Better yet, I’m going to bring them to me. Tomorrow morning.”
* * *
BEN COULDN’T SHAKE the tickling sensation at the base of his neck. The two-story drapes were drawn, blocking out the sun and the view to the street beyond. The bank stayed closed, which was a problem, since this was a local bank with few branches. The locked doors and police tape kept people out.
Being in this cavernous room the day after the attack explained part of his unease. Standing next to the counter in the middle of the room where he almost bit it didn’t help. Neither did watching Jocelyn page through the deposit slips that once fanned over the top but now were stacked in neat piles.
She shuffled them, then straightened them again. The repetitive action seemed to soothe her. The neater the pile, the less her hands shook. That she’d figured out a way to quiet the demons inside her left him humbled. He knew how the noises and doubts could grow into a deafening thunder, but she kept them at bay. It just made him gut-sick that she had to.
He reached over and touched his fingertips to hers. Nothing too obvious. Not with Ed and Joel circling the balcony upstairs for clues and Connor questioning Kent at a desk a few feet away.
They were sleeping together and Ben wasn’t about to hide it or lie about it. Kissing her at the conference-room table this morning with Joel and Connor watching probably ended any questions on that score. But he could hold off on a general broadcast of his preferred sleeping arrangements until they had the “we’re exclusive now” talk, and he definitely planned on having that soon.
He waited until she glanced up. The wary darkness in her eyes had vanished somewhat, but not totally. “You okay being here?” he asked.
She looked over and around, taking in every inch of the first floor before answering. “I see the shooting when I close my eyes. It hardly matters if I’m here or back at the house.”
Not that he could blame her. The latest shoot-out was on a slow-motion reel in his head, as well. “For a few hours last night, you seemed to forget.”
She slipped her fingers through his. “And I plan to use that tactic again tonight.”
“Never been called a tactic before.” This woman could call him anything she wanted. Could do anything she wanted with him. They’d been on fast-forward since they met and he did not want to slow them down.
Joel broke the spell when he walked up beside her. His gaze stopped on their joined hands but he didn’t say anything. Still, hand-holding at a crime scene qualified as unprofessional and borderline stupid, so Ben gave the back of her hand a quick rub and then let go.
“Anything upstairs?” he asked Joel.
“An old balcony. Ed says there used to be a second floor, and the architect who did the redesign put the balcony in for aesthetics and some sort of ode to the place’s former glory.” Joel pointed out the walkway above them as he talked. “We went up and the only way out is through an emergency door to the roof and then down a ladder to the outside.”
Jocelyn grabbed the closest stack of deposit slips and tapped them on the table, lining up the edges with precision. “So, the robbers just went up there for a walk? Doesn’t make sense.”
“I think we’ve established they weren’t robbing anything.” Joel watched her but again had the good sense to stay quiet.
Ben hadn’t shared the compulsive behaviors. He probably didn’t have to. Joel had helped him check her bedroom that first night. Clothing lined up with the exact amount of space between each hanger. The color coding. The perfect edge where she lined up her shoes.
Having been in the military, Ben recognized the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. She never used the term. He doubted she’d been diagnosed. She talked about behavioral adjustments. More than likely, she handled the whole thing herself.
