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Kasey returned to typing away on whatever he was doing on his own monitors, and I turned to Fitz and Cabot; all of us trying to figure out from a single video if this had anything to do with our girl. Because that was how it felt these days. It didn’t feel like we were protecting Robert Harrington and his daughter. We were protecting Lake, the woman who’d been somehow adopted into our weird little family. We all cared about her though I had a feeling my care for her was vastly different from the others.Well, it better be, I thought with a stab of irritation that I kept banked.
“I need you to do a little stalking of your own,” I said to Kasey. He looked at me questioningly and I continued. “Track the police and FBI agents assigned to the missing women. Anything they get, I want at the same time. If anything leads back to Lake, I want to know about it before the fucking news covers it.”
He gave me a mocking salute and went back to work. I turned toward the door in time to hear his computer ding and Kasey to swear. I turned back and looked at him pointedly.
“Already got a hit?”
“Um, no. But someone leaked the connection to the car bombing.” He tapped a few times and our whole group was graced with a brand new news article on the large screen.
FORMER RHODE ISLAND SENATOR LINKED TO NY CAR BOMBING
“Oh fuck,” Cabot said shaking his head. “That could have been worded better.”
“Robert Harrington has been very clear about keeping this all wrapped up tight,” Fitz said, his tone very much in therapist mode. “Optics are everything to the man, and this headline reads like he built the bomb himself. Click bait wins again.”
We all stood still, reading the article where it mentioned a source close to the Harringtons confirming that Robert had received threats which led to hiring our company. Then it lists Daniels and Lambert as employees, and speculation as to who was in the motorcade. The journalist covering the story had no idea if Harrington himself had been there or his daughter, rumored to be vacationing in The Hamptons at the time.
“There’s enough in this article to keep people guessing, but also a little too much is correct for journalist’s intuition. Kasey, see if you can figure out the ‘source’ this person had.”
With another mocking salute, he was back to work, typing away and pretending the three of us standing in his office weren't even there. We shuffled out together, each pondering the latest addition to the shit we’d already been wading through.
“I need a vacation,” Cabot grumbled.
“Come on,” Fitz said, rolling his eyes. “You live for this kind of excitement. I’ve never seen you so focused at work. You pretty much took out a world famous assassin!”
Cabot tried to hide his smile. “Nah, sadly I didn’t have that honor.”
“Please, you read the autopsy; he was already in organ failure. That bullet to the brain was more of a mercy shot at that point.”
They continued their morbid banter as we climbed on the elevator and I pressed the button for Turner’s floor. He was the only person besides us owners who made the apartment his permanent residence. The other apartments were more like hotel rooms, taking in the men as needed. The door dinged open and I stepped off, turning to see Fitz and Cabot smiling at me.
“What?”
“Does that kiss mean you’re moving forward with Lake?” Fitz asked before his smile dropped and he put on his therapist voice. “Keep in mind that relationships built in a time of stress and upheaval tend to take a lot of work. Not saying it couldn’t work but-”
“Wait!” Cabot interrupted and for a second I was thankful, then he spoke again and I wanted to punch them both. “Deck kissed Lake? Where?”
“On the couch,” Fitz replied as the doors began to close.
“No, I mean where did he kissher?”
The rest of the conversation was swallowed up as the elevator doors slid closed completely and I was left standing in the hallway, embarrassed and irritated in equal measure. First thing was first, though. I needed to tell Lake the news about her hitman and hope it would be enough to keep her hopes up that we’d find her friends again.
CHAPTER 22
LAKE
“Iknow you’re going through something right now, but your pacing is making me a little jealous,” Evan’s voice broke through the worried thoughts swirling in my brain, and I spun on my heel quickly to face him. He was smiling and I knew he’d been joking. Still, I dropped into the chair across from him at his small dining room table. There were snacks on snacks spread across the surface, an attempt to eat our feelings he’d said. But beyond a nibble on a chip, neither of us could eat.
The news of a body being found was haunting me. Some vague outline of horror just waiting for the details to be made whole. I needed to know who it was. Which of my friends was dead because of me? Because it was my fault. No one would have taken them otherwise, and the timing was much more than coincidence. These were the thoughts that had been turning in my mind for the past 45 minutes.
I was up and pacing the length of the living room again, and I heard Even exhale a long suffering sigh. I knew I was ramping up his own anxiety, but I couldn’t help it. I needed Decker for that calm. That was the thought that stopped me in my tracks.
“What?” Evan asked, seeing the complete shock on my frozen face.
“N-nothing,” I stammered and went back to pacing. I couldn’t remember a time in which I’d ever given a man the power to affect me, but somehow I’d given it to Decker Mullins. That wasn’t fair. His job was protection. Of course I would have put my trust in him to keep me safe. But it was more than that and I knew it. He quieted the fears and doubts constantly streaking through my mind. He made it comfortable to just… be. Nothing was hidden from him in my life the way it was from others. There was an inherent trust with that information and I loved it.
At the sound of a card being swiped and the lock turning, I was standing in front of the door. Evan had pushed himself to a standing position, though his fists were still leveraged on the table in front of him for support. Decker came through the door and I wasn’t even aware I was moving, but suddenly I was wrapped in his arms, my legs encircling his hips and chin tucked into the side of his neck. The tension had been too great, waiting for news. Seeing him had snapped that tension like an overworked rubber band, and I felt tears in my eyes all over again as he tucked his nose to the top of my head and inhaled before his lips pressed gently to my crown.
