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“You should get rid of it,” Jesse said, shivering harder as they passed into the shadows under the large trees. “Have a solid wall all around.”
“I like to have access to the moor.”
“And people who want to break in really like having lots of ways to do it,” Jesse replied as they reached the wall. Magnusson turned and strode along it, never putting a foot wrong, despite the deepening dark.
“You’ll want to stay close,” he said softly. “There are no lights down here.”
Jesse swallowed and moved closer, having to almost jog to keep pace. Magnusson stopped at a break in the dark stone, and Jesse put his fingers out to feel the cold hardness of steel.
“You didn’t come in this way,” Magnusson said.
“Being let in is easier than breaking in,” he muttered, using the torch from his phone to examine the heavy bolt. “If I strengthen your firewall so people can’t hack your maintenance schedules, that’ll be a lot harder to do. But you could get through this with any decent pair of bolt-cutters.”
“I would like to keep the gate.”
Jesse put his phone away. “Then you need a better lock.”
“Anything you say.”
Jesse could just make out the smooth angles of Magnusson’s face in the light of the moon peeking through a break in the clouds. His eyes were lost in shadow, but Jesse could feel them on his skin like laser sights.
“I sense a lot of anger in you,” Magnusson said after a long, heavy silence.
Jesse blinked in the dark. “Excuse me?”
“It’s in the way you move. Speak. Smell.”
“Ismellangry?”
“Among other things.” Another long silence. Jesse fought the urge to flee as strong as the urge to take a swing. “What makes you so angry, Jesse?”
Jesse’s skin rippled in response to hearing Magnusson say his name. “Nothing that’s your business,” he said. “Sir,” he added awkwardly.
“I make a point to know all my staff personally.”
“And Tom,” he said before he could stop himself. “Howpersonallydo you know him?”
“Ah…so that’s it?”
“What’sit?”
“He is a very good-looking young man,”
Jesse blushed, grateful for the dark. “That’s not what I mean.”
“You don’t think he’s attractive?”
“Yes… No… I mean,yes, he is. He’s…nice, but not my type.”
“Interesting. What is your type?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Jesse asked after he forced his tongue to obey him.
“Am I?”
Jesse couldn’t move or think what else to say. He groped for offense, for anger, indigence or even bemusement, but all he found was a low, steady flame gathering heat.
“If you’re asking about Tom’s scarring,” Magnusson said, breaking the spell and turning back to the path, “that wasn’t me.”
