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Jeb
Tennessee
“Why here?” Eli asks, his lips pursed up tight while he looks around our plush hotel suite.
“Distance, for one,” I tell him, wondering for the hundredth time that day why I think that crabby face he makes is so damned sexy. “I wanted to put another state between us and Kentucky.”
“Why did we need a five-star hotel? Why not just stay at one of the fifty roadside motels we passed to get here?”
“If anybody is still looking for us, roadside motels are exactly the first place they’re gonna check. We’re also gonna need the extra space and privacy a suite provides when Daisy, Cash, and Johnny meet up with us tomorrow. And, most importantly,” I give him a slow grin, “I like high thread count sheets.”
Eli makes a grumpy sound but starts setting up all of his computer equipment on the large table in the middle of the suite.
I grab a beer from the minibar.Couldn’t have done that at a Motel Six.
Collapsing on the large, velvet sofa, I watch the careful, precise way Eli performs a task that he’s had to have done at least a million times before. He does it like if he makes a small mistake, something terrible will happen.
“What do you want from room service?” I ask. It’s almost ten at night, and I know he hasn’t eaten all day. I stopped for breakfast tacos right after we met up this morning and wolfed down a sub before everything went down at the credit union. Both times, Eli said he wasn’t hungry.
He doesn’t bother looking up from his computer. “I don’t want anything.”
I shake my head. He’s too thin. He’s been that way since I met him, but he’s lost at least ten pounds in the last few weeks. That and the dark circles under his eyes tell me he’s probably barely eaten or slept since Cash was shot.
Well,he’s eating something tonight if I have to hold him down and feed him his dinner one mouthful at a time.
Making a note to revisit that image again when I’m taking a shower, I pick up my phone, pull up the room service menu, and order myself a steak and baked potato and mac and cheese for Eli.
Once I’m done, I turn my attention back to Eli. “Whatcha doing?”
“Scrubbing any random video footage of us near or around the credit union,” he says, squinting at the screen. “I wish I had my glasses for this.”
“Before you scrub it all, remember to save me a few video images of me giving that speech.”
“Why?”
Not ready to go into my full plan until the rest of our crew is here tomorrow, I just give Eli a cocky look and tell him, “Need it for myBest Of collection.”
Eyes still on the screen, Eli gives a disapproving shake of his head and lets out little snarly growl that makes my nipples go a little hard.
“I thought you already took care of the cameras while you were screaming at me in the police cruiser.”
“I did.”
“And didn’t you also ask Daisy to check for any video footage?”
“So?”
“Then you texted that Brady guy to make sure there was none?”
This time, he looks up at me in irritation. His brow is wrinkled, but his big eyes are shadowed with guilt. “I have to make sure there weren’t any mistakes. There’ve been too many mistakes,” he says under his breath.
“How long will it take?”
“Not long.” He shrugs. “I’ll have it done by morning, and by the time everyone else gets here, I’ll be free to start research on why Patriots Now tried to steal a million dollars from a credit union they own.”
I think it’s pretty obvious the reason Patriots Now is stealing from themselves is that without the Reivers around to do their dirty work for them they’re having to siphon off some of their legitimate money to fund their revolution, but I know Eli will insist on analyzing endless amounts of data before he will be satisfied that’s the reason behind today’s events.
I get up from the couch and stand in front of him. “Two hours.”
