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She’d tried to write her talkativeness off as nerves, but she’d come to realize she wanted them to part as friends. Or at least on friendly terms. But he’d been standoffish all day, almost to the point of rudeness. It was only after she’d yelped up in the Castle’s attic, then retched at the thought that she’d planted her hand in a pile of rat shit, that he’d taken pity on her and been less remote.
Until now.
“Relax. I only want to see what’s showing up on the cameras, not crawl all over you,” she said. Although that was sixty-seven percent a lie.
“I am relaxed,” he shot back.
“You’re tense as hell and keep moving away from me,” she chided.
“Maybe it’s because you smell like you’ve just worked out when the only thing you did was run out of the attic,” he replied.
“What?” she almost screeched, pulling out the neck of her sweatshirt to smell. “I do not—”
But he was smiling—smiling and stepping farther away, but still smiling.
“You’re an ass,” she accused, but grinned at him.
“Something that shouldn’t surprise you,” he said, but she noticed he’d angled his body away. “Look.” He held out the tablet, and she took it with a sigh.
Maybe he wasn’t aware he was distancing himself, and maybe she should be grateful. It still made her a little sad. “More green,” she commented, looking at the satellite map they were using for the search. The properties they hadn’t gotten to were still gray.
On the screen, her and Monty’s red device icons were side by side at the Medieval Castle. Monty’s had a 1 on it and hers a 2, which meant he was “Red One” and she “Red Two” for their communications with Claire, who was coordinating the search. It was as close to being in aMission: Impossiblemovie as she was ever going to get. The security and testing quadrants were both green, as were the compound of staff facilities she and Monty had investigated earlier in the day.
“Why is the Castle yellow?” she asked. “We haven’t found anything suspicious yet.”
“Because it’s in progress,” he replied, leaning casually on the stone railing now.
She mimicked his position as she read through the chat transcript on the side of the screen.
“The transcription of our mic conversations in the chat box is scary accurate,” she noted, pointing. “It even has ‘paused’ in brackets where you actually paused.”
“I know,” he said, smug.
“And the tracking on the map, how you can customize it… This is a very cool app. Will it come free when someone buys the device?” she asked.
“It’s an add-on service,” he said. “We haven’t figured out what to charge for it yet.”
“You should charge a lot,” she said. “I’ve tried using speech-to-text for email, and it’s just shy of being a waste of time.”
“Well, maybe I’ll give Cavendish a discount on a system.”
She looked over to see a twinkle in his eye. “What, we can’t keep these?” she asked in mock outrage. “After you’re using my staff as guinea pigs?”
He laughed outright. “How do you think I make my billions? By giving things away?”
She gave him a sarcastic smile and returned the tablet. “Here. Before I accidentally hit you on the head with it and you make me spend a billion to buy it,” she mocked.
He took it, glancing at the screen and then tapping the talk button.
“Claire, this is Montgomery,” he started.
Hartley leaned over and added, “He means Red One.”
“Base to Red One. What’s your status? Over,” Claire replied.
“She’s really getting into this,” Hartley said, leaning on the railing and looking out over the stone courtyard below.
“Still in progress,” Monty said. “We’ve cleared the attic of the Castle, but still have the upper hall, the main, and the basement. I don’t think there’ll be enough light to finish tonight.”
