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She crept around him while he returned to his typing and crouched until the picture was at her eye level. It was Kahlil, going into some building she didn’t recognize. “You found him,” she murmured.
“Yep.”
Tuck was a man of few words when he was intent, so she left him to his work and speculated. The picture was dark, but it was nighttime. She couldn’t pick out many specifics, and it was just lucky that Kahlil had looked over his shoulder at the right moment to be picked up on the traffic cam.
“Fuck, yeah,” Tuck said, pleased with something. He banged his hands on the desk then pushed the chair away from the desk to get up.
“Where are you going?” she asked, blocking his route. He searched her expression like he’d forgotten what a human being looked like. He spent so much time with computers, she wouldn’t be surprised if he did forget sometimes. “Where is he? Where’s Kahlil?”
Tuck turned to point at the picture he’d left on the screen. “That’s an apartment block in a shitty part of town. But there’s a hotel opposite one side, it’s a crappy place that rents rooms by the hour, you know? But I’m gonna check it out. If Kahlil is staying in that block, we might get eyes on him, and if we can surveil his movements…”
“We might see who he’s working with,” she said and smiled. “I’m coming with you.”
His eyes widened a fraction. “No, you’re not,” he said.
“Brodie told me to stay with you, and it’s dangerous out there. You shouldn’t go alone.”
“Kahlil has seen you. He’d be able to ID you.”
“Not if I dress right and we go into that hotel together. You’ll raise fewer eyebrows if you walk in with a hooker, and I’m the only woman on the team.”
His jaw clenched and he said nothing, he just stood there, static, as though he was processing potential scenarios. After about a minute, she started to get uncomfortable but was impressed by just how thoroughly he switched off.
“You’ve got five minutes to get changed. Dress—”
“Slutty, I know,” she said, squeezing his arms then whirling around to rush upstairs to change.
Having something to do helped keep her mind away from Brodie and what he was doing. Zave was with him, and Bess was right, the men would look after each other. But that didn’t explain Brodie handing over her apartment then shutting down the surveillance on it. Personal issues would have to wait because she had Kindred business to take care of, and she was glad of the distraction. Being patient wasn’t her forte.
TEN
“Want me to jump on the bed?” she asked, and Tuck took his eye from the scope to glance at her.
“I don’t think anyone gives a shit what we do,” he said and went back to his scope. “But knock yourself out.”
They’d rented a room in the seedy hotel for the night instead of the hour. From the way the guy at the reception desk window looked at her, she was confident he bought that she was a streetwalker. Tuck had left his equipment on the rear fire escape and retrieved it before they went into the room. It was a dark, dirty space with little more than four walls, a bed, and a desk. There wasn’t even a television or a lamp.
The double bed had a wooden headboard that was screwed to the wall and a threadbare comforter on it. On a positive note, the sheets were clean, at least to the naked eye. Tuck had been doing his best to examine the block opposite through their grime-covered window, trying to figure out where Kahlil was residing. He’d brought a laptop that somehow patched into the city cameras, and he kept a constant eye on the program it was running. As far as his system knew, Kahlil hadn’t left that building.
At that moment, Tuck was sitting on the wooden chair that had been at the desk, peering through his fancy black telescope. Hunkering down when he raised the angle, he examined every window of the cheap apartment building the system had caught Kahlil going into.
“Shit,” he muttered, and she shifted to the edge of the bed behind him where she’d been seated while he worked.
“What?” she asked.
He inhaled and leaned back, leaving the scope pointing upward. “You need a new client.”
“Why?” she asked.
When she glanced at the window, she didn’t see any movement or figures, but she was farther away and had a lesser view from her angle. Her job was to provide cover that let Tuck enter and transact like he was any other john using the premises to facilitate his need of amusement. So far, she’d been doing her best not to make a nuisance of herself. Now that he’d located their target, they needed to strategize.
“He’s in there, but he’s on an upper floor. One down we could’ve lived with, but the angle’s too sharp for us to see anything from here. He just came to the window and left again. He’s up there. We need a room on the floor above this one, one unit right.”
She understood. “Okay, Wren’s still at the manor. We can call him, and I’ll meet him on a street corner, make it look good.”
Taking his eye to the scope, Tuck adjusted something and his cellphone began to ring on the desk. Moving back just a couple of inches, he glanced down at it. “I think it’s for you.”
Sliding off the bed, she reached forward to grab it from Tuck. All the screen said was ‘unknown’ but she’d had calls from that guy before. “Hello,” she said, ensuring to sound upbeat.
