AllFreeNovel
Share Us
What the hell was my phone talking about? There was nothing but industrial buildings surrounding me.
“In a half mile, take a right onto Lahaya Dr.”
Well, at least my phone was confident because I certainly wasn’t. This part of town might as well have been Mars for as familiar as it looked. Not that I’d ever had any reason to be anywhere near the industrial district as a teenager.
I was about to pull Cherry’s little red car over and double check that I had the correct address when I spotted a long, rectangular brick building with multiple glass doors along its front. An unlit neon sign in the middle window said tattoos. Why would someone put a tattoo parlor in the middle of a bunch of factories?
“Turn right in three hundred feet.”
More and more businesses started popping up along both sides of the road and by the time I turned at the light it was as if I’d been beamed up by theEnterpriseand transported to another town. This street was straight out of middle town America, circa 1960s. There was a family drugstore, not a pharmacy, a corner market, and a malt shop. Ok, so the malt shop was actually an ice cream place, but you get the picture.
“Your destination is up ahead on the right.”
Sure enough, there it was, Beans and Things. Damn, this place couldn’t get any cuter if they tried. There was even a couple sitting out front with an adorable dog between them. If it weren’t for the teenager smoking a cigarette as he rolled past me on his skateboard, I might think I really was in the sixties.
Huh, and to think the whole time I was growing up I’d never known any of this stuff was here. Shaking off the thought, I scrolled to Picklebuster in my contacts and snorted as I hit the button.
“Smith?” he answered on the first ring.
Who else would call him from my phone? Unless he expected Hunter to have fingered me for an agent on the first day. I wasn’t sure which pissed me off more, that he’d thrown me into the deep end without a float, or that he’d expected me to sink.
“Yes.”
He breathed out a sigh and if I didn’t know how expendable I was, I might be touched.
“Good. The paper trail for the backstory you concocted is all set up. There’s a storage unit here in Austin rented under your name, inquiries for the ad we put in the paper for your apartment are being forwarded to an agent here, and all the paperwork to create and close an IT company by the name of Dean Earl Argeneau Incorporated has been filed.”
Laughter bubbled out of me like a water fountain, coming out in a rush, then cutting off with a snort. There was only one person in the office who would have picked that name, and it damn sure wasn’t my boss.
“Yeah. Herb said it would be easy for you to remember if you were ever questioned.”
My boss probably didn’t even realize the dummy company’s initials were DEA, and he damn sure wouldn’t know that it was my online gaming profile for the same reason. Well, that and the dark fantasy theme. Dean was the name of my favorite character fromSupernatural,Earl the Vampirewas an old play about a vampire’s desire for acceptance, and Argeneau came from my favorite vampire book series. I can’t believe the old man not only remembered all that, but he’d used it to cover my ass. The ass my boss was trying to get shot off.
My boss’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “The only problem we had was deciding what to do with the excess funds in your bank account.”
There was no way I had just heard him correctly. Why in the fuck would he touch my bank account?
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Smith, you can’t claim to be broke and have Kowalczyk find out you have twenty-five thousand sitting in your checking account.”
He had a valid point, but how would Hunter even gain access to that information? He’d either have to know enough about me to take over my account or hack into the banking system. Both situations seemed a little far-fetched to me, but then again, I wasn’t exactly a criminal mastermind.
Taking a deep breath in, I tried not to lose my shit. “Please tell me you didn’t put my money in an evidence locker.”
“Calm down, Smith. I left fifty bucks in the old account and opened another one under the alias Jesse West for you. All the paperwork, along with two thousand in cash, are in storage unit number”—he paused, and I heard heavy breathing on the line—“423 at All For You Storage. There’s an envelope with the key inside waiting for you at the front desk so you can get into the unit.”
There was some more shuffling.
“Agent Gillford said the place is only about a ten-minute drive from the clubhouse. If you can’t make it there, shoot me a text and we’ll come up with a Plan B. That was the best I could do on the fly.”
My head hit the back of the seat. Ok, Brandy, do not freak out. You were the one that needed this ruse, and he did the best he could, as quickly as he could. Fucking Hunter. When I told him that lie, I thought it would be simple. That he’d investigate my fake unemployment status and move on. Obviously, my boss thought otherwise, or he wouldn’t be going through all this trouble.
Looking up at the ceiling of Cherry’s car, which wasn’t that far since she drove a mini cooper, I forced myself to say, “Thank you, sir. My sister didn’t want to go out for coffee this morning, so while I have her car I’ll run by there.”
“Good.” He was already clearly brushing off the fact he’d just touched my money without my consent. “Then what do you have for me?”
Of course. There it was. He’d done his part and now that he knew I was alive, he expected me to do mine. Marco’s face sprang to mind, but something made me want to withhold the only piece of information I had so far.
