AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” she deadpans before turning her back on me.
I laugh and pull the door closed behind me. I find Slade sitting at the kitchen island with his cell phone in his hand.
“Anything new?”
He looks up at me before pointing at the now-full coffee pot. I walk over to it and pour myself a cup before leaning against the counter to face him.
“Hawk and Creed didn’t find anything in her stuff that raised any red flags. The electronics are with E, though. They’ll take a little longer to go through.”
“I’ll head over and pick her clothes up then.”
“Don’t bother. She can do without them for a day or two.”
I raise my brow in question at that, knowing he must have a reason.
“I want her to feel uncomfortable.”
I blow on my drink and look at him over the rim of my mug. “It’s more than that. I know you, Slade. What’s your plan here? I know you have one, but we’re a team in this, so I need to know.”
He looks up at me and tosses his phone on the island. “If she feels like she has the upper hand, then she has no reason to talk. And something tells me she won’t tell us dick right now. So, we need to find her trigger and trip it. I want to make her nervous, wary. Then, when she feels like she might snap, I want to befriend her and coax her into telling us more.”
“You want to seduce her.”
He shrugs. “I’d rather not have to torture the information out of her.”
Something sours in my stomach at the thought of playing her. But is it really playing when I want her this much?
“I’m not against it, but I think we need to tread carefully. If we treat her like the enemy and it turns out she’s telling the truth, then we’ll blow any chance we have of getting her on board as an ally.”
He doesn’t look bothered by my words, though, making me curious.
“You don’t for a second believe that she’s on the up and up, do you?”
“I’m not ruling out that she has a gift. I’m not saying I’m one hundred percent buying into it. But after everything that went down with Salem, we’d be stupid to dismiss it completely. What I have a problem with is her sincerity. You don’t think it’s a bit convenient that she’s here, claiming she had a vision? If it was anything else, we’d have told her to fuck off already, but she’s played on our one weakness.”
“Salem,” I answer, seeing where he’s going with this.
“Exactly.”
I take a sip of my coffee and think about what he’s saying. He’s right to be cautious. It’s the smart thing to do. But that woman in there intrigues the fuck out of me, and it’s been a long time since any woman managed to get a reaction out of me beyond a hard-on.
“She doesn’t exactly come across as—” He cuts me off with a shake of his head.
“That’s what makes her the best person for the job, though, right? She’s pretty enough to gain our attention, but not in an over-the-top, obviously sexual way. She’s not too eager to please or firing off too many questions that would raise red flags. She is actually going about it the opposite way. Making snarky, hostile digs that give her a standoffish vibe that could almost make a man believe she’s not interested in the answers—almost. When she was talking to Salem, she was solely focused on her. It was like the rest of us didn’t exist. She is here for her, no doubt about it, but I’m not sure I believe it’s just so she can give her a warning. I mean, why bother? I’m not trying to be a dick, but she doesn’t know us. She doesn’t know Salem. She had no godly clue what kind of situation she was walking into. Unless, of course, she did.”
“You think we have another rat feeding her information?” I tense at that.
“No, I think Cooper was our only leak. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t getting info from him at some point. And now that he’s dead, she might have come to see if she could get the information herself.”
“I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else right now.” I blow out a breath and place my coffee on the counter. “Alright. Let’s see how it plays out then.”
I move to the fridge, check out the contents, and wince. There isn’t much here. We eat most of our meals in the main house.
“Not much here to feed her. We’ll have to get some food if you don’t want her eating at the main house with the others.”
“I think it’s best we keep her here for now. Isolating her will only add to her unease.”
“She still needs to eat.”
