“Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly. Something twisted in my gut. Could they really do a thorough dig into this guy’s life in that little time?
“You want to question Milo?” he shot back.
No, I did not.
“Okay, so I’ll tell him when I get back to the house.”
“Should I ask what you’re doing?”
“Chopping wood before we run out,” I said as I looked down at the task I didn’t really want to finish. “Can’t have the agent freezing to death while I’m trying to keep him alive.”
“You do know I know about that house, yeah?” My expression fell and I was grateful he couldn’t see it. “I know I never said anything before, but I didn’t want it hanging between us.”
“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t know about all the things we try to keep hidden.” My tone was supposed to be teasing but it fell flat. “Have you guys found anything more about that Lipton fucker?”
“A lot,” Reed said, voice hopeful. “But what we haven’t found is where the hell he’s at right now. I can only assume he’s the one who planted that stuff on Ford’s computer or had someone do it. If he’s like Milo says, then he has access to a damn near endless supply of hackers, so it wouldn’t even be trouble for him to find someone that could do it. And, not that I have proof, but I would put money on Lipton being the one to tip someone higher off to what Ford had on his computers after he planted it. And then, he made himself scarce to be on the safe side.”
“Kinda feels like we’re up against a monster that can’t be killed.”
“Has that ever stopped us before?” Reed shot back.
That made me smile despite the subject.
“No,” I answered, feeling a burst of fight spread throughout me. “No, it hasn’t.”
14
Ford
“Did this place used to have livestock?” I asked as Austin did his best to ignore me while sitting on the couch.
I was on the other one, in the spot that I couldn’t help but think of as mine now. It was as far away from Austin as I could get, but even then, it felt like it wasn’t enough space for him.
He had been slowly thawing toward me.
Very slowly.
I still couldn’t get a read on him, though. He’d be all charming smiles and false niceties one minute, then it was like a switch was flipped, and his eyes turned dark. If there was something that hit a nerve, he would shut down, and he didn’t bother to cover up the fact that it was something he wouldn’t talk about.
“Off limits,” he said grumpily, cutting his eyes to the side.
So much for thawing.
That was the response I received whenever something hit a little too close to those things he didn’t want to think about. I’d heard those two words nearly grunted at me too many times over the last few days. If I never heard them again, it would be too soon.
I just wanted to know things about him. Really, I wanted to make small talk more than anything. Sitting here in silence was driving me nuts. He wouldn’t even turn the TV on. Normally, I hated TV, too bright and too loud. I liked the quiet duringmy downtime. But with the pressure bearing down on me, the silence was not helping my stress level as we played the waiting game.
“Do you have a deck of cards?” I asked, leaving the livestock question alone for now.
“What?” he looked at me with a knitted brow.
“Cards? You know, playing cards? We could play poker or some sort of matching game. I don’t know.” I rolled my eyes. It was clear I was desperate if I was asking for a fucking deck of playing cards. “I just thought it would be better than sitting here doing nothing.”
“Nothin’ is fine with me.” He shot me a smirk, the one I’d dubbed his asshole one. A quick flick of the corners of his mouth upward with no real warmth in it.
“Austin, you can’t really mean th—”
“Yeah, I can,” he said, cutting me off without a care.
