CASSANDRA
Riley held the door open to the main office, and I walked inside on my tiptoes. Something about visiting him at work seemed mysterious. “So, this is where you are all day?” I asked as we stood in the empty lobby. “The elusive Pelican Bay Security building.”
A desk sat in the middle of the room and a few chairs lined one wall, but besides those few items everything else was gray. Like gray, gray. The carpet, the walls, even the padding on the chairs. They needed to hang a painting or get a plant.
Riley stepped in front of my perusal with his brows furrowed. “Do people say that about the place?”
I shrugged and fixed my ponytail catching a few hairs falling out from the side. “I have no idea, but it sounded cool.”
Not many women said they were hanging out with a spy. Or at least the man who managed the spies. Same diff.
Riley laughed and walked past the desk, which looked like it should house a receptionist. He headed for a long hallway at the back of the building. “Is this a scenario where now that you’ve seen the place I have to threaten to kill you?”
I stopped dead in my tracks, the tension pulling on our hands and forcing him to stop walking as well. “What? I did not bring death into this. Way too far,” I said in a serious tone, but as soon as he caught sight of my sarcastic expression, Riley shook his head and continued walking.
On either side of the hallway, closed doors lined the walls. Riley and I zigzagged back and forth as he opened each one, allowing me a quick glance inside. The first was a conference room with a big wooden table and rolling chairs stationed around it, easily enough room for fifteen to twenty people in the space.
The door after that had a big private sign drilled into it. Riley didn’t open the door, but he stopped long enough to point at it and say, “Ridge’s office.”
On the other side of the hallway, a little further, another large room was stacked full of gym equipment. You wouldn’t miss the Planet Fitness membership if you had access to the place.
I noted the rows of weights and machines to do legs presses and benches. They even had two punching bags hanging from the ceiling in the far corner. Sweaty SEALs were the only thing missing from the room. Katy said the town was full of them, but I hadn’t seen too many. It’s not like they had a parade or anything. And trust me, people in Pelican Bay had a parade for just about everything. They loved them.
If swarms of former SEALs were in town, Pearl would figure out a way to make it a festival and put them on display. Tourism was how most of the people paid their bills, and they weren’t above harmlessly selling out one of their neighbors to make a buck.
Riley tugged me across the way and opened the door to the room labeled security. Televisions hung everywhere. Long tables had computer like monitor screens with different camera feeds. Two full walls of tiny screens flickered back and forth from different images. I stared and slowly recognized the different locations.
They were all shops or street corners in town.
“Are you guys spying on like the entire town of Pelican Bay?” I asked when I spotted the bakery on four different screens simultaneously. They also had the biker shop and two more on Buddy’s Bar. And if I wasn’t mistaken, I saw four different views from the porch of the bed-and-breakfast.
The screen swapped, but it only gave me a different portion of town. Now we were looking inside and out on the road from the bakery.
Riley stepped in front of the screens. “Strictly legal, I’m sure.”
Uh-huh.
Something told me I didn’t agree.
“Are you, though?” It’s rather suspicious and an invasion of privacy.
Riley shook his head while his gaze searched the room. “The really good cameras are in the other room. This is public access spaces.”
Did he just admit they had more cameras with private things on them in another room? “Did Spencer bring Frankie in today?” he asked to what I had assumed was an empty room.
Then a man’s head popped up from behind a television screen in the back. He wore a black polo shirt, which matched Riley’s with his hair cut short, like he was still part of the military. “No, she isn’t in today.”
Riley deflated. “Darn it. She makes an excellent distraction.”
“Who?”
Riley turned back to me, as if remembering I was standing beside him. “Spencer’s dog. Any idea when she’s coming in, Sloan?”
“Awww, is she like your mascot?” I asked before Sloan answered.
He skipped my question and went back to Riley’s. “I don’t think so. She ate couch foam and Doc Pike is watching her this morning to make sure she poops it out.”
My nose crinkled up with the image of that coming out of a dog’s stomach. “Eww.”
