Riley steered me back out into the hallway, and since I didn’t want to hear what else the dog ate, I went with him willingly. Two more doors were left, and he pointed at one, explaining it as Bennett’s office. Then he turned the knob and pushed the door open on the left. It wasn’t hard to determine where he’d brought me. The name plate on the door had his name etched into it.
“Ridge left you in charge of all of this. Huh?” I made a circle in his office to make sure I got a good view.
Riley didn’t have to bring me here for me to guess the color scheme. Gray.
Lots and lots of gray.
And nothing else.
Riley didn’t even have a pen sitting on his desk. The only thing taking up space on the surface was a closed laptop.
He stood next to me with his hands on his hips if as if he was surveying the space he owned. “Yup.”
I nodded and circled again to make sure I missed nothing interesting.
I didn’t.
“You look disappointed,” Riley said, watching me.
I shook my head. “No, I guess I expected random sirens to be going off. Or like one of those poles you guys slide down to get from one level to the next.”
One eyebrow lifted higher than the other and he ran his fingers through his hair. “We’re not firefighters. At least I hope that’s what you’re insinuating and not that you were looking for a stripper pole.”
He mentioned it.
And honestly, a pole would definitely liven up the place. I bet they had to be super limber to be a SEAL.
“No,” I said, not lying because I hadn’t thought about it being a stripper pole until he mentioned it although the idea grew with me by the moment. “I meant like guns or something.”
Where was the gear? Did they have a stash of grenades somewhere? The cameras were interesting on their own, but overall, the building was kind of… boring.
Although, this was Pelican Bay. What the hell did people in this town do for fun? All the old people would probably keel over and kick the bucket at the thought of Riley sliding down a stripper pole. They considered four drunk people on Main Street a sign of the apocalypse.
“Oh, you want the weapons room,” Riley said and my ears immediately perked up.
I wasn’t into weapons or guns or anything like that. I didn’t have a streak where I wanted to shoot things, but as soon as he said weapons room, I envisioned a wall full of ancient swords, throwing knives, and a battle axe.
“Yes,” I said, a little too enthusiastically. “Take me there.”
Riley turned around as if he was considering it but stopped right before leaving his office. “You promise not to tell anyone, ever?”
“On threat of death?” I asked, getting ready to make the sign of the cross over my heart with my forefinger.
He nodded. “By dismemberment.”
“I promise,” I said with a smile and swiped my finger up and then down to make a large X like we did as children.
Riley led me down the hallway we came from and stopped at a door he’d ignored on our first walk by. The door plate resembled the one in front of Bennett’s and Ridge’s offices, except this door wasn’t marked as an office but the janitor’s closet.
“You keep your guns in the janitor’s closet?” I asked as he opened the door and let me walk in. Awesome. Not. First glance and I found… shelves of cleaning supplies. Mainly bleach for the toilets, a vacuum in the far corner, and a mop with the plastic wrapped around it. I guess they weren’t big on mopping.
“Babe,” he said, and then moved the mop to the side and pressed the tip of his foot on the floor.
I waited for Riley to turn around and laugh like he caught me with a great joke, but then a wheeling sound spun from the back corner of the room. Light flickered into the space. A latch turned on the door we used to get in, locking it, and then the back wall of the closet turned into an opening for a secret room.
“Wow,” I said, a little timid and scared to walk into the additional space.
Riley smile. “We had it recently installed. One of the Katy deterrents.”
