Today, they would need to talk again. Of course, he’d fight that, too.
She rolled out of her side of the bed and stretched, noticing the rumpled sheets from where he’d slept on the other half of the bed. His head’s indentation in the pillow was barely there, which meant he’d been up for a while. Taking her time, she showered, shampooed, shaved her legs, did her nails, her toenails, brushed on a tad of makeup, anything and everything she could think of to do in the room. Satisfied she’d stalled as long as possible, she opened the door and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The clock on the landing showed eleven a.m. She’d procrastinated long enough.
The media room door was closed, with a one-word note, scribbled in all caps with a red marker, taped to the doorframe. —WORKING—
All right. If he wanted to be that way, she could, too. She still had plenty to do with the post-it note layout of her past weeks of work that was still spread across the dining room table. First on the agenda, though, was food.
She fixed a small plate of cheese and crackers, nuts and fruit, including a water, then slid onto one of the counter stools. After the escapade with the chocolate milk, she’d had enough of the same routine for breakfast.
Noise at the door to outside caught her attention a second before it opened. Reese stepped inside, reaching to click off the security system. Mitch barreled out of the media room, gun drawn.
“Good morning, Reese,” she said, nibbling on the cheese.
“Good morning.” He stepped to the counter, grabbing a few crackers from her stash as he winked.
She glanced in the other direction, sarcasm in her tone. “Good to see you again, Mitch.”
He snarled. “Good to see you, too.
“Awwwwww, isn’t that sweet?” Reese grinned. “Trouble in paradise.”
“Shove it, Reese,” Mitch barked.
“Yeah, shove it.” She smiled along with the words. In the midst of all the danger that was happening in her life, it felt good to be flip about something. Her situation with Mitch wasn’t flip, but Reese had lightened the load with his humor.
The media room door opened again, and a man she’d never seen walked through. Dressed in a black muscle shirt and green fatigue pants, he was lean, yet the hardened biceps confirmed his strength. An angular face with a slight cleft in his chin was accentuated with piercing and hooded blue eyes, a Roman nose, and a full bottom lip. His dark hair should have been cut an inch ago.
The man nodded in her direction. “People call me Stealth.”
His voice rumbled low…and smooth, like a gale-force wind with a shot of Jose Cuervo.
Josh brought up the rear of the men coming from the media room. Serious and focused, he checked his gun as he walked. The men—Mitch, Reese, Josh, Stealth—all did a brother-in-arms forearm shake.
Now she was scared. “Somebody want to tell me what’s going on? Because I feel like I missed the memo.”
“There were a few things that changed last night, so I called the team together.” Mitch didn’t make eye contact with her. “Then, lucky for us, more things changed this morning.” He held out one of the computer panels from the kitchen desk area. “You might find this interesting.”
Taking the panel, she glanced down. “Oh my gosh. That’s…that’s my dad.” Her voice quivered. “And Drake. Where…what…”
“Early yesterday, Drake let us know he was on Russ’s trail, but I didn’t want to tell you anything until it was finalized.”
“Is this real?”
“Yeah. We’ve date and code verified the photo. They’re in Key West where Russ was on vacation. He knew nothing about what was going on.”
“So, all the messages were sent from CT?”
Josh nodded. “No system is foolproof. Somehow CT was able to use your dad’s phone number to send you texts.”
“How do you know the photo isn’t being sent by CT, also?” At this point, she planned to ask and double ask to make sure she covered all the bases in her mind.
“That’s why we date code verified the photo. It’s real.”
She swiped at the happy tears rolling down her face, then jerked when the panel she was holdingbinged with an incoming Skype. “What do I do?”
Mitch glanced over her shoulder. “It has the right code. Tap the accept.”
The moment she did, her dad’s image popped on the screen, and Mitch stepped out of the frame. “Dad, you’re okay.”
