Cuckoo (Kindred Book 3) (13 page)

Shoving herself along the desk in the wheeled chair, she tapped the farthest keyboard to bring the CI cameras up. She didn’t get much from them. There was no direct video link inside the building, though she had various external views. Glancing up at the monitor bank, she watched one screen change, but instead of bringing up a picture, it was a blank, black space.

Intrigued, she frowned. “Hmm,” Zara hummed.

Removing the CI image from the display, she tried to locate the hidden embedded code on the faulty black screen to bring the feed onto the monitor in front of her.

“What is it?” Bess asked. The video link was still active on the first screen while Zara worked on the third of the trio of screens at the security workstation.

“One of the cameras is out,” Zara muttered.

“Someone will be getting their ass handed to them,” Bess said on a laugh. “Who’s responsibility was the check this morning?”

They’d been drinking last night, so it was possible that whoever it was had been too hung over to do it properly. Zara thought for a moment, and she figured it out just as she input the embedded code and the data log popped up. Marrying all of the information together, she sat up straight, slowly. Bess had to see something in her expression, because she became serious.

“What is it? Zara? What is it?”

“Brodie was on security check this morning,” she whispered.

“It’s not like him to be absent-minded.”

“No, it’s not,” Zara said.

“Which camera is faulty?”

Distant, she tried to temper her distress. “It’s not faulty,” she said. “The data log shows it was manually overridden and disabled from here.”

“I’ve never known any of the boys to do that. The cameras are placed where they are because the locations they monitor are vital.”

“I know,” Zara said, unable to find her volume switch.

“So, what is that camera watching?”

“My apartment.”

Bess didn’t have anything to say to that and neither did Zara. Why would Brodie want his ex to have privacy that he wasn’t interested in his current girlfriend having? He didn’t apologize for monitoring her apartment, when it was Zara’s permanent residence.

“I’m sure he has his reasons for—” Blinking her disbelieving eyes at Bess, Zara quieted the sheepish woman. “What are you going to do?”

She wanted to go over to her apartment and find out if the reason Brodie had been so long with Cuckoo was because he’d taken her home. But a dramatic confrontation would just embarrass them all. Zara had to trust her boyfriend. She was too aware of his commitment to the mission and to the Kindred to doubt his professional loyalty. If Raven had to get close to Cuckoo under false pretenses of romantic interest then Zara might have to just live with that.

He’d done it to her, that was how they’d become involved in the first place. The process worked, and he’d been honest about sleeping with women for information in the past. But if that was what he was doing, she’d have to lay ground rules, the first of which being he had to be honest with her about it.

When the door opened, she spun in the chair to see who was coming in, hoping it was Brodie returning to base. It wasn’t. Tuck was storming toward the security desk so fast that she leaped out of the seat, knowing he’d need it.

With a blank, intent stare, he swung himself into the seat and began to type faster than she’d seen a person type. “What is it?” she asked, putting a hand on the back of his chair to look at the screen just in front of the keyboard, but he didn’t answer her. He just kept on typing.

She glanced at Bess, who was frowning. “I’ll let you get back to work,” Bess said and blew her a kiss.

“Take care,” Zara said, managing a smile before the woman left the screen.

Without slowing in what he was doing, Tuck reached to the keyboard on the right and tapped the code to kill the audio feed she and Bess had been using. “We have something,” he said to her after a few more swipes.

“Is it Brodie?” she asked, panicked that something could have gone wrong while he was away from the manor.

“Nope,” Tuck said and reached to the left keyboard to bring up a still on the monitor in front of it.

She crept around him while he returned to his typing and crouched until the picture was at her eye level. It was Kahlil, going into some building she didn’t recognize. “You found him,” she murmured.

“Yep.”

Tuck was a man of few words when he was intent, so she left him to his work and speculated. The picture was dark, but it was nighttime. She couldn’t pick out many specifics, and it was just lucky that Kahlil had looked over his shoulder at the right moment to be picked up on the traffic cam.

“Fuck, yeah,” Tuck said, pleased with something. He banged his hands on the desk then pushed the chair away from the desk to get up.

“Where are you going?” she asked, blocking his route. He searched her expression like he’d forgotten what a human being looked like. He spent so much time with computers, she wouldn’t be surprised if he did forget sometimes. “Where is he? Where’s Kahlil?”

Tuck turned to point at the picture he’d left on the screen. “That’s an apartment block in a shitty part of town. But there’s a hotel opposite one side, it’s a crappy place that rents rooms by the hour, you know? But I’m gonna check it out. If Kahlil is staying in that block, we might get eyes on him, and if we can surveil his movements…”

“We might see who he’s working with,” she said and smiled. “I’m coming with you.”

His eyes widened a fraction. “No, you’re not,” he said.

“Brodie told me to stay with you, and it’s dangerous out there. You shouldn’t go alone.”

“Kahlil has seen you. He’d be able to ID you.”

“Not if I dress right and we go into that hotel together. You’ll raise fewer eyebrows if you walk in with a hooker, and I’m the only woman on the team.”

His jaw clenched and he said nothing, he just stood there, static, as though he was processing potential scenarios. After about a minute, she started to get uncomfortable but was impressed by just how thoroughly he switched off.

“You’ve got five minutes to get changed. Dress—”

“Slutty, I know,” she said, squeezing his arms then whirling around to rush upstairs to change.

Having something to do helped keep her mind away from Brodie and what he was doing. Zave was with him, and Bess was right, the men would look after each other. But that didn’t explain Brodie handing over her apartment then shutting down the surveillance on it. Personal issues would have to wait because she had Kindred business to take care of, and she was glad of the distraction. Being patient wasn’t her forte.

“Want me to jump on the bed?” she asked, and Tuck took his eye from the scope to glance at her.

“I don’t think anyone gives a shit what we do,” he said and went back to his scope. “But knock yourself out.”

They’d rented a room in the seedy hotel for the night instead of the hour. From the way the guy at the reception desk window looked at her, she was confident he bought that she was a streetwalker. Tuck had left his equipment on the rear fire escape and retrieved it before they went into the room. It was a dark, dirty space with little more than four walls, a bed, and a desk. There wasn’t even a television or a lamp.

The double bed had a wooden headboard that was screwed to the wall and a threadbare comforter on it. On a positive note, the sheets were clean, at least to the naked eye. Tuck had been doing his best to examine the block opposite through their grime-covered window, trying to figure out where Kahlil was residing. He’d brought a laptop that somehow patched into the city cameras, and he kept a constant eye on the program it was running. As far as his system knew, Kahlil hadn’t left that building.

At that moment, Tuck was sitting on the wooden chair that had been at the desk, peering through his fancy black telescope. Hunkering down when he raised the angle, he examined every window of the cheap apartment building the system had caught Kahlil going into.

“Shit,” he muttered, and she shifted to the edge of the bed behind him where she’d been seated while he worked.

“What?” she asked.              

He inhaled and leaned back, leaving the scope pointing upward. “You need a new client.”

“Why?” she asked.

When she glanced at the window, she didn’t see any movement or figures, but she was farther away and had a lesser view from her angle. Her job was to provide cover that let Tuck enter and transact like he was any other john using the premises to facilitate his need of amusement. So far, she’d been doing her best not to make a nuisance of herself. Now that he’d located their target, they needed to strategize.

“He’s in there, but he’s on an upper floor. One down we could’ve lived with, but the angle’s too sharp for us to see anything from here. He just came to the window and left again. He’s up there. We need a room on the floor above this one, one unit right.”

She understood. “Okay, Wren’s still at the manor. We can call him, and I’ll meet him on a street corner, make it look good.”

Taking his eye to the scope, Tuck adjusted something and his cellphone began to ring on the desk. Moving back just a couple of inches, he glanced down at it. “I think it’s for you.”

Sliding off the bed, she reached forward to grab it from Tuck. All the screen said was ‘unknown’ but she’d had calls from that guy before. “Hello,” she said, ensuring to sound upbeat.

“Now you’ve gone and run off with another man,” Brodie’s growling voice wasn’t amused, but she laughed.

“That’s funny ‘cause it’s kind of true,” she said and sat down on the floor to look up at Tuck. “This loser can’t afford another hour. I need you to meet me. Bring your wallet.”

“Tell him to ask for room thirteen,” Tuck muttered.

Thirteen, ironic she thought, but it wouldn’t be an unlucky number for them. The Kindred worked best when they were focused on a common goal, and she was finding her fire again. Brodie didn’t argue when she gave him the address or explained the setup. Zave had probably found the data that had brought her and Tuck here anyway, so Brodie would understand what was going on.

Brodie wouldn’t take long to get here, this was where the mission was centered, and there was a chance of action, which was her love’s specialty. There was no way he’d want to miss out on observing Kahlil, and that she was present for him to chastise was another bonus to hurry him along.

She waited in the mouth of the blackened alley for her love to come into view. He hadn’t asked her many questions. He listened to her spiel and had spoken to Tuck for a minute before they hung up. She’d waited with Tuck as long as she could before leaving to stand in an alley just around the corner from the hotel.

Kahlil wouldn’t be able to see her from here even if he looked out his window. But her revealing apparel and thigh high boots weren’t standard CI uniform. So even if, by some miracle, he did happen to see her, he would never recognize her.

Thick red lipstick stained her lips, and her hair was backcombed into a voluminous style that would take her an hour to calm when they got home. Then again, if this was Kahlil’s safe house, they might be spending a lot of time here until they got what they needed. Gaining the upper hand would rely on them finding something out that Kahlil didn’t want them to know.

Brodie could arrive at any minute, sooner would be better for her. She didn’t like being on the street alone in this garb. Her shoulder maintained contact with the alley wall as she twisted to fall against it. This wasn’t a great neighborhood, but she had her gun in her purse, as she always did. With a panic button on her phone too, there wasn’t anything to worry about. If something happened to her, Tuck could be downstairs and at her location in less than a minute.

A laugh deep in the alley made her push away from the wall and straighten up. That wasn’t Brodie, no way, but there was something familiar about the sinister tone of that satisfied sound.

“You have come a long, long way, Miss Bandini.”

“Fuck,” she exhaled and folded her arms just as his face was lit by the light coming from the street. It cut a harsh diagonal across his face at almost the same angle as the gnarly scar on his neck. “Griffin Caine.”

“At your service,” he said, dipping his head in a false sign of civility.

If she took that statement as truth, she’d tell him to go and jump in the Atlantic, preferably from a ship that was a thousand miles off-shore. His intention wasn’t to serve her, he had his own agenda and always had a reason for popping up when he did. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“You know me,” he said. “I like to pop up at inconvenient moments, when you’re at your weakest.”

When he took another step toward her, she opened her arms to hold up her hands, indicating to him that she wanted him to stop. “Don’t you come near me.”

“Oh, you’re not afraid of little me, are you?”

There was nothing little about the tall, muscular man with the blue eyes so cold they could turn the warmest heart to stone. “The last time we met, you held me at gun point.”

“I don’t have a weapon,” he said and showed her his hands, turning them front to back.

“Then you’ve made a major mistake because Raven is on his way here; he’ll be here any second.” Just because Caine wasn’t holding a weapon in his hand didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying one somewhere on his person. She wouldn’t relax based upon his unreliable word.

“A reunion. Excellent.”

It couldn’t bode well that Caine was being so jovial tonight. “We left you in Sutcliffe’s place with Leatt, how did you get out of there? Was it you? Were you the one working with him?”

“No,” he laughed.

It amazed her how he could be casual, yet so terrifying at the same time. She was scared of him because he was the type of loose cannon that could explode at any second, and she didn’t want to be in his path when he did. But she wasn’t scared enough to pull her gun, because they’d met several times and he could have killed her on any of those occasions. Some part of him didn’t want her dead, and he’d have his own, probably demented, reasons for that.

Using the chance he presented by showing up, she wanted to know what he knew. “Who was? Do you know that?”

“I do now,” Caine said, strolling closer. Zara kept herself tense but wouldn’t weep or run. Caine was a sadist, he just exuded that kind of psychopathy. A doctor didn’t need to diagnose his evil. It shimmered around him, warning the world that he was the devil’s blood relation.

“Who?”

He stopped and leaned back as he put his hands in his pockets and tipped his head back a few inches. “You think I’ll tell you just like that?”

“Maybe.” If it caused aggravation for the Kindred, he would. Sometimes Caine was funny, sometimes he was threatening. The lone certainty was that no one could predict his next move.

“Tell you what, I’ll be fair. If you get down on those sexy knees, wrap those shiny red lips around my cock, and give your boyfriend a real show to walk in on, then I’ll tell you.”

It was her turn to laugh. If Brodie walked into this alley and saw that, Caine’s life would be over before either of them knew he was there. “You think I’m that desperate to know? The only thing that would get you is suicide by Raven.”

He began moving again and got closer than she’d like him to, but he kept on coming until he was in her personal space. “I’d prefer it by Swallow,” he murmured.

Intimidation was his dominant field, and he knew how to exploit any situation. She was dressed like a whore and so he treated her like one. Sex wasn’t something he’d requested from her before. He took the setup and used it to his advantage, probably banking that she would feel uncomfortable in her appearance, so he promoted her self-consciousness to increase her discomfort.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “What do you want, Caine?” she asked, matching his assured stare with her own. “You pop up when it’s inconvenient, but you also pop up when you want something. What is it this time?”

“Just wanted to let you know I was around. I’m sure you were worried about me.”

“Beside myself,” she said, but she hadn’t given him a second thought after leaving him in Sutcliffe’s place with Leatt.

“And I wanted to tell you that…” She’d never seen him hesitate, but he did it now. For half a beat, there was something human in the way he averted his eyes.

“Tell me what?” she asked and took a hand to his elbow, which snapped him out of whatever held him back.

Ripping his arm away, he retreated. “You’ll never match up to her in his eyes,” he said and smiled just before he stepped into the shadow that had delivered him. “Just like I could never match up to him.”

Searching for meaning in what he said, it took her a few seconds to put the pieces together, and when she looked up, she couldn’t see any flicker of movement. Cuckoo. Art had told her that Caine’s feud with Raven was rooted in a situation involving a woman. Caine wanted her, but she didn’t want him. Cuckoo.

The woman, who Brodie had just brought into their lives, was the whole reason that these men hated each other. If there was ever a time for Caine to snap, this was it. Brodie was happy with a new woman but had still managed to get the old girlfriend to jump on his command—the old girlfriend Caine no doubt still pined for.

The situation was already complicated enough, but Caine was a grenade with its pin pulled. He had to know that Cuckoo was back in their lives and his warning was either in sympathy or in hate.  Either way, another explosive variable had just been added to this mission’s unbalanced equation.