Finding Grace (6 page)

Still, he was proud to have served his country.
Thorne was probably a damn liberal. She was a woman
and
an
academic, after all.

“Uh, Thorne, you do understand that everyone around
here besides yourself has been in one branch of the military or
other at some point, right? Is that going to be a problem for
you?”

“Not as long as they don’t go all rigid, tight-ass
GI Joe and bossy on me.”

Paul really hoped they wouldn’t. “Well, I’m
satisfied. Do I get to talk to Dagger before making you an
offer?”

Thorne laughed. “Pay me whatever you think I’m
worth. That’s not why I want the work. Shit, now I’ll have to open
a bank account here.”

“Here?”

“Yeah, I moved it all to Switzerland
after…Organized, efficient, great chocolate and they still
understand the meaning of the word
privacy
. Don’t look at me
like that. I only expect the latter of you, like we talked
about—not that good chocolate would hurt.” She offered him a
crooked smile. “So, uh, when do I start?”

A Swiss bank account? Just how many patents had she
sold, anyway? Well, that explained the nice laptop and why she
didn’t care about the money, if not why she lived like she did. Oh
hell, he was in so far over his head, it really didn’t make any
difference any more. Besides, she’d just said yes.

“Today, if you like. I have an empty office just
waiting for you to fill it with…” Paul looked over the list she’d
handed him. “Wait, what’re the oscilloscope and soldering iron
for?”

“After I interview the users, your crew, I’d like to
customize some of your electronics. Do you have a desktop tied into
your network I could use in the meantime? I didn’t bring my laptop.
It’ll take a while to set up some IP routes that I’m comfortable
won’t be easily traceable. I’ll be able to work out something more
elaborate once I have a custom setup.”

Ah, the peculiar hum of geek talk. “Um, sure.”

As they walked, Paul noticed Thorne was moving a
little stiffly. He remembered how her chair had crashed to the
floor in the interrogation room and her bloody wrists. She was
wearing some kind of half-mittens that covered them today,
effectively hiding the damage he knew was there—both old and
new.

It went against his nature to pretend she wasn’t
hurt, didn’t need care and protection. Too late for that now. Five
years too late. All he could offer her was a bridge back to the
world. And that meant keeping Dagger in the dark. God damn it, he
was screwed.

“Great space, Paul. I won’t need the desk, but I’m
going to need three—” her eyes scanned the room and narrowed “—no,
make it four long tables. Most of that equipment should be
overnight-able, if you’re willing. If you let me order it, I can
probably negotiate some good pricing.”

Oh yeah, he’d definitely let her do the
negotiating.

“After that, I’d like to do some shopping.” Thorne
was bouncing on her sneakers, obviously excited.

He smiled. Yes, definitely a woman.

A large shadow filled the doorway and Dagger stuck
his head in. “Good, you could use a decent jacket. Wouldn’t want
you to freeze your punk ass.”

Paul agreed, but he wouldn’t have put it quite that
way.

“What? Oh, yeah…I guess. Anyway, it’s possible I’ll
be set up enough to start on that client list this afternoon.”

Paul saw Dagger’s frown and groaned to himself. He
trusted Thorne. Hell, even if he didn’t, he wasn’t dumb enough to
think he could have stopped her from accessing anything she wanted
to access anyway. But he couldn’t easily explain that to Dagger.
Yup, screwed.

* * * *

Dagger watched Thorne carry yet another box of
high-end stereo equipment into the empty office at the end of the
hall. “That’s nicer shit than I have in my living room, Thorne. You
don’t even have a stereo in your apartment. What do you need a
setup like that in your office for? This equipment must have cost
your first two months’ salary—you know, the one you haven’t earned
yet. And you’re still wearing that piece of shit jacket that wasn’t
warm when it was new, like twenty years ago. Are you nuts?”

“Well, Mommy Dearest, not that it’s any of your
business, but just because you’re so charming and irresistible,
I’ll tell you. The wall I share with my neighbor is so thin that I
can hear him take a leak if there’s not a lot of traffic, so I
pretty much have to wear headphones. This place has great walls,
headphones bug me, and music helps me focus, like knitting. As for
the jacket, you all are a bunch of pussy freeze-babies around here.
You’d think Seattle had a real winter or something. It’s fucking
balmy compared to where I grew up. Not like you, my tender Georgia
peach.”

Dagger noticed that Thorne had ignored the financial
reference altogether. No wonder the kid was so broke, with the way
he spent his money. He shouldn’t care and didn’t know why he did.
Damn smartass. He was grateful no one else had heard the
conversation.

Except—shit, they had.

He recognized Farley’s and Mills’s snickers. He
wished those dickheads were still on detail. “Who’s your new
girlfriend, Dagger?” They followed it with a gleeful chorus of, “Or
is it boyfriend?”

He gave them a look deadly enough to silence a
firing range.

But Farley was eyeing Thorne and missed it. “Yeah,
inquiring minds want to know. AC? DC? Both?”

Thorne continued unpacking a really nice subwoofer.
“What fucking difference does it make? Look, if I’m a girl, I gotta
be a dyke, right? And if I’m a boy, I’m a fag. So unless one of you
is hiding his shit in a closet, what difference does it fucking
make? I thought you people had that whole ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’
bullshit down.”

Paul stuck his head in. “Any problem here?”

“No sir. We were just welcoming the new guy, gal,
whatever,” Farley piped. More snickers.

“Thorne?”

Dagger heard the protective tone in Paul’s voice,
even if Farley and Mills didn’t. Now why would—

“No problem, sir, I think I threaten their
masculinity, is all. Any more questions,
ladies
, or do you
need diagrams?”

The other two made themselves scarce under Paul’s
glare.

Dagger turned to his partner. “Say, Paul, got a
minute?”

He followed him into his office and closed the door.
“I know you’ve asked me to trust you on this whole Thorne thing and
God knows I’m trying, but for chrissake, Paul, the client list? His
first day? He’s some kind of criminal, right? If he’s a he…I just
don’t get it. Farley and Mills—”

“I understand your confusion on both counts. If it
makes you feel any better, I’ve got enough leverage on Thorne to
satisfy any and all concerns. And since when have you given a damn
what those two think?”

This was just plain wrong. It wasn’t hard to see
that Paul wanted to tell him more. He’d give him one last push.
“You’re not the only one responsible for these men, Paul. Remember,
keeping the team copacetic is my job. At least tell me why I don’t
deserve to know.”

A funny look passed over Paul’s face. “There’s more
to Thorne than meets the eye, Dagger.”

“Tell me something I
don’t
know.”
Tell me,
so maybe I’ll be able to understand how the little shit got under
my skin
.

“I wish I could.”

Dagger could see that he meant it, too. Fine. Just
fucking fine.

He walked back into the big office all of the men
besides Paul shared when they were in. He’d never seen the need for
a private one himself. He liked to keep an eye and ear on things.
Still, it grated on him some that Paul had given the spare to
Thorne.

Farley and Mills were still talking and snickering.
Farley turned to him and said, “So?”

Shit, there was no way he could let the men know
Paul was holding out on him. “All I can tell you is that the
uniforms who picked Thorne up for questioning on the Tierney case
swore he was a man. Way I figure it, he turned up in CODIS.
Probably got his nose pinched sticking it in some database or
wherever he shouldn’t have. Rigby cleared him of any connection to
the kidnapping and thought we could use him.”

“So how’d he know about it, then?” Farley had been
there that night. It was a fair question. A damn good question.

“You wouldn’t believe Thorne’s answer to that any
more than Paul and I did. But it’s not like he’s living the high
life off his criminal activities, I can tell you that.”

“You’ve seen his apartment? What’s it like?” Farley
always wanted to know everything.

“Yeah, Paul and I went there to recruit him.” Dagger
paused, remembering. “It’s colorful—”

“Why thank you, Jack.” Thorne was suddenly standing
in the door, wearing a big smile.

“—
for a padded room in a shithole
asylum.”

It could have been something in the way the set of
Thorne’s lips changed that told Dagger he’d hurt the kid, but it
was that little twinge in his gut that told him he regretted
it.

If not for long.

“You
sure
your name’s not Judas?” The
reflections off the dark lenses Thorne wore burned like lasers on
his cheek.

Mills drawled, “Why is it you little ones always
gotta be so disrespectful?”

“You really gonna try to shrink me, Billy Bob? A
whole mob of people a hell of a lot smarter and more educated than
you have tried and failed.”

“Are you callin’ me a dumb redneck?”

“Well, Cinderella, if the slipper fits…”

Dagger fought a grin and lost. Farley didn’t even
try; he was roaring.

“Why you little—”

Dagger moved to deflect Mills’s grab, but Thorne was
already standing in the hall, looking somewhere between pissed and
nervous. God damn, but that kid was fast.

“Hey, I just came to ask you guys what improvements
you’d like on your electronics while I’m waiting for some data to
run, but I’m sure I can find something else to do instead.”

Dagger gritted his teeth and reminded himself that’s
what the damn little shit was here for. “Wait, Thorne. Just tell us
this and we’ll get off your back. The honest truth. How did you
know about the kidnapping?”

“For the last time, I didn’t even know it was going
to be a kidnapping, I just knew something was going down.”

“Knew how?”

“I saw it, like I told you and Paul and Captain
America back at the funhouse.”

“Oh yeah, the ‘vision.’ Right.” He rolled his eyes.
“If you’re some kind of mind reader psychic, what am I thinking
about, Thorne?”

“If I said you’re imagining me naked, would you be
pissed?” Thorne put his hands on his hips and posed.

Mills snickered, and Farley was holding his sides
like they were going to bust. Dagger thought it had been funnier
when Thorne was going after Mills.

“Seriously though, it doesn’t work that way, Jack. I
don’t do fucking parlor tricks.”

“Okay then,” Dagger said, more than happy to leave
the woo-woo shit behind now, “if you’re so damn slick at what you
do, why didn’t the government snap you up? Isn’t that what they do
when they catch smart little freaks with their hands in the cookie
jar?”

“Let’s just say they were unsuccessful in their
recruitment efforts.”

“Got a problem with Uncle Sam, Thorne?” Mills asked
it slowly.

“Shitloads.”

“We don’t care for un-American, liberal faggot-types
around here.” It was Mills who said it, but Farley was nodding.
Dagger could only wait. And hope.

“God, Mills, stereotype much? Well, then you must
all be a narrow-minded bunch of ignorant, red-white-and-blue,
Neanderthal motherfucking sheep.” Thorne held his arm straight up
and goose-stepped in place. “That’s right folks, give ’em a flag
and they’ll follow it
anywhere
.”

Dagger’s indrawn breath hissed, the sound of hope
dying.

They all froze when they heard Paul clear his
throat. “We talked about this, Thorne. Whatever problems you have
with the government, this isn’t the place to air them.”

“And I told you that I’d be fine as long as they
didn’t go all rigid, tight-ass GI Joe on me. I didn’t start it.”
Thorne looked accusingly at Dagger.

“Who started it? Really, Thorne? I expected better
from you.”

Dagger heard the disappointment in Paul’s voice and
knew some of it was for him. He was supposed to keep the peace.
He’d said so himself not a half hour ago.

Paul continued to talk to Thorne. “It’s been a long
day. Let’s say we start fresh tomorrow. You’ve got the client list
and most of your equipment coming, so I expect you’ll be busy.
Dagger will help you bring up the tables you need from downstairs
in the morning. It’s almost dark. How did you get here?”

“Ran. Why?”

“It’s at least two miles. I don’t want you on foot
between this neighborhood and your own after dark. Too much like
going from the frying pan into the fire.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Paul.” Thorne tilted
his head up and around at the men surrounding him.

Shit, Dagger’d seen bigger fourth graders. He felt a
small, warm wave of sympathy, then a chill of foreboding.

“I’m not asking. Dagger, you’ll be giving Thorne a
ride home.”

Dagger’s lips cursed soundlessly, but he’d turned
his head so that only Paul could see.

Chapter Five

Dagger glanced over at Thorne as he maneuvered
through the sleet-covered, late-day traffic. The kid was scrunched
up against the door, sitting as far away from him as possible,
which was pretty far in the old caddy. The little purple head
barely cleared the back of the bench seat. He was staring out the
side window, listening to his iPod. Dagger could see the wires
snaking down under the back of the jacket’s stained collar.

His eyes returned to the road and he asked himself
for the hundredth time what it was about this kid that got to him
and, for at least the tenth time in as many minutes, just how the
hell he’d managed to make himself the belligerent little shit’s
chauffeur.