Surrender to Temptation (Agent Lovers Series Book 1) (17 page)

Gray hung up the phone. “Carlos will be here in 30 minutes.” He and Chris eyed the pathetic remains of the SUV.

***

“I think we did it!” Jennifer whispered, bending closer to Liz.

“Yeah. Talk about the perfect night. We had some fun, got to save a couple people along the way and Gray’s going to give us the boot. What more could we want?” She rubbed her hands together at the thought of their imminent “release.”

Then they looked out the side window and watched the two men, who were now headed for a dark blue tow truck that had just driven into the parking lot. On the driver’s door was a bright yellow and deep red logo that read: Carlos Santiago Repair Shop. The door opened and a beefy guy in T-shirt and jeans jumped out of the cab. Judging by his appearance, he was Latino, so Liz guessed he was the owner of the repair shop. The BMW’s insulation was excellent and the men’s conversation sounded thoroughly muffled to Liz and Jennifer. All they could do was watch the scene unfold and wait to see what would happen. The reaction of the newcomer spoke volumes.

***

Carlos threw his hands up in stunned despair. The scrap heap in front of him left him temporarily speechless. “What did you do to it, Grayson?” He was dumbfounded when he found his voice again. His accent was even more pronounced than usual, heightened by his agitation.

“I wasn’t the one who did it. It was those two in the back of the BMW.” He pointed to the women who had the audacity to wave to the mechanic and smile sweetly. Gray would have loved nothing better than to shout at them again.
No one could beat those two when it came to chutzpah
, he had to admit.

“What did they do to it?”

“They drove it in one of those illegal night races you hear about.”

“Tonight? There was an accident and an explosion.”

“You already heard about it?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Do you have any idea what happened out there?” Gray knew he wasn’t going to be able to get any information out of Liz and Jennifer.

“Well, sure. The race was organized at the abandoned strip mine, like usual. It sounds like two of the cars rolled right before the finish line. Both drivers were pulled out just before the cars exploded. I heard it was two women in the race who were their guardian angels.” He hesitated and looked over at Liz and Jennifer, who were still smiling charmingly. His eyes grew large and his expression more stunned. “It was them?” He turned to Gray taken aback.

“It was them,” Chris said dryly.

Shaking his head at the idea of so much recklessness, Carlos climbed back into his tow truck and moved it behind the totaled Mercedes. Then he secured it to the cable winch and pulled it up slowly. With every creak and sound of grating metal that came from the car, Gray winced as if feeling pain in his body. One of the dented license plates came loose and fell to the ground with a clatter. Gray closed his eyes in anguish and shook his head. Once Carlos had secured the car for transport, he came back over to the two men.

“Well?” said Gray. “Can you do anything with it, or is it a total loss?”

“I’m not sure yet. Once it’s on the lift I’ll be able to see whether the frame was damaged. From what I can see in the dark, there are a lot of scratches and dents, and the body is toast. You can tell that the lights have completely fallen apart. They really did a number on it. If I’m able to fix it, it’ll be expensive. Very expensive, in fact. It’ll take quite a while, too.”

At this bad news, Gray threw poisonous glances at the women who were still sitting in the backseat and appeared to be enjoying themselves tremendously. He couldn’t wait to laugh at their stupefied expressions when they realized that their plan had backfired.
They don’t know who they’re messing with yet.
He looked grimly at Chris, who was watching his facial expression attentively. Chris gave him a slight smile. “Are we going to teach them a lesson again?”

“You can bet on it!” Gray looked at his mechanic and long-time friend with a pinched expression on his face. “Let me know when you’ve got it all fixed, okay?”

“I will. But like I said, it could take a while.” Carlos raised a hand in farewell and got in his truck. Slowly he drove away, towing the battered, mistreated SUV behind him. Gray watched until the red glow from the taillights couldn’t be seen in the darkness anymore. He cursed himself for having bought the Mercedes. If he hadn’t, then Liz and Jennifer wouldn’t have been able to destroy it. Not in a million years would the insurance cover the damages. Even if it did, his premium would undoubtedly climb astronomically.

“Your reeducation plan hasn’t worked so far. What do you plan to try now?” Chris nodded over his shoulder toward the BMW.

“You’re right. I was too lenient with them. Time to hit them where it will hurt the most. Good bye, independence! They won’t be able to take another step without us knowing about it. I have a couple of nice monitoring bracelets from the research department that we can put on them. I’ll also have to relocate them so that we can keep a closer eye on them, especially so that they can’t get into more trouble at night. I’ll make sure that Liz and Jennifer pay us what they owe us.”

“Sounds good.” Chris turned toward the BMW and stared at the back of Jennifer’s head for several seconds before declaring resolutely, “Count me in!”

The men walked to the car, climbed in without saying a word and drove the women back home. When they arrived, they turned to Jennifer and Liz.

“Get out!” they said almost in unison. Liz and Jennifer climbed out of the car without protesting and stood waiting in front of the front door. Gray went ahead of them into the house, turned around and looked darkly from one to the other. “Up to your rooms and pack your things!”

The women didn’t have to be asked twice and they ran up the stairs to the second floor. Gray disappeared briefly into his office down the hallway and came back with two small, light-gray cardboard boxes that bore no markings.

“Here.” He handed one of the packages to Chris. “These are from a new test series. I tested them on Jeff a couple of weeks ago. They work perfectly.”

“They won’t put them on by choice.”

“You can’t even imagine how little I care! If we have to, we’ll restrain one first and then the other. They think we’re just computer nerds who analyze satellite images and who might have done a little time with a Special Forces unit after basic training, so we have an advantage. To them we’re just theorists, not combat specialists. Never in a million years will they expect that we’ve had the same training as them and are more than a match for them. Before either of them realizes what’s happening, the monitoring bracelets will be locked and secure on their wrists.” Devious smiles appeared on both their faces.

They climbed up the stairs at a leisurely pace and waited on the landing. After a while Jennifer and Liz emerged from their rooms with their packed bags and pets. They walked toward Chris and Gray and then stopped since the men didn’t make any room for them to pass. They looked back and forth between Gray and Chris, who raised their eyebrows at the same time.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Gray with a chilly smile. “I didn’t say you could go anywhere. I just told you to pack your things.”

“And what are we supposed to do if we’re not going?” Jennifer asked belligerently.

“You’re not leaving, just moving,” he explained with a sardonic smile. “To our rooms.”

“We certainly are not!” Liz shook her head so violently that her hair flew in all directions.

“You don’t really think we’re giving you a choice, do you? After what you just pulled, we have every right to supervise you more closely to make sure nothing else happens to you during your sick-leave. We can only keep an eye on you if you’re with us.” Gray’s eyes flashed maliciously as he added, “The whole time!”

“You can put that idea right out of your mind!” Liz turned to Jennifer. “Come on! We’re wasting our time here.” Jennifer nodded frantically and together they beat a hasty retreat back into their rooms.

***

Angrily Liz threw her bag on the floor, flopped back onto the bed and set Furball next to her on the bedspread. The tomcat immediately curled into a ball and fell asleep. She had really thought that Gray and Chris would throw them out after their most recent exploits. “Damn! Double damn!” She cursed the failure of the plan she’d thought was so infallible. She looked up in anger as Gray walked in without knocking.

“Apparently you didn’t understand me. This is no longer your room.” He picked up her bag and walked out of the room with it. She stared after him. It was suddenly clear to her that he had not only meant every word he’d said, he was now putting his plan into action. She ran into the hall and followed him into his room, which was the one right next to hers.

Gray ignored her. He was already putting her things into a drawer. Liz stood next to him, grabbed her clothes out of the drawer again and crammed them carelessly back into her bag. Undeterred, Gray continued with what he was doing. When she reached into the drawer for the third time, he grasped her wrist tightly.

“This is getting tedious,” Gray said very quietly. He looked right at her and Liz was startled to see something hard and implacable in his eyes. “Besides, I have something for you.” Using her surprise against her, he twisted Liz’s right arm behind her back, held it there and pushed her to the bed.

“Let me go!” she demanded in an imperious voice, struggling to free herself from his grip. When she kicked back at him, Gray just grasped her tighter and she stopped struggling. Relentlessly he pushed her down onto the mattress and sat down on her back. He immobilized one of her arms with a knee and then grabbed the other. Then he pulled the small cardboard box out of his back pocket, opened it, and pulled out two silver metal bracelets with a matte finish. Swiftly he put one of them on her wrist and latched the lock, then pulled back his knee so her arm could move again. Liz propped herself up on the bed using both hands then shook her hair out of her face, flashed a look over her shoulder and hissed, “Get off of me!”

Gray stood up, taking his time about it. He stayed next to the bed as he watched her sit up. Then he quietly put the second thin metal bracelet, which was as unremarkable looking as the first, on his own wrist. Then he activated a tiny button on it. A short, soft
bleep
signaled the activation of radio contact between the two bracelets.

Liz gaped in disbelief. This couldn’t be! Where had he gotten this thing? Angrily she tried to take it off, but the band was too tight. She couldn’t even put a finger between her wrist and the metal bracelet. When she tried to fiddle with the clasp Gray warned her softly, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. If you try to manipulate it, you’ll be immediately punished.”

She yelped as an extremely effective shock coursed through her body. She held out her arm to him. “Take it off! Right now!”

“No. You’re going to wear that until you are one hundred percent healthy again. The monitor will help to insure that you don’t get into any more mischief like you did last night. If you get more than a hundred yards from me, you’ll feel another shock like the one you just got. But don’t be sad, Liz. Jennifer’s in the same boat. I know how you two like to do everything together.” He turned and walked out of the bedroom.

Gray didn’t even flinch when his alarm clock flew past him, missing him by only a hair’s breadth, and smashed against the wall in the hallway. As it burst apart, the pieces fell onto the thick, cream-colored carpet.

He grinned at the sight of Chris fleeing his own room. His friend ducked his head and hastily took shelter in a nearby guest room. A small vase went sailing past him, barely missing him, and shattered into a thousand pieces against the wall. A boyish smile brightened Chris’s face when he reemerged into the hallway.

“Want some coffee?”

Chris massaged his tense neck then covered a yawn with his hand. “I wouldn’t say no. I desperately need it, since last night was a little short.”

When they heard first Liz and then Jennifer swear, they looked at each other again with satisfied smirks on their faces. Obviously the women were still trying to get rid of the bracelets.

Liz tried one more time to slide the bracelet off her hand. When she received an immediate shock, she let out a stream of obscenities. The liquid soap she’d spread on her wrist didn’t help at all, and even the tiniest pull on the clasp sent her a very effective “wake-up call.” Manipulating the clasp was impossible. Feeling resigned, Liz abandoned her desperate attempts at extricating herself, climbed off the bed, and disappeared into the bathroom to wash the soap off her hands.

“How do I get this damned thing off?” she murmured as she came out of the bathroom. She dried her skin off with a fluffy towel, inspected the bracelet closely and turned it back and forth in the light, looking for a possible way to rid herself of it. She looked up at Jennifer who had just come into the room and now stood at the end of the bed with a worried expression on her face.

“I asked myself the same thing,” Jennifer said with a sigh. She stared at the bracelet on her right wrist and then sat down cross-legged on the bed. “I wish I was familiar enough with these that I could have gotten rid of it right away.”

“I bet you do.” Liz pondered the band that now bound her to Gray. “How did that bastard get two sets of monitoring bracelets anyway? They aren’t exactly passed out among Townsend’s people like candy. Ha! Maybe that’s it: they’re the latest giveaway for valued customers! Maybe this is what customer appreciation will look like in the future. Almost classy.”

“To get these things you have to have at least a SFSU-IV security classification and direct access to the research department,” Jennifer said. She and Liz both had SFSU-IV classification, but neither had yet had any dealings with the research department.

Liz wondered how it was that Gray had been able to get equipment that was only available to a small group of people. After thinking it over, she came to the conclusion that he had to be Townsend’s right hand man, or at least a very close confidant of the Lieutenant General.