Until It's You (20 page)

Landon nodded. It was amazing that this was the same guy he'd just talked to on the stairs twenty minutes ago. “If it’s legit, it’s a step.”

“If it’s legit.” Kevin straightened up. “I’ll go in with you. You said he needs his comm?”

“Yes.”

Kevin nodded and disappeared from the room. Tom looked up at Landon as if he were about to say something, then turned away. That was strange. Tom had been acting strange in general, the more he thought about it.

Kevin returned after just a moment with a thin, plastic-covered comm in his hand. “Let’s go,” he said.

They returned to the basement wordlessly, then back into the room where Roy was waiting. The captive man sat up straighter as they came in.

“Tatum says you want to set up a meet with your boss,” Kevin said.

Roy looked at Kevin eagerly. “That’s right.”

“Why?”

Roy looked to Landon. “It seems better than the alternative.”

Kevin gave Landon his own quick look, but didn't press it. He walked right up to Roy and towered over him. “If I find out you fucked me on this, I will kill you. If you get away, I will find you, and then I'll kill you. It will be slow, and it will be very, very painful. Do you understand me?”

Roy looked back at him, defiant. “That’s different from the plan if I don’t fuck you, right?”

Kevin was still, then a smile cracked across his lips. “You’re not my type,” he said.

He took the comm and tossed it to Landon. Landon caught it deftly. Kevin stepped back.

Landon stepped forward. “Okay. What is the ID I send the message to?”

“I didn’t label it,” Roy said, “but it’s the last one I used. It was a call.”

Landon navigated through the comm’s menus and found the ID quickly. It was an old OS, but intuitive enough. He opened up the messages app.

“Okay,” he said. “Message?”

“’Having people over at my place tonight.’ Period. ‘Usual crew.’ Period. ‘Will you come?’ Question mark at the end.”

Landon typed the message out. He looked over at Kevin, whose eyes were fixed on Roy. He looked back at Roy. “That it?”

Roy nodded. “That’s it.”

Kevin cleared his throat loudly and put his hands in his pocket, his eyes still skeptical. “What's the code?”

Roy turned to him. “First sentence says I have the asset and I am transporting him to the motel. Second is nothing unusual to report. The third part is number of words. Three words so three hours.”

“You use the code in case of law enforcement?”

Another nod. It was like Roy was doing q&a at a pharm seminar. “Yeah. Looks like a regular message. Shouldn’t trigger anything with all the A.I. bullshit they run.”

“Who came up with it?”

Roy shrugged. “Don't know. Used it on a job a long time ago and it gets used a lot.” He gave a nasty smile. "Guy I learned it from is dead, so I can't ask him. Sorry."

Kevin looked and Landon, who shrugged. He didn't like this or Roy at all, but he had to admit he was an interesting specimen. A very strange mix of stupid and savvy.

“Where’s your usual spot?” Kevin pressed.

Roy looked to the ceiling then back to Kevin. “Motel just inside the city on Milwaukee. Called Moonlight Grove. You know it?”

“I’m going to check it out.” He straightened up. "How long for a response?"

"Should be fast."

"What's the code for responding?"

"Even number of words means yes. Odd means no."

“What’s your distress signal?”

Roy screwed his face up so his jowls were pressed up into a something between a double and triple chin. “This isn’t a fucking spy agency. If I’m in distress I’m probably also dead.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Well didn’t you pick a good time to fuck up?”

“I guess,” Roy said with a shrug.

The comm in Landon’s hand buzzed. He read the message on the screen.

Sure thing.

“We’re on,” Roy said.

Kevin nodded. “Kris is coming here. I’m going to go check this motel out. You good to wait for her and then bring him over?”

Landon considered briefly, then answered with a short nod. The plan made sense. Plus, it would give him time with Kristina outside of Kevin’s watchful eye. That was a plus.

“Yes,” he said simply.

Kevin gave him a long glare that he was sure contained all manners of torture if Kristina made a peep about being mistreated. Landon held his gaze.

“Good,” Kevin said. He turned to Roy. “If this goes south and you leave me alive, I will hunt you down until one of us is dead. Do you understand me?”

For once, Roy didn’t smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I got it.”

“You better.”

And with a final look to Landon, Kevin left the room. Soon, Landon heard his footsteps on the stairs. Then nothing.

Landon took a seat on the same chair he’d been using earlier and locked eyes with Roy. “If you end up fucking us on this, he’s going to be the least of your worries.”

Roy looked back defiantly. “If you want to scare me, just turn the damn aeros back on,” he said. His eyes looked weary, as if he were on the last reserves of his energy. “I get it, you’re pissed. This thing will go off. Trust me.”

Landon shook his head. “I don’t trust you. But it better go off.”

Once Kristina got off the Irving Park bus, it only took her a few minutes to find the address Kevin had messaged to her. It was a cute bungalow, typical of the neighborhoods this far west. Totally unremarkable. Not too rundown, not too new. He had good taste for this kind of thing.

She walked up the front steps and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, she heard footsteps. Then the door swung open, and rather than her brother on the front steps it was Landon.

Her shoulders tensed and she wasn't quite sure why.

“Hi,” he said, his dark eyes still tense from whatever he’d been doing. “You made it.”

“I did,” she said, a lump in her throat. “Where’s Kevin?”

“He went to go check on something. Come in. Tom's out back getting some air. I think he's lost in thought, but he won't say what it's about.”

After a moment of hesitation, she walked through the door and into a small foyer. To her left, what appeared to be a small living room with couches that hadn’t been occupied in ages. To her right, a hallway into a bright kitchen.

The door closed behind her. She turned to Landon and looked up into his dark eyes. Then he was on her, his body pressed up tight against hers, the hard metal of the door at her back. He kissed her roughly—desperately—and she kissed him back, her hands gripping his hard arms. Their tongues rolled together, tangled like sheets they had never shared but would, she suddenly knew in the deepest part of herself, soon.

"Kristina," he whispered, with such intensity that it sent a shiver through her.

Then she looked up and saw the clock on the wall. Suddenly she straightened up like a bolt. Realization of what she was doing and the situation they were in crashed down on her. She dropped her hands from Landon’s hair and pulled away, her eyes still on his perfect face.

“Stop,” she said breathlessly. “Please stop.”

He heaved a deep breath, his eyes frantic and searching. She could feel the heat coming from his throbbing chest. They were still so close.

His hand twitched on her back, then went up to her hair, caressing down the nape of her neck and around to her shoulder. “I will,” he said throatily, almost a growl. Every word was chopped, being forced out. “But I want you. Badly.”

“We can’t,” Kristina said, fighting against the warm feeling growing inside her. “You have to cut this shit out or I'm going to get upset.”

Another agonizing moment of hesitation. His face contorted into a scowl. Kristina held her breath. Was that too much?

"You’re right,” he said finally. “For now.”

But the scowl remained. Panic surged through her. She didn't
want
him to stop...but she did? What did she want? Not for him to be mad.

The back door swung open and then closed with a slam. They scurried away from each other in a panic. A chair scraped against the wood floor of the kitchen. Then silence.

Landon's eyes went to the back door. "That would be Tom," he said.

He led the way toward the sound without a word. She followed him gingerly, her mind in a million places and nowhere. She didn't need him upset with her on top of everything else. But if she told him she didn't mean what she'd said, she was back to square one with him jumping her every chance he got. That wasn't...responsible either.

Still scrambling, she joined him in the kitchen. Tom had taken up a seat on the couch, and seemed to be occupied with a tablet.

"Hi," she said hesitantly.

Tom's shoulders jerked and he sat up straight. "I didn't hear you come in," he said. His eyes went to Landon. "You have some lipstick around your mouth."

Kristina reddened as Tom went back to his tab. That seemed to be about all he had to say on the matter.

Landon rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. "Must be jelly from breakfast," he muttered.

Tom didn't even look up. He was the opposite of Kevin when it came to her and men. She didn't know if it was a more evolved opinion or if he just didn't care. Probably the latter.

They both watched him in silence for a moment, then Landon cleared his throat. "Anything in particular you're thinking about, Tom? You look kind of out of it."

Tom looked up from his tab, shook his head. His eyes went back down.

Landon shared a glance with Kristina. She shook her head. There was no point in trying to get through to him if he didn't want to talk. It was one of his quirks. A survival mechanism, maybe.

"Where's Roy?" she asked, trying to break through the awkwardness she felt.

Landon hesitated, then motioned with his head toward the back of the house. "Downstairs. Want to see him?"

She swallowed hard and studied him. He was wearing a jet black button down shirt and navy slacks that hugged his toned thighs. Her eyes seemed to travel all the way up to the inseam of his pants seemingly on their own.

If she went down there with him, was he going to make another move? Would she stop him?

"Yeah," she said, tearing her eyes away and back to Landon's face. "Lead the way."

Here went nothing.

Landon led the way out of the living room and toward the back of the house. They came to the basement stairs, and the pair of them descended. Kristina followed several steps behind, not wanting to brush up too close. This was delicate.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned and waited for her. Soon she came to the bottom herself and walked around him to survey the scene.

The basement was like the others setups she'd seen from Kevin. A narrow hallway with doors on either side. A lone fluorescent light at the ceiling, about halfway down. Vents for aeros above every door. Could probably handle four separate rooms comfortably, plus the aero control room and a half bath. Very functional. Very isolated. 

She turned back to Landon, whose dark eyes were watching her with a simmering intensity.

"This is where he...messed with you?"

"Yes,” he said shortly. "Shall we?"

She swallowed a lump in her throat. That was as much as he wanted to talk about that.

“First, what’s going on with him?” she asked. “What did Kevin have to find out?”

That hard look remained. Whatever she'd feared about him acting inappropriately, it was proving unfounded.

“Roy’s decided to help us.”

"How'd you manage that?"

Landon looked down the hall, then back to her face. "Threatened him with Phobos."

Her eyes opened wide. "Really?"

"Yes. Won't have to use it, though. We have a meeting set up at a motel. That's what Kevin is checking out. We should get the call to leave any minute now."

She looked at him skeptically. "I didn't realize you had any of that stuff actually made. At least not past that shipment that got delayed."

The comm in Landon's pocket buzzed. He whipped it out, read it, then motioned down the hall. "We have to go."

She grabbed his arm, her jaw clenched. "Wait. I thought you said you didn't want to actually use the Phobos stuff. What changed?"

To her surprise, he smiled wryly. "I was bluffing. Come on."

It was strange, then, but she felt a palpable relief. Her shoulders relaxed as she followed him down the hall. This was progress, right? Back to normal?

Driving a criminal who had stalked her to a safe house over to a meet he had set up mysteriously through a message exchange with an unknown ID.

Back to normal.

Right.

This was her life.

***

Tom stayed behind. Getting him to do much of anything but sit with his tab would be a pain, so neither of them tried.

It took them a while to transport Roy into the car without any threat he would make a run for it. He was very heavy, and didn't seem in a hurry to help them out. Even with Landon bearing most of the weight, it had been a struggle.

Finally, they got him into the car. They decided she should drive while Landon sat in the back with a gun trained on Roy.

Even with handcuffs, he hadn’t wanted to take any chances that Roy could overtake Kristina. Never mind that she had more experience with a gun. He was taking the lead here and that was that.

She didn't think Roy would try anything anyway, so she let Landon feel like he won this battle and took the wheel.

Wary of anything fishy happening with this mysterious meet, she decided to take the drive manual rather than letting the computer auto-navigate. They started off heading toward Foster. She turned onto Foster and headed for the address Kevin had given her. Traffic was steady, which gave her time to think.

Should she message Carter? It seemed like the kind of thing the agent would want to know, but they were already in a gray area with how Kevin had held Roy earlier so they needed to approach law enforcement carefully. Landon had convinced her to wait until they talked it over with Kevin. She agreed that was the prudent option, but she didn’t love it.

After fifteen minutes of uneventful driving during which Roy didn't make a peep—and neither did Landon—they arrived at the motel Kevin had directed her to. Kevin's muscular form was waiting outside, just steps from what she guessed was the door to the front desk. The building looked like a Chinese, pre-fab situation. Drab, synthetic wood-grain walls. Tiny windows, with a different color plastic flower at the top of every frame. New and ugly.

Unsurprisingly, the parking lot was almost empty. She parked the car in a spot without a car within three spaces of either side of her. After a quick look at Landon, she got out. Kevin approached, his boots crunching on the lot's loose gravel.

“Still all clear,” he said.

She took a deep breath and took a look around. The lot had two entrances, being on a corner. How could such a huge dump possibly be profitable? Even with super low costs, it just seemed impossible they would have much of any revenue.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

Kevin's jaw set hard. “We take him into the room and wait for a message to come in from his boss. Once he gives the all-clear, we have the ambush set up. I have some guys just down the road who will be coming in on foot."

“You’re planning to have a shootout?”

“No," he said with a shake of his head. "You have that contact with the FBI, right?”

Her heart rose. “I was going to ask you about that,” she said hopefully.

“Call her. Don’t give her more details than you need to give, but fill her in and let her know what’s happening. If this comes off right she’ll be too grateful to ask about what happened with Roy.”

“Now, or after we get him out of the car?”

Kevin's eyes snapped over to the car, where Landon was sitting with the gun trained on Roy. “Let’s get him out.”

He opened the car door, where Landon sat with Roy to his right. Landon got out of the car with a strange expression on his face. His eyes were lost, the corners narrowed like he had just heard something that had quietly shocked him.

Roy was next. Kevin tugged him out of the car and a pale blue merino wool sweater over his hands so the cuffs weren’t visible. It looked like he was just carrying it.

Where had Kevin gotten that sweater? It had just been sitting there draped over a chair in the kitchen. Tom was no help when she asked whose it was, so she took it and used it for this.

Her eyes went back to Landon. He was mouthing something silently, but she couldn't figure out what it was. She'd never been good at that . . .

Tires squealed, then the crunch of tires on gravel approached rapidly. She snapped her head around to locate the source of the sound and found a pair of pure black cars with tinted windows.

She knew that make. Chevrolet Royal S. That was a government car.

Four uniformed men came out of the car and rushed toward them. They wore windbreakers with
FBI
plastered across the chest in bright yellow letter and big, wraparound sunglasses.

Kristina’s face heated up as rage coursed through her. What the hell was this? Was Carter having her tracked?

“Freeze!” the agent in front shouted. “FBI!”

Four guns were trained on them. Three handguns and an assault rifle. Berettas, all standard government issue. Kristina counted them again in her head, mentally. She turned to Kevin, who had a look of blank rage. His eyes were burning, but he looked straight ahead.

Then she turned to Landon. He looked lethargic, almost lost in thought, as he raised his hands.

The FBI agent who had yelled initially rushed around the car and put his hand on Roy’s shoulders. The other three agents fanned out, all guns still trained on them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kevin barked. The agent pulling Roy away looked over at him.

“This man is wanted for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act!” he snapped.

“Do you have a warrant for that?”

But the man said nothing and rushed Roy into the car.

Kristina tensed up as she watched her brother. Her eyes went back to the guns trained on them. The agents were all grim-faced and had their fingers on the trigger. They were definitely ready to shoot.