Quintic (62 page)

Neither
did Charles. At first.
Then she heard him mumbled, “Eight on Sunday, seven Monday, eight
Tuesday and four tonight.”

The kid was
unbelievable! “Shut up
, Charles,” she
snarled.

If Chris
hadn’t been so angry, he
might have
smiled when she cursed at the kid. That last exchange was enough to
indicate who was the weakest link. As if Chris had had any doubt.
She didn’t know he had already fired the kid and was clearly trying
to protect Charles while the jobless rookie had nothing left to
lose and was attempting to defend
her
.

Now that
Chris knew the
when
− twenty-seven strip dumps since Sunday! − he
bluntly searched for the
why
. “And why have you been to
those clubs? New hobby?”

Patricia
merely rolled her eyes,
but again Charles folded first. “We− Sorry, Sir.
I
was
looking for the guy in the fight with Lemieux.”

Charles
was
trying to advocate her actions again,
but this time, Patricia silently approved of his reply. He had
offered a logical and professional explanation, one any dedicated
cop doing investigative work might have presented. Christopher
couldn’t argue Charles’s intentions. Nothing more, enough said,
Patricia thought.

“
And?”
Chris
topher prompted once
more.

And what
, Big
guy?

Again,
Charles (unwisely) responded to the Big guy’s exhortation. “And I
felt that if I could find the fighter, I might be able to get
something out of him. His testimony might help the case. And
myself.”

“
And have
you found him?” Chris
prodded further.
“Have you found that mythical fighter?” Rhetorical question. They
had gone to twenty-plus holes. If they had found any significant
leads, they would have told him by now.

Patricia
took
over from there. “Christopher, it
was a smart idea. Maybe not very efficient, but it might have been
effective. Think about it. Charles had a pretty good description of
the guy. With the peculiar neck scar and all, if he had spotted
him, he could have followed him. After all, that mysterious fighter
is your sole lead right now, isn’t he?”

Chris stared
at them both. The idea itself could be,
as she said, effective if not efficient. But the notion of
those two pursuing an unknown man was ludicrous. Dangerous. A
farmer boy rookie and a delicate delusional writer, untrained and
fucking too spontaneous to be anything but a grave danger to
herself out on the prowl! Chris chose not to answer.

The
damn woman was too stubborn, so she insisted.
“Christopher, truthfully, if we had found him, if
Charles
had found him, you would have been OK with it. Admit it,
you don’t care how your men get results as long as they get
results.”

She was half
right. Of course, he would have been happy with the results, but
not with her tagging along. Never. “Patricia, you had no business
being there. Charles had no business taking you there.
And−”

She cut him
off.
“News flash, Big guy. I can go
wherever I want, with whoever I want, whenever I want, and do
whatever the damn I want fancy, got it? I don’t need you looking
over me all the time.”

You are fucking wrong, Pussycat
.
“Maybe. But I had ordered Charles not to take you there, to that
wherever-whatever you so often wander off these days. He broke a
direct order.”

Damn.
His growl was level; he had already fired
Charles, all because of her. She stared at Charles; the kid
shrugged dismissively. Taking it like a man, damn him.

“
I
’m sorry Charles didn’t follow
your advice, but it’s my fault. I made him do it. He didn’t want
to, but I forced his hand. You should dismiss me.”

“
I can’t
fire you
, Pussycat. I can’t even keep you
resigned! But I can prevent you from doing it again.”
I can protect you
.

“
Damn it,
Christopher, you can’t take it out on him. First, you teamed him up
with Hamilton, and then you expect him to perform as well as a
seasoned fifteen-year veteran right from the beginning. That’s not
fair; you’re driving him too hard.”

“
I
’m driving Charles too hard?”
What did she think he was doing, running a fucking preschool?
“Princess, this is my show, my call. This case was a nightmare from
the get-go. It’s been hard for everybody.”

In his
mouth, ‘everybody’ meant her. He was referring to her
and Lemieux, thus to himself. Christopher was
patient, but she had nearly pushed him over the edge with Lemieux,
making the investigation (and their relationship) rough for
him.

“
This case
is driving me crazy, but so are you! Christopher, what if Charles
had been to the club with someone else? What if he had gone with,
let’s say, Reid? Pretend it’s the exact same thing, identical
ending, but it’s Reid instead of me. Then what?”

They locked
eyes.
Stormy midnight-blue clouds were
gathering over the specks of green in her eyes. Had it been Reid,
it would have been different. He knew it. She knew it. He would
have been mad, yes, but mostly at them for first, getting into
trouble and, second, getting caught. He would have sent them back
the next evening, though.

They. Are. Trained
. Doing their
fucking work and what they needed to get the job done. His officers
patrolling the night scene did not elicit a knot in the pit of his
stomach. He exhaled noisily and explained sternly once
again.
We’ve gone over this a
million times, Princess.
“Darling, you
know it’s different. It’s part of the job,
their
job. It’s not part of
your filing clerk assignment.”

“Even if I’m good at it?”

He almost
smiled. Indeed, she was, gifted and brilliant and adventurous and
irresponsible and sexy as hell. The damndest thing. Pretending it
was research didn’t make it any less dangerous; less scary for her
maybe, but not for him, quite the contrary, “Darling of mine, you
weren’t that good tonight. The getting results part only counts for
half. Staying out of trouble matters too.”

“
So you want
results without trouble? Let’s say no complication arises from
tonight, then what? Will it be OK then?”

“
You knocked
a guy out, kicked him unconscious and, from what I’ve heard, kept
on booting him while he was out. I have to take you to the local
police station tomorrow morning, you and Charles both, but mostly
you. I doubt tonight won’t bring us a shitload of
problems.”

She pressed
on, “But what if we don’t get into trouble? Let’s say the guy
decides not to press charges. And that you make the locals forget
about it. We would be OK then, right?”

She was
dreaming again, he thought, ruling over her writer’s fantasy world
as she pleased. Yes, he could make the cops drop it.
Probably
.
Steve knew her and seemed to like her now, for whatever reasons.
Chris intended to talk to the fat guy; he might convince the jerk
to drop the charges.
Maybe
.

“
That’s only
half of the job
, Patricia. The effort of
getting you out of trouble has to be less than the amount of
results you bring. Simple equation. Efficiency and effectiveness,”
he pointed out, more for Charles’s benefit than for
hers.

The trouble
she something brought him was meaningless, absolutely nothing
compared to
the joy and peace she brought
him. Smiles. Happiness. Smarts. Laughter. Softness. Love. Sex.
Challenges. Contentment. A brain, a heart, a soul and a body.
Her.

“
Let me
spell this out, Big guy. No charges from the fat guy grant us a
free pass, agreed?” Were her steel-grey eyes pleading? “Right,
Christopher?” The blues were begging all right. He liked. “For both
of us, hence a job for Charles?”

An
impossible conclusion to tonight’s mess
thus an easy answer. Fuck, he should have known better.
Later, he would curse himself later but right then, he didn’t see
it. “Yes. I guess it would. But Angel, you’re not getting an
extension. I gave Charles one last chance as you’ll recall, and I
warned you about it. That’s it.”

Time to set
an example, so the next time she would think twice before she got
one of those crazy ideas of hers. The team too needed to learn the
lesson. Recalling Charles’s dismissal might prevent them from
embarking on a wild goose chase with her.

Although, as
crazy as they had gone about it, Patricia’s plan was feasible when
done right. Had she fucking told him, he would have made it safe.
Would have tried it out with the team while she was locked up
somewhere, handcuffed to his bed possibly.

He smiled
that wolfish grin of his, the one she never understood. She grinned
back at him, a broad, mischievous smirk curling her lips. Whatever
the Big guy was thinking, she trusted he wouldn’t go back on his
word.

Tonight
might have been a
disaster, but she was taking control now. Christopher was going to
be pissed and worried, but she intended to keep him from doing
anything rash.

“
O
K, Big guy. Nice to know. So we
have a deal. No problems and we clean the slate over
tonight?”

Did she think she could get the
fatso to drop the charges? Even with the best lawyer in town, she
wasn’t walking away scratch-free on this one, so Chris nodded once.
“No trouble, no consequence, Princess, but like I said, no extra
time.”

When
Patricia beamed at him as she held Charles’s
fucking hand again, he realised he had missed something, and
something big.

She inhaled
deeply and exhaled as if she was pacing herself. Her head crooked
to the side, a twinkle in her blues, she said, “As it turns out,
Big guy, we don’t need more time. I’m sure you won’t have any
problem taking care of the locals. As for the fat guy, let me
assure you he won’t be a problem either. It so happens that, during
the fight, I noticed he had a scar on his neck. A large, ugly mark.
Surely, Charles, you saw it too.”

Fist and
Knots jumped to at
tention, afraid of what
she was saying. Fuck. Fuck.
FUCK
.

The Break-in, Part
I

T
hey broke into the
building together. His (and hers in a way) gorgeous handyman had
prepared
the path. They were
excited. It wasn’t their first raid together, but it was the first
time they were the only two going in.

Mario wasn’t an on-premise hacker. Tonight, the kid was
visiting his mother. The king was parked further down the street.
He was to stand watch in the car and wait for them to return. As
for the handsome factotum, his contribution made for the evening,
he was out prowling the night scene.

She was thrilled. Even though the job
wasn’t complicated, quite the contrary. All J had to do was enter
the company’s mainframe and shuffle some folders around. He then
scratched off one machine below its book value and bought a
fictitious used equipment to replace to one he has scrapped off the
records. Finally, he issued a statement to the imaginary seller, a
bogus company who happened to have one Jo person as an employee.
This new machine had (of course) the same serial number as the old
one.

The difference between the sale price
of the old and the buy price of the new was the Jo employee’s
salary. J hired workers, as the electronic files stated, and paid
for the installation of the replacement machine. He scheduled the
made-up set-up during a four-day weekend, paid in overtime, of
course. J also created two new employee files.

“
Much-needed watchmen for the night
shifts,” she suggested. “This place could use tighter security. We
breezed in too quickly.”

“
Rick’s great, isn’t he?”

She readily agreed. Rick was indeed the
best. And quite handsome.

All in all, the venture would bring the
Jo employee about eighty thousand. Not much in itself perhaps, but
close to one percent of the ten million promised as a bet. Their
gamble stipulated that J’s ten-million heist was to go
unnoticed.

Tonight was not part of his regular
hacking jobs. Tonight was strictly for the pleasure of the gamble.
To have his woman by his side made the night even more
exciting.

The Cake had dressed up for the part
too. With her long blue hair covering half her face and her trim
body tight in her black SWAT outfit, she was hot.

He had a boner; the fox saw too, and
smiled and teased and laughed at him. The errand shouldn’t have
taken him more than an hour, but an hour and a half into it, he
still wasn’t done.

If he successfully stole the money, she
was going to lose their wager. And win it all. With tonight’s
money, he was up to almost a mill. The Cake had no idea he had so
much. He was having more fun than a kid doing mischief.