Spies and Prejudice (23 page)

Ryan laughs. “Awesome.”

Even with most of my weight on the ledge, the stucco beneath my left foothold starts to give. “Mind if I come in?”

He darts over and pulls me the rest of the way in. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Tanner.”

“This is so cool. Tanner is going to freak.” He talks like I’m here to hang out, completely ignoring the fact that I crawled in through his third-story bedroom window. “And his mom is going to have a flipping cow when she finds out you’re here.”

“I don’t want to get Tanner in any trouble.” I realize that it’s true.

“Oh! Is this some kind of secret rendezvous or something? I was hoping to take you on a tour.”

Just like that? What kind of high-level security company is this?

Ryan looks out the window behind me, and it occurs to me that he might be hoping I didn’t come alone.

“Mary Chris is waiting for me down at the fire door.”

Ryan’s eyes light up. “She’s here? She’s not still mad at me? I wanted to tell her everything from the beginning. Tanner insisted we do things by the book, but I was going to tell her. I promise.”

“You don’t have to explain to me.”

“We really messed things up, huh?”

“We all did.”

Ryan’s easy smile is back. “Not you. I loved watching you shoot down Tanner at that restaurant. I still watch that video file when I need a laugh.”

“Video?”

He nods. “We were wired with a live audio-video feed.”

I think back to some of my more embarrassing moments with Tanner. How much was being broadcast on live feed back to Pemberley? The kiss in Mr. Moss’s office? Did Ryan hear Tanner call me damaged?

I must look stricken, because Ryan immediately reacts. “Oh! Sorry, I forget that people don’t always like being filmed. It was just a few times. That first meeting. A couple of times at Mary Chris’s house.”

I feel myself blush. I rush to change the subject away from the Berry and Tanner reality show. “Mary Chris is waiting. Can you let her in through the fire door?”

“Yes!” Ryan practically dives out of the room and into the hall. He pokes his head back in. “Wait here. I’ll just go get her.”

“Okay.” I wave at the empty hallway. I move over to the desk and flip through the sketchbook. Ryan’s a talented artist.

I sit on the edge of Ryan’s bed and unstrap the climbing spikes from my shoes. I stand up abruptly when I hear someone coming down the hall. I look up, expecting to see Ryan, but it’s Tanner’s lean frame that fills the doorway.

“A security sensor went off outside your window. Probably a bird, but Mom—” He stops when he sees me. We both stand motionless. He’s nothing like my memories. He’s bigger, more present. Real. His blue eyes radiate heat. Had I ever really thought they were cold? Everything about him is sharper, too sharp to be truly beautiful, yet somehow the effect is disarming. Slowly, his lips curve into a smile
that reaches inside of me and promises things that can’t be true, but make my heart skip anyway. “You’re not a bird.”

“You’re not Ryan.”

“You saw Ryan?”

“He just went to let Mary Chris up the fire stairs. You were next on the list.”

Tanner steps the rest of the way into the room. The rest of the way to me. I stand with my back to the bed, my knees touching the edge. Tanner stops just a few inches away. He’s too close to be polite, yet much, much too far. “Did something happen?”

I have to concentrate to keep from falling back, but I can’t step closer without touching Tanner. I’m much too aware of the bed behind me. “Define
something
.” I can’t begin to explain everything that’s happened in the last week.

He doesn’t say anything at first. He lifts a hand, and for a second I think he’s reaching for me, but it falls to his side again. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

The truth. Tanner was never coming back for me.

It’s nothing more than what I’ve always known, but a little piece of me grieves anyway. This was a mistake. I may have spent the last week trying to remember him, but Tanner Halston had been safely behind me. He had moved on too, content to bury whatever aberration attracted him to me in spite of my many faults. Still, I’m here now, opening a door that is best kept firmly shut. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“Probably not.” He runs his hand through his hair, forcing it up at an unnatural angle. “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. He doesn’t want me here. I’m an embarrassment to him, the manifestation of his mistakes. I should be relieved. There’s no question that I am weak where Tanner Halston is concerned, and I can’t slip up if Tanner keeps his distance. So why does my heart twist around until I can’t feel anything but pain?

He steps away from me just as Ryan and Mary Chris walk into the room.

“Surprise!” Ryan grins. He looks from Tanner to me. “What?”

Tanner doesn’t acknowledge them. He keeps his eyes on me. “Why are you here?”

I finally move away from the bed. “We need help.” I fill Tanner in on Drew’s plan to steal the formula and Mare’s father’s arrest.

Tanner nods his head. “So we know when and where Drew will strike. We can bring him in and make sure he never gets the actual formula.”

“And maybe find something to help Mare’s dad in the process.”

Tanner isn’t fooled. “And find out what happened to your mom? Berry, Mare’s father has access to whatever’s in those files if he needs help. And there might not be anything else to find.”

“If Dave Preston killed my mom without Mr. Moss knowing, Moss won’t know about the files either. Dave is head of security. Moss trusts him.”

Tanner’s face pales. “What do you know about Dave Preston?”

“He’s the man who paid Heather Marrone to lie about my mother’s accident the night before. He knew my mother was going to die before it happened. He’s the one who should be in jail right now.”

Ryan raises his eyebrows and looks at Tanner.

Tanner shakes his head. “There’s got to be another explanation. Dave Preston isn’t a murderer.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Tanner says. “I’ve known him all my life. He’s my father.”

D
ave Preston is Tanner’s father? Now that he says it, I see the resemblance. Not just the eyes, but the strong jaw and the lack of identifiable social skills. “Your father is Moss’s head of security?”

“I told you that we worked for Moss Enterprises.”

“You failed to mention that your family has been under Moss’s thumb for over eight years.”

“Under Moss’s thumb?” Mary Chris steps forward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I stare at my best friend and I realize that she was right to avoid making promises that can’t be kept. The anger that spills out of me may be primarily directed at their fathers, but the speed with which Tanner and Mary Chris leap to their dads’ defense makes it impossible to separate my feelings into neat little boxes.

“I want to believe that your father is innocent, Mare. I’ve known him since I was five. He took me to Disneyland fifteen times in the first grade. He paid for me to go on the sixth-grade camping trip when my dad couldn’t afford it. But the police have him in custody
for a reason. My mom threatened to blow the whistle on one of your dad’s products, and a few weeks later she turned up dead.” I turn on Tanner. “And your father knew it was going to happen. How do you explain that?”

Tanner swallows. “I can’t. But there has to be an explanation.”

The wall between us is back in place, every brick sealed tight with mortar and bitterness. I can breathe for the first time since Tanner walked into Ryan’s bedroom. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

Tanner buzzes someone on his watch. “Meet me in the conference room in five.” He nods at Ryan. “Can you take them down to gear up? I need to talk to Mom.”

Ryan grins at Mary Chris. “Follow me.”

He leads us down a bare hallway that looks like a hotel corridor, except for the security cameras placed every few feet that follow our movement. Ryan ignores them, but I can’t resist waving at whoever is monitoring us from the other side. Ryan scans a laminated badge in front of the elevator before pressing the button.

The elevator has eight buttons even though the building’s only five stories tall. “Where do all these go?”

“I’m pretty sure I can’t tell you. But don’t worry. I’ll show you.” He presses the bottom button.

The elevator goes down, beeping through six floors until it finally stops on the bottom. The doors open to an empty concrete room that’s not much bigger than the elevator. There’s a huge steel door in front of us with a computer panel to the left.

“Welcome to Pemberley.” Ryan holds his hand up to a scanner that reads his palm before the door slides back into the wall.

“Holy cave lair, Batman,” Mary Chris says as we walk into a large room that looks like something out of NASA. There are rows of flat screens on the walls, broadcasting silent scenes. A group of men eating dinner at a fancy restaurant, a girl writing in a notebook at a desk, an empty alleyway. Two women in headphones sit at computer screens and manipulate the images on the main screen.

“This is the surveillance room. We can monitor the transmissions from our operatives twenty-four hours a day.” Ryan wrinkles his forehead. “When we remember to gear up and go live.”

“Those are live feeds? What kind of cameras do you use?” Mary Chris walks up to one of the monitors.

Seriously, the resolution is amazing considering the cameras are probably hidden in their clothing.

“I’ll show you.” Ryan leads us out through another door that requires a hand scan before it opens with a beep.

We step into a small warehouse, filled with rows and rows of shelves, each one overflowing with electronics, gadgets, weapons, and—accessories? I pick up a delicate tennis bracelet with a row of alternating emeralds and diamonds. “Are these real?”

Ryan laughs. “Of course not. They’re hollowed out and filled with explosives.”

Whoops. I set the bracelet down with decidedly more care than I picked it up.

Ryan leads us around the corner to another shelf. “These are the cameras you saw broadcasting in the surveillance room.” He holds up a small round lens with a wire that attaches to a small transmission box behind it, and passes it to Mary Chris. “It’s a button camera.
The lens slips over a standard shirt button and the box snaps behind. Pretty cool, huh?”

“It’s so small.” Mary Chris admires the lens. “It’s lighter than the system I used for the spyglasses, and it streams live video. What else do you have?”

Ryan walks past a row of cell phones and stops at some pens. “Check this out.”

I take the cap off the pen. It’s just a pen. I scrawl it across my hand, leaving a line of blue ink. “What about it?”

He takes it from me and unscrews the bottom, revealing a hidden flash drive. “Wait.” He unscrews the flash drive from the base, and beneath it is a small vial of powder.

“What is that?”

“Sleeping powder. Comes in handy when you want some uninterrupted computer access.”

“Cool.” Mary Chris grins at Ryan.

I walk toward a shelf full of listening devices, suddenly in need of some space. Mare and Ryan are so easy together. I’m happy for her, but maybe just a little bit jealous too.

I pick up a pair of earbuds. I guarantee these work better than the receiver I got online.

Ryan follows me. “You know Tanner likes you, right?”

I laugh before I can stop myself. “Trust me. He doesn’t.” He might have, once, but he’s over it.

Ryan raises his eyebrows. “If you say so. You know he’s never really had a girlfriend.”

“What?”

“I just think you should give him some slack is all.”

“I don’t hate your brother.”

Ryan grins. “That’s what I thought.”

“Nothing’s going on with us.” As I look around this room, the truth is impossible to ignore. “I’m just a mark. Tanner was doing his job.”

“Marks don’t usually get the grand tour.”

“I’m guessing they don’t usually break into your bedroom and accuse Tanner’s father of murder either.”

Ryan looks hurt. I want to take back the comment, but it’s already out there, putting distance between us.

Ryan blinks. “We don’t hurt people.”

“I don’t think your brother got that memo.” Did I just admit that Tanner hurt me? I turn down another aisle, putting some distance between me and Ryan.

I lose my sense of direction as I round another corner. I stop before an array of firearms, ranging from pistols so small they could fit in the front pocket of my jeans to automatic rifles. I back away instinctively. If they don’t hurt people, what are these for? The image of my mother sitting in an empty room with a gun at her head is back. Only this time it’s Drew holding the gun. It’s Drew pulling the trigger. It should be Dave Preston on the other end of the gun. Dave is involved in Mom’s murder.

Voices carry through a wall up ahead. I can’t make out any words, but I recognize the low thrum of Tanner’s voice. I’m still holding the earbuds I found on the shelf, and I arrange them in my ears. At first, all I hear is the clatter of something that Mary Chris drops a few rows over. Then I hear voices.

A woman is talking. Her voice is familiar. “This better work. We’ll be lucky if your father still has a job when Michael gets out of jail.” It must be Tanner’s mom. I’m sure I’ve heard her voice, but I can’t place it.

“They’re counting on the distraction of Moss’s arrest to get access to the file,” Tanner says. “This is our chance to catch Drew in the act and find out who’s after the formula.”

“That’s what you said three weeks ago.” Tanner’s mom’s voice is cold. She doesn’t sound happy. “If I let you do this, you understand that failure is not an option. If those files end up in anyone’s hands but ours or Michael’s, everything we’ve worked for is over. You shouldn’t bother coming home.”

I recognize her voice now. It’s the woman who met Mr. Moss outside Sconehenge. The woman who gave him the letter from my mother.

“I won’t fail.” Tanner sounds confident on the surface, but I can hear the way his breath quickens.

“And the Fields girl?”