Eyes scrunched up, she scurried down the hallway and into the shop.
"Glory,
sheesh
."
Neal struggled to gain his feet. "Where have you been? What's going on? How'd you get by that son of a bitch?"
"I've got to get the phone, Neal. But come here. I'll cut you loose and you can free the others."
"They're gone?" asked the lighter-haired of the two secretaries, duct tape hanging loose from her mouth. "What happened?"
"Long story made short, they've been put out of commission." Glory said, instead of blurting out the truth of men of steel and webs.
She made but the briefest eye contact with the professor as he entered the room under his own steam to a round of gasps and questions, before she picked up the phone.
"Glory Brighton here."
Tripp showered and changed clothes in the ops center's locker room after an hour spent between the treadmill and the weights.
Julian, Christian and Kelly John had cleaned up first. They had more to clean up, what with the grease paint they'd worn to avoid recognition—the sort of disguise they rarely had to wear.
But they'd been operating on their own turf, in close proximity to the very building housing the office that was their cover. The camouflage had been about self-preservation, not about blending into the jungle of the city.
All any of them could do now was keep their fingers crossed that the strategy had worked.
Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and another draped over his head, Tripp padded into the dressing area. Glory should be done with the police by now. At least with anything they were going to need her for tonight.
Now it was his turn to get to her and finish what they'd started. He wanted to make sure she was okay, that she wasn't alone and frightened, that she knew he hadn't lied when he'd promised to come back.
He tugged the towel from his head to find he had company. Hank Smithson stood with his hands in his pockets and the butt end of a cigar in the corner of his mouth.
"Julian's off to Miami, but I'm taking Christian and Kelly John to dinner since they're
pissin
' and
moanin
' about never
gettin
' their lunch." Hank rocked back on his boot heels.
"You up for a steak?"
Lunch, right.
The reason he'd gone to Brighton's all those hours before. Tripp pulled his duffel out of his locker, tossed his towel to the bench behind him.
"Actually, I'm off to see a girl about a promise," he said, stepping into his boxers.
Hank nodded, shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. "I figured you might be thinking of something along those lines.
Kinda
surprised to hear you've been making promises, though."
Buttoning the fly on his jeans, Tripp glanced over with a grin.
"Yeah,
sorta
shocked myself with that one."
"The girl's a good influence."
"She gets my jokes," Tripp said, surprising
himself
. "She doesn't necessarily laugh, but she gets them."
Hank stopped rocking, pulled his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. "Maybe she knows what I know. That life doesn't have to be funny all the time. That doesn't mean it
ain't
worth living."
Tripp tugged a black T-shirt down over his head, sat to pull on socks and his boots. "Guess I'm pretty transparent, huh?"
"No. You just need to forgive yourself for the things no one else holds against you. The past is the past, son. You need to see to your future."
"With Glory, you mean?"
Hank turned to go. "With whoever makes you happy for all the right
reasons.
"
Ten minutes later, Tripp stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed, hands in his pits, watching the lights of the ambulances and patrol cars flash off Brighton's front glass.
The hostages had been examined by paramedics, statements had been taken by detectives, and the scene combed by the forensics team. The media was now out in force.
He figured the patrol cars in the distance were hauling
Vuong's
gang away, finishing the job the SG-5 team had started. Good riddance to the lot of the bastards for the scare they'd given Glory.
A scare Tripp still felt burning like an ember he'd stepped on with bare feet. Damn, but he'd come way too close to losing her and any chance to tell her how crazy he was with wanting to get to know her.
A new burst of cameras flashing had him looking toward the door just as Glory came out flanked by two people he'd bet money were her parents. Her mother even had the same curly head of hair. A policeman in front of them staved off reporters as the three slid into the back of his car.
Good. She was on her way home with an escort who would make sure she got there. Relief swept through him; he'd had no idea he was still so tense.
Or so hungry to see her again.
He'd give them
time,
hang out for a while until they'd finished up their reunion. Then he'd make his move.
It was when he stepped back and turned to go that his world fell apart. In the crowd across the street he saw one face staring his way.
He must've escaped during the melee of the cops separating victims from violators.
Through the alley door, most likely, though Tripp couldn't believe that entrance wouldn't have been under surveillance all afternoon.
But how he'd gotten loose from the ropes . . . double-jointed little fuck, dislocating his own shoulder while Tripp looked on, demonstrating exactly how he'd slipped his hands free.
Tripp stood immobile, watching the Asian kid, torn between charging across the street
or
grabbing the closest cop, knowing he could do neither without jeopardizing SG-5.
He'd have to explain how he knew
Vuong
. What he'd seen. How he'd gotten free. Why he'd left all the others behind. Who the Spectra agent was and why his help had been enlisted.
As far as anyone but Glory and the agent knew, Tripp hadn't been there. He couldn't be found out.
Couldn't risk exposing SG-5.
Couldn't let the others go down because of his mistake.
All he could do was watch
Danh
Vuong
disappear into the crowd.
Eleven
"Mom, I swear I'm fine," Glory said, pulling open her efficiency's front door, having assured her parents of the very same thing for the last hour over hot tea and chicken noodle soup. "All I want to do is
soak
in the tub for an hour and then sleep for at least twelve."
Ann Brighton stepped into the hallway, both hands tightly gripping the gold chain handle of her tiny black purse. Her curly black hair, so similar to Glory's, was threaded with the silver strands of her age. "I wish you'd reconsider and stay at the house with us. You could go to prayer circle with me in the morning."
Glory wasn't at all opposed to the idea considering today she'd used up her stored allotment of appeals to all higher powers. But right now the only place she wanted to be was in her own bed. "I'll come with you next week, okay?"
Her mother nodded, backed further into the walk-up's tiny hallway, her lips pressed tightly together as if clamping down on further concern.
Milt Brighton followed, giving his daughter a huge hug from which Glory hated to be released. She held tight to his hand until he was out of her reach.
"Your mother's right," he said, pushing his big blocky glasses back into place, running a hand back over his shock of white hair. "We'd both feel better if you'd stay with us."
"I'll lock up tight. I've set the alarm on the windows." She shifted her weight to her other hip, cocked her head. "Besides, the break-in had nothing to do with me, and the perpetrators are locked up. I'll be fine."
"Promise you'll call if you need anything. If you just want to talk.
If you want us to come back."
Her mother glanced over Glory's shoulder into the apartment's main room. "We could stay
now,
sleep on your sofa bed."
"Mom, I'm twenty-seven years old and I've been living on my own for ten of those. I love you to death but I need to unwind here on my own."
Her dad wrapped his arm around her mother's shoulders. "You hear so much as a
squeak,
you call us, Glory Marie."
"I will, Dad. I promise." She kissed them both once more, then locked up and headed for the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, however, she heard a knock at her door. With her bathwater running and her feet already wet, she slipped into her robe and padded silently through the apartment.
She doubted her parents had returned, but she did not want to face curious neighbors or the insistent media. The eyes she saw, however, when she pressed one of hers to her peephole, were the only eyes she wanted to see.
Her pulse raced in a pitter-patter rhythm. Her palms grew wet enough that she wondered if she'd even be able to unlock and open the door.
Tripp knocked again, more softly this time as if he had decided she was sleeping, didn't want to wake her, was thinking of turning away . . .
She used the pocket of her bathrobe as a hand towel and managed to flip dead bolts, slide locks, and pull open the door before he'd gotten but six feet down the hall.
"Hi," she said breathlessly
..
"Hi," he said, sounding winded.
"You look good for a man who's been busy saving the world," she said, her gaze taking in all of him.
He glanced down as if trying to see what she saw. "Part of the job description. Looking good inspires confidence."
"Oh. Is that it?" she asked, and he nodded.
In the quiet that followed, she heard water running. She gestured over her shoulder toward the small bathroom accessible only through her bedroom. "I was about to take a bath and need to get that before I flood my neighbor downstairs. Would you like to come in and wait?"
He stood leaning forward a bit, his hands gripping the door frame as he filled the entrance. The tense set of his jaw told her he had a lot more on his mind than checking up to see that she'd arrived home safely.
And that was okay because her thoughts of him weren't exactly about seeing to his health and well-being.
"Tripp?"
His gaze narrowed in on hers. "Get the water. I'll lock the door."
She nodded but barely, because doing more than breathing suddenly seemed beyond her range of motion. Tripp
Shaughnessey
was in her apartment behind locked doors.
Dreams really did come true!
She scurried to the bathroom and turned off the water seconds before more than two splats of foamy white bubbles escaped the lip of the
clawfoot
tub and hit the floor. She slipped one arm from its sleeve, reached down to pull the plug.
She was stopped by Tripp at her back saying, "Don't."
She straightened, turned. "Don't?"
"Don't drain it. Take your bath. I'll wait."
"Okay. The place is small. You should be able to find your way back through." What a stupid thing to say when he'd found his way this far just fine.
"I thought about waiting in here."
Oh. Oh, oh. "You want to watch me bathe?"
He shrugged. "Or bathe you."
"Bathe me?" Oh. Oh, my. "Not bathe with me?"
"I showered while you were finishing up with the police," he said.
It was a hedge, not an answer. That was okay. She was nervous, too. "I saw you, you know."
"When?" he asked, his eyes sparking.