Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (14 page)

The neighborhood was quiet, quaint and picturesque. The cobblestone street was lined with established trees, old curbs, and pristine rowhouses. Big urns overflowing with fall flowers perched on clean porch stoops.

Nothing seemed out of place or unusual. The very normalness was somewhat disconcerting. Nothing bad ever happened in a neighborhood like this.

“I don’t want to be too far away from the van.”

Finally Lucas found a space off the alley behind her townhouse. By silent agreement, we maintained surveillance for half an hour before moving in. No one seemed out of place. No one seemed to be watching the house.

Her backyard was a long narrow strip of grass edged with a picket fence and freshly-planted fall flowers. Mums, maybe?

As I got out of the van, it struck me again that someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble to keep up Staci Grant’s life.

“Doesn’t look like she’s been dead for seven weeks,” Lucas murmured in my ear.

His hot breath stroked my neck. I ignored the shiver of awareness rippling through me.

We strode down the brick path toward the back steps.

A Weber grill sat near steps leading down to a basement entrance. Adorned with hanging pots of geraniums and droopy trailing greenery, an iron railing edged the stairway down.

The backdoor had a screen, but the kitchen window was free of curtains. A striped blue and white awning hung suspended over the dining room window. Through the lace curtains, a warm light promised us welcome.

A surreal quality shrouded the house, as if someone had stepped out to the store or gone for an afternoon walk. Not been dead and gone for almost two months.

It was a very creepy feeling.

I’d shadowed Staci’s life but I hadn’t stayed in her house. So when we got to the door, I realized...“No keys.”

“Look at this place,” Lucas whispered. “There’s probably a key under the mat.”

I lifted the edge of a woven flax mat with pictures of flowers printed on it. No key.

But he was right. This was the kind of place where someone would hide a key. We spread out. I tilted a giant cobalt pot by the steps while Lucas edged his fingers around the rims of the hanging pots.

“Pay dirt.” He pulled grimy fingers and a key out of the middle pot.

Within minutes, we were inside. A house alarm bleeped quietly in the warm glow of the dining room light.

Lucas pulled on a pair of gloves and rubbed away his prints from the key. I pulled on a pair of latex gloves I’d lifted from Lucas’s van, then punched the security code I’d been given into the pad.

“Good thing you know the code.”

“Yeah.” I’d been given the code in my briefing before I assumed her identity.

Staci Grant was supposed to have been kidnapped. Instead I had been kidnapped. Lucas was searching for information in relation to his missing kid who was checked out of the hospital by Staci. Her name linked the events of the last few days.

If anyone came after us, the basement would be their most likely point of entry. “I’ll take the basement. Keep your ears open.”

“Wait.” Lucas pulled his weapon from the holster clipped to his belt loop.

No one was here. I could feel the emptiness in air that should be stale but was scented with cinnamon and coffee.

However, if he wanted to play macho man, I’d sit back and enjoy the show. He turned the knob slowly. The muscles in his arm bunched as he tried to pull the basement door open.

I licked my lips, watching the play of muscle in the dim light. The man really did have fine arms. As he stepped back, my gaze shifted to the seat of his jeans. He had a world class ass as well.

“Locked.”

“Hmm.” No flower pots around. I knocked on the door lightly. Reinforced steel.

“Steel door. And look at this lock.” Lucas tucked his weapon back in his holster and bent down to look at the shiny,
new
lock. “This is state of the art.”

I tried to keep my eyes on the lock, but once again I was distracted by the curve of his butt.

Extremely unprofessional.

The wheeze of a screen door snapped my focus back.

He straightened, but I was already relaxing.

“Neighbor,” I said quietly. I could see a woman and hear children tumbling into the yard to the left.

He nodded. “Let’s stay together.”

“Upstairs.”

If there was that much overt security on the basement door, it was a decoy. Nothing important would be down there. The logical conclusion was Staci Grant’s legitimate files for the University were down there. We could check on that last.

The dining room was decorated with an antique table and chairs. The chairs had lion claws for feet and gracefully curved arms. A giant breakfront with ornately carved lion’s heads supported a massive marble top against the far wall. Three foot tall silver candle holders flanked the ends of the sideboard.

No one would store critical information in this room. It was too open. Too available and too easy for the world, or at least neighbors, to see in.

“We’re going to be awhile.”

“Yep.”

We headed to the staircase taking care to avoid the plate glass window in the front living room. I eyed the furnishings for potential hiding places.

She had original artwork on the walls. A beautiful oil painting of a mosque in dark yellow hues hung over a rich cordoba leather sofa. Two wing chairs in butter flanked a delicate end table. A plasma television hung in the far corner with state of the art electronics, DVD, speakers and a sub woofer huddled below the screen like cubs around a mama bear.

I envied the slick entertainment system. Mine was functional but utilitarian.

Polished wood floors gleamed beneath an antique Persian carpet. A deep blue burkha, the traditional dress of Muslim women, was mounted and framed in mahogany.

“No obvious hiding places here.” Lucas bent and ran his hand under the leather sofa. “Unless she had files sewn into the stuffing of the sofa or chairs, this room is a bust.”

The DVD and CD collection in the cabinet would take a few hours to go through. On the way out, I’d pick them up. They could be viewed at my apartment.

I crept up the stairs behind Lucas. At the top, I assessed the layout.

Two bedrooms. One bath, obviously renovated.

Lucas stood in the doorway and whistled. “Nice room.”

Staci had expanded the bath most likely using all of a large bedroom to do it. A decadent Jacuzzi tub dominated the room.

He gestured to the Travertine floor. “Marble costs a small fortune.”

Battered metal pots, full of ferns and orchids, clustered on the two foot ledge behind the tub.

Sunlight poured in through a tube skylight, reflecting off an ornate scrollwork mirror. A small linen closet held towels, sweet smelling bath salts and a horde of cosmetics.

I picked up a bottle of lotion, unscrewed the cap, and sniffed. Gardenia.

“There won’t be anything regarding Johnny in this room.” Lucas conveniently reminded me of the reason he was here.

He wasn’t my partner. He wasn’t my friend. He brushed by me, his body rubbing against mine. I forcibly reminded myself, he couldn’t be my lover again, either.

The sooner I got rid of Lucas the better off I would be. “I’ll keep a lookout,” I said brusquely.

There were two bedrooms, one master and an office complete with a computer set-up on elaborate mahogany office furniture. Crown molding and framed maps of the World decorated the walls. Bookshelves held books on diverse subjects with a large section devoted to Middle Eastern studies. Not surprisingly.

Lucas came into the room. “In plain sight. Her files have got to be somewhere.”

“Maybe.” This woman was sophisticated and world-traveled. I needed to get a better sense of Staci Grant but not in the same room as Lucas.

“I’ll take the master bedroom.”

Shades upon shades of yellow with touches of purple and burgundy colored the walls, the carpet, the bed. Rich velvet pillows mounded at the base of the intricately carved wood headboard. Tapestries of beautiful scenes from the desert to the sea graced the walls.

And on the foot of the bed, finally, was my clue.

The pattern of quilt was plain but the materials ranged from the finest shimmering silk to jewel-studded velvet. Layer upon layer of color and richness all sewn into an exquisite package.

This was the key to Staci Grant.

Simplicity hidden in extravagance.

Where would she hide her private files? I had no doubt Lucas would find files in the office. But I didn’t think they’d have any useful information for him or me.

I looked in the mirror hanging above the bed. Files closest to her heart and mind.

Under the bed? I looked. No trapdoor.

I opened the closet door, and flipped on the light switch. Rack upon rack of simple clothes in rich fabrics crowded the room. Against the opposite wall, wainscoting detail was mostly hidden beneath wall-mounted shoe racks.

I went back to the bedroom, turning out the light and closing the door softly. But as I stared at the intricate tapestry on the far wall, my mind calculated square footage and angles.

Even with the closet, there was room between the walls.

I lifted the tapestry above the bed. Nothing. A television sat on a chest across from the bed beneath another tapestry. As I gazed at it, I knew.

Going to the bedside table, I found a remote control. The first button turned on the television.

The second, a stereo.

When I pressed the two buttons together, I heard a panel slide somewhere in the closet.

Bingo.

I set the remote back on the table, and glanced out the window just in time to see two garbage men coming up the sunlit brick path.

We had trouble.

SIXTEEN

“Lucas?” I called softly.

“Yeah.”

“Pack it up.” I checked the room making sure it looked undisturbed. “And get in here fast.”

“On it.”

He hustled into the bedroom as the security alarm dinged. I’d been right. Staci Grant wasn’t getting special garbage treatment.

I yanked him inside the closet. “I pressed some buttons on the t.v. remote and heard something slide open. There’s got to be a door in here somewhere.”

Lucas fumbled through the clothes feeling for a door or open space. I pushed at the wall with the shoe rack. Nothing. But when I tugged on the rack, the entire panel swung forward exposing an opening.

“They’re almost up the stairs.”

“Yeah.” We stepped inside, pulled the shoe rack back and it clicked back into place, just as we heard footsteps in the hallway.

Narrow stairs went up. Attic room. I couldn’t wait to get into her stuff.

“Too risky.” The brush of his breath tickled my ear.

I nodded.

We had to stay right there in a space designed for one person. My shoulder blades pressed against his chest and my bottom snugged against his hips. And a part of him I knew I’d never see again.

Apparently his body hadn’t gotten the memo. The hard ridge of his erection rubbed against my butt. Heat steamed through me. My nipples pebbled annoyingly.

“Got any discovery fantasies I can help you with?”

I could hear the laughter in his quiet whisper, but had no safe way to retaliate because the men entered the master bedroom, arguing loudly.

Hopefully, the garbage detail didn’t know about the secret room.

“We should have never gone to lunch together,” the first guy said disgustedly. “They’re long gone.”

“Maybe not.”

“House feels empty.” He flipped on the television. “We shoulda just double parked when the alarm went off.”

“Quit bitching.” The man with the gruff voice opened the closet door.

If the guy in the bedroom kept pressing buttons, the guy in the closet was going to get quite a surprise.

Drawers rolled open. “Get a load of this chick’s lingerie.” He was literally a wall away from us.

Lucas shifted bringing his left hand up my side and around to press on my stomach.

Dammit, this wasn’t the time to be copping a feel.

He moved again, and his lips brushed my cheek. What the hell was he thinking?

“Unless someone is hiding in that drawer, cut it out.”

Lucas tensed. That was when I felt it. He’d pulled his weapon out of his holster. He’d only been trying to protect me...us.

“Holy Jesus. Is that missing the crotch?”

“Yeah.” The first guy whistled and slammed the drawer shut. “Let’s run a quick check up here. But my guess is the basement. That’s where they’d be. It’s the only logical place. What with the lock on the door and all.”

“Did you just stuff those panties in your pocket?”

“Guy’s got to have some excitement in his life.”

“No way is your wife putting those on.”

“Who’s talking about my wife?”

Their voices faded as they thumped down the stairs. But Lucas and I were stuck. We were going to have to stay here until they left.

I should be able to relax now. Instead I got more tense. He pressed against me again. Now I knew he was putting his weapon away. But God, as his erection prodded into me, all the blood rushed from my head.

I leaned forward trying to get away from him, my torso pressed against the wall, my cheek turned away from the sliding door.

“You feel incredible.” His breath tickled the back of my neck. He’d leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

I knew a dozen defensive moves to make him crumple over and puke his guts out. But I didn’t dare try one, just in case the sound carried down the stairs. I jabbed my elbow into his stomach, not hard, just hard enough to get his attention.Instead of the soft oomph I expected, I hit solid muscle. He’d anticipated my reaction.

He moved his hands around to cup my elbows, then leaned into me further. “You should have told me you wanted to play,” he murmured.

Before I could retaliate, his lips touched mine at the corner.

It was a butterfly touch. The tip of his tongue traced my upper lip. Then he pressed soft, tender kisses along my jaw. The little nip of his teeth on the sensitive lobe of my ear shivered through me.

The sensation was sweet. And erotic.

His fingertips trailed up and down my forearms. Goose bumps rose on my flesh as the gentle touch tingled through me.