Deep Dark (19 page)

“
Yes
, Reed. Jesus.”

He paced back to the top of the stairwell and examined the wall the shooter had presumably used for cover. Reed had that look that he got when something didn't add up. But in this case, it
did
. She'd just done the math for him. She'd walked him through a beautiful
demonstration. His problem was that he didn't like the implications.

Nothing she could do about that. The facts were the facts, and they didn't lie. Unlike people. It was why Veronica preferred crime-scene reconstruction to eyewitness testimony any day of the week.

“And like I said, the shooter is shorter than you, based on these trajectories,” she said. “That should help you a little, at least.”

Reed didn't respond. She shook her head and started packing up her computer.

“Shit,” Jay muttered. He glanced at Reed. “You read your email lately?”

That got his attention. “No. Why? We get a hit on the duct tape?”

“No, but we got that phone dump you wanted.”

“Laney's phone?”

“Yeah, Laney's,” Jay said. “And you're not going to like it.”

CHAPTER 22

Baggins gave Laney the evil eye as she tapped in her alarm code and dropped an armload of mail on the counter.

“No sulking tonight, Baggins. For either of us.”

She went straight into her bathroom, where she stripped off her T-shirt and splashed water on her face. She patted her cheeks dry with a towel and studied her reflection in the mirror.

A purple bruise had formed along her hairline from when she'd crashed into the wall in Scream's house. She leaned forward to examine it, touching it gently with her fingertips. Then she stood back to look at herself.

She felt drained and sore, like being hungover. And she couldn't remember every detail of last night, but certain ones stood out.

The sickening thud of Scream's body hitting the floor. The terrifying sound of footsteps pounding behind her in the dark stairwell.

And Reed.

She remembered the taste of his mouth and the warm slide of his hands. She remembered his breath against her neck when they were done, and she'd wanted to cling to him then, but instead she'd let her arms fall lax against the bed.

Those moments together in the dark had been bone-­meltingly hot. But somehow everything seemed unreal to her now, as though it had all been a dream.

She sighed and tossed the towel into the sink, then went into the living room to pull out her laptop computer. She checked her email to see if there was any word on the decryption program she and Dmitry had been working on all day.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered, skimming through messages.

Dmitry was their top encryption expert, but it would take him a while. Scream didn't just encrypt things, he
encrypted
them. And the thumb drive he'd given her last night before the shooting was no exception. She hadn't told Reed about the drive. Or the FBI. She didn't want anyone to know about it until she figured out what was on it.

Baggins hopped onto the table and rubbed his chin against the corner of her computer. Laney got up and filled his bowl, then took a quick look inside her fridge. Still empty. She returned to the futon, where she rummaged through her bag but didn't manage to find even a pack of Twizzlers.

She sat back and stared glumly at her screen. Physically, she was exhausted. She needed sleep, or she was headed for a systems crash. But she felt restless. Distracted. She'd felt that way all day.

She was totally off her game, and she blamed Reed. Not the night they'd spent together but his coffee-shop ambush. She'd known when she slipped out of his house that he'd get ticked off over it. She'd even figured he might be nursing a bruised ego. But at the coffee
shop, she realized she'd actually managed to hurt him. Just a little but enough to put a pinch in her heart. He was a good man. And the way he'd touched her . . .

Well. No point in thinking about it now. She'd sabotaged any future they might have had by blowing him off this morning. And deep down, she knew she'd done it on purpose. She wasn't comfortable in relationships, especially with men, and she always managed to push them to the fringes of her life.

Laney put her computer to sleep and returned to the kitchen, this time for a look at her pantry.

Her phone chimed. Butterflies flitted in her stomach as she retrieved it from her bag and stared down at Reed's number. Should she answer it or not? She couldn't decide.

And then she decided she was being an idiot. She answered the phone.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

She could tell from the background noise that he was in his car or maybe outside.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I wanted to see if you'd like to have dinner.”

The butterflies were back. “What, you mean now?”

“Yeah, tonight.”

She picked up a bottle cap from the counter and spun it around. He was asking her out. Right now. It sounded like a date, but it wasn't. There was a tightness in his voice that told her something was wrong.

So not a date, then. She spun the bottle cap some more and considered it.

It was almost certainly a bad idea. They'd left things
how they'd left them, and that was good. She had what she wanted, a clean break.

Not that there had been anything to break, really. They'd spent a night together, which wasn't exactly a relationship, but—

“You there?”

“I'm thinking,” she said.

“You're making this too hard, Laney. Have you had dinner or not?”

“Not.”

“Then have it with me.”

He sounded so confident. Not at all like a man nursing a wounded ego, and Laney's pulse picked up, because she liked that. Damn it, she was going to cave.

“Where did you want to go?” she asked.

“I was thinking Bangkok Palace.”

It was her favorite restaurant. How on earth had he known that? Of course, he hadn't. It was a lucky guess, probably because it happened to be in her neighborhood.

“I prefer Jimmy's,” she said. “It's a little sports bar located—”

“I know it. Okay, Jimmy's it is. I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

“Twenty,” she said. “And I'll meet you there.”

•   •   •

Laney's words from this morning ran through Reed's mind again.

What else did you want?

It was a good question. What
did
he want? He wasn't looking for a relationship. He hadn't been. They'd spent
the night together, and she'd let him off the hook, and he should be good with that. Relieved. But he wasn't good or relieved, he was pissed.

He wanted to see her alone again. He wanted to make her talk to him and spill her guts and tell him everything behind those dark, solemn looks.

He walked into Jimmy's and spotted her right away. She was perched on a stool at the far end of the bar and already had a beer in front of her, even though he was right on time. She wore a strappy black top—this one was cut lower than the others—and black jeans with biker boots. Reed stopped to watch her as she leaned forward to say something to the bartender.

He watched her moves, her body. How had he ever thought she looked girlish? She was all woman. And he knew now that those slender arms were strong, and those legs were powerful enough to make him lose his mind. He'd told himself he wasn't going to do this, but he wanted her again. Now. Tonight. He needed to rein in his thoughts before—

Too late. Her gaze zeroed in on him as he crossed the bar. He reached her stool, and she watched him as she tipped back her beer.

“You want to get a table?” he asked.

“Sure.”

She motioned to the bartender to let him know they were moving, and Reed steered her to a booth. She ignored the menus tucked behind a green banker's lamp.

“What's good here?” he asked.

“Wings. But only if you like hot.”

The waitress stopped by, and they both ordered wings. When she was gone, Laney leaned back against the seat and watched him, her expression unreadable.
She wore heavy black eyeliner, and she'd used makeup to conceal the bruise on her forehead.

She seemed content to let him kick off the conversation, so he started with what had to be on her mind.

“How's Edward doing?” he asked.

“Same.”

Same wasn't good. Last Reed had checked, the man was in critical condition.

“I talked to his brother a couple hours ago.” She turned her beer on the table. “He may need another surgery.”

“His face?”

“His kidney. It's not responding like they wanted, so they might have to remove it, which is bad because he had kidney disease when he was a kid, so he's down to one already. They may need to do a transplant.”

Reed watched her talk, unsettled by the pain he heard in her voice. She obviously cared about this guy.

“A transplant—that's serious but survivable.”

“I know.”

The waitress brought over Reed's beer.

“You know, if he makes it, the feds are going to want to interview him,” Reed said.

“They're wasting their time. He won't talk to them, not unless he's doped up on painkillers or something. He hates cops.”

“What about cops trying to solve his case?”

“He probably won't cooperate with them, either. He despises law enforcement.”

“Why?”

“It's part of his antiauthoritarian philosophy. He hates all the federal antihacking laws, believes they're a form of thought control because they dictate what
sort of code people can and can't write.” She turned her beer on the table. “Computer code is really just language, so limiting it or banning it is like banning free speech. Scream thinks cops, especially federal ones, are essentially the thought police.”

“What about you?”

She shrugged. “It's a fair point. Any program I write is essentially numbers and letters. It's a form of expression. Some people would even say it's an art form, like poetry.”

“No, what do you think about cops?” He very much wanted to know.

“Depends,” she said. “Some are good, some aren't.”

The waitress appeared with two baskets of wings and dipping sauce. Reed watched Laney dig in.

“Don't say I didn't warn you.” She nodded at his plate.

The wings were fire-hot, and he chased the first one down with a swig of Shiner.

“How's your investigation going?” she asked.

He tipped his eyebrows up.

“The murder investigation,” she clarified.

“We're making progress.”

“I saw a news story that Isabella's ex-husband was brought in for questioning?”

“He was,” Reed said, keeping his tone neutral. It was a purely routine interview, and Reed knew he had Erika to thank for the carefully leaked news tidbit. It was a decent strategy, but she wouldn't be able to keep the attention on the victim's family for long, not with another homicide still so fresh in everyone's mind. And the minute the press got wind of the Olivia Hollis connection, forget it.

Laney wiped her hands on a napkin. “What is that, spin?”

“What?”

“It's standard procedure to interview the husband,” she said. “So this focus-on-the-family thing, I'm guessing that's something your ex-wife cooked up?”

Reed stared at her. “You don't miss much, do you?”

“I've been around investigations.” She picked up a wing and dipped it in sauce. “It won't work, you know. At best, it buys you a couple days' time.”

He turned his attention to his food, not sure why he felt annoyed to hear her state the obvious. “We're developing other suspects.”

“When?”

“Right now. As we speak.” As he sat here having a beer with the woman who'd rocked his world last night. The woman he couldn't stop picturing naked. The woman whose soft, pleading sounds had been playing in his head all day.

Meanwhile, Jay and Jordan were still at the station toiling away on the case.

Laney was watching him now, her look intent. Could she read his thoughts? Just what he needed. Time to get to the point.

“This thing with Edward Gantz, the FBI believes it has to do with his business,” Reed said. “They believe a corporation he hacked, or possibly one of his rivals, is out to kill him. Me? I believe they're wrong.” He paused to watch her reaction. “Gantz's phone records tell a different story.”

She didn't say anything or even move, but he could see her wheels turning.

“Any ideas on that?” he asked.

“Edward's phone records,” she stated, her brow arched in disbelief.

“That's right.”

She leaned back against the booth. “Edward has a no-contract phone. And I happen to know it's virtually untraceable.”

“Virtually?”

“No, you're right. It
is
untraceable.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Whose phone records are we talking about here?”

Reed watched her. He'd succeeded in getting her back up, which was his first objective. His second objective was to pin her down. She'd lied to him multiple times. Some of it was by omission, but still he couldn't let it go. Why wouldn't she tell him the full truth?

“Yesterday Gantz texted you,” he said. “He said he had something for you.”

“I can't believe this.” She shook her head and looked away. “You didn't
guess
my favorite restaurant, you've been snooping through my goddamn phone, my emails. Violating my privacy. Have you pulled my credit card, too?”

He didn't answer.

“You're unbelievable, you know that?”

“You think?” He held her gaze. “Because from where I'm sitting, it seems totally believable. When you consider how we met.”

Her eyes simmered, but she didn't argue. She didn't give a flip about privacy unless it was hers.

“Gantz gave you his address and told you to come at nine,” he said. “You were early.”