TrackingDesire (5 page)

Usually, she lived and worked on the other end of the
spectrum, Retrieving what had already been stolen. It was an uneasy but
thrilling experience to be on the naughty, dangerous side of the fence for a
change. Liv pulled out her keys and opened her car door, curious and excited as
to what the next day would bring.

Neither Blade nor Flame was quite what Liv had expected.
They sat in a large booth in a cozy, out of the way diner and for the last
fifteen minutes had been indulging in surprisingly interesting small-talk while
they ate.

Without fully realizing it, Liv had created a mental image
of these unknown Enforcers, and neither of them appeared even remotely close to
what she had been expecting. Blade, she had assumed, would be a short, slender,
slightly shifty looking guy, when in fact he was enormously tall, very
well-built, heavily muscled and as dark as the night. He had not only an air of
competence around him, but also one of strong self-confidence. This was a man
who knew exactly who he was, what he was capable of, and who definitely had no
qualms about doing what it was he did best.

Flame, in contrast, she had expected to be a curvy, raving
beauty—very much the femme fatale, using her wiles and manipulation to get the
job done. Liv had been astonished and very pleased to meet the witch, finding
her to be tall, slender and willowy, but with a wealth of warm chocolate-brown
hair and reflective sunglasses that she didn’t ever seem to remove. Flame had
answered Kelly and Liv’s unspoken question with a charming white grin and
explained that even when her senses were toned down, they were so sensitive
that she needed the extra protection of the glasses to help to shield her from
overload.

More importantly, Liv had been ecstatic to find Blade and
Flame to be warm, funny, interesting people. Neither of them was so steeped in
their own self-importance that they couldn’t handle a couple of new additions
to a strong, well-formed crew.

Indeed, they seemed just as curious about Liv and Kelly and
eager to discuss topics of mutual interest instead of keeping the meeting on a
purely formal, business level. Liv found herself and Kelly genuinely welcomed,
and after around five minutes of getting-to-know-you talk they were accepted on
the spot as officially part of the group.

Having worked in the cut-throat Retriever industry, where
only the best and strongest got the good jobs and the missions were incredibly
male-dominated, Liv knew the value of a welcoming team. Many of the Retrievers
she worked with were quite lovely as people. But the nature of the business was
so competitive and so reward-or-punishment oriented that it did not allow its
employees to indulge in friendships or any real camaraderie.

This, by complete contrast, was perfectly wonderful. Blade
and Flame sat intimately close to each other and had ordered a large side of
fries and a wickedly thick slice of chocolate cheesecake to share. Matt and
Kelly, sitting opposite them in the booth, had ordered a truly enormous double
chocolate fudge banana sundae. Julian sat at one end of the booth and dug
quietly in to his burger and fries. Liv had found herself sitting opposite him
and picked at her burger and large side salad.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and once they had
finished with their food Julian veered the conversation from the latest ball
game stats to what they had gathered there for.

“Matthias has managed to get us five sets of comms. The four
of us will wear them as we enter the property and Will, who will be waiting for
us remotely, will wear the fifth,” Julian explained. “Now, you mentioned you’ve
been designated to be the team covering the southern quadrant of the gardens?”

“Yep,” Blade confirmed. “Lindon and Katie are covering the
eastern gardens, Unika and Ceil are covering the western section. The driveway
bends through the north and the Tiens don’t want obvious security patrols where
the guests can see them unless we have a breach.”

“What they’ve told us, though not in so many words,” Flame
explained with a wry grin on her face, “is that they’ve shelled out a bunch of
money for us to discreetly make sure that none of their guests pilfer the
silverware, and no press or uninvited guests creep in through the side lawn.
They want us to hang back in our pretty clothes, blend in and not be seen or
heard.”

“Of course, the instant something goes wrong we’re to swoop
down, save the day and hush it all up so no one at the party is any the wiser,”
Blade finished, and rolled his eyes dramatically. “We’re effectively a cleaning
crew, which is something I
never
thought I would be reduced to.”

“You’ll look hot in a tux,” Flame half-consoled, half-teased
him.

Blade shot her a dark, hungry look.

“And you’ll
really
be able to run in those stiletto
pumps and the sparkly short skirt you have hung out to wear tonight,” he teased
her back. “And I’m sure you’re
thrilled
they’ve forbidden you from so
much as lighting a match unless the world is about to implode and we’re all
going to die.”

A distasteful frown marred Flame’s pretty face as she
pouted.

“That stupid bastard thought he was being funny,” she
complained. “I still don’t know where that jerk Tien got the idea I run around
willy-nilly burning places to the ground. I knew as soon as he mentioned it
that he was connected with this Jolt shit.”

“You
did
destroy their lab,” Julian pointed out in a
gentle tone. “In fact, you didn’t just burn it down, you helped it to explode.
There’s nothing left of it but a giant crater. I think it’s marvelous what you
did, but everyone in the entire state has heard what happened. Just because Tien
knows about it doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”

Flame threw Julian a searing look but didn’t contradict the
truth of his words. Liv decided it was time to rescue the man and change the
topic.

“We’ve set up two channels on the comms to communicate
through,” she said hastily into the brief silence. “One is the frequency your
team will be using, which we will remain radio silent on. The other is for us
to all communicate between ourselves.”

“At this stage our plan is for me to remain on your
frequency,” Flame agreed, diverted from her irritation. “Blade and I are
supposed to be paired up for the whole night. Unless something goes wrong we
shouldn’t be separated. So he can remain on our security group’s bandwidth and
nudge me when I’m directly spoken to. He can monitor our team and I can monitor
yours. It will be a juggle, but it should only be for half an hour or so,
right?”

“Hopefully even less,” Kelly said. “I would think you’d need
to start monitoring our frequency just before we scale the fence. With you to
give us the all-clear, we can run through the gardens and enter the side door
in only a few minutes. We’ve allowed fifteen minutes to perform our search,
which I know is a long period of time, but we each have multiple areas we need
to cover, and even with your inside information we might have to wait out stray
guests or unforeseen events. Once we rendezvous back at the fence, we can give
you the all-clear and you can go back onto your Enforcers’ channel and we’ll be
out of your hair.”

“Sounds nice and straightforward,” Blade commented.

Flame nodded her agreement.

“We’ll need you to give us a heads-up when you’re on the
fence before you actually enter the gardens,” Flame pointed out. “We don’t
expect there to be any trouble and no one should be any the wiser, but just in
case and to cover our own asses, we want to know when you penetrate the
grounds, simply so we can have a solid alibi elsewhere. On the off-chance that
something
does
go wrong and there’s an in-depth investigation, we want
to be fully covered.”

“Absolutely,” Matt agreed. “We don’t want to burn either of
you. Contingency plans are always necessary, especially when they’re to cover
your asses.”

“As for your strategies once you enter the mansion,” Blade
continued, and they all huddled closer in to the table as he pulled out a sheet
of paper folded in his pocket, “having a thief in on your plans works wonders.
You should definitely enter here, exactly where you planned, but those of you
going down into the conservatory should be careful. You’ll be passing only a
dozen feet or so from the edges of the party, and the chance of crossing paths
with someone is quite high.”

“Blossom apparently spends most of her time in that
conservatory. We hear she’s a horticulture nut, so it’s unlikely but possible
that she might show the odd person her pride and joy,” Flame added. “You’ll
need to use every ounce of discretion and caution you can. From what we can
gather of your plan, that area is the most dangerous and the most likely to be
where you’ll get caught.”

“Otherwise, your plan is solid,” Blade finished. “We’ve been
told nothing about the basement and we didn’t want to draw attention to it by
asking. Neither was there any mention of a walk-in safe or other reason as to
why there’s the extra space in wall. After looking at your diagrams, Flame and
I agree there is about a three-foot depth of wall space missing. It could be
anything, and we wouldn’t want to even make a guess about it and potentially
sway your thoughts. I’m sorry we can’t be more help, but sounding too
knowledgeable, or worse, asking about an area they will possibly discover has
been broken into, is just too risky.”

“We’ve been told very strictly that the entire basement is
off-limits and no one is to go down there under any circumstances,” Flame said.
“Unlike the conservatory, the chances of anyone coming across you down there
should be slim to none. Also, the entire third floor is off-limits, so the
master bedroom should definitely be a safe area. We were told that the security
system as a whole would be turned off so we wouldn’t be given false alarms.”

“Interestingly, what the Tiens
did
say in the
briefing was that if the house was breached internally ‘we’d know’ about it.
The comment was strange, but it could just be their different pattern of speech
and my rampant paranoia raising its head,” Blade cautioned them.

“But you think there might be other internal security we’re
not aware of?” Liv guessed.

Blade nodded, his dark head bobbing seriously.

Liv swallowed hard and looked at Kelly, Matt and finally at
Julian. Their eyes met and held and she could have sworn his soft gray eyes
gently reassured her and told her not to worry, that they’d deal with anything
this mission threw at them.

“Well,” Kelly said briskly as a slightly morose silence fell
over the booth. “No job is ever easy. And this will just be sure to keep us on
our toes, which we’ll need to be anyway. Upward of two hundred rich, bejeweled
guests will be filling that huge mansion, and we’re not exactly on the
so-called ‘golden guest list’. We’ll just have to use caution and make certain
nothing happens to draw us to their attention.”

“The other interesting point,” Blade interjected, apparently
just having thought of it, “is that strictly speaking the second floor is also
off-limits to guests. Gilroy and Philyra will be making semi-frequent rounds
and patrolling that area. They’re supposed to gently remind curious folk who go
up to find a spare bedroom, or just a dark corner to fuck like rabbits in, that
they’re not supposed to be up there.”

“Which means the Tiens probably think that even though the
area is off-limits guests will still go up there,” Flame added. “They’re using
Gilroy and Philyra as a first line of defense to weed people out of the second
floor.”

“So we will need to make plans to circumnavigate them?”
Kelly asked as she pulled pen and paper from her handbag to make notes. Liv
watched as Matt laid a hand gently on her wrist to stop her.

“Gilroy and Philyra are…” Matt trailed off as he searched
for the right words. After a moment, when neither Blade nor Flame offered to
assist him, he continued. “They’re Enforcers, yes, but they are
politically
appointed
Enforcers. They are from rich, very old-school wizarding families
and they are the people assigned to the political balls, the charity
fund-raisers and those sorts of missions. They mingle well with their own kind
and know all the socially acceptable things to say to put the elite at ease and
make sure they don’t worry about a few armed security guards at such a swanky
dinner.”

“They get a secret little thrill when they tell their
cronies at the tennis club that they work for law and order and are Enforcers,”
Flame finished. “They never get their hands dirty and while they have their
talents, I can guarantee you that after their first few boring rounds up on the
second floor, they’ll be busy mingling with their friends down at the dinner
and decide to wait until the festivities have started to break up before going
back up there and evicting those having their trysts.”

“So they’re a low-risk problem?” Liv confirmed.

Both Blade and Flame nodded.

“I’d keep them in mind and watch out for them, but since
you’re planning on waiting until about halfway through the dinner, I think the
chances of you running into them are slim,” Flame agreed.

Liv and Kelly made a note of this in their notebooks and
they all looked at each other to see if there was anything else. An eager
silence settled between them and Liv could feel the anticipation of the evening
start to sing through her blood. It was similar to what she felt before a big
Retrieval, but it was also different at the same time.

Julian caught her eye across the booth and they shared a
wild grin. In a few hours she would be with this man, crawling over a fence,
racing across someone’s private lawn and breaking into their house. The thrill
of the hunt seeped into her blood and had her heart pounding wildly. Or maybe
it was just the look in Julian’s eyes that held her so captivated.

At heart it didn’t matter either way to her what caused this
physical reaction—she felt drunk, utterly intoxicated by the thrill of what
they were about to do and the fact that she would be sharing it with this man.
Her life had never been one of sitting in the backseat and letting someone else
drive.