Bind (Manhattan Lux Book 1): Manhattan Lux (22 page)

“Stop,” he said. “It’s bullshit.”

“Wyatt?” Jinx’s voice was soft and distant. “Jack and I never—”

“I know. Stop. Get your head back in the game. Be my eyes. Talk to me. Location?”

“Right,” she stammered, and Wyatt hated that, hated that his strong girl was hurting over this amateur’s clumsy mind games. He’d fix it later, give her a big hug…actually, now that he thought about it, it kind of boded well for him that his ordinarily tough-as-nails kitten with a whip was letting Kristie’s nasty talk go to her head so easily. She wouldn’t be so upset if she didn’t care. A lot. Yep, that had to be a good sign.

“Status,” he said. “Quickly.”

“She keeps walking in and out of the office, down those back corridors, tiptoeing out and around and setting up smoke cans.”

“Hey Wyatt!” Kristie shouted again. Her voice was close, but fading—she was walking away from him. “Did you see those videos tonight? Your slut girlfriend really gets around.”

“She’s back in the office Wyatt,” said Jinx.

“What’s she doing?”

“She keeps checking something on a little laptop she has that she hooked up to Aaron’s desktop.”

“Can she get anything off there? Ask Aaron.”

Aaron came on the line. “The minute my system detected unauthorized entry, a protection protocol began. She thinks she’s downloading my entire hard drive. Actually she’s downloading all twenty-seven seasons of the Simpsons and 248 years of the Encyclopædia Britannica.”

“So it’ll be a while,” said Wyatt.

“Yeah, couple minutes. Give or take.”

Kristie shouted again. “Can’t believe you’re okay with strangers watching your girlfriend fucking some other guy!”

“And you’re not concerned that she’ll actually get ahold of something sensitive?”

“No. She got in, sure, but she’s not getting out with anything.
Maybe
if she had more expertise, more time—”

“We won’t be giving her anymore time. I’m ending this now. I just needed to know what she already has her hands on.”

“Nothing,” Aaron reassured him. “Even if she’s been uploading to someone else remotely as she’s been downloading, all they’re gonna get is a lot of digitized books with outdated information and Homer Simpson whining about donuts.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Great. Give me back to Jinx.”

“I think she still has a thing with that guy!” Kristie shouted, and this time Wyatt could clearly hear the strain in her voice. The stress was starting to get to her. Cloak and dagger isn’t so fun when you start to realize there’s no way out. “I saw her video chatting with him a few months ago. I bet they’re still fucking. You’re such a chump.”

“Why is she bothering with all this nonsense?” said Jinx. “It’s insane.”

“Because she’s trying to stall. It’s amateur shit, stuff she learned from bad movies. Which tells me that somebody put her up to this job but didn’t train her very well.”

“Just for the record. Yes,
that guy
and I are still friends. But he’s married now. We were Skyping about his new baby. That’s all.”

“No need to explain, babe.”

“Wyatt?” Jinx said, her tone full of concern. “You’re in pain. Need back up?”

“How can you tell I’m in pain?”

“Because you’re always in pain, but when it’s worse, your face changes and so does your gait.”

“Quit checking out my ass babe, and don’t worry about my pain. Just keep me posted on her movements.”

“Stubborn,” Jinx mumbled, then paused. “Wyatt? I don’t see her.”

A noise, off to his left, a hinge creaking, the soft pad of footsteps.

“I’ve got it,” he whispered, pivoting to face the noise. Something flew through the thin smoke directly towards his face, Wyatt ducked, felt the object glance off his goggles and did some quick mental math on the trajectory.

Kristie had pulled the ole’ throw and run, trying to give Wyatt the impression that she was somewhere other than where she really was. Rolling his eyes, he took a deep breath and finally bellowed, the response Kristie had been trying to provoke out of him since he arrived.

“Alright, this shit is just not that interesting, honey. Whaddya say we wrap it up?”

Something was making a terrible scraping sound. Wyatt sprinted out of the dining room just in time to see Kristie dragging the Ming vase down the hall, a chalky line on the hardwood floor evidence of its short trip.

“I agree!” Kristie said, pausing in her retreat to tip the vase upright. It toppled, wobbled a bit, and a bit more as Kristie began trying to maneuver it.

“Really?” Wyatt said, when he caught what she had planned. “Straight outta Indiana Jones huh? You’re gonna roll a vase at me? Real big scary badass you are, lobbing ceramics at people in hallways. Jesus, they just don’t make spies like they used to.” He grinned, pushed his goggles down his face to hang around his neck, did a little shoulder roll, and walked straight towards Kristie. If she wanted Indiana Jones, he’d give it to her, no sweat.

Except….

He’d forgotten about the bum knee.

It went like this. Kristie pushed the vase over and heaved it down the hallway like the world’s most ungainly bowling ball. It rolled slowly. Embarrassingly slowly. Deceptively slowly. So slowly that hubris had plenty of time to take over Wyatt’s better judgement. The vase was nearly as long as the hallway was wide, so he couldn’t slip around it, he’d have to go over. He probably should’ve just
stepped
over, but he didn’t. Nope. Instead he did a little run/skip/hop thing that pre-kneetastrophe would’ve been perfectly fine.

Fine did not happen.

There was a crunch so loud it echoed off the vase and the floor and the walls. Then he felt something snap. White hot pain erupted above his knee and everything below it went dark. Numb. Nothing.

When he put his foot down, it all went to shit. Two hundred and something pounds of solid muscle avalanched to the floor.

Kristie approached him cautiously. Through the stars chasing the edges of his vision he could see her smile. Snide and twitching with triumph.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “Gosh, that knee looks painful.” Kristie kicked Wyatt’s knee with the toe of her shoe. Fresh pain bloomed, and he lunged for her, tried to get a hand around her ankle, but she slipped away.

The pain wasn’t a problem for long. Training kicked in. It always does. Wyatt pushed all the pain into a little box, and tucked the box away on a shelf in the back of his mind. It disappeared. He’d pay for it later, tenfold, but for right now, the pain would not get in the way of the job.

Unfortunately that didn’t matter. Because the leg was non-functional. He would not be rising from this spot without assistance. He needed backup.

Kristie slipped away and retreated out of sight, her laughter echoing from inside Aaron’s office.

Wyatt spoke low into the mic. “Jun,” he said. “I need you. Bring rope.”

W
hen Kristie returned
, she had something in her hands. She tossed it it back and forth, palm to palm as she walked toward Wyatt.

“You know,” she said, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I really thought you and I were gonna hook up.”

“Really?” Wyatt asked. If she wanted to chat, he’d let her. All the more time for his baby to get here and put the kibosh on this bimbo.

“Yeah,” Kristie frowned. “When you first showed up at Glow. Remember, we talked at my desk for a while. Flirted.”

“Oh that!” Wyatt said. “You mean when I was waiting to go in for the interview with Jinx, and you asked if I wanted coffee, and I said sure, and then you brought me some and bent down real low to hand it to me, and like the top six buttons of your shirt were open, and I could see all the way to North Dakota, and then you batted your eyelashes, pranced away, and glanced back over your shoulder to see if I was checking out your ass?”

“Uh-huh.”

“No,” Wyatt said. “That wasn’t
us
flirting. That was all
you
.”

“Really?” Kristie asked, tilting her head to gaze at him thoughtfully. “You weren’t interested?”

“Not for a second. Although I can understand why you imagined so. I played the part, since it suited my aims. Much the way you’ve played a part, to get what you wanted.”

“You didn’t feel anything for me at all?” Kristie asked, ignoring the other implications of Wyatt’s words. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Well.” Kristie stopped tossing the black object, raised it up and squeezed. A thin blue light crackled in the air and she smiled. “Maybe this will help you…feel something.”

A shadow slid across the end of hallway. Wyatt sensed more than saw it, and was careful not to let his gaze drift away from Kristie’s. Jinx was gliding up behind her, a length of rope stretched taut between her hands.

“I’m gonna have to decline on that offer,” Wyatt said, shrugging with feigned regret. “See my girlfriend and I, Tasering’s kind of our thing. It’s special to us.”

Kristie’s brow rose. “Tasering is your
thing,
” she said. “Your kink?”

“Yeah sorry. She’d be pissed if I let another woman do that to me.”

“Tasering?” Kristie said again.

“Yup. You know Jinx, she’s intense. We like to keep it edgy.”

“Edgy?” Kristie dropped her hand to her hip and narrowed her eyes. “Okay I’ll bite. What other edgy kinks do you guys have?”

Wyatt had just opened his mouth to speak when Jinx appeared behind Kristie. She was a vision, a dark angel, his baby coming to the rescue in his moment of need. Several coils of rope…he squinted, nope…electrical cord—probably the first thing handy in the maintenance closet—snaked around Kristie’s torso before she knew what hit her.

Kristie bucked in surprise. Jerking her head back, it cracked against Jinx’s skull, and the two women stumbled, both scrambling for dominance. Wyatt heard the Taser crackle again, and he pushed to one knee, trained his weapon on the shadows and barked a warning. But it was an empty threat. Kristie had a handful of Jinx’s hair, and their bodies were locked in struggle, intertwined. There was no way he would risk a shot that could put his woman in danger.

When it came to Jinx, when it came to her safety, every instinct fired on automatic. Weapon holstered. Wyatt didn’t think, he acted, changing tactics before he was even aware of it.

He moved.

Back. Twist. Wind up the momentum. Kick.

He thrust his bad leg out and swept both women off their feet with such strength that they popped up in the air before they went down.

Jinx clawed to her knees, grabbed the dropped Taser and straddled Kristie, pinning her down just as the rest of the crew thundered into the hall.

“That was amazing!” Aiko said as the lights came on. She was holding Aaron’s phone, looking back and forth from the image on the screen to the real life version. “Holy shit Bimbo Barbie,” she said, swaggering over to where Kristie lay on the floor. “You just got your ass thoroughly kicked.”

Wyatt smiled and looked down. Below the knee, his lower leg hung at a funny angle. It looked ghoulish. Painful. Just…wrong. It didn’t hurt though. In fact the whole thing was numb now, right up to the top of his thigh. Somehow, that was not reassuring.

“Wyatt,” Jinx said, standing as Aaron and Jack rushed forward to take over with Kristie. “Your leg.”

Wyatt looked up, met her gaze and frowned. “Your head,” he said, as she crossed to him. “You’re bleeding.”

“Both of you to hospital, I think,” said Malcolm approaching them with his mobile phone already raised to his ear.

“No cops,” Jack said, zipping Kristie’s wrists together behind her back.

“No sir. I’m arranging private ambulance now.”

“Thanks for not shooting her,” Aaron said, jerking his head towards Kristie. He bent down, hooked an arm around Wyatt’s back and helped him to stand on one foot. “A shooting would’ve guaranteed an investigation. I’m glad we can avoid that.”

“You’re welcome,” Wyatt said, wincing as Jinx stood on the other side of him, trying to keep him stable. “Hopefully you can get some information out of her…and….figure out…..who’s….beh—”

“Wyatt?” Jinx’s voice sounded hollow, distant.

He tried to answer her. She sounded worried, he wanted to swivel his head around and give her boo boo a kiss. But he was having trouble moving his head, and everything seemed a little fuzzy, like the world had gone out of focus.

“Wyatt?” Her heard Jinx say again, and the tremor in her voice cut right through him. He tried to speak again.

“Ju—” he began, and then the world went black.

* * *

W
yatt felt
his consciousness float back into his body the way it does when waking from a dream. But he was pretty sure this was no dream. Time for a reality check. He knew he was in the hospital, that felt true and real.

What for?

He did a pain check. Actually, pretty good. His knee hurt, like it always did, but in a
different
way than it always did. That was something of a relief.

Wait…different? Uh-oh.

Time for a
limb
check.

Two arms. Check.

Two legs. Ch….eck?

He could feel one, for sure. Wiggled his toes. Yep, there it was. Wiggled the other toes. The wiggle felt like a memory, then fizzled into nothing.

Oh right…that’s because…

The memory hit him like a stack of phonebooks being dropped on his chest. His face felt hot, and muscles in his throat constricted. His nose tingled and tears started to well in his eyes.

He’d finally done it. He’d let them take it. It wasn’t his knee that hurt, it was the part of his world in which that knee had formerly resided that hurt. The empty space.

He was thinking about wallowing, taking a moment of silence for that poor limb that had served him well for so long, but his thoughts were interrupted.

Voices.

Low. Murmuring.

One man. One woman.

Familiar.

“I don’t know,” said the male. “I kind of hope this recovery lasts for months, especially if it means keeping you here with me.”

“Oh stop,” said the woman. “You’re as bad as him with all the teasing and silliness.” There was laughter in her tone. Warmth. Love.

Wyatt felt a soft hand on his forehead, brushing back his hair.

“It’s gotten so long,” said the woman. “He needs a haircut.”

Mom,
he thought, and forced his heavy eyelids open.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Wyatt! Sweetheart! Oh he’s awake. Look Jack, he’s awake!”

“Yep.” Wyatt tried to speak but the words came out in a croak. His mother retrieved a glass of water from a side table and brought the straw to his lips. He sipped, then sucked hard when he realized he was parched.

“Easy now honey,” his mother said. “Take it easy.”

“Well, Cuz,” Jack said, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. “How much do you remember?”

“Don’t worry,” Wyatt answered. “I know what I’m in here for.”

“Yeah, they managed to wake you up for the consent. But you’ve been in and out a lot, and the nurses said the pain meds you’re on can mess with your memory. So I wasn’t sure—”

“You were thinking you’d have to break the news to me that I’m down a limb?”

“Half a limb buddy.” Jack slapped the empty bed where Wyatt’s missing calf should’ve been. The blankets flattened over the stump at the end of of his thigh and Wyatt frowned. “Just half. You’ve got three and a half working limbs now.”

“Yes and
working
is the important part,” Wyatt’s Mom said. “The specialist said that with prosthetics these days you’ll be in better shape than you were before! Honestly I don’t know why you waited this long. So stubborn you are. Just like your—”

“My father. Yes Mom I know.” Wyatt smiled and patted her hand. He’d been hearing about the epic stubbornness of the Calvert men since he was a young boy. It might’ve annoyed him if he ever thought she meant it unkindly. But a person had only to look into Mimi Calvert’s eyes when she was speaking of her deceased husband to know there was only deep love there and longing.

He felt a lump forming in his throat. “I’m sorry I put you through all this, Mom. You’re right, I should’ve done it when they wanted me to.”

“Not like this!” she said, “With Jack having to rush you to the hospital and flying in that surgeon.”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “You flew in a surgeon? I guess I missed that part.”

“Only the best for my family.” Jack grinned. “Good thing, too. He said you basically amputated your own leg. Shredded all the blood vessels, muscle started dying, you had blood clots. When we got you upright, that night at Aaron’s, your blood pressure dropped, and you passed out. Which was probably a good thing considering you’d have been in a hell of a lot of pain if you’d been conscious.”

“I can remember the consult now, and signing consent. But the finer details, they’re pretty fuzzy. I remember when you showed up, Mom, and I remember Jun…” Suddenly he was alert, agitated. His memory told him Jinx had been hurt too, but he didn’t recall if she was alright. “Is she okay Jack?” Wyatt asked. “Did she have a concussion or anything?”

“No she’s fine,” Jack said, pushing Wyatt back against the bed with one finger. “Relax. It was just a cut and a nasty bruise. Kristie has a hard head.”

“Kristie!” Wyatt said. “What happened with all that?”

“I put her in prison!” Aiko crowed as she strode in through the door of Wyatt’s hospital room. “What’s up, stumpy?” She pushed her way in front of Jack and leaned over for a quick hug. “They tell you the bad news yet?”

“What bad news?”

“You had a big blood clot in your groin man, they had to amputate your dick.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes and flashed her a wry grin.

“That’s why Jinx didn’t come visit with me,” she continued. “I mean, without that, you’re kind of useless to her, so why bother right?”

“Aiko,” Wyatt’s mother chastised. “He just woke up. Behave now.”

“Anything for you Mama Mimi.” Aiko flashed her a big grin and Wyatt watched the two of them, amazed.

“I guess you’ve met,” he said.

“Oh we’ve met, had drinks, ordered pizza, and smoked a fat one back at my place while watching a bunch of Zombies get splattered all over my flat screen. Right Mama Mimi?” Aiko offered her fist to Wyatt’s Mother, who bumped it obligingly.

“That’s right,” she said. “Aiko is my homegirl.”

“Jesus Christ.” Wyatt slapped a hand to his forehead and scrubbed it over his eyes. “Clearly I’m still asleep. This is a dream. Or a nightmare.”

“Nope.” Jack laughed. “What was a nightmare was getting any information out of Kristie at all. I think it would’ve gone much better if we’d had your help, Wyatt. Aaron and I aren’t well versed in interrogation tactics.”

Aiko shook her head. “I told you, boss,” she said. “There’s nothing to know, because she didn’t know anything. Torrid Technologies is in the wind. There’s no trace of it. The money they invested with Conroy was all numbers on paper—it never existed. They ran this scam to get their hands on his cash. The VR stuff and all the corporate spying shit, that was a wing and a prayer. I think they knew there was very little chance they’d get anything out of it.”

“Then why bother?” asked Wyatt.

“Well that’s the question isn’t it?” said Jack. “Aiko has a theory about that as well.”

“See, I knew we couldn’t just let Kristie walk,” she said. “So I did some digging. Our background check on her was done by another firm, not us. Jack only started having me do it recently. We kept meaning to get around to everybody but with everything going on—”

“I get it,” said Wyatt “We had other priorities. We all trusted Kristie.”

“Right, except her real name is Jaclyn, and she’s got a nice little record. When I did my background check I found an outstanding warrant and a lot of identity theft, passing bad checks etc. The warrant is what put her away, at least for now. We dropped her off at the nearest precinct, and they took care of her.”

“I bet that was fun.”

Aiko grinned.

“So what’s your theory?”

“This whole thing has been sloppy,” said Aiko. “It was a mess—a bunch of crazy crap with no clear goal. And weirdness. Like Daisy being involved, living in Jack’s building. We thought this was aimed at Glow, then at Aaron. There hasn’t been an obvious objective or any kind of real focus.”