Cut and Run 09 Crash & Burn (5 page)

“Yes.” Liam grinned, his eyes sparkling. “What was it you used to tell me before missions?”

“You’re bringing a chess set to a gunfight.”

“Indeed.” Liam reached out carefully and dragged a finger down Nick’s cheek, then held it up as if he’d wiped something off his face. “And the white knight never left the board without blood all over him. Did he, love?”

Ty sat in the midst of a room full of chaos and disaster. The plywood floors were covered with scraps of wood and plaster dust, which he had been horrified to discover actually had horse hair in it. The walls were nothing but two-by-fours and exposed brick. The ceiling was letting light in through the second- and even third-story windows, and dust motes floated peacefully though the sunbeams.

Ty was cross-legged, forearms resting on his knees, lips pursed in a mixture of disgust and amusement. He’d worked on projects like this all his life, but he’d never had this many things go wrong on him. He’d spent the warm months of the summer and fall working on his Mustang, leaving the interior of the building for the cold of winter. Now, sitting in the freezing cold without heat or insulation on the first day of February, he was regretting a lot of his decisions.

At least he could be positive this building wasn’t bugged.

The front door, made of old, dirty glass covered with peeling and faded stickers, grocery bags, and duct tape, opened with a terrible creak.

“Hey, Bulldog,” Zane said as he stepped over the threshold, a box under one arm. “How’s it going?”

Ty cleared his throat and pointed up at the ceiling. “I put a hole in the house.”

Zane tipped his head back to peer up as he walked toward Ty. “What were you doing?” He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

“I was . . .” Ty cleared his throat, blushing. “I was poking it with a stick.”

Zane propped the box on his hip and raised an eyebrow at Ty.

“It made sense in my head,” Ty insisted. “Did you bail from work early? What’s in the box?”

“I left work early, brought you lunch. Why were you poking the house with a stick?”

“I was looking for wiring,” Ty answered, blushing harder.

Zane set the box down, then carefully went to one knee before thumping to the dusty floor to sit next to Ty. “Wiring? Did you find any bugs?”

“No, so I guess it was a win.”

Zane took Ty’s hand in his and laced their fingers together, and Ty smiled even though he’d had a backbreaking, frustrating day. He squeezed Zane’s hand as he stared at the jagged hole in the second floor.

“We could have built a building from scratch, you know,” Zane said, waving at the inside of the old, three-story brick building on the edge of the harbor in Fell’s Point.

Ty gazed at the room too, seeing the architectural details beneath the years of paint, dust, and misuse. He shook his head and smiled as he cut his gaze to Zane. “Old and broken-down is more my style.”

Zane cast a glance around them, then settled on Ty again, smirking. “Whatever makes you happy, doll.”

Ty narrowed his eyes. “You’re being agreeable. What have you done?”

Zane gave him an innocent shrug. “I didn’t do anything. I’m just agreeing.” He slid his fingers along Ty’s palm to caress the inside of Ty’s wrist.

Ty turned his hand over in Zane’s. Then he sighed. “Your office is bugged, isn’t it?”

Zane laughed. “No. But it’s kind of sad that you think that’d put me in a good mood.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Ty asked with a smirk.

“Probably.” Zane sat back, seeming entirely too pleased with himself as he looked around the building again. He finally pointed to the back wall. “I think the section on horses should go right there, what do you think? Maybe a picture of you in the saddle?”

Ty shook his head, rubbing at a spot of tension between his eyes.

“Oh, I picked up the mail when I went by the house.” Zane rummaged in his box for a small package that he handed to Ty. “Did you order something? What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Ty used his pocketknife to get into it, gazing at Zane fondly as he did so. The silver feathering at the sides of his hair was getting more pronounced, and every time Ty took notice of it, he wanted to tackle Zane to the ground.

He pulled a small jewelry box out of the package and turned it over, then narrowed his eyes at Zane. “Was this you?”

Zane shook his head and reached to pluck a card off the inside of the packaging, flipping it open to read. “Says it’s from Owen.” He handed the card to Ty.

“Weird.” Ty muttered, and popped the jewelry box open.

Inside was a nickel.

Zane chuckled. “Your friends are so strange.”

“Hold on,” Ty said, a grin spreading across his face. He picked the nickel up out of the box and examined it, finding a slit near the edge just big enough for a thumbnail. When he pulled on it, a tiny curved blade popped out of the nickel. Ty laughed delightedly. “It’s a knife!”

“Oh my God,” Zane groaned.

“Looks like he found a new supplier. Secret Santa next year is going to be awesome.” Ty put the nickel in his pocket, still grinning.

“You realize most of the things you get from your friends should be illegal, right?”

“Hey, that go bag you appropriated is full of illegal things I got from my friends, so either stop judging or give it back.”

“No, I like it. And you’re not getting those boots back, either.”

Ty grunted.

Zane’s smile turned into a leer. “You coming to the hotel tonight?”

Ty laughed and nodded. The night Zane had left the row house, Ty had waited a few hours, then tracked Zane’s ass down and crawled into bed with him in the luxury suite he’d booked.

“You going to tell me how you found me?” Zane asked for perhaps the twentieth time.

Ty stole a languid kiss, then whispered, “I’ll always find you, Zane.”

Zane rewarded him with a fond smile. He kissed Ty again, humming happily. “Give me a hint.”

“Please. The Admiral Fell Inn? It’s the only hotel nearby that’s a pun; of course you headed there.”

Zane chuckled, closing his eyes as Ty nuzzled at him. He finally ducked his head, reaching over to tug the box closer. “I stopped by that deli you like so much near the office.”

Ty’s smile turned melancholy at best. He was glad he’d made his decision to quit the Bureau, but it had been a trade between having Zane at home and having him at work. And he kind of missed work. “Are you going to be happy here when you retire? Selling old books and keeping me occupied?”

Zane met Ty’s eyes. “I can’t imagine being anywhere else. Although I suppose if it becomes worrisome, we can take a trip out to Austin for a couple of weeks now and then. You know. Vacation.”

Ty frowned. “No need to be mean.” He ran his hand up Zane’s back, letting his fingers trail up the soft material of his dress shirt. He was about to zone out when he remembered what he’d wanted to show Zane. “Oh! Want to see what I found in the back room?”

Zane laughed and held out a cold bottle of water. “Sure.”

Ty took the bottle as he pushed himself to his feet. He grabbed Zane’s forearm and tugged him up. “You’re going to love this.”

Zane smoothed one hand over Ty’s ass. “Uh huh. Go on.” He was humoring Ty, but Ty didn’t care.

He led the way into the back room, which had been a kitchen in the original building but had since been turned into a storeroom with a sink and a refrigerator hookup. Ty had removed everything but a hammer, leaving the room just as bare and pitiful as the rest of the structure.

He was grinning from ear to ear when he waved his hand at one of the walls. It was covered with cheap paneling and painted a garish green, and there were several holes where Ty had taken the hammer to it.

Zane looked from Ty, to the wall, back to Ty, and back to the wall before shaking his head. “What am I missing?”

“What, you don’t see it?” Ty’s smile grew bigger. “Your finely tuned spider sense hasn’t realized that this room isn’t as wide as the front room?”

Zane frowned and twisted halfway around to check the room’s dimensions. “Someone closed in a bolt-hole?”

“Better.” Ty picked up the hammer and stepped over to the panel that had first caught his attention. He used the claw to pull the panel back, then took the flashlight from his back pocket and clicked it on. He gestured for Zane to lean closer, and he let the light shine on the wooden treads of a stairwell, hidden for at least half a century.

“Oh hell,” Zane said under his breath. “No wonder you’re giddy. The survey didn’t show a basement on this lot.”

“I know!” He’d been excited when he found it, almost excited enough to grab the flashlight and investigate. But he would never do such a thing without Zane, and he was sort of scared shitless of dark basements. “Want to check it out?”

“How long did you have to wait for me to get here so you could have me go down there?” Zane asked, a wry smile twisting his lips as he crossed his arms. “You could have called.”

“Wasn’t long before I poked the hole through the ceiling,” Ty admitted. “As soon as I found this, I left this room. Please take this and go down there so I can see what it is!” He shoved the flashlight at Zane.

Zane chuckled and took the Maglite. “Open it up,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the paneling blocking the stairway.

Ty slid the hammer back into the paneling and tugged it off the wall with ease. He set the first strip carefully aside, then tugged at the next one to open it up. The cobwebs in the old stairwell alone would have kept him on ground level if he’d done this earlier.

Zane was pulling on the pair of work gloves Ty had worn most of the day. Ty wanted to go with him and see what was down there, but he knew his limits, especially after his ordeal in Scotland. His limit was right here at the first step.

Zane moved to the landing, and Ty peered over his shoulder. “If it’s big enough down there, I might be able to handle it.”

Zane settled a hand at the base of Ty’s neck, squeezing as he pressed a kiss to the corner of Ty’s lips. “My brave bulldog.”

Ty huffed. “Just go see what’s down there!”

Zane took the first couple of stairs cautiously, testing each before settling his full weight on it, and then moving on. The stone wall along the stairway was bare, no railing, no evidence of one ever being there. Ty watched until the flashlight’s beam found the ground floor of the cellar.

Ty shivered. There were obviously no windows or doors, since no one knew the damn room was down there.

Finally, Zane called up the stairs, “I’m at the bottom.”

“Uh huh. And?”

“Stairs are pretty sturdy. The floor is paved with stone; looks like there was a wood floor over it at one point. It’s so dusty it’s hard to tell. There’s shelving along the walls, not in very good shape.” Zane raised his voice to carry up the stairs as he moved further away from them. “Broken glass. It looks like it was cleared out in a hurry.”

“What else?” Ty asked as he fought the urge to go down there and investigate.

“Wait a sec.” Zane went quiet for a long moment, and then Ty heard a crack, a whump, and a crunch that sounded like wood falling. “I’m okay!”

“Don’t make me come down there, dude.”

“So brave,” Zane called from the dark. “There’s a grate here.”

“What kind?”

“Big-ass grate in the floor,” Zane answered, his voice a little more distant and muffled.

Ty grunted, frowning. “Might have been Prohibition era,” he called back. “Made it easy to dispose of evidence during a raid. You know, that makes sense with some of the other architecture in this place. It might have been a speakeasy at some point.”

“Would explain the shelves and boxes, anyway,” Zane said as he started back up the stairs.

“Is it usable space? Worth renovating? Or should we board it back up and pretend it’s not scary?”

“It’s usable. Pretty solid, really, stone floor and walls, doesn’t look like it’s leaked, even being this close to the harbor.” Zane emerged from the dark and joined Ty back on the main level. “Definitely good for long-term or secure storage.”

“You could make it your art studio when you go through your dungeon period.”

Zane snorted and shook his head.

“Although . . . I might be wrong, but if it was used as a storage cellar for illegal alcohol, they would have had a chute to get in there in secret. Load it from the street, right into the cellar. Maybe we can get some more lights down there and check it out better later.”

“It’s totally open down there,” Zane said, patting Ty’s arm reassuringly. “Not closed in at all. Just one big room with foundation pillars.”

“One big, dark, underground room,” Ty said with a nod. “With three stories towering over it.”

Zane set his hands on Ty’s hips. “You don’t ever have to go down there if you don’t want to. We could just board it up and forget about it.”

“That would take all the fun out of it,” Ty said, and placed his hands on Zane’s waist. “We’ll paint it white, it’ll be fine.”

“Sure it will.”

Ty kissed him quickly. “Let’s go back to the hotel, huh? I’ll tell you some ideas I’ve got for your bookshelves.”

Zane’s hands were slow to let him go. “You need a shower,” he said, brushing some dust and dirt out of Ty’s hair.