Off the Edge (The Associates) (14 page)

“I want to devour you,” he breathed, all heat and desperation. “But you have to get out of here.” When he pulled away he was holding two bobby pins. “You mind?”

“Seriously?” She narrowed her eyes. “You could’ve asked.”

“I could’ve.”

“You can open locks with those?”

“Most.”

“Do it,” she said. “Hurry.”

“Not until you’re gone. I don’t want us seen leaving together. The Shinsurins are dangerous, and not just to me. Lock the cage, replace the keys on the hook, and get out of here. I can take it from here.”

“There’s a back passage—”

“I’ve got ears. Concentrate on protecting yourself. My plan is a good one for you. Koh Samui. I’ve heard the Dragon Day Excursions are reliable for illegal border crossings.”

“I understand,” she said. “Thank you.” She put her hand to his cheek, needing to touch him one last time.

He closed his eyes, as though it was too much.

Her cool touch was heaven on his burning skin.

“You’re running a fever. It might be infection. Wait.” She pulled lotion out of her purse. “This has anti-bacterial hoo-hah.”

Hoo-hah. Those words of hers. “Laney—”

“Humor me.” Before he could stop her, she was inspecting where her bullet had grazed his arm. It was just a small burn. Impressive shooting, that. With gentle fingers, she began to apply the lotion. Her touch was tentative, serious. Breath rapid, brows drawn together in concentration. “This good?”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

She moved to the cut on his eyebrow. It wasn’t necessary, but she’d shot him, so she needed to make up for it. A lot of agents got like that after a kill, needing to care for somebody or something.

And he liked her touching him.

“Don’t advertise that you’re going,” he said. “You can write letters of thanks and goodbye when you’re safe.”

“Put out your legs, Devilwell.”

Macmillan shifted to sit so that his legs splayed forward. One last indulgence. The basement guards of the Hotel Des Roses weren’t exactly high functioning.

She slid a finger under the large iron cuff, a whisper of sensation. “I can’t believe they did this.” She really did seem shocked by it. “They’ve been good to me, but I’m not okay with this.”

“I’ll survive,” he said.

It was her he worried about. He had the wild urge to drag her out of town himself, but that would be madness, because nothing was more important than getting the TZ. Next best thing: he’d get Dax to put somebody low-level on her tail to protect her from afar. It was the least he could do.

What’s more, he damn well planned to teach this Rolly a lesson once the TZ was under control. How many Rollys sat in Arkansas prisons? He’d go visit the man himself and make it clear that his days of messing with Laney were over. He’d take one of his Association brothers with him—Rio or Cole, maybe. Somebody to stop him from assaulting Rolly. Or what if Rolly were to mysteriously die? She’d feel so happy and free. He’d find her and help her get her life back. He’d find her in a day. Whoever her ex had searching for her, they weren’t professionals.

She rambled about not liking the rust on the leg irons. His skin was raw, but he’d be okay, she murmured. She’d make sure he was okay. It was like a hallucination of bliss, being cared for by her. He closed his eyes and let himself rest in her care, just for a moment. He wanted very badly to kiss her. And there were those knee-highs.

He flashed again on the image of a medieval map, the known world in the center.

Don’t fall off the edge.

The far-off sound of a door. Footsteps.

“Hellbuckets,” she whispered.

He gestured at the shadowed section of the wall. “Stand there. Go.”

She melted into the shadows.

The footsteps slowed outside the cell, and then continued and faded off. A guard round.

She moved back to him.

“Five minutes until he comes back,” he said. “It’ll be safe to leave right after.”

“Timing it between TV shows.”

No, she wasn’t stupid at all. She moved to the other ankle, pupils dilated, cheeks suffused with pink. She talked tough, but she was all emotion: fear, desire. Everything was there in her eyes.

Eventually the footsteps came back. Again she slipped into the shadows.

She went back to him once the guard was gone. She knelt down. “You need water or something.”

He reached up and took a strand of her hair, slid it between his fingers. “I don’t need water.”

A hitch in her breath.

Macmillan had become accustomed to playing women like instruments, but he wasn’t playing Laney like an instrument any more than she was playing him. The music was playing them both now, and the chord between them vibrated with unresolved desire. He let go of her hair and set his hand lightly on her neck where her pulse drummed clear as day.

Her swallow appeared as an ephemeral swell of her throat. He slid his fingers down to the soft place where her swallow disappeared.

“What do you need?” she asked.

He would’ve atomized it with anyone else, visualizing the intermittent vibration of the vocal folds as she formed the words, the incessant movement of her tongue starting and stopping the airflow. But now there were just her eyes, her breath, and her lips. The feel of her speech.

The feel of another swallow.

“I don’t need water,” he said to her again.

He slid his fingers up and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She was all wild cat eyes and rapid breath, and God, his cock felt hard as granite. He would give up anything to have her again.

He would give up anything. This had to stop. “Go,” he growled.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“You have. You alerted me to a back way out. You gave me lock picks.”

The side of her neck looked flushed where he’d rubbed his whiskers against her, marking her. He liked the idea of something of him on her.

He liked it too much.

“Goodbye,” he said. “And thank you.” He went to work, bending one pin into a tension tool. He fashioned the other into his pick.

She stood. “What will you do now?”

Go with you,
he wanted to say. He grabbed his shirt, pulling the damp thing back on. “It doesn’t matter because you’re getting the hell out of here, right?”

“But where will you go?”

“Classes resume at the Bangkok International University soon. Somebody has to lecture the students on the wonder of words.”

She inspected his face, unsure whether to take him seriously. Then she smiled. “Right.” She scooped up the keys and stepped out of the cage. “Good luck, Devilwell.”

“ASAP, right? You’re getting out of this hotel ASAP…”

“Yes,” she whispered. She exited the cage, hung the keys on the hook, and cracked the door, peering out right and left. Then she turned to him, waited wordlessly. Because there weren’t words now.

A second later she slipped out the door.

Quickly he set to unlocking the cuffs. He’d lied about letting her get to safety before he broke out. He would shadow her all the way out and protect her if she got caught, but he didn’t want her to know. She’d give him away if there was trouble.

He concentrated on the internal geography of the lock, though he felt her still. Hands on his skin.

Three more moves and the leg iron snapped open in an explosion of rust, which dotted the thick goo of the lotion Laney had applied. Her ridiculous lotion.

He got the other open and slipped out. He crept along, cringing at the noise she was making, even as she tried to be quiet.

She unnerved him. Unsettled him. No, that wasn’t right. For once he couldn’t come up with a precise word.

Her showing up, it was like a visit from an angel. He’d lain there in the shadows beaten half out of his mind but it wasn’t until she showed up that he felt anything. As though she drew something out of him.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

He turned a corner, following her through a long stretch. The guard room was coming up. He could hear their TV.

She penetrated him. Pierced him. Pummeled him.

No, no. Not right. Things like beatings and pummelings he could stand. But when she was around, it all just meant more. There didn’t seem to be a word for that.

He saw her up ahead, flattened against the wall just shy of the door to the guards’ room. He smiled as she dropped to the floor and crawled past.

He followed, glancing in, surprised at just how many monitors they had going. He continued on after her, shadowing her all the way up to the next level. She took a hatch that led to the exterior. Probably set into a sidewalk.

He peeked out and watched her round the corner. As soon as she was home free, he slipped out himself and shut the hatch, letting it lock itself.

He straightened up against the wall, which felt cool against his burning skin, and his pulse sounded tinny in his ears. No, he didn’t feel right, and he couldn’t stop obsessing about her. It was bad—getting the TZ had to be everything. It
was
everything.

Words—he needed something wordy. The elusive word for what she did—he’d work on that.
Penetrated, pummeled.

He’d discarded those.
Pierced
hadn’t worked. He smiled as he pictured her crawling past the guard room with all its consoles.

And then he frowned.

Consoles. Video monitors. Surveillance. Of what? What were the guards monitoring?

Damn
. It could be important.

He’d been so out of it, so focused on her, he hadn’t taken a hard look. Mistakes like that could get Associates killed.

His shivered in the heat. He was in no condition to go back in.

Nevertheless.

He knelt down and started the process of picking the lock in the sidewalk hatch.

Two minutes later he was peeking into the guards’ room. They were still watching their portable TV. Still drinking coffee.

But that’s not what interested him. It was the dozen or so flat screen monitors. Each monitor was divided into nine sections showing different rooms of the hotel. People having sex. People talking on the phone. The restaurant, the lobby. A group of arms dealers playing cards in a suite.

The top floors.

He squinted at an icon on one of the monitors. Mute. They were making recordings.

Macmillan stiffened against the wall outside the door.

And smiled.

The fox had found the henhouse. He took off his glasses and cleaned them.

Naughty of the Shinsurin brothers to be recording. But such recordings would be valuable to dealers who wanted an edge in negotiations. Even more valuable to Jazzman.

And most valuable of all to Macmillan. Bright energy coursed through him; a feverish eureka. He couldn’t believe his luck.

He looked at the clock. He had 35 minutes, if they kept to their usual schedule of rounds. Quickly he headed out.

The Sawadee Hotel stood two streets north of the Imperiale Hotel Des Roses. Macmillan tucked in his shirt and smoothed his hair as he strolled between the golden elephants and in through the main doors. No doubt he looked as bad as he felt, but getting through the lobby would be a game of attitude, not appearance.

He felt the clerks’ eyes on him as he stabbed the elevator button with a flourish, spine straight and proud.

A minute later he was knocking at room 508. The door opened.

“Nice night for a visit,” Macmillan grated.

“Clears the mind.” Rio clasped his shoulders, pulled him in, and slammed the door with his foot. “Godammit,” he said, settling Macmillan onto the couch.

Just by the way Rio said it, Macmillan knew: they’d thought he was dead. “Surprise,” he whispered.

Fedor came to loom over him, big and brutal, all muscles and faraway eyes. “You look like hell.”

“I try.”

Fedor, aka the dark watchmaker, was a rogue Associate. He hated their leader, Dax. Nobody knew what had happened between him and Dax and Fedor wouldn’t tell. But he still showed up now and then. A brother in arms.

“Fix me up,” Macmillan said. “I’m going back in. I have ears in there now.”

A figure appeared in the doorway to the adjoining room. Douglas. He wore cargo pants, a green tank top, and dark-tinted glasses. Douglas was head of the mission. “Here’s to ears—attached to your goddamn head. He grabbed the first aid kit and brought it over to where Macmillan sat.

“I’ll take one of everything,” Macmillan said.

Douglas felt his forehead, his throat. “What happened?”

Macmillan launched into a rundown of the night, stopping only to detail his symptoms for Douglas—hot, cold. Lack of hunger, lack of focus. Some dizziness. High emotions. He detailed his plan—they needed to buy, threaten, or drug the guards so he could copy the video and audio files.

Rio frowned. “Fedor, you can’t break that hotel network?”

“I can break in,” Fedor said, “but if I start pulling video and audio files, somebody’s going to notice. That’s a lot of bandwidth.”

“That’s why I’m going back in,” Macmillan said. “I can review the files and make copies. All these dealers’ faces and voices—it’s a gold mine. Send me in with one of those thumbdrives,” Macmillan said. “One of your thumbdrives with that Linux compression program.”

Fedor was already at his laptop. He tapped a few keys. “Got it. I’ve made some tweaks—I think you’ll be pleased. It’ll still take time.”

“Do we still have an Associate in the kitchen?” Macmillan asked.

“Dishwasher,” Douglas said. “But she’s only on at night.”

“The night guards drink coffee,” Macmillan said. “It comes from the kitchen. We need her to dope it up enough to put them to sleep. You think she can do that?”

“Count on it,” Douglas inspected Macmillan’s ankle. “The guards will be out cold tomorrow night. We’ll see about the day guards. What’s all this goop?”

“Anti-bacterial hand lotion.”

Douglas sniffed. “The Shinsurins rough you up and put lotion on your ankles? What the hell is that?”

“It was Laney who put it on.”

Rio raised his eyebrows. “So you got past the emotionally manipulative songs.”

Macmillan gave him a warning look.