The P.U.R.E. (23 page)

“Thank you. Your reaching out means a lot to me, and I know Jon will feel the same way.” I matched her smile with one of my own, perhaps a smidge less forced than hers.

“Okay. Good. But while it’s just the two of us here, a word of advice, if I may be so bold.” She paused for a second. “There’s a lot more to Jon than initially meets the eye. He keeps secrets he can’t and won’t share with you. Be careful around him until you understand him better.”

I should have foreseen she’d lob a spoiler in the mix. Kudos to Thalia for catching me off guard.

“He does value his privacy.” On that point we agreed.

She shrugged. “That’s not quite what I meant.”

My smile withered. I shifted my arm and checked the time. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get back to work. It was … nice … talking to you, Thalia, and I appreciate all you’ve shared.”

“Likewise, and you’re welcome. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other in the future. But, Gayle?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you dare hurt him, or I’ll come after you.” She shifted her purse on her shoulder and drew to her full height. Her shadow engulfed me.

I wanted to laugh but nodded instead. My worries centered more around the destruction Jon might do rather than on Thalia’s cursory threat.

Thalia fixed her gaze on a spot beyond me and propelled her long legs in that direction without saying goodbye.

I left the store and rushed back to the office. Tony sat with the first of a huge stack of reports we’d been deluged with while at lunch.

“What happened to you?” he asked without looking up.

“A sale at Neiman’s required a brief detour. Sorry I’m late.” I slipped off my jacket and took the chair opposite him.

“No matter.” He sighed with what I took as passive-aggressive annoyance. His fingers clicked over the keys of the adding machine with tommy gun speed. Who knew he had such prowess with a ten key, especially when in bitch mode?

I attacked the next report in the stack and all was quiet for at least half an hour except for our fingers tapping against the adding machine keys.

“Don wants to ask you out.”

“Oh. Thanks for the heads up.” Yuck but my own fault.

“Don’t mention it. Aren’t you dating Jon though?”

“No.” Clickety-click-click.

• • •

The rest of the day passed with the rapidity of tectonic plate movement. I couldn’t wait to go home, to be with Jon. I hadn’t called him after my meeting with Jeff because what did I have to tell? Nothing we hadn’t already anticipated. Plus, I couldn’t call him in front of Tony. Maybe he’d been too sleepy to register I said I would. I couldn’t tell him about Marilyn. I also doubted I would be sharing any of my encounter with Thalia. Don’s information, however, was worth hunting him down.

I found him at his apartment, tinkering with Christine.

“Hey, there’s my girl,” he said when I stepped out of my car.

My heart did a cannonball into the deep end of the happy pool.

He appeared in high spirits though he hadn’t shaved and wore ripped jeans and a greasy T-shirt. “You didn’t call like you said you would. What happened?”

Drat. He heard.

“Nothing. The whole meeting was more of an exercise in political posturing. He dismissed the stock thing, he dismissed the inventory counts, and he dismissed me with a pat on my wittle bwonde head. We were done in less than a half hour. Surprised?”

“No. But come here, wittle bwonde girwl.”

“You’re covered in grease.” Nevertheless, I walked to him and stretched forward, head back, lips puckered so they were our only point of contact.

“Go home and change, then come back and get dirty with me.” He cocked a naughty brow when he finished.

Sounded good to me—the filthier the better. “When I come back, I’ll tell you about another interesting conversation I had today.”

“A cliffhanger? Gayle, you’re such a tease.”

I opened my car door and smiled. “Not really. You only have to ask nicely.” I slipped inside and drove home.

After hauling in my huge dry cleaning order—that took three round trips between car and closet to complete—I put on a pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt. Whistling and singing as I hurried about my apartment, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I swiped a comb through my hair. I paused to gaze at the giddy girl. She blew a kiss to shoo me out the door and told my legs to run the three blocks to Jon’s apartment.

• • •

“What did you do, jog?” Jon asked.

I stood beside him panting to catch my breath. “Yep. You got a problem with that, jail bait?” I threw a few shadow-boxing jabs at him and gave him a gentle roundhouse kick in the butt.

“Put your energy to some productive use, and hand me the black and orange wrench on the bumper, please, wittle bwonde girwl. Heh-heh, I like that.”

I did as he asked, plopped down on the curb and leaned back on my elbows. “You know, from this angle you are very doable right now.”

Beneath Christine’s hood, he turned his head to shoot me a wicked grin. He chuckled as he returned to his wrenchy business.

“When I was in Jeff’s office, he took a phone call while I sat there like a lump.”

“I hate that.”

“Yeah, me too. So anyway, he says to his caller, ‘Finish it up, and I’ll see you tonight to strategize. Come to my new address in Richardson.’ He wrote ‘BT’—or Bob Turner, I’m assuming—‘bio/pic and ALS at nine’. What do you think his notes meant?”

“Hmm, he said Richardson not Addison? Interesting.”

“I was thinking …”

Jon popped out from underneath Christine’s hood and frowned. “Oh no, here come the Lindley machinations.” He checked his watch. “You’ve been here for exactly three minutes. Sadly, I think I know what you’re about to say.”

“Oh yeah, weisenheimer? What was I about to say?” I stood and moved to his side to peer into Christine’s engine with him. I had no idea what was what—all those metal parts and hoses were nothing but car guts to me.

“You want to go to Jeff’s house in Addison and tail him to his house in Richardson, or you want to tail Bob from his home in Turtle Creek to Jeff’s house in Richardson.”

“Close but no cigar. I thought we could log in using Bob’s password and go through his contacts and emails to see if we could find Jeff’s new address and maybe drive over.”

“From what computer?”

“Not mine, that’s for sure. IT put a keystroke capture on it. I thought we could go into the office and use Bob’s. Or, if Bob’s office is locked, we could use Jeff’s. If either Bob’s or Jeff’s vehicle is still in the garage, we can instead do what you suggested and tail one of them. Lots of options and flexibility with my plan, don’t you think?”

“But your end goal is to find Jeff’s Richardson address and spy on his meeting? Did you try a reverse lookup on his phone number?”

“I would have if I’d had it,” I retorted, crossing my arms even though it really hadn’t occurred to me.

“You do. It’s in those copies you made. I brought them to my apartment and was reading them today. I circled it for you.”

“Awesome. Can I go use
your
computer?”

“Give me a second, and we’ll go check together. Afterwards, let’s grab some dinner before you have us rabbiting off on some new adventure.” He picked up a greasy rag from the ground and wiped off his hands. “I also need to take a shower first.”

“Alright.” I followed him inside, calculating how long his pre-requisite steps might take.

After he degreased and scrubbed his hands and fingernails, he sauntered to where I waited at his computer. He reached over my shoulder and typed in his password after he made me turn away. When I turned back, he’d launched a browser that was new to me.

“Do you have the other browser, the orange icon one? Sorry, I’m drawing a blank on the name.”

“I do, but it’s corrupted, and I haven’t downloaded the latest version yet. Just grit your teeth, and use this one.” He reached across his desk for the copies he’d brought from my apartment. A sheet of notes he’d taken lay on top.

He ran his finger down the margin, pointed to an entry he’d decoded and circled in red ink. Jeff had contacted the phone company to get a line hooked up. Jon impressed me with his attention to detail. He wasn’t as blasé about the mystery as he pretended to be, wasn’t merely humoring me. I smiled at my discovery but kept my observations to myself.

“Knock yourself out. I’m going to take a shower.” Jon hovered behind me as I searched for a reverse lookup site. His hand pushed my hair away from my neck, and a pair of warm lips began nuzzling the sensitive skin. “Want to join me, little blonde girl?”

The seductive whispers in my ear nearly undid me. Mmm, Jon naked in the shower was too tempting to resist.

“Go get the water going, big bad wolf, and I’ll join you in a second.” As distracting as he was, I wanted to find Jeff’s address first. I found a site and typed in the number but got no results.

“The number must be too new to be in the database yet,” Jon said. He hadn’t budged from his spot behind me. “Come on, Gayle.” The voice he used dripped with sexy innuendo and conjured erotic images.

Damn, he revs me up far too easily
. “Okay, but can I check my work email real quick while I’m here? Sandy Gomez said she’d contact me after my meeting, and your computer isn’t tapped.”

He let out a growl. “Sure, but don’t take too long, or I’ll come back out here and shake like a dog all over you. I’d rather get you wet
in
the shower.” He turned, snickering and headed off to his bathroom.

After he left, I found and launched my favorite browser. The program loaded fine and self-updated. Puzzled over Jon’s reluctance to let me use it, I studied the three tabs containing the last web pages he had viewed and saved. He’d probably lied because he didn’t want me to discover where he’d been surfing. I never could resist a secret, even though it made me a lousy girlfriend.

The first tab displayed a car enthusiast’s web forum for which he was logged in as ‘Porsche_Lvr’. The second was a gun dealer’s website, and the third was a search engine listing for Henry Lindley. “Googling my brother were you, Jon? Why ever for?” I muttered to myself.

A wolf howl rose from the vicinity of Jon’s bathroom. “Oh, Gayle …”

I abandoned my plan to check my email. Somewhat troubled, I went to join him.

• • •

Jon’s shower curtain displayed a map of the world on a transparent background. My gaze riveted to the area somewhere around the eastern coast of Brazil before travelling north of Greenland to meet a salacious smirk.

“Well hello, little blonde girl.” He wiggled a dripping wet brow at me. “If you join me inside here, I promise not to eat you up.” Water streamed down his body from the dark hair plastered to the sides of his head, over well-defined shoulder and chest muscles, down over his flat stomach.

Heaven on legs
.

Farther south, when I inched to my right, a fully formed erection sprang forth. My big bad wolf had been expecting me.
Oh my!

We could talk about why he’d googled my brother later, when I could think of an excuse to explain my snooping.
Probably nothing at all
.

“Oh my, Grandma, how did you get to be so … tall?” I kicked off my shoes one by one.

“Must be from the little blonde girl I feasted on last night.” He’d pitched his voice to falsetto.

I laughed and peeled off my socks. “You’re awfully hairy, Grandma.” My finger pointed to his chest, following the line bisecting his abdomen like an arrow to my libido’s desire.

“The better to keep us both warm on chilly winter nights, my darling girl.”

I unbuttoned my jeans and slid them off my hips and down my legs. Jon’s eyes tracked and devoured my every move. “Oh, Grandma, what big muscles you have.”

“The better to hold you in my arms as soon as you get your slow poke ass in the shower, my dear.” His falsetto fell away, and a deep, throaty chuckle emerged—savage and predatory.

I gasped, covering my mouth with theatric flourish, and pointed to his attentive parts. “Grandma! What’s that?” Off went my T-shirt.

“Why Red, that’s just my way of saying how happy I am to see you! Come give Grandma a kiss.”

My knees weakened. I unhooked my bra, tossed it to the side and slipped off my underwear. Only my watch to go, and I’d offer myself as a sacrifice. “But Grandma, they don’t call me Little Red Riding
Hood
for nothing.”

Jon winked and reached for a plastic-wrapped package on the soap rack. “Get in,” he growled.

• • •

We emerged cleaner in both body and mind, having acted on most of our dirty thoughts by the time we ran out of hot water.

After grabbing a couple of fast food tacos, we made our way to the office, where we’d sit tight until our target left.

31

At 7:45 p.m., Jeff pulled out of the parking garage, and Jon followed a few cars back. Jeff took Central instead of the tollway, which was a good sign he was headed to Richardson and not Addison. Traffic flowed like cooling lava, so we had no trouble sticking with him while remaining out of sight.

Several miles later, Jeff exited.

“Bingo!” Jon glanced my way, a smile on his face. “My parents live in Richardson, by the way. If we lose him, we can drop by and say hi.”

I showed him my ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ face and said, “Please don’t lose him,” to which he burst out laughing.

“Don’t worry. I haven’t told them about Thalia yet. It would probably be bad form to tell them she’s out and you’re in during the same visit.”

“Ya think? I thought you said you and Thalia weren’t going to say anything until Thanksgiving.”

“I don’t want to wait that long anymore. I want them to meet you sooner rather than later.”

“I don’t think I’m quite ready yet, to be honest.”

“Oh. Okay.” He sounded hurt, but the whole deal with my brother’s name being in his search engine still bothered me a little. That, and his lie to prevent me from using the browser he normally used. Other than being vocal about his feelings for me whenever we were in bed, and our foreplay conversations at his sister’s, he didn’t volunteer much of a personal nature unless pressed. The parents thing was an odd non sequitur.