Working Stiff (25 page)

She had no response for that. For some reason, she could well imagine McCallister being familiar with these kinds of seedy roadside establishments, although she thought he probably preferred nicer accommodations. Which made her wonder … “Why here?”

“It has no wireless Internet or any other modern conveniences that make it easy to conduct off-site surveillance,” he said. “It takes time for them to get organized and send real bodies out. Even the security camera in the office is state-of-the-art circa 1980, and I think it’s just for show. If we’d checked in at a more upscale establishment, they’d have a much easier time keeping track of us.”

Of course he had a reason. McCallister didn’t do anything without a reason, and maybe two or three of them. “I really ought to be at work,” she said. “Not that this hasn’t been fun.”

He checked his watch and said, “No hurry, it’s already four o’clock, and by the time we drive back, it’ll be well after closing time at the mortuary. Joe’s been briefed. He’ll cover for you. One thing about the dead—they’ll wait.”

His cell phone chose that moment to buzz like an angry hornet, and McCallister paused, checked the screen, and turned it off. “Harte,” he said.

“You’re not answering?”

“Would I be answering if we were doing what they think we’re doing?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

He raised his eyebrows, smiled, and said, “Maybe.” He switched the phone back on and hit a button on the TV remote at the same time. A porn channel popped up.
Why am I not surprised?
Bryn thought, and reached to change the channel. He shook his head and stopped her. Instead, he turned up the volume for the pants and moans. “McCallister,” he said into the phone, sounding annoyed and distracted. “This had better be important.” He listened for a second, then subtly altered his tone. “Ms. Harte. Sorry. I didn’t check the screen.”
Now
he turned the volume down. “Yes. Yes, I know.” Another longer pause. “I’ll alert my team to handle it. I’m not close to the office now.” He locked eyes with Bryn, and mouthed,
Say something
.

What?
she mouthed back. He shrugged.

Well, might as well have fun with it. She pitched her voice to a low, sexy range and said, “Patrick, this is no time to be on the phone.”

He shushed her—loud enough for Irene Harte to hear it—and gave her a thumbs-up.

Bryn reached over, took his tie, and unknotted it. The rustle of fabric would sound good, she thought.

McCallister froze, staring at her, momentarily distracted from his conversation. He reengaged with a physical jolt. “Ah, yes. Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be in later. Eight o’clock.”

This was kind of fun. Bryn unfastened his collar, then slipped the second button loose. She was enjoying the rising confusion in his eyes. Thank God she actually had the upper hand in this very weird relationship, for once.
Stop
, he mouthed. She grinned and went for the next button.

He grabbed her hand in his, tightly, and pulled her closer—so close she could almost make out what his boss was saying on the phone. She froze, and he didn’t move again either, until he said, “All right. See you then,” and hung up the call.

He didn’t release his hold. “What the hell were you doing?”

“I was selling your alibi,” she said. “Let go.”

“That,” he said, “was not at all necessary, Bryn. I thought we agreed not to complicate things.”

“You were trying to make her think we’re having a mad affair. I was just helping.”

“Helping,” he repeated. “Bryn—trust me, you are
not
helping.”

She met his eyes and held them. “Then why did you pick this particular alibi?”

He bent forward and kissed her.
Really
kissed her. The shock of his warm, silken lips pressing and sliding on hers made her tense at first, and she thought about resisting for half a second before her muscles melted in to warm jelly of their own accord. She didn’t intend to kiss him back, but she couldn’t help herself. He was warm and alive and strong, and the intense sensation of his mouth opening, of his hands on her back, of his tongue …

He let her go and stood up, very quickly. He took a giant step back from the bed, turned away, and began fastening the buttons on his shirt.

“Pretending that didn’t just happen won’t help,” she said. Her heart was pounding, and she was vibrating all over with the intensity of what had just happened. He was, too. She could see it in the abrupt, jerky motions of his hands. “Patrick. Talk to me.”

“Nothing happened,” he said. His voice was tight and angry. “And nothing will ever happen again. I apologize.”

“I don’t want your apology; I want you to tell me what’s going on between us, because there’s been something for a while now. You know it. I know it.”

“I told you.
Nothing
. Instinct.” He lips twisted, and he turned away to do up his tie. “Hey, you’re the one who called me a man whore.”

“I didn’t mean it.” She got off the bed and touched his shoulder. “I didn‘t. And … thank you.”

“For what?”

“For … stepping off.” Even if, at this moment, she didn’t want him to. Some desperate part of her wanted this, craved feeling
alive
, but she knew it was probably a terrible mistake. That was what he was trying to tell her. “I’ll go take my shower.”

She closed and locked the bathroom door, leaned against it for a moment, and then stripped off her clothes. The tub wasn’t particularly clean, but the water was hot and plentiful, and the rough, cheap soap felt good. Not as good as she imagined other things might feel, but good enough.

She washed away the blood, and the desire, and by the time she came back into the cramped, cheap bedroom (and, God, she hadn’t fully appreciated just how cheap and worn it was until that moment) she found McCallister stripped down to a white T-shirt and Joe Boxers, scrubbing mud out of his pants. He was still wearing his socks and dress shoes, which for some reason she found hilarious.

He looked up, frowned at her, and went back to what he was doing. Mr. French was sitting at his feet and watching with his head cocked, evidently fascinated, but he broke off and padded to Bryn. She leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “You know, it’s not going to help. That suit’s pretty much ruined.”

“I’ll change on the way.”

“Maybe you can tell Ms. Harte that I like it rough.”

“Not funny,” he said. He put the washcloth aside—a different one, she noticed; it didn’t have bloodstains—and put the pants on. His shirt was wrinkled, but clean, and he buttoned up quickly. Even his jacket looked passable now, except for the torn seam at the shoulder. “If I don’t have time to change, I’ll tell her we had some problems in the field. She’ll believe it.” There was something wrong, some tightness around his eyes and mouth. He almost looked haunted.

Bryn took a wild, instinctive guess and said, “The appointment tonight. It’s not just a business meeting, is it? You and Harte …?”

He passed the loose circle of his tie over his head, popped his collar, and snugged the tie tight before he snapped down the points again. “We’ve got a long drive. Do you need me to walk the dog before we go?”

“No, he’s fine. And you didn’t answer me.”

“I’m not going to answer,” he said. He swung open the door to the setting sun, head down. “After you.”

On the way back to her apartment, plans changed; McCallister got a phone call, said a few terse words, and then said, “Problem at your apartment. Joe is sure it’s been compromised. You’ll have to stay the night at the house.”

It was funny that McCallister referred to the huge pile of a mansion as
the house
, because Bryn honestly couldn’t imagine feeling that comfortable about it. “Why?”

“Because I don’t have time to find you anywhere else. Liam will look after you.”

“Then why exactly did we spend the afternoon in a cheap motel, when you have a swanky love nest all your own?”

He barked out a laugh at that term, then said, “Do you want to know the actual truth of it?”

“Sure.”

“Our excuse is not so much the cheap, anonymous sex— which was great, by the way—but the drugs I buy there.”

“Drugs,” she repeated. “What kind of drugs?”

For answer, he reached into his coat pocket and came out with two plastic bags. Pills. Some kind of pills. “The kind that get a don‘t-ask, don‘t-tell pass from executives. I make a point to go out there once a month.”

“Do you actually take them?”

“The only ones they see me take are gelatin-filled. I may be the only corporate employee who fakes a positive drug test.”

“But aren’t they going to wonder about you bringing me back here?”

“Joe’s arranging for your apartment to be tented, as if for fumigation. It’s as good as we could come up with on short notice.” He smiled grimly. “And there really are bugs, after all. The electronic kind, anyway.”

They ate the picnic lunch Liam had packed on the way back. There were, in fact, finger sandwiches without crusts. And delicious, too. McCallister was a font of utter silence. He answered when she spoke, but in monosyllables or utterly uninformative responses. Back to the same old Patrick, then.

She wondered if he was as uncomfortable as she felt.

Liam was standing on the steps with a suit coat on a hanger when McCallister crunched the car to a stop on the flawless white gravel, and Bryn’s door was open before she could do more than cast a look Patrick’s way. He didn’t return it. He was staring straight ahead, through the windshield, at the growing gloom and the halogen glare cast by the headlights.

Liam gathered up the picnic basket and Mr. French’s doggy bed, put the fresh jacket on the hook in the back, and shut the passenger door once she was out of it. McCallister, without another word, took his foot off the brake and continued along the rest of the circular drive leading back to the main entrance.

Bryn watched him go. When she turned, Liam was watching her with far too perceptive a gaze, but he merely said, “It’s getting chilly, Miss Davis. Shall we go in?”

She let Mr. French follow up the steps; he needed the exercise anyway. He let out a
whuff
of recognition once they were in the door, and immediately went in search of his dog bed, which Liam had set against the wall. “I can see you’ve had quite a day,” the butler—
estate administrator
—said. “I’ve kept some dinner warm for you. Mr. Fideli is waiting in the Small Room. If you’d prefer to change first, there are clothes in your closet upstairs. I took the liberty of buying a few things for you.”

Implying, of course, that what she’d brought wasn‘t suitable. She didn’t feel at all offended, because, well, he was right. She’d never bitch about someone with exquisite taste—and he almost certainly had that—buying her something new to wear that was out of her budget range.
Liam
wasn’t out for anything but upholding the good name of the McCallister trust. If Patrick had bought her clothes, that would have seemed … awkward.

“Sure,” she said. “Thank you, Liam. I’ll go change first.”

Mr. French, the traitor, stayed in his bed and watched her go upstairs alone. Funny how quickly he was adapting to the good life. Her dog, she decided, was quite the social climber. She wasn’t sure she was any different, and that made her feel a little dirty, somehow.

The things hanging in her closet were, predictably, amazing. She picked out a pale pink silk blouse and a pair of designer jeans and dressed quickly. When she walked into the Small Room, Joe Fideli—digging into an overflowing salad bowl—looked up and said, “I feel like I should get up or something. You look good, Bryn. Ladylike.”

“Don’t get up. You’ll make me feel worse than I already do about all this.” She got herself a plate and inspected the silver warming trays. Chicken, fish, salad, vegetables, dessert. It all looked amazing. She chose the salad and sat down with him, feeling hungrier than she expected. “What did McCallister tell you?”

“That the protocol inhibitor from Glickman is working,” he said. When she frowned at him, he waved his fork vaguely at the room around them. “Room’s shielded. You can say what you want in here. So, you met the crazy man. What’d you think?”

“He’s the most paranoid man I’ve ever seen not locked up.”

“Yeah, that was my feeling, too. He knows what he’s doing, though.”

“Yes, he does. Did my mystery guest call today?”

“No. He said he’ll take a week to look you over, so I didn’t expect it anyway. As soon as I get your apartment buttoned up, you’re out of here, and you don’t come back. In fact, you break ties with McCallister, at least in public. I’m going to be your shadow.”

“You don’t think our friendly supplier’s going to notice
you
and trace you back?”

“I’m not on record at Pharmadene, as I told you. I’m a ghost who gets paid in cash. Besides, I think he’ll think we’re really, really close.” He held up two fingers together, then crossed them. “You know.”

“You can’t do that. You’ve got a family.”

“Yeah, and Kylie won’t be too damn happy about my shacking up with a good-looking woman like you, but I’ll martyr myself for the cause.” He was, she realized, kidding her. “Seriously, Kylie’s good with it. She knows the drill. This isn’t our first rodeo, and she’s met you. It’s all good.”

“So our cover story is what,
you’re
sleeping with me on the side?
God
.” Bryn dropped her head into her hands. “If only my personal life were really this exciting.”

“Sorry?”

“That was also McCallister’s alibi for slipping off the chain today. I’m getting twice the reputation and none of the fun. I’m assuming that Pharmadene would also notice the sleepover.”

“Oh. Right. Well, Pharmadene doesn’t officially know me; I’m not on any corporate records. Pat pays his contractors off book. Shouldn’t present a paper trail for our mystery guest to follow.”