Free Hostage Page 8

  “A little on the nose, don’t you think?” I grouse, miffed that no one told me they already had a cool name.

  “Markus says whenever there’s an open slot in the group—which is rare—the prospect goes through a lengthy screening and audition process—this can last up to six months—before meeting the man with the final word. Once that man allows the prospect to see his face, it means he’s in.”

  Okay. All that jibes with what Collin already told me. “And who is this mysterious leader?” I ask.

  “Jaxon King.”

  Well. Mel actually knows his last name. King. A small detail he’s never deigned to tell me. Not that his name matters. Even if it is annoyingly appropriate.

  “At age thirteen,” Mel went on, “Jaxon King was a homeless con. At fourteen, he was counting cards at tables and winning hundreds of thousands. A millionaire by the time he was sixteen. Did a few years in prison on bond forgery, art theft, racketeering, and counterfeit from age seventeen to nineteen. Lost everything. He got picked up two years later by a woman who takes baths with money. Ever since then, he’s been off the radar. Or, so he’s led everyone to believe.”

  “Gee,” I whisper as I process her rapid-fire rundown. “Who was the woman?”

  “Markus refused to divulge that. Which tells me she’s someone important.”

  I scratch my nose. “Still. If the Unseen are unknown, how does he know who they are?”

  Melanie gives me a look. “Markus knows because it’s his job to know.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Tim, focus,” she says. “About our task. The Unseen have something Markus wants, and he wants us to steal it for him.”

  Um. Okay. Exciting words. “What is it?”

  Her voice dips even lower. “The music box.”

  “Wait. What? Why?” Then my eyes bug. “You didn’t tell him I have the key, did you? Mel, I swear, if you did—”

  “Oh, calm down,” she says, waving her hands to halt my tirade. “That’s our winning chip. Why would I give it away? I don’t think he knows Jaxon doesn’t have the key. But even if he does know, he’s probably convinced he can open it.”

  I worry my lip. “What do we get in return?”

  A rare excited grin splits Melanie’s face. “He’ll buy the RGT77 Security idea we pitched him so long ago. He said the idea was approved months ago, but he was keeping us under further surveillance before making the offer. If we get him the music box, that solidifies the deal.”

  “Whoa,” I whisper. “I can’t believe RGT77 was approved.”

  RGT77 is a special, top-secret intelligent security system that took me over a year to develop. An idea too advanced and impenetrable to sell to any old company—or country—so we pitched it to Markus.

  “What’s hard to believe?” Mel asks. “Did you doubt your hard work?”

  RGT77 is all me. Melanie’s not quite the developer I am, but we’re a team, so we sell ourselves as such. There’s no “I,” just us. Double, or nothing.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I just… Okay, yes. I did doubt. I knew it was gold but… Wow. It’s happening.”

  “Well, not quite yet.” She bursts my bubble. “We need to find where Jaxon is keeping the music box—”

  A loud bang at the door rattles through our whispers. “What’re you two doing in there? Why’s the shower running? I thought you were trying on clothes.”

  Shooting a quick glance at the door, Melanie hurries to say, “How about we convince Jaxon to let one of us try out for the team, as ludicrous as that sounds? I’ve been watching Jo, and she seems to be struggling with the security overhaul. We can attempt to show her up when Jaxon is around. Hopefully that’ll score us some points and he’ll agree.”

  I look at her doubtfully. “Which one of us wants to join?”

  “Truth is, I’m better in the field. But you might have a better chance, since they seem to tolerate you more than they do me. I could just be the overbearing shadow that everyone wants to punch.”

  More worrying of my lip as I mull this over.

  The doorknob rattles. “Open this goddamn door!”

  What Melanie said is true. She is better in the field than I am. She’s the talker, the doer, the one without fear. She can get anyone to do anything. I’m better at developing, hacking, coding. While they do seem to tolerate me more, she is better at acting. Also, she doesn’t have a burning lust for Jaxon, so she has less chance of botching it than I do.

  “Timber,” Melanie prompts.

  “You do it,” I say. “Jaxon’s stare-downs intimidate me. I’m more likely to break. You won’t. I’ll just continue to be, well, me. A chatty nuisance.”

  More rattling and orders from Kavon are shouted from the other side of the door.

  “Maybe I can try to get, um, close to him,” I suggest, struggling not to blush. “See what I can get out of him. Um, you know, like, clues to where he’s keeping the box.”

  Melanie’s forehead crinkles as she gives me a skeptical look. If she didn’t know before that I’m hot for Jaxon, she sure as shite knows now.

  “Ri-ight,” she replies, dragging out the word with a suspicious drawl. Nevertheless, she doesn’t call me out on it but claps her hands together as she stands. “Let’s do this. And pray to heaven we don’t get caught.”

  I open my mouth to give voice to a sudden stab of uncertainty…mixed with a trickle of actual fear. However, she is already across the room and swinging open the bathroom door.

  But the question looms large in my mind.

  Damn. What happens if we get caught?

  Chapter Ten

  The aroma of curried shrimp seduces me at the kitchen table as Melanie flurries about as if she’s cooked here a thousand times before.

  Kavon sits beside me, typing on his laptop at the table, doubly irritated with us at this point. He’d searched every crevice of the bathroom when he stormed in earlier, searching for evidence that we’re “up to something.” And Melanie only made it worse by taking the mickey out of him. Kavon doesn’t like being mocked.

  And now, after hours of waiting obediently for Jaxon to return, Melanie—against Kavon’s barked warnings—is in the kitchen whipping up dinner, and Kavon is sulking about it. Because he is the cook of the house, and the kitchen is his sacred ground—his words. But Melanie couldn’t care less.

  Eduardo has circled through the kitchen every ten minutes or so, watching the pot, as seduced as I am by the aroma.

  As Melanie starts to get dishes out to set the table, Jo all but drags herself into the kitchen, her laptop balancing precariously on one hand. Her appearance is drained, defeated, and…come to think of it, I can’t recall seeing her eat as much as a mint all day.

  She collapses in a chair on the other side of Kavon, carelessly drops the laptop down to the table, and proceeds to bang her head against the wood. After much forehead torture, she lifts her head, leans in close to Kavon and says with a worrisome undertone, “I can’t get it done, Kav. It’s like…it’s like my brain is on lockdown, or something. He wants something new and fresh, but my head just isn’t there right now. He’s gonna get rid of me, isn’t he?”

  Kavon’s features soften as he lifts a hand to squeeze the back of her neck. “Hey, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t the best.” He shrugs. “Have you been on top of your game lately? To be honest, no. You’ve been too distracted with all that skirt chasing. You gotta learn to balance it out, babe. Gotta make sure your fun doesn’t affect your work. Talk to him when he gets back. Tell him you need more time. He’ll understand.”

  “While our security is compromised?” she returns, unconsoled. “I don’t think so.”

  Kavon’s eyes flick to me. He sees me watching them and stops talking.

  Melanie slides me a surreptitious glance. She heard them, too. Nonetheless, Jaxon is absent, so it’s pointless to show up Jo at this juncture.

  Yet, to my surprise, Melanie turns and says, “I peeked. The codes you’re using would’ve been brillia
nt a year ago. But technology is like it’s never been before—hacking and breaching are at an all-time high. Thus, coding and encryptions are becoming more and more…innovative by the hour. You think you’ve created something foolproof tonight, but then it’s all cocked-up by morning. Blows your mind.”

  If looks could burn, Melanie would be roasted. “Mind your own business, dweeb. And what the hell do you know, anyway?”

  “I know,” Melanie says smugly, “that if you take over dishing out this food, I can code up an original overhaul in less than fifteen minutes.”

  Eduardo, who happens to be making another round through the kitchen at that moment, whistles.

  Jo’s mouth opens and closes, and her dark eyes narrow in suspicion. “That’s impossible.”

  Not if we already have a handy backlog of codes. Codes we’ve never used. Codes we’ve used for a short time and moved on to something better. Codes far superior to anything that’s already out there. Superior to anything Jo could ever dream up. We do this for fun, remember? We have ideas and codes we’ve tossed aside that we could sell and make millions.

  That said, coding isn’t Melanie’s strong suit, it’s mine. So, she’ll be expecting me to clue her into which code to use. Her memory is nothing like mine, so she’ll have to go to our highly secured cloud and copy it.

  Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she rounds the table to Jo’s chair. “Don’t worry, I won’t try to take credit. Just saving your arse.” She knocks on the back of the chair. “Get. Go feed yourself and your fellow thieves. I don’t think I’ve seen you drink a glass of water all day.”

  Jo doesn’t move, though the hostility has somewhat faded from her body language. “What do you care?”

  “About your arse?” Melanie leans down and puts her mouth to Jo’s ear. “How about I whisper that bit to you later, huh?”

  Jo frowns, trying to figure out her motives.

  Good luck with that. Because… Hell and damnation, so am I.

  What on earth is Mel doing? I thought the plan was to convince Jaxon to let her audition for replacing Jo. He’s not even here. So why is she volunteering to help, and promising not to take credit? And is flirting with Jo?

  Melanie waits for Jo’s response.

  So do Kavon, Eduardo, and I.

  They engage in an intense stare-off, until—surprise of all surprises—Jo breaks first.

  Wow, she must really be worried Jaxon will give her the boot.

  She stands, steps aside, and waves a hand to the laptop. “Let’s see you put your money where your mouth is.”

  As Melanie sits, her triumphant eyes flick to me. Cue for the clue. I mentally filter through the available code and choose one with a setup that is good but not too complicated for a house of grifters.

  Casually flipping through a recipe book sitting on the kitchen counter, I mouth, “Gemini,” to the pages.

  Mel gets it. And she gets to work.

  Thirteen minutes and forty-four seconds later, she is done.

  She makes this known by setting off all the alarms in the house, grinning as she mutters her final steps, “Hack, disengage.” The alarms quiet. “Override. Reset. Reactivate in one hour.” She glances up. “Verification emails sent.”

  At once, Jo, Kavon, and Eduardo’s phones go off.

  Setting down my fork, I cross my arms and watch as Mel stands, stretches, and walks over to the stove.

  All three thieves abandon their half-eaten meal of curried shrimp masala and basmati rice to check their phones.

  “How’d you get our email addresses?” Kavon demands.

  “Mate, put me in front of a computer and I can steal your whole life.”

  “Thumbprint verification?” murmurs Eduardo.

  “Yep,” Mel says over her shoulder as she portions food onto a plate. “Emails with instructions have also gone out to Jaxon and Collin. I completely overrode the system here. The activation won’t set until all five of you have thumbed in. Once that happens, you’ll receive another email with a link to download an unlocking app. The system here will register your prints and the new setup will be fully activated in an hour.”

  They all just stare at her.

  “Now, if you prefer keyless, hassle-free access,” she continues, “this setup will be most convenient if you all get an iWatch and download the app to it. Easy, one-touch access that will work up to one hundred feet away from the door. But you can also use your cell phone or any other mobile device. All you have to do is open the app and thumb yourself in.”

  “Wait,” Jo says cautiously. “Is this a third-party app? Because we don’t—”

  “No, it’s our own app. As in, mine and Tim’s. We created it a while back, but never bothered with it. It happens to be perfect for this system, though, so I coded it in. Now it’s exclusively yours.” She grabs a glass and goes to the fridge.

  They all look like a row of owls sitting at the table.

  “You can read the rest of the email about the bonus of impenetrable protection for your devices and security cameras. How to deactivate the alarms, etcetera,” she says, and adds proudly, “Nobody does firewall like Tim.”

  “Cool,” Kavon mumbles with an impressed nod of his head.

  Jo shakes hers. “Jaxon will know I didn’t do this.”

  “Does it matter?” Melanie asks as she pulls out a chair across from me. “If he gives you a task it shouldn’t matter how you got it done, as long as you got it done. Or?”

  Jo looks to Kavon, and he tips his head to the side and shrugs, as if to say, “She has a point.”

  Mel shoves a forkful of rice into her mouth. “If you promise to stop being such a grumpy twat, I can teach you how to be half as good as I am.”

  Jo makes a face. “Why’re the both of you so fucking obnoxious?”

  “And fucking smart,” I point out. “We’re smartly obnoxious.”

  Melanie nods. “So true.”

  “All right,” Jo begrudgingly agrees. “I’ll admit I’ve been slacking off lately, and it’s been a while since I wrote anything new. Today’s been a wake-up call. I guess I can…adjust my attitude if you bring me up to speed on all this new shit, and promise not to take credit for it.”

  “I won’t.” Melanie looks up. “If I do, Jaxon will know you’re not the best and replace you. I wouldn’t want that.”

  What the what? That’s exactly what we want!

  How can she just change the plan without giving me a bloody hint?

  Conversation falls to a minimum after that, save for low mumbles between Melanie and Jo. Jo, who is suddenly all kind smiles and amicable touch. In the time I’ve been here, I have never seen her like that. Not even with her teammates.

  Following a loud belch, Eduardo says, “That’s some good cooking, mami.”

  Mel acknowledges the compliment with a smile.

  “I feed you every damn day and you’ve never given me so much as a thank you,” Kavon says, offended.

  “Uh-oh, Eddie,” I tease. “Looks like you just got someone’s knickers all bunched up.”

  “Why you mad, hombre?” Eduardo laughs, holding his hands out. “She’s a guest in our house. I’m just being polite.”

  “Wow,” Melanie says. “If he’s getting this bent over some simple shrimp masala, I wonder how he’s going to be when I cook my well-acclaimed pot roast tomorrow…”

  “I’m not—”

  “Did you know that shrimps dance?” I cut in.

  Everyone stops and looks at me. They blink.

  “It’s true,” I go on. “They wave their antennae in a little dance to attract fishes. Like flirting. Get this. There are one hundred and twenty-eight species of shrimp! The dancing shrimps, also dubbed cleaning shrimp, will sometimes cruise right inside a fish’s open mouth to remove bloodsucking parasites. How ace is that, right? But not more ace than the snapping shrimp. They dwell among the coral and protect them from predators. I mean, the noise they make with their snapping claws is louder than a bloody gunshot! Sometimes Navy sub
marines actually hide in beds of snapping shrimp to cover their location from sonar detection.”

  I smile.

  All except Melanie give me quizzical stares. Mel is accustomed to my random blurts of info dump, so she just forks the last piece of shrimp into her mouth.

  “What on earth does all that have to do with anything?” Jo asks no one in particular.

  Kavon and Eduardo give off deep chuckles.

  “Excellent work, Jo.” This comes from a voice not seated at the table. A voice we’ve been waiting on for over twelve hours. A voice that sends sweet chills down my spine and toe-curling sensations to my nipples.

  All laughter stops. All heads turn. One breath is held.

  Jaxon stands in the archway to the kitchen, Collin lingering behind him.

  The pajama bottoms Collin rushed out in this morning have been replaced with navy slacks and a red button-down. Either these people drive around with extra outfits, or they went shopping.

  Neither man looks worn out—not from sun, humidity, overthinking, or activity. In fact, they look rejuvenated, as if returning from a day at the spa.

  “Um, uh…” Jo clears her throat, shifts a side glance to Mel, finds her blank and uninterested, then looks back to Jaxon. “Thanks.”

  Jaxon points to Melanie, and then to me. “You two, come with me.”

  “About bloody time,” Melanie mutters as she pushes to her feet and stretches.

  I hesitate to follow. Mainly because Melanie has deviated from the plan without a heads-up, and I hate walking blindly into things. But she doesn’t stop so I can ask her what’s up, so I decide to just go on and be, well, me.

  In a few strides, we are in Jaxon’s office—or whatever this room is.

  Mel and I plop down into the two chairs in front of the desk while Jaxon stands beside it, his hands loose in his pockets.

  “No more beating around the bush,” he says. “You’re both here for something. What is it?”

  Like a kid in class, my hand shoots up in the air, fingers wiggling.

  Jaxon half-sighs, half-groans. “Timber?”