* * * *
Contents of my Goodie Bag
•Several small cameras no bigger than the tip of my pinkie finger
•A voice recorder hidden inside the body of a pen
•A camera that looked like a pendant necklace
•A lock pick
•A stun gun
•A USB that would allow me to save and access all the data from my spy stuff
•A half-eaten Kit Kat bar
This was some real life James Bond shit, and I couldn’t wait to try them all out. I got back to the office long before my lunch was scheduled to be over. I’d scheduled Gabriel to have a late lunch so that he could go over some paperwork with his lawyer, after that I’d set up a meeting with his Board of Directors concerning some policy changes, followed by a mid-afternoon appointment with Miss Lin, the bad-tempered Asian with magic guru fingers of relaxation and happiness.
I didn’t like talking to Lin because she could test the patience of a saint, but the woman’s massages would make a mass murderer poop rainbows. It was the only reason I put up with her shenanigans.
What all of this boiled down to was that I would have plenty of time to hide my new toys. I placed a couple in Gabriel’s main office, one in the elevator, and held on to the rest until I could find a chance to slip them into his inner office. In the meantime, I grabbed the voice recording pen and rolled it beneath the locked door. Hopefully one of the men would pick it up thinking they’d dropped it or something. Either that, or they’d step on it and crush it to bits. In which case I hoped the Oracle kept the warranties for all of their gadgets.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled on the necklace, finished off the Kit Kat, pocketed the stun gun and USB, and declared myself done. Just in time too, because I had no sooner adjusted the necklace at my throat than Gabriel and Marcus stormed through the door.
Gabriel’s face was flushed with color and Marcus looked more sour than usual. I could only assume that they’d been arguing, but as soon as the two men caught sight of me they made a visible effort to relax.
“Phaedra,” Gabriel began, voice striving for normalcy and failing miserably. Thoughtful now, my eyes narrowed. “You’re back early. I thought you’d still be at BB’s.”
This surprised me. I had mentioned my preference for BB’s about a week and a half ago. At the time he hadn’t reacted to my mention of the restaurant’s supremacy over all others, but he must have been listening after all.
“I…uh…I had some paperwork I needed to work on, so I decided to cut my lunch a little short.”
At my words he and Marcus exchanged looks and a muscle began to work in Gabriel’s jaw.
Curious.
Leaning back in my swivel chair, I propped my feet on the edge of my desk and folded my hands over my abdomen.
“Speaking of, what are you two doing back?”
I had the satisfaction of seeing Gabriel shift nervously where he stood, while Marcus scowled at me. They looked at one another again, before Marcus spoke up and I was reminded that these two had been raised as siblings.
“Something came up. Gabriel and I are going to be out of town for a few days. We were just stopping by to pick up a few things.”
My feet came down with a crash, but neither one of them paid me any mind as they walked past me and into Gabriel’s main office.
“What sort of something?” I called after them, unaccountably annoyed that I hadn’t been told anything about it. Gabriel hesitated and turned back.
“It’s personal,” He paused and a brief smile touched his lips and made his eyes sparkle. “A family emergency. We’ll only be gone for two or three days.”
“But—”
His hand lifted as if he wanted to touch me, but obviously thinking better of it, he let his arm drop.
“Think of it as a vacation.”
“I guess that means you don’t need me to come in?”
“You guessed right.”
I nodded solemnly even as my heart soared. I now had three days to get into that inner office and plant my little goodies. I sighed to cover my rising excitement.
“I guess a break wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive the tragedy,” he said dryly. “Cancel my plans for the rest of the day. After you’re done with that, you can go ahead and head on home.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said cheerfully. “Did you need me take care of the travel arrangements or—”
“No.” I jerked back at the bite in his voice and he cleared his throat with exaggerated care before trying again. “No, thank you. Marcus and I can handle it.”
“Of course.”
He opened his mouth as if to add something more, but only sighed instead. Shoulders slumping, he turned without another word and went into his office after Marcus. The closed door seemed to mock me and the dull sense of loneliness that had begun to fill me at the thought of not seeing him for three days. Ever since I’d started I hadn’t gone longer than a few hours without at least talking to him. There always seemed to be some chore that needed my attention, even on the weekends, which I was supposed to have off.
If I didn’t know any better I would have said that I would miss him, but that couldn’t be right. It was probably just excitement. After all, I planned on getting into his inner office even if I had to scale the side of the building and come in through a window like a ghettofied SWAT team reject.
Picking up the phone on my desk, I dialed a number and sat back with a smile.
“Lin,” I cooed when she picked up, “you old Japanese harpy. Turns out Evans won’t be able to make it to his session this afternoon, so I’m going to need our deposit back.”
“I’m not Japanese, pale-faced slut.”
I tsked. “Sorry. Is this because I didn’t say ‘hello’ first?” I struggled to recall what I knew of the language. “It’s ‘ohayō,’ isn’t it? Isn’t that how your people say hello?”
“I’m not Japanese!” she screeched, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth to muffle my laughter. “Every time you call I have to put up with your shit. One of these days I kill you and stuff your body in my blender. Feed it to my kids. Teach them what American trash taste like.”
“Whoa there, tiger. What’s the matter, Mae Lin?” I asked, as if honestly concerned. “Find another cobweb in your vagina this morning?”
“At least I don’t have to send entire rescue party up there to bring back the men I sleep with.”
“Call me a ho one more time,” I snapped, growing real tired of her sass. “Do it. I dare you. I hear one more ho insult come out of your mouth and I’m going to crawl through this phone and go Jackie Chan all over your wrinkled Asian ass.”
That’s when shit got real.
“Jackie Chan!? I bring Jet Li! You want Jet Li!? He make your Jackie Chan cry like a little bitch.”
“Eat a dick, old woman.”
“How can I when you already take them all?” She made a sound like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, and for the next two minutes I continued to exchange vicious insults with a seventy-five-year-old grandmother, who I was pretty sure used to be a member of the Chinese Mafia (See that? I could learn).
Life was good.
Especially when she called me a fat, pasty-skinned she-demon and agreed to return our thousand dollar deposit. I called and rescheduled the rest of Gabriel’s appointments for the next three days in high spirits. While none of the rest of my calls were as entertaining as Lin’s, by the time I was ready to go home I was practically humming.
The lock pick in my purse was calling my name and I soothed it with promises of breaking and entering and illegal trespassing. If there’s one thing I understand, it was the need to cause mischief, and I’d been on my best behavior for far too long.
Mischief is what makes the world go round. Without it, nothing would ever get done.
—Deidre Hollow
Chapter Eight