Page 13 of Midnight Secrets

Felicity rolled her eyes again. “Yeah. The beef stew.”

“Great stuff,” Metal said.

It had been. They’d practically inhaled it. The instant Joe had seen that message he’d invited Metal and Felicity over for a late lunch, making it clear that if Felicity didn’t come along, Metal wouldn’t get to eat.

It was a threat with bite. By now, getting a chance to eat whatever Isabel cooked was a fought-over privilege. Joe got points for Isabel’s cooking.

So they’d eaten and then Joe had shown Felicity the mystery message.

“Was she a chef?” Felicity mused, tapping on her laptop’s nearly invisible keyboard. The keys were barely raised and allowed Felicity’s hands to float and conjure up miracles with what looked like the merest strokes. “Have any chefs gone missing lately?” She briefly consulted a website then sat back. “No.”

For an instant Joe was distracted from the problem of someone stalking Isabel. “There’s a website for disappeared chefs?” he asked, astonished.

“No, dummy.” Felicity shook her head. “I consulted a list of notable chefs and wrote a little algorithm to check for people who were on last year’s list but not on this year’s lists. There were ten people missing but they were all men. Three had died and one is doing time.”

Joe slid his eyes to Metal. Felicity had done all that in less than a minute. “She’s scary.”

Metal grinned smugly. “That’s my girl.”

“Well, someone knows enough about Isabel to know that we see each other on a regular basis and that’s scary, too.” Joe ground his teeth.

“Does she see other people?” Metal asked.

“No.” Joe’s voice was abrupt. Issue closed.

Metal recognized that tone but Felicity didn’t. “How can you be so sure?”

The good thing about Felicity was her smarts. The bad thing about Felicity was her smarts.

“I just know,” Joe said, his tone chilly enough to get a frown from Metal.

Felicity’s head cocked as she studied him. She wasn’t afraid of him in any way, which was good but damn, Joe wished they were in the military and he could shut her down with a command.

Though it was entirely likely that if Felicity were in the military, she’d be a general by now. Head of Cyber Command.

“You keep tabs on her,” Felicity said.

Joe sighed. “Yeah.” He made an impatient gesture. “It’s not like I’m stalking her or anything. She’s not in a good way and to tell you the truth, she worries me.”

There, that sounded normal and sane. Concern for a neighbor, no more no less.

“Plus, she is a fabulous cook,” Felicity said dryly.

“Yeah, there’s that too.”

“And probably beautiful, judging by the expression on your face.”

Busted. Joe sighed. “Yeah. She’s a looker.”

Metal rested his arm against Felicity’s seat back and she leaned into it, the movement so natural because she’d probably done that a thousand times.

Metal was a lucky guy. Felicity was a looker, too. Joe and Metal were old enough not to be attracted by looks alone. As a teenager, Joe’d been turned on by just about any girl who didn’t make dogs whine and cringe. The pretty ones had been like catnip. Experience had taught him the hard way that pretty features didn’t mean shit. He’d met some vain and vicious pretty women and his radar was fine-tuned for that. Felicity and Isabel didn’t ping any of his warning buttons.

Like Isabel, Felicity wasn’t vain or neurotic about her looks. She and Metal were lovers, but they were also a team. A pretty cool one, too.

The same with a lot of guys in ASI. At first, Joe had thought it was something in the water out here in Portland. A lot of the guys were in tight, solid relationships. Maybe because the two owners, John Huntington, aka Midnight, and Douglas Kowalski, known as the Senior, had fantastic marriages. Jacko was also engaged to a looker. They were crazy in love, too.

Weird, so many solid couples in one place.

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