Page 51 of Caged

He laughed. “Fine. I’ll let our cover get blown.”

Lord, give me patience.

He flipped a switch and asked, “Can we plan now?”

Gotta love spec ops guys, they could switch off and on a dime.

“Our cover isn’t strong enough to withstand any kind of search, so we need to go in with our eyes open.” That was the problem with on the fly cover stories; they didn’t stand up to scrutiny.

“Do you think they’ll piece it together that quickly?”

“Hard to say. Richard Roman isn’t an in-the-trenches guy, so it’s not likely we’ll run into him at the Quick Wash.” Possible, but not likely. So far, we’d only dealt with Adam, but I wasn’t worried about him, he was just a recruiter. And Robert Roman had been MIA for days. “We need to stay the course at the Quick Wash for now. It’s our only solid connection to Wendy.”

“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” Jaden impressed me by quoting Lao Tzu.

“We won’t. Adam’s a recruiter so he just wants to bring you into the game and collect his cut. And just because he suggests it, doesn’t mean you’ll get an invite.”

“I wonder if I’ll be interviewed by one of the Romans?”

“Let’s hope not.” Lucky for us, men like Richard usually stuck to the shadows and had their lackeys do the work. “I have a feeling Richard’s memorized every face from SSI.” And he’d want revenge for the destruction we caused. “The sooner we get this over, the better.” Knowing our adversary was Richard Roman meant the clock for solving this case was ticking faster than normal. And Wendy’s wasn’t the only life on the line.

“We should talk to Dad about taking the who’s who page down,” he said more to himself than to me.

“It’d be a good idea, given recent activity,” I said. If SSI was entering the undercover game, we needed to keep our faces off the internet as much as possible. “Can you shoot him an email?”

Jaden and I decided we’d go to Fort Worth before lunch to pick up our laundry, and to ask Adam when the next game would be. We agreed I’d act hesitant, and Jaden would sway me. In an effort to lure Adam to my side, I’d try to get a moment alone with him. I wanted to play up the concerned, this has happened before with a bad outcome, wife role.

The only sound was the clacking of our fingers on the keyboards until Jaden asked, “What was the second thing?”

“What?”

“You said, first, when you told me to never,” he looked at the door, “do the thing again.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.Was he like this with his teammates? If he was, how the hell was he still alive?

“I don’t remember.”

“Right.” He lingered on the i.

“I’ll tell you when it pops back into my head, but right now, I’m busy. You should be, too.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” He saluted.

Refusing to let him upset me, I played along. “That’s lieutenant to you.”

“Aye aye, Lieutenant.” He exaggerated his salute.

“And stop fucking saluting.”

“Aye aye-”

“Oh for the love of God, will you let me get back to work?”

He grinned and winked, but didn’t say another word. And damn if that wink didn’t stir up a few butterflies.

When I finished my research, I asked Jaden what he’d found.

His search on Bill turned up nothing, so we chalked his presence up to coincidence and crossed the boyfriend off the suspect list.

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