Page 16 of Remote Access

Lane sat with his legs crossed and started to go through his.

A couple of hours passed. Quincy spent both of them in a state of complete shock. The amount of money funneling through this underground collectibles market was staggering. This had to be on some law enforcement radar somewhere. How the hell had the man managed to not get caught in ten years?

Rawlins’s fat head popped into his thoughts and he knew exactly why. Letsen had the chief of police in his town under his thumb, so he had to have even bigger fish on his payroll, too.

He jerked when Lane suddenly groaned.

“I can’t stand the quiet. I’m turning on the TV for some noise. There's bound to be a shoot ’em up movie on some channel."

"Movies again?"

"Here’s a little something about me, Quincy Holt. I’m a complete movie addict. Old, new, horror, comedy, drama—I love them all. Even the B ones." He grabbed the remote and flipped through the channels, stopping on a comedy Quincy recognized about a thirty-something game tester and his grandma. "This one's pretty funny." Lane offered Quincy a cheeky grin and quoted. "I think I can hear my hair growing."

Quincy shook his head and went back to the files. He needed to look at the papers and not the guy in the bed across from him, the one who grew cuter by the minute. And the way he’d sat down? He'd stood on the bed, then gracefully dropped into a kind of pretzel position that Quincy could never pull off. His thick thighs screamed in protest just seeing it.

Hours passed as they worked, with the occasional soft laughter coming from each of them. The channel Lane had found had back-to-back comedy movies, so they just let them run. Lane could pull up a quote from every single one—before they even began. But he mostly read through the papers, occasionally taking notes on a notepad he'd pulled out of the small desk under the television.

A little while later, Lane’s laughter stopped and Quincy kept glancing at him as Lane grew increasingly agitated. When he suddenly jumped off the bed and paced across the room, Quincy set one of the piles to the side and swung his legs off the bed. "You okay?"

"It's just hard." Lane ran his hands through his hair and stuck another coffee packet inside the machine. He grabbed the carafe and walked into the bathroom to fill it. Once he got the coffee going, he leaned against the desk and closed his eyes.

"Talk to me," Quincy said, voice low.

Lane looked him, then walked to pick up a piece of paper. He handed it to Quincy. "See this? The Princess Diana Ty Bear?" His lips tightened and his hands curled into fists. "I stole this from a collection. In the open market, it's worth between ninety and a hundred thousand dollars. Black market? Letsen pulled in nearly double. One of the reasons is because it's rare and the other is the buyer—the person who ordered the theft—wanted this specific one stolen from a specific target. The collection had actually been passed down to a young girl when apparently, someone else in the family had expected it.” He stopped talking and swallowed hard. "That little girl actually cried on television when her family asked for help."

He cleared his throat and picked up another sheet and pointed. "These. These stupid Rita Hayworth heels. Now, I can see wanting to own these—” When he broke off, red crept up his neck again.

For a criminal, the guy sure blushed a lot.

Quincy couldn't pull his stare away. "Really? You'd wear those?"

Lane's mouth fell open for a second. "Why do I get the feeling that did something to you?"

He cleared his throat. "No, of course, it didn't. I just didn't figure you for the type to wear heels."

The snort that came out of Lane held real amusement. "It's actually that I love old movies so I could see wanting items that were in films." He bit that plump lip. "But…how interesting," he murmured.

Holy hell, with those gymnast legs of his, they'd probably look fantastic. This was such an out of left field thought Quincy had to rein in some pretty big shock. He'd never, not once, been attracted to the type of men who wore heels. Hell, he'd had a friend who'd loved the things and while he’d admired the way they’d made his friend’s legs look, he’d never gotten turned on. But Lane? Yeah, he could see that—especially if he could do one of those bendy backward moves in them. He started to sweat and quickly pointed to the far column to take Lane's attention off him. He took a closer look at the number. "Letsen sold these for seven million dollars."

"This underground market is being run by the wealthiest people in the world. People willing to pay anything needed to have what they want and they couldn't care less that it's completely illegal. That," he said, pointing at a fancy silver carved ink pen. "Sold for nine million dollars."

"Jesus." Quincy had everything he needed in these papers to send Letsen back to prison for life. But he still hadn't found anything that would put away Chief Rawlins.

“Every line on the TAD pages brings back a memory for me and each one of those comes with remembered worry and fear…and disgust with myself. It’s not only that one woman who haunts me.” He walked back to the coffee pot, picked up the paper cup and held it between his hands.

Quincy got the feeling he needed the warmth and it had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

Jesus. This kid had gone through hell and Quincy suddenly realized he didn’t want to see him end up in jail. He looked over the piles of papers and the boxes. But how the hell was he going to take down Letsen and not Lane with him?

Chapter Six

Another four hours passed, papers were strewn across the beds, and Quincy's back ached from being hunched over. He stood and walked across the room, passing Lane, who had a pen in his mouth as he read. One of his legs was curled underneath him and the other dangled off the bed. He kept his toes pointed often and Quincy wondered if that was a gymnast’s habit. But his foot also wiggled a mile a minute. He looked up, popped out the pen, and smiled before gracefully uncoiling himself to stand. He lifted one leg, put his hand behind his knee and extended his leg so high, Quincy waited for him to fall over.

Damn. The kid had some strong muscles to hold that pose so solidly.

And…there went the sweat again.Dammit.

"Leg stretching time?" Lane asked, voice scratchy.

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