Page 18 of Remote Access

Lane took a deep breath and blew it out. He picked at the toast some more, leaving it shredded on his small plate. "I lived in Virginia when he found me and my first job was actually there. I had to break into a townhome in Arlington and lift a violin worth about seven grand on the open market. It was a test to see how I did." Lane shrugged and spun the salt shaker on the table. "I didnotdo well. The homeowners didn't even have a security system, so it was just a B and E and I bungled it to hell and back. I was shaking so hard, I dropped my sack of tools and they spilled all over the upstairs wood floor. I thought the house was empty but a housekeeper who apparently lived there was downstairs. She called the cops, so I grabbed the violin, left my tools and jumped out a back window onto a tree limb. I was bruised from the chest to my groin from where I hit it."

"The cops didn't trace you with the tools?"

Lane shook his head. "Hayrick had put it together for me, so it was all his crap. I banged up the violin in the jump, too, so he was beyond pissed. Said I had one more chance or he was turning my mother in."

Quincy cursed under his breath as he pictured a smaller, terrified Lane as a fourteen-year-old boy being forced to do these things. He curled his hand around a napkin and wished he could take his fists to Letsen.

"Explaining those bruises to my mother was fun. She accidentally opened the bathroom door when I was undressing for a shower and lost her shit. It did look bad. Hurt like hell for weeks." He shrugged. "Over the years, I had a lot of bruises but I was able to blame it on the gymnastics—even after I dropped out of classes. Talk about pissed off. My mother was livid when I did that. I think she had Olympic dreams or something. But I couldn't keep up with the competitions and be available for Hayrick."

"You said he flew you to Maine for that second job. How often did you board planes?"

"Only a few times a year. Most of my jobs happened in Virginia, North Carolina, nearby states. He was happy when I got my driver's license, but other times, he had private planes waiting for me. I've been all over the country and never had time to sightsee. It was usually arrive, case a house, steal, leave. The only other place he ever sent me was a storage unit in Virginia and—” Lane frowned at him. “What?”

All the hair on Quincy's arms had stood on end as he waited for Lane to finish his sentence. "Storage unit," he murmured, frowning at the table.

"What?"

Quincy tapped his fingers on the wood. "He has a unit I've been to here."

Lane’s eyes flared wide with excitement as he leaned over the table. "What was in it?"

"Boxes. Bigger than the ones we took from his house, but now that I'm thinking about it, there were some just like the ones we have at the hotel."

"We have to go. Tonight, if possible." Lane's hands tightened into fists on the table. "If you've been there, Hayrick knows you've seen the files. He'll have that place emptied out tomorrow."

"If he didn't already do it today. It'll take us an hour to get there. But I don’t know how we’ll get into it.” He’d kept the location to turn-in with whatever else he found on the man.

Lane rolled his eyes. “Leave that to me. But let’s eat first, then run back to the hotel for a couple of things I’ll need.”

“What else were you going to say? You said the only other place he ever sent you was a storage unit in Virginia and...?"

Lane's face paled. "It was just another job—one that went very wrong. It's how I knew there was another kid he had under his thumb." He lifted his glass of water and ran his finger through the condensation ring left under it.

Quincy studied him and he knew, just knew, that whatever had happened that time was something that sat just as heavily on Lane's shoulders as the owner of that poster dying. "I can't imagine what all this must have been like. I'd like to get my hands on Letsen now."

The smile Lane gave him then held a mix of naughty, sexy, and pleased. It was a good look for him. Better than the pale of before. "Aw, you want to defend my honor?" He leaned over the table. "Maybe we need to have a reward for later. Something to look forward to when we go back to paperwork. How do you feel about blowjobs?"

The gasp to their side had Quincy chuckling as he watched the now completely flustered waiter serve their food. The poor guy couldn't look at either of them as he nearly dropped the plates in front of them. "Enjoy," he muttered as he hurried off.

"He was obviously not gay," Quincy said as he picked up his knife and fork.

"Or he was hurrying off to rub one out in the men's room." Lane winked at him again and dug into his food.

They were quiet as they ate. Quincy kept picturing a young Lane being terrified enough to jump out of a two-story window and the anger that simmered was burning a hole in his gut. He hacked at his steak and wondered how many other kids had been forced into those kinds of situations. He looked up to find Lane watching him, his eyebrows raised.

"It just makes me angry and worried about who else he has breaking into places. I knew the man wasn't good, knew it in my gut, but even I couldn't have imagined something like this." He cut another slice of meat. "And I saw a lot of bad, bad things as a cop."

"It's the scale of this that's shocking." Lane peppered his potato and dug his fork in. "Mmm, loaded." He moaned when he put the forkful of cheesy potato in his mouth.

That was a pretty, pretty moan. Feeling every inch of his skin heating up, Quincy set his fork down and grabbed his beer to take a long, cooling swallow. Then, he poked his fork into his potato and left it there. He looked up at Lane. "I've been investigating him and I took the job to try and get more information, but it was nothing about any of this. The man has to have mob ties or something. How would he fence so many stolen goods?"

"I told you. It's an underground network. For all his dislike of all things electronic, it's online in a deeply buried system of people who basically put out what they want and what they are willing to pay. Hayrick isn't the only person selling either."

The waiter showed up, his cheeks tomato red as he looked neither of them in the eye. "Can I get you dessert? We have the best pie in the state."

Quincy lifted an eyebrow at Lane, who leaned back in his seat, making sure his body was visible as he stared at the waiter and waited for him to actually look at him. When the man finally did, the seductive expression Lane gave him made Quincy hold his breath. Shit, when he turned on the steam, he could melt Antarctica.

"Tell me about the pie," he said, his voice low and liquid. "Is it served warm…” He licked his lips. “And moist?"

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