Page 7 of Remote Access

Lane had been alone for so long, had kept so many secrets, and even his close relationship with his mother had been mostly an act the last ten years. Every muscle in his body had gone so tight they felt petrified and achy—like he’d been working the pommel horse for days. He opened his mouth, but couldn't get the words to emerge.

"Mom," he finally said. "He had my mother over me."

"Had?"

It took Lane several long moments to get the words past lips gone numb. "She died. I put her in the ground today."

Naked surprise transformed the man’s face and Lane got a glimpse past the teasing façade he’d been receiving to something he wasn’t sure how to read. But his instincts kicked into overdrive. This guy had an agenda, of some sort. He’d bet his future secret life on it.

But then, true compassion softened those harsh features. "I'm sorry."

He meant it. Lane had to look away from him for a moment. "I don't have time to grieve yet. Hayrick will find out as soon as he returns, so I only have a short window of time to do something I need to do." He waved his hand over the boxes. "I just ask you to give me more than twenty-four hours." He tried to swallow the knot in his throat, and when that didn't work, he struggled to clear it. The word he knew he needed to say did not come easily to him. "Please," he finally croaked.

Quincy stared at him. Hard. "What's the one thing?" he finally asked.

For ten years, regret, shame, and horror had burned a consistently open, raw wound inside Lane's body and he didn't know if he could speak about it aloud. But it was so important. So very important that he do this and at the moment, success would only happen if he could get this guy to agree. He took a deep breath and hated that it wavered. "It was my first out of state job. Hayrick flew me out to a small town in Maine. I was to break into the house of this wealthy woman and steal a poster. A fuckingMetropolisposter. One worth about six hundred grand on the open market and over a million on the underground one. I'm pretty sure it was his first major score. I'm still surprised he trusted a kid to do it."

"That's the part of this story that's so hard to compute."

Lane stopped and tried to swallow again, but his throat felt like it held razors. "Look, do you mind if I get a bottle of water out of my bag?"

He got a wry expression with a tilt of his head. "How about I get it for you?"

"Sure." He pointed to his backpack in the corner and watched as the man squatted, facing him, and dug around in his bag. His sweatpants clung to his thick thighs, something Lane would have enjoyed under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, it looked like he was checking the guy out for real when Quincy stood and turned back toward him.

"Sorry," Lane murmured as he took the water. Wetting his throat helped. He kept his gaze on the hot security guard the whole time he drank, then put the lid back on the bottle. "Thanks."

"Did you get the poster?"

He nodded. "I did. I was standing at the top of the stairs with the poster in hand when a woman screamed behind me. I didn't mean to—” he broke off, embarrassed that the memory still had the power to crush his lungs. He looked away and drank more water as he desperately worked to blink moisture out of his eyes. "I didn't mean to scare her. I didn't want to be in her house anyway." His voice lowered. "She had a heart attack right in front of me. I couldn't stay with her and I was afraid if she saw me looming over her in that stupid black ski mask, it would make her worse. So I left. I called in an anonymous tip and hid in the woods until the ambulance arrived." He looked back at the security guard, who now frowned at him in a way he didn't like at all. Though…he didn't blame him. Lane would never forgive himself. "It didn't matter that I called. She died. She died and old Hayrick got his first major sale."

He turned toward the boxes. "Somewhere in here is the name of the person who bought that poster. I plan to steal it and give it back to the family it belongs to. They lost their mother, their grandmother—” His voice broke again, and he cleared his throat. "Because of me. I need to put this right. As right as I can, anyway."

Quincy was silent for so long, Lane started to worry he wouldn't believe him or he'd just decide to do the right thing forhimand turn Lane in now.

"How many items have you stolen for him?" Quincy finally asked.

"Two hundred and forty-two successful jobs."

"Holy shit," Quincy breathed, his back hitting the wall. "How could a kid do all that?"

It hadn't been easy. It had never, ever been easy. Not even one of the jobs. "Training and pure fear. Hayrick is capable of…bad things."

Blue eyes narrowed. "Pretty sure I'd like to hear it all. But first, how could you have pulled off that many jobs?"

Lane pressed his lips so tight they hurt. "He came after me when I was fourteen. Ten years is a long time."

"Why you in particular?"

"I have two sets of skills that make me great at this. One of them is a knack for software. He caught an article in the paper about me while he was still in prison."

"Why doesn't he have you, I don't know, hacking into banks and stealing the money directly?"

“That’s not his business.” Lane shrugged.

Quincy crossed his arms, causing his biceps to bulge. This time, Lane was happy for the distraction because retelling that story had ripped him to shreds, but then the look on the man’s face pissed him off.

"And because I'm good at more than one thing," Lane snapped. He wished this guy would just agree already because they were wasting valuable time. "My other hobby in school was gymnastics. I'll show you." He started to walk past Quincy but the man held out his arm to stop him.

---