Page 39 of Cyn
“As you wish. But if you want anything other than the usual, tell me by noon. I’ll leave a little early to miss the traffic so I want to call it in by then. Come by around seven?”
Everyone nodded and rose. Joe raised his hand to ask for the check, but Cyn stopped him. “Don’t bother. Ambrose, the owner, never lets us pay. We try not to come here too often because we don’t want to eat him into penury, but also try to come often enough that he isn’t offended.”
“Once again, dare I ask why?” he asked as they both pulled their jackets on. The other women were doing the same and donning hats and scarves as well.
“This one’s not a state secret,” Cyn said with a grin, her eyes sparkling. “His twin daughters were traveling the world right after college graduation and fell into a bad crowd.”
“Areallybad crowd,” Six interjected as she walked past them and headed to the exit.
Cyn gave a nod of acknowledgment at her friend’s statement. “Like the kind of crowd that would have sold both of them into slavery. They were—are—beautiful young women who had a momentary lapse of judgment that very nearly cost them their lives. We helped get them back. A little shaken and a little traumatized, but nothing compared to what had been in store for them.”
As Cyn told him the story, they made their way to the parking lot and he helped her into the passenger seat. When he was seated behind the wheel with the heater going, he asked, “How long ago was that and how are they now?”
“Five years ago, and both women are doing fantastic. One is a social worker and the other started her residency in emergency room medicine last fall. Ambrose credits us with their lives. We always felt that they would have found a way out, but we were happy we could help before too much damage was done.”
He pulled onto the road and headed toward Cyn’s house. Someday, he’d bring her to the little Greek revival home he’d rented on the west side of town, but not tonight. He had a feeling she’d be wanting to use the high tech, secure setup she had in her office for research.
“How’d you guys do it? Get the twins out?” he clarified.
“We all have a lot of contacts. We tapped the right ones, then called in some help from Devil’s uncle. He owns a security firm in Hong Kong. Once we’d located them, they were home safe within thirty-six hours.”
“I can see why Ambrose feeds you. Probably a small price to pay for what he feels he got in return.”
Cyn lifted a shoulder. “He’s a good man and a good father. His wife died when the girls were eight and they are each other’s life. We were glad we could help.”
He turned onto Oceanside Road and headed north. “It’s too late to call Beni now, but I will first thing in the morning. Do you have a plan for tonight?”
She nodded. “I don’t teach or have office hours tomorrow so I’ll work from home and see if I can find anything in the university system on the three men. It will be good to compare it to what the others find. Other than the obvious—finding out what they plan to do and stopping it—I don’t have any detailed plan, though.”
He pulled into her drive, and she took her phone out to open the gates. “You don’t tend to make a lot of detailed plans, do you?”
She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’d apologize for myself, but the truth is, it works for me. There might have been a time or two where I could have done atiny bitmore planning, like the time I ended up in the dungeon where I met Meleak. But for the most part, it works for me.”
The second gate opened, and they made their way up her sweeping drive. There was no other way to describe her home other than over the top. Architecturally, it was beautiful, but with the black sky as the backdrop to the massive stone edifice, he had to wonder what it looked like in a lightning storm because images from iconic horror movies were all he could think about as he drove.
He smiled. He’d be around in the spring and summer to witness a storm or two. He’d bet on it. A week ago, he would have hedged and said, “we’ll see.” But now, hedging wasn’t an option even if he was interested in doing it. Which he wasn’t. What he felt for Cyn was too potent to only be halfway in. Maybe their uncles had been playing matchmaker without their consent, but Joe was smart enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Pull into the garage,” she said, directing him around the side of the house. He’d parked in her driveway each time he’d been over and was surprised to see a four-car garage tucked into the side—from the front, it looked like another room.
“Did you and Meleak form some sort of prisoner’s bond or something when you were in that dungeon together?” He didn’t really want to think about her in a dungeon, or what might have happened if she’d been there longer, but hewascurious about Meleak.
“In a way,” she answered, as he pulled to a stop between her Range Rover and a convertible Audi which he assumed must be her “summer” car.
“He told me about his village and although he never told me what he did, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was a pirate. But like I said, he talked a lot about his village and the people there, including his family. It was clear it was a special place for him, and a place that was suffering from every third world issue you can think of—poverty, hunger, lack of medical care and hygiene, not enough schools.”
They’d both exited his car and entered her home as she’d answered. They paused in the mudroom and disrobed from all their winter gear.
“Want a night cap before bed?” she asked, gesturing to the fireplace in the kitchen. He nodded and took a seat in a wingback chair while she went to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “The remote to turn it on is beside you,” she added.
Reaching over, he grabbed the device, studied it for a second, then hit a button that brought the fire to life.
“Having a nice chitchat doesn’t explain why he’s smitten with you,” Joe said, taking the glass she offered him as she took her own seat. Reaching up, she pulled a blanket from the back and draped it over her legs.
“He’s not really smitten. More like he’s devoted to me,” she said.
He took a sip of the amber liquid. “Still doesn’t explain why he’s devoted to you.”
She stared at the flames in silence and the seconds ticked by. He didn’t know what was causing her hesitation, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t because it was a state secret, but rather another piece of the personal puzzle that was Dr. Cyn Steele.
