Page 7 of Cyn
Using her phone, she set the gate to open for him when it sensed his approach, then made her way to the kitchen. As promised, there was a charcuterie plate in the refrigerator and a bottle of wine on the kitchen island. It wasn’t even seven o’clock, but Cyn knew exactly what the rest of her short evening would entail. Grabbing the plate, the bottle, and a wineglass, she took the back stairs to the second floor then followed the hallway to her bedroom.
Turning on the lights and adjusting them to a dim glow, she proceeded straight to her bathroom, where she set everything down on the counter, started picking bath salts. Aside from finding a dead body, a girl couldn’t ask for a better night than a hot bath, good food, and an even better drink. Yes, her night was definitely looking up.
Or maybe not.
Her phone vibrated with an incoming call, buzzing against the marble of the countertop, and Franklin’s name popped up. She considered ignoring it, but all things considered, it would be better to answer and get the conversation over with if she had any hope of taking a good long soak.
“Hallo,” she said after connecting the call. She turned it on speakerphone and left the device on the counter so she could open the wine while they talked.
“You’re home?”
“I am. Just getting ready to have a nice soak. What do you want, Franklin?”
He let out a huff. She didn’t care. She was more than a little pissed that he hadn’t bothered to tell her that Old Joe had retired and was now probably hanging out on Franklin’s fishing boat with a beer and that day’s catch.
“You met Joe’s nephew?”
“I did,” her words were clipped and timed perfectly with the pop of the cork from her wine bottle.
“Are you drinking alone?” he asked.
“The horror in your voice is almost enough to convince me I didn’t learn this from you,” Cyn retorted, pouring herself a glass. A hefty one.
“I never taught you to drink wine alone. A good whiskey, perhaps. But never wine.”
“What do you want, Franklin?”
“You’re angry.”
She unwrapped the charcuterie plate and picked up a slice of prosciutto. “I’m curious why you didn’t feel the need to tell me about the new Joe. Or that Old Joe had retired. But I’m not curious enough to care right now because all I want is a lovely bath and you’re standing between me and that soak.” Thankfully, he wasn’t standing between her and her wine and she took a long sip, savoring the smooth fullness of the red.
“Have you checked the footage yet?”
She ambled over to her tub, poured some lilac-scented salts in, then turned on the faucet. It was already set to the right temperature, so she left it to attend to her food.
“No, and I probably won’t tonight. The body’s gone. My security is strong. Even if I were to find something tonight, I’m not likely to do anything about it, so why not wait until I’m rested and in a better humor.”
“Hyacinth.”
“Cyn.”
“Youneedto look at that footage. If that body was anything other than someone who happened to fall ill and die at your gate, we need every bit of intel we can get our hands on.”
She finished the piece of prosciutto she’d stuffed into her mouth when he’d started speaking. “To what end? We’re not going to do anything with it tonight.”
“I’d like to send it to headquarters.”
“Uh, no. We’re not sending it anywhere. I know you think we should because I’m one of theirs, and a threat to me is a threat to them. But I will be the laughingstock of the agency if you freak out about this. Not only will it be annoying, it will also undermine my credibility.” And it would. People who worked in the intelligence field were expected to handle a certain level of uncertainty. Even if the footage explicitly showed one of her nemeses at her doorstep, she’d be expected to look into the matter—to gather relevant intel—and ascertain thelevelof threat before bringing it to the higher-ups. Running to them now would be embarrassing.
“Then talk to Joe. New Joe,” he said.
Cyn was glad she’d just swallowed a sip of wine or she would have spit it out. “Civilian, Franklin. He’s a civilian. He might be law enforcement around here, but we both know that’s not the same as what we do.” She paused and let the weirdness of his request wash over her. Franklin never did anything without reason, but she couldn’t imagine what his reasons were for wanting her to loop in New Joe. “Uncle, why did you suggest that? What have you done?” she asked, setting her wineglass down.
He cleared his throat. “Nothing you need to worry about, darling. Trust me. If you need someone nearby, you can trust him.”
“I can also trust Six, Devil, and Nora,” Cyn countered, now knowing for certain Franklin was up to something. Calling her “darling” had always been his tell.
“And now you have Joe, too.”
