Page 43 of Perfect Order
“I’ve been twisting that around in my mind. The only thing I can think of is I know I lost it the last time I stayed at her place—a few months before her tour. She must have found it and was bringing it to me. It’s been a while, but she promised she’d send it to me if she found it. I had a replacement ordered even before I left to go back to Saratoga anyway.” I don’t mention I reported it missing to my handler, nor do I miss the look the two men exchange. “Why?”
“How blunt do you want us to be?” Caleb asks gently.
“Oh, just tell it to her straight. Lee, your sister died with your ID. There’s a reason for it. Now, it might be as simple as she found it and had shoved it in her pocket or something else. It’s our job to look at all the angles. The first step is to investigate Kylie. And that means everything about her: her habits, her lovers, the hit list you gave us, her finances. There won’t be a damn thing you don’t know about your sister. Is there anything you want us to know before we start?”
I push to my feet and hiss, “I loved her more than anything or anyone on this planet. There are secrets about her I’ve held for a long damn time because I didn’t want my parents hurt. I’ll share them all with you if you think there’s any chance they might lead to her killer.”
Sam frowns. “What secrets?”
I shake my head. “Please. I made her look like an angel. Carys can tell you she definitely wasn’t.”
“That’s the truth,” Carys mutters.
“How quickly can you have a copy of that information to us?” Caleb prods me.
I think about the footprints I’m going to have to bury inside my own software to get to the core of Dioscuri. “It could take me a while. Can I work from here?” Despite how quickly I accessed the Hudson servers, they are much more secure than the average internet connection. Then there’s the part of me that wants to just work in Sam’s office, to be near my idol, absorbing more of his mojo. Plus, I’m just plain hurting. I want to be somewhere I know I can lose myself in the work and not worry about watching my six.
“It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to be seen around here, Lee. After all, you’re not Leanne Miles any longer. You’re Kylie,” Sam reminds me.
Caleb is more blunt. “Be very certain you can do this. Love can drive us to be a lot of things, do a lot of things. It doesn’t prepare us for this.”
I swipe up my bag. “We breathed each others air, protected each other, for almost a year. It created an unbreakable bond. It prepares you for a hell of a lot. Everything, except death." Caleb winces,as I continue. "But I get your point. I can’t be seen here. I can only go where Lee would.”
Skirting the conference room table, I make my way to the door when Carys calls my name. I stop. “Yes?”
“Call me when you’re settled. We’ll discuss your schedule and do everything possible to ward off the press,” she reminds me.
Fucking hell. The paps.For a moment, pure emotion trickles in. I have to blink rapidly to clear the tears that want to clog my vision because that’s something I know my sister would say. Still, I manage a nod before I slip out the door before striding to the elevator to get the hell out of the building.
But is it so awful that when I reach the street, all I want to do is escape into the crowd and disappear? I just want to go somewhere I can’t be found and mourn the loss of my twin for an appropriate duration.
Eternity.
Kane
Did Beckett Miller sleep in his clothes, or were they strewn about someone else’s floor? He was without his usual flair this morning outside Rockefeller Center.
— Moore You Want
“Kane, when you have a moment, can you head up to Caleb’s office?” Tony informs me before disconnecting the call.
My lips curve into a brief smile before I push away from the desk I so rarely use in the offices of Hudson Investigations and head immediately to the elevator. It’s easy to translate the shorthand of that message from the co-owner of the company to meanGet your ass up here. Pronto.Fortunately, Tony has more diplomacy on the phone than Caleb does. Though any of us who have ever worked for him can certainly attest to the fact the man has mellowed significantly in the last few years.
I pass the reason for the smile that occasionally graces my boss’s face when I step out of the elevator. “Mrs. Lockwood,” I greet Caleb’s wife politely as I hold the elevator for her.
She flashes me a brilliant smile, though I doubt she’d be able to pick me out of the hundreds of employees who work for the firm her husband built out of a determination to set his part of the world right once he left the military. Fortunately, he elected to—and continues to—bring a number of us in to do just the same.
Smoothing my hands down over my custom-made jacket to hide the weapons I conceal, I never imagined I’d transition from putting my life in danger working on the front lines of HUMINT to being the lead bodyguard of someone like rock star Beckett Miller. But as Caleb said when he convinced me to take the assignment, “Beckett is more than he appears. You’re going to need every ounce of your training to keep up with him.”
Damn, if he wasn’t correct. To date, it’s the break-ins of Beckett’s supposedly rock-solid fortress in the sky that involve every skill I’ve learned, with the exception of lethal force. I wince remembering the first interrogation I was called in to give the doorman who accepted a $50,000 bribe from a spoiled girl who believed Beckett would fall in love with her immediately upon sight. That was three years ago.
Now, I suspect I know why I’m being called up to the executive floor. I screwed up. After last night’s debacle, a picture of Beckett appeared in the media he’s already sicced Carys on. Just before he did, he made an off-the-cuff comment about it being good to have us around.Shit. What did you get me into this time, Beckett?I wonder wearily.
I jerk my chin up at Tony before I point at Caleb’s door. Tony remarks, “He’s waiting for you.”
“Do I want to know?”
For a brief moment, amusement breaks out across his face. “Why does everyone come in here expecting one of the bosses are going to execute them?”
