Page 52 of Unexpectedly Wanted
I was out the door two minutes later.
I made it off the porch and nearly to my car by the time I realized that I hadn’t even tied my shoes. In a hurry, I folded over and took care of that quickly. If I could have let it go, I would have.
Being that it was in the early hours of the morning— so early, the sun wasn’t even up— I had no trouble finding a parking spot near the building. I rushed around the side, pulling out my special access key card that would let me in after hours. The damn thing beeped loudly at me before turning green, and then I heard the lock of the door disengage. I yanked that door open and practically flew inside, watching over my shoulder to make sure it shut and locked again. I was confident that no one had followed me, but it was best to be sure. I glanced at the concrete stairs, thinking for a split second that I should just take them. But I was definitely not in shape for that. I’d probably feel like passing out two flights in.
I bet Remy could take the stairs,I thought to myself. This time, my head voice didn’t have the ugly snark behind it. Remy was fit, and he could handle the stairs. Which had me thinking about how fit he was. Meaning, how nice his body looked. How nice it felt. How—
Stop it,I scolded myself.
I rushed through the lobby, waving my key card like a madman, hoping nothing would slow me down.
But the elevator was far too slow. So I had nothing to do but think about how Remy wouldn’t actually take the stairs. Not unless he had to. Though he’d never complained about it, I’d see how stairs could be a bit of an obstacle for him. One he challenged himself to on a daily basis in my home. Remembering how his apartment was on the first floor, I kind of hated myself for not saying something. Just another reason why our lie was horrible. Remy wouldn’t have a home with more than one level. He wouldn’t put himself through something like that. I couldn’t even imagine how annoying going up and down on crutches must be.
Then I wondered what kind of place Remy would have if he were in a relationship. What that would look like. I began to picture it in my head, not sure why. One level. Three bedrooms. A huge kitchen, with the best appliances and plenty of counter space for him to… do all those doughy things. A nice living room with a sectional couch. A huge TV, which I imagined him and his lover playing games on. A bathroom with a built-in sitting spot for him, and a removable shower head within reach. Maybe heated tiles, so his butt didn’t get cold. Then again, I was sure his lover wouldn’t mind warming it up for him if it did get cold.
What was I doing?!
I was losing it.
Luckily, the elevator doors slid open, and I left that train of thought behind me in the metal box.
I breathed in the scent of the office. Nothing great, but it was a huge reminder that I was in the place I felt most comfortable being. Especially now, because something still felt off about my home, even though I was sure that I’d gotten used to Remy stuff there.
The main lights were off, but there was still enough light to see. Not that it mattered, because the lights began to flicker to life as I moved deeper into the space. I rushed to my office, throwing the door open so enthusiastically that it bounced off the wall behind it. I cringed, but didn’t stop moving.
I booted up my computer, and the moment I logged in and sat down, I was in the zone. Everything else was forgotten for a few hours. I found the file for the spyware I had been working on. It was mostly done, and I could see that Kyle had gone in and tweaked a few things. I didn’t need to bug him in order to see what he’d done.
I blinked at it, impressed.
Kyle was a great addition to the team. He had a brain for these sorts of things.
Then it got me thinking about why it had been so easy for me to share this with Kyle. How had I become comfortable letting him in like that? And why not Remy? I guess it was because I never felt like Kyle laughed at me. Though, now I knew Remy hadn’t been all those things I’d made him out in my head to be.
I sighed heavily.
These were things I didn’t have time for. Wondering wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to get this program stealthily dropped into the computer I’d hacked into.
Once I felt familiar enough with the changes, I went in. I was armed and ready.
I was going to find them and take them down.
19
Remy
Ocala was a bust.
Well, not completely. We did get a lead that had us hopping over to a place called Salt Springs after only six hours of searching. We had reason to believe Crawford Tiller had taken the little girl and was hiding in a house he had in the vicinity. A buddy of his gave us a location, and we were hoping he wasn’t sending us on a wild goose chase. I will say that the guy did seem genuine. He said that it wasn’t like his friend to do something like that, but he also informed us that Crawford had seemed to change in the last year. I wondered if he’d had some sort of mental breakdown. I suppose it would be smart if I kept that in mind if we did find him and had to approach. There was no telling what someone who was mentally unstable would do. My first priority was saving the little girl. If we did that, then maybe we could get him the help he needed, if that happened to be the case.
Sometimes, you never really knew a person when you got handed a case. Sure, there were tons of things you could learn by doing research and digging into their life, but it didn’t give you the whole picture. Most of the time, you were left to speculate. And when you did the kind of things I did, saw the kind of things I constantly saw, you tended to look at them all as monsters.
Let me tell you, Georgia was hot, but Florida was downright hell. No, not hell. Satan’s taint. I’d been in hotter places, yeah, but it had been a long fucking time ago. It probably didn’t help that the air conditioning in the SUV felt like it was blowing cool air, not cold. The three of us were sweating just from riding in the damn thing.
It was also making us grumpy. To be fair, that probably wasn’t the only thing pissing us off and leaving us in a foul mood. We just wanted to find the girl. With each hour that went by, the likelihood that we’d find her alive lessened. Not a good feeling to have hanging over your head. There’d been a few cases in my time with Reed where just a few hours made a difference. Those were the ones that stuck with you.
Dune, clearly done with talking for the day, grunted as he pointed to a sign on the side of the road.
We were getting close.
