“Let me go and speak to my colleague,” he said now, pushing his chair back with a painful screech, and I nodded.
As the door closed behind him, I slumped down in the plastic seat, letting my head hang back as I stared at the ceiling tiles. They looked solid. More solid than the one I’d snapped, anyway. I thought about my life choices, about how much I hated Jim Cauldwell in that moment, and about Gabe, who was—inexplicably—apparently snoring his head off right now instead of doing what we’d been paid to do, which was get inside the mainframe of Arden Alliance and do as much poking around as we could before we were detected. It was incredibly unlike him to just shrug and go to bed. Normally it was me who came home, shoved a takeaway down my throat, and collapsed, worn out by climbing over walls, ducking under cameras, and picking locks with my adrenaline pulsing the whole time. Gabe was typically still going when I woke up the following day, hunched over his desk, testing and poking and probing the limits of the security systems the company had in place.
Getting caught was, in some senses, what we both wanted. Red-teaming, acting the attacker, was fun, but presenting the report to the security team afterwards never was—running them through everything they’d done wrong, all the mistakes they’d made and opportunities they’d missed to put a stop to the hack. What you wanted—what the client was hoping to hear—was “This part of your security held up—your guys did a good job.”
Unfortunately, this time, even though I’d been picked up, I couldn’t honestly say that—principally because I’d been caught as a result of my own mistakes rather than any particular professionalism on the part of the guards. I’d been an idiot to snap that ceiling tile and an even bigger idiot to leave my car parked out front of the very building I was burgling—if I hadn’t done that I could probably have got in and out without being caught, even though they should have seen me on the monitors, or had some kind of alarm in place on the fire doors. You shouldn’t be able to open multiple fire exits after hours, undetected. I was going to have to ream them a new one in my report and fess up to my own incompetence. A double whammy of unpleasantness, and very likely my stupidity in getting caught would distract from the very real holes in their security and provide plausible deniability for what was, after all, a pretty sloppy setup.
I just hoped Gabe had found something to make the night worthwhile, something they couldn’t ignore with an Oh well, they caught you in the end, didn’t they? shrug. Unencrypted passwords. Sensitive client data. Some kind of admin access which would give an actual hacker the opportunity to really wreak havoc.
I was thinking about that, and wondering again why Gabe wasn’t picking up, when a familiar voice came from behind my shoulder.
“Well, well, well. Look who we’ve got here.”
I sat bolt upright and swung around, fury pulsing through me.
Jeff Leadbetter. Shit.
“If it isn’t Jack fucking Cross.” He was grinning like a cat that’s found a particularly juicy mouse in a corner it can’t escape from. “What have you done this time, Cross?”
“You know I haven’t done anything.” I folded my arms across my chest, trying not to let him see how much his presence rattled me. “I just can’t get hold of the guy who hired us.”
“Sanjay said we had a girl with a weird story about testing pens”—he gave a laugh that shook his broad shoulders—“and I thought, you don’t get too many of those around here. If you needed someone to vouch for you, why didn’t you call me?”
You know why, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
“I had no idea you’d be on duty,” I said tightly.
Jeff grinned. “Well, you know what they say. No rest for the wicked. You’re looking good, Cross. All that ducking and diving must keep you fit.”
What could I say to that? Fuck off was what I wanted to say, and he knew it. But we also both knew that wasn’t the kind of thing someone on the brink of arrest could say to a senior serving police officer. At least I could stare him out of countenance. I had nothing to be ashamed of, after all.
But Jeff was watching my hand, where I was nervously twisting the ring on my finger. I dropped my arms, cursing the stupid habit, but his eyebrow had already gone up, and now he looked at me, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face.
“Well, well, well. Engaged, Cross? Someone’s finally gonna make an honest woman out of you?”
“Married, actually,” I gritted out. Not that it’s any of your business, I wanted to add, but forced myself to shut my mouth.
“Bit less Cross these days, eh?” Jeff said, and then cracked up at his own pun.
“I didn’t change my name, if you must know.”
Jeff smirked at that. “We both know I wouldn’t have stood for that, Cross.”
Yeah, well Gabe isn’t an insecure dickhead with a patriarchy complex, I thought.
“Is she legit then, sir?” Williams’s voice broke in from behind Jeff’s shoulder, and Jeff turned and laughed.
“Yeah, she’s legit. At least, she is what she says she is, if that’s what you mean. We go back a long way, don’t we, Jack?”
“Yes.” I pressed my lips together.
“I could tell you some stories.” Jeff looked me up and down, taking in my tight-fitting blazer and stretch trousers with an expression that was only just short of outright lascivious.
I could tell some stories too, I thought, but we both knew it was too late for that. I had tried to tell those stories once before, right around the time we broke up, and it hadn’t ended well.
Of all the police stations to get hauled into, why, why, why did it have to be this one? It wasn’t even the one where he normally worked; that was over on the other side of town. Either he’d been transferred, or he was covering someone.
There was silence, and I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to ask. He wanted me to beg. He wanted me to say, Please, Jeff. Please help me.
Well, I wouldn’t say it. Not even if it meant a night in the lockup.
“So… should I release her, sir?” said the voice from behind Jeff, and I felt a surge of relief. I had almost forgotten PC Williams’s presence. Jeff couldn’t do anything while he was there. For a moment Jeff said nothing, just stood there grinning down at me, and I felt my nails dig into the desk in front of me. He couldn’t… could he? He wouldn’t make some excuse, send Williams away, make me spend the night alone in an interview room, listening to that slow, soft voice that even now sent shudders running down my spine?
But then he laughed and shrugged.
“Just messing with you. Go on.” He was talking more to me than to Williams, even though it was Williams who had asked. “Scram. But don’t forget you owe me one.”
“Oh, I won’t forget,” I said tightly, with just enough venom in my voice to leave him in doubt as to what exactly I was referring to. I stood up, tugged my jacket straight. “I never forget. You can be sure of that.”
“Don’t I get a thanks?” Jeff said. He didn’t move out of the doorway, his broad body filling the space.
I gritted my teeth.
“Thanks.”
There was a short pause, and then Jeff gave another laugh and moved aside.
“Go on then, get out of here. And stay out of trouble.”
It was only when I came out into the chilly night air of the street that I felt it—the cold, wet patches under my arms, the sweat of pure panic.
I was still afraid of Jeff Leadbetter. And maybe I always would be.
It was nearly four a.m. before I got back home to Salisbury Lane, and I was half-drunk with exhaustion, my eyes scratching with tiredness as I wove mechanically through the near-deserted residential streets of South London. I’d considered leaving the car at Arden Alliance, but it was parked in a restricted zone, and I knew that when I finally did get to bed I would probably sleep for twelve hours. The chances of me waking up in time to rescue it before it got clamped (or worse—towed) were slim.