“Always, sir,” he assures me, offering me a ticket, his face completely straight as he adds, “But I shall fantasize about driving her on the highway at a hundred and forty miles an hour.”
“I’ve had that same fantasy,” I assure him, and considering I used this job as an excuse to buy the gorgeous beast, I revel a bit in the idea that I can actually do it. “I need to get on that.”
“You do indeed, sir.”
“Kyle,” I say, palming him a large bill. “Sir makes me feel like my father.”
“Kyle,” he repeats, “and I’m Les Gordan, should you need anything.”
“Thanks, Les,” I say, heading toward the double doors, and entering to find shiny tile beneath my feet, a centerpiece table filled with a couple dozen vases of flowers and a glass chandelier above my head. It’s dripping money, and for some that would make them regret what they don’t have, but not me. I have money, beyond the income I make at Walker Security, which I don’t touch for one reason and one reason only. It’s blood money.
Cutting left into a bar area, where a thick, blue and gray swirled rug sits beneath clusters of tables with high back chairs, my contact is nowhere in sight. As I’m about to turn back and call him, he slides out of a booth and waves me forward, his suit 70’s pale blue, but expensive. At the same moment, a woman wearing a slim-fitted white dress, with long, dark hair, slides out of the seat across from him and walks toward the bathroom. I discreetly suck in air, the idea of this being Myla, impossible to ignore, but that’s ridiculous. It can’t be her. Could it be her? Could it be this easy to have her land in my lap?
I step forward, closing the space between myself and Juan, who is thirty-nine, five years my senior, and my research tells me that all those years were spent doing very bad things, with zero remorse. “Glad you made it,” he says, as I reach him, eyeing his watch. “You’re five minutes late.”
“You told me about the meeting thirty minutes ago. I’m fifteen minutes earlier than I should have been, considering I had a woman in my bed at the time.”
“At least you came up with a good excuse,” he snaps, the lights in here doing his sun baked skin no favors, giving it a kind of raisin-like quality.
“I don’t do excuses,” I say, about to sit down when another brunette, dressed in jeans and boots, walks by…and holy shit. It’s Kara, and she’s headed straight for the archway the other woman disappeared around. “And actually,” I add, “I need to make a quick phone call to a paying client.”
“We’re going to be paying clients.”
“I’ll put off the ones that already are when I have the cash.” I don’t give him time to argue, making fast tracks in pursuit of Kara, rounding the corner and finding an alcove with two doors, one marked Men, while Kara exits the second one marked Women, her hand pressed to her face.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, stepping toe-to-toe with her.
She jolts and looks up at me, having been unaware I’m even present until now, and considering what a badass investigator she is, that’s saying a lot about where her head is. “Kyle,” she gasps, hugging herself, defeat in her face. “I’m sorry. I just thought…I thought it was her, but it wasn’t.”
Not only do her words confirm she and Blake know about our hunt for Alvarez, but their revelation punches me in the gut. I wanted that woman to be Myla, too, for Kara and for all of us. “Even if it had been her-” I begin.
“I know,” she says quickly, holding up a hand. “I know. I was stupid to rush in here. Blake’s furious with me and I need to go before that woman, whoever she is, comes out of the bathroom.”
“Yes. Go. Now.”
“Thank you for trying to find Myla,” she whispers, but she doesn’t step away. “But first a warning. The woman I followed has deep cleavage, and I know that doesn’t mean much, but my gut, which is good, says that she’s either meant to test you or reward you.” She doesn’t wait for a reply, darting around me and disappearing, after delivering what I am certain is a spot-on assessment of the setup in the works.