“Did you watch me sleep?” I asked.
He nodded. “Hank’s orders. Constant surveil ance. If we aren’t with you, we’re watching you.”
“But… I was just down the hal ,” I said, mortified that they had watched me sleep and I hoped I hadn’t drooled.
“One thing I’ve learned, you can never be too careful,” Monty replied.
Okay, so, maybe he was right about that.
Monty took my mind off the alarming news that they had watched me sleep and told me what they did in the control room; some security, mostly investigation. Then Dawn showed with my latte and a blueberry muffin. The latte was cold and had hazelnut syrup in it. The muffin was crap. I didn’t say a word and ate the muffin while we listened to the police band radio and Monty taught me some of the codes.
Then he turned down the police band, I sipped my latte and we watched the monitors.
About half an hour later, I was losing the wil to live and the control room had lost its coolness. How could these guys do this day in and day out? It was stupendously boring.
The phone rang.
“Thank God!” I yel ed before I could stop myself. I was happy that something, anything was happening. I didn’t care if it was the dry cleaners cal ing to say Monty’s shirts were ready to be picked up.
Monty shot me a grin then looked at Luke while he reached for the phone. “These girls like their excitement.”
“Thank f**k,” Luke muttered his reply.
I didn’t know what that meant but I suspected, at least, that it was good.
“Yeah?” Monty said in the phone. Then he said, “She’s right here.”
He turned to me.
“Hank.”
I took the phone and put it to my ear.
“Hey,” I said, dipping my head and feeling weird in that little room with Monty and Luke having nothing to do but listen.
“How’re you doin’?” Hank asked and I felt a thril race through me at the sound of his voice.
“Monty and Luke and I are hanging in the control room.” Silence.
“Hank?”
“I thought you’d watch a DVD or something.”
“No, they’re teaching me police codes.”
More silence.
“Dawn brought me a latte and muffin. Luke said I could have whatever I want so she ran out to get it for me,” I said this because I didn’t have anything more exciting to say.
“Bet Dawn liked doing that,” Hank said, apparently knowing Dawn.
“She didn’t seem tickled pink,” I told him.
I heard Hank’s soft laugh and another thril raced through me.
“I’m gonna be awhile. You gonna be okay?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“I’l be there to get you as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
Silence for a beat, and then, “Am I talkin’ to Roxanne Logan?” he asked.
“Wel … yeah. What’s the matter?”
Another beat of silence. “Nothin’, sweetheart. I’l see you soon.”
I got my third thril and then he disconnected.
I handed the phone to Monty, he replaced it into the receiver and then he touched a button and said, “Brody, come to the control room.” Then he settled back in his chair.
“Who’s Brody?” I asked.
“Our computer guy. You can go with him for a while.
Change of scenery.”
I gave him a relieved smile.
There was a knock on the door and Luke got up and opened it.
A man walked in, wearing black jeans, his dark hair needed a cut and he was head-to-toe in disarray. He wore Buddy Hol y glasses and his body was absolutely not the normal lean muscle of one of Lee’s boys. His black t-shirt said in white lettering, “I upped mine, up yours!”
“Jeez. This is Roxie. Wow. I’ve wanted to meet you, like, for days!” he shouted when he saw me.
“Hi,” I said, surprised at his reaction to me.
“You’re like, famous. It was crazy around here when you were kidnapped. Everybody was running around, the phones ringing off the hook, Dawn was in, like, a total snit, worse than usual. I was running every computer check possible. Hotel registrations, airlines, credit cards. Lee paid me a bucketload of overtime. Every time Vance reported in that someone had seen you at a gas station or whatever, the whole place went wired. When Vance cal ed in that someone saw you tied to a steering wheel, Hank was so pissed off, he put his fist through the wal in the down room. I saw it. It was insane.” I felt the blood run out of my face.
“Brody,” Monty said, his voice low with warning.
“What?” Brody asked, looking at Monty, completely lost in the excitement of it al . Then he caught the hint, his exhilaration faded and he looked at me. “Oh yeah. Right.
Sorry. Wel , glad to see you’re okay and everything.” He didn’t sound glad. He sounded like he would have preferred the place stil to be wired.
“Why don’t you take Roxie to your office? Show her what you do,” Monty suggested.
“None of the confidential stuff, right?” Brody asked.
Monty shook his head and it wasn’t hard to read that Brody was trying his patience.
“Right,” he said.
“Okay. Come on,” Brody said.
I waved to Luke and Monty as I fol owed Brody out of the control room. They didn’t wave back but they did both smile.
Brody took me to another door down the hal and into a room that had four cubbies in the middle, al of them with computers and filing cabinets.
“I do my stuff here. Credit checks, employment checks, stuff like that. I also have other projects that are more fun but I’m not al owed to talk about them to anyone, even Hank’s girlfriend,” Brody told me.
I stopped next to what was his cubby. It was decorated profusely with a variety of energy drink cans, big grabs of chips and candy wrappers with the odd action figure thrown in for class.
I looked at Brody. “Did Hank real y put his fist through a wal ?”
Brody brightened. “Yeah! They haven’t fixed it yet. Do you wanna see?”
I bit my lip and shook my head.
Holy motherfucking cow.
Hank, Mr. Control, had put a fist through the wal . For me.
Shit.
Brody went on, “He was real upset. Your uncle was super upset too but he mostly yel ed. No offense but I thought it was cool. See, Dawn’s got a thing for Hank now that Lee’s taken and she knows she isn’t gonna get anywhere with Vance, Mace or Luke. She’s been trying to get something on with one or the other of them, like, forever. Always flirting even though she has a boyfriend. She was like, totally pissed off when she found out Hank had a girlfriend, especial y when he went al bal istic. Me and everyone else were thril ed. Dawn thinks her shit doesn’t stink. She may were thril ed. Dawn thinks her shit doesn’t stink. She may be pretty but everything about Dawn stinks. It’s great working here, except you can’t tel anyone about the cool stuff you do. Everything’s great but not Dawn. So, we al were happy that Hank real y likes you, because we like Hank but we don’t like Dawn. We weren’t happy that you were kidnapped or anything.”