“She’s too young for you.”
“No shit.” His face was clouding over, becoming more stormy as I kept on. “Why do you feel the need to make this an issue? I’m not into kiddie porn, if you get my drift.”
“You’re not a good idea.”
His mouth opened and an aghast mewl came from him before he jerked his hand up. Keys dangled from his fingers and he raised them higher. “You wanna rethink pissing me off? I have one more door to open for you.”
I narrowed my eyes. I wasn’t intimidated by him one bit, and I stepped into his space. He was taller than me, so my head had to angle up, but I was hoping to make up for the fierceness of it with my words and by closing my eyes almost to slits.
“I remember the sex house party. You had girls jerk you off with me sitting next to you, knowing I couldn’t leave the booth. You got a blowjob beside that same booth minutes earlier, and I might’ve been in a grief zombie state, butI clicked back to the present. I saw you making Seraphina laugh at bowling.”
His eyes were blazing, but he kept his mouth shut.
I kept on. “I don’t want her to romanticize you. I get if you were just being nice, but she’s young. She’s impressionable.” I half cringed because I could hear Chrissy Hayes speaking through me. “But you know she has a crush on you. Don’t encourage it. That’s all I’m asking.”
His anger lessened as I spoke. His jaw wasn’t as tight and his scowl eased. He was almost thoughtful by the end. He didn’t respond right away, taking the time to rub his jaw once before letting a soft curse slip free. He turned, going through the apartment.
It was a simple layout.
Kitchen and dining room on our right. Living room straight ahead. Going past the living room, there was the bathroom. Two bedroom doors beyond. I noted the pile of blankets folded at the end of the couch. That must’ve been where Hoda stayed.
Tony tested one doorknob. Locked.
He tested the other; it opened to a bedroom.
Door number one it was.
Fitting his key into the doorknob, he paused before opening it. “If she’s as anal as Matt suggested, she’ll probably have an alarm on the other side of this door. You prepared for that?”
I wasn’t too knowledgeable about door alarms or security alarms, but I had my backpack of gadgets. I hoisted it tighter on my back. “I’ll improvise.”
He scanned my face. “Right.” A beat. Then, “And I hear you about Seraphina. I won’t encourage it. That’s my good deed for karma.”
I cocked an eyebrow up. “Thisisn’t your good deed?”
He flashed me a grin. “Matt owes me a surfing trip for this. We’re taking your dad’s jet next weekend.” He opened the door, and a blaring horn pierced the air right afterward.
“Okay. My job’s done. Lock up behind you if you don’t get caught.”
I didn’t watch him leave but I heard the door shut. A second later, as I had pulled my bag off my back and was rifling through it, Fitz moved around me. He went to a plastic box set next to the doorframe.
“What are you—”
I stopped talking. It was pointless.
He took a knife out, jimmied open the box, and yanked out a cord. Lovely silence filled the room next.
“Thanks.” I wasn’t going to question him on how he knew to do that, either. Only made sense that security guards Kash employed would have special breaking and entering skills. I had a feeling they had a whole lot more skills to go with that—more than normal guards would have.
“She could’ve rigged that to send an alarm to her phone. I’ll call Matt, see if he can play distraction from her phone, too.” He motioned to her computer. “I’d get working on that ASAP, because even though I don’t like Tony, he wasn’t wrong about Kash. He’ll be here in three minutes, and he’s pissed.” He paused. “At both of us.”
He stepped back, his phone in hand, and I hurried to Camille’s computer.
ELEVEN
Kash
Camille Story’s building didn’t have an elevator, and she lived on the fifth floor. I took two to three steps at a time, loping up. Josh was right behind me; so were a couple others. Fitz knew we were coming. He had called it in, and instead of reporting what was happening, he just put me on a different channel.