Rock Chick 03 Redemption (28 page)

“Hi, I’m Monty,” a man with a blond military cut stood and smiled at me, offering his hand. I took it, we did a shake and I tried not to wince when nearly al my bones were crushed.

Monty was slightly older than most of Lee’s boys but no less fit. He was also slightly more in tune with social nuances, like saying hel o.

“What is al this stuff?” I asked, looking at al the monitors on shelves on the wal , DVD recorders under them, knobs, buttons and racks of electronic equipment. It looked like they could strap me in and we could go to Mars.

“This is the surveil ance room. We run security through here and… other things.”

I looked at the monitors.

I gawked at the monitors.

“Hey! That’s Fortnum’s! And so’s that… and that…

and…” I trailed off.

Dear God, they had nearly every corner, the front and back of Fortnum’s monitored. I watched Uncle Tex banging away at the espresso machine at the same time he seemed to be carrying on an argument with Duke.

Monty flipped a switch and Uncle Tex’s voice boomed into the room.

“I don’t want to listen to no fuckin’ Hank Wil iams, Jr.! You got Johnny Cash, I’l listen to Johnny Cash. If not, put Cream back on, Turkey!”

Monty flipped off the switch.

“Holy cow,” I breathed.

“We monitor Fortnum’s twenty four seven,” Monty said.

“Best part of the day surveil ance shift,” Luke put in.

I tried to think of the time I’d spent in Fortnum’s. Almost none of it had gone without some embarrassing incident.

I looked at Monty and Luke. Luke was wearing his half-grin. Monty was smiling flat out.

“Shit,” I said.

“Have a seat,” Monty told me, the smile stil playing about his face. “You can eat your breakfast in here. I’l show you what we do.”

“Where’s Hank?” I asked, sitting next to Monty, looking back to the monitors. Shamus moved to settle at my feet.

“Hank’s indefinitely delayed,” Monty replied, but I wasn’t listening. One of the monitors showed a visual of the room I’d slept in.

I turned in horror to Monty.

“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 fuck,” 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.”

Wel !

I just
knew
Dawn was a bitch.

I didn’t share my thoughts and gave him a smile.

“Thanks,” I said.

None of the other computers were taken so I asked him,

“Can I check my email on one of these computers?”

“Sure. Let me set you up,” Brody replied.

I checked a week’s worth of email, sending replies, deleting junk and doing a few changes and updates through the administration panels of some of my websites.

A little later, Dawn came in with a couple of pizzas and sodas and Monty and Luke took turns joining us, having a break from the monotony of surveil ance. Monty chatted about his wife and family. Luke didn’t say much but Brody and I made up for it. Dawn didn’t join us at al , likely for fear that the cheese on the pizza would give her instant cel ulite, but she came in, face set and hard, to clean up afterward.

Once the door closed behind her, Brody gave me a huge grin.

I was logging out of one of my sites when Brody walked behind me and saw what I was doing.

“You do websites?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m a designer.”

“Cool beans!” he yel ed. “Show me one of your sites.” He rol ed his chair next to me and we trol ed through a few of my sites. Then he showed me a game the computer team had loaded cal ed “Diablo”. It was a role-playing game where you got to be a character and went on quests through scary, devastated lands, caves, deserts and cities.

You picked up gold, armor, weapons and magical spel s and fought bad guys. It was kickass.

Brody networked the game then rol ed in his chair back to his cubby. I picked the assassin character because she had the best outfit and we started playing it.

What seemed like minutes later, but was actual y hours, we were in a battle to the death with a whole bunch of orcs and trol s and I shouted, “Yeah! Go Brody! Kick his ass!”

“Don’t stand there! Move away. He’s kil ing you!” Brody yel ed.

I chanced a quick glance at my stats. The bad guy
was
kil ing me.

I panicked.

“I’m out of health potions. Retreat! Retreat! Give me some of your health potions!” I screamed.

“I don’t have any potions. Run, bitch,
run
,” Brody squealed.

The red ran out on my health and my assassin was transported, stripped of everything we’d earned, back to the starting camp.

“I’m dead! Fuck, they kil ed me! They fucking kil ed me,” I wailed, jerking my hand from the mouse and rol ing my chair back in disgust.

Brody had gone quiet.

I looked at him and saw he was looking at the door.

I turned my gaze to the door and it was opened. Hank, Lee and Luke were al standing there in various amused-male poses, watching us.

Shit.

“What?” I asked, deciding to go with uppity.

“Enjoying yourself?” Hank asked, his mouth twitching.

“No,” I said angrily. “I’m dead. Now I have to run al the way back to my lifeless body and get my stuff. The orcs and trol s wil be hanging around and we’l have to fight them and I can’t do that without my good armor. I’l have to use the crappy stuff I have stashed in my trunk. I had a real y good sword and helmet and now they’re gone. That just plain sucks.”

Hank stared at me.

Then he said, “You do know I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about.”

“Diablo,” I replied, like that explained it al .

He stared at me.

“Nothing. Forget it.” I turned to Brody, “Wil this run on my laptop?” I asked.

“Sure, if you’ve got a good one,” Brody replied.

I looked back to Hank. “We need to go to the mal , I’ve got to buy this game.”

“Maybe we’l do that tomorrow, Sunshine.”

“Now!” I snapped.

“Uh-oh,” Brody said. “I’ve seen this before. It’s not pretty.

Soon she’l be playing al night on the Internet.” My head swung back to Brody. “You can play on the Internet?” I breathed.

“Now’s a good time to shut up Brody,” Lee warned.

Hank walked into the room and grabbed my hand.

“Let’s go, warrior princess. Time for dinner.”

“I wasn’t a warrior princess, I was an assassin,” I told him.

Hank smiled at me.

My heart fluttered.

I ral ied. “Anyway, we just had lunch,” I said as Hank pul ed me out of the chair.

“Five hours ago,” Luke put in.

I stopped and stared at Luke, openmouthed.

“No shit?” I asked.

He shook his head, the amused-male pose stil in ful force.