Spies and Prejudice (25 page)

Drew tightens his hold on my arm. “How did you get in?”

“The girl up front let me in. She thinks I’m here to seduce you.”

He smiles and steps closer so his bare chest is touching my shirt. I try not to flinch, but there’s no preventing it. “Are you?”

“No.”

“I’m just outside the room, Berry, on the patio.” Tanner says in my ear. I have to fight not to look for the sliding glass door. “If you get
a chance to unlock the slider, do it. But you’re doing fine. Just keep him talking.”

I force myself to lean in and press my lips next to Drew’s ear. “I hate you.”

He lets go of my arm and sits down on the foot of the bed. “I don’t like dogs, okay?” He points to a jagged scar near his neck. “Don’t take it personally.”

Drew’s not far enough away for me to get out the door, which is fine, since I’ll have to take the back way if I’m going to run. I’m all too aware that there’s no furniture in the room except the giant unmade bed. I’m not about to crawl in bed with him, so I hug the wall near a flat-screen television.

“Go ahead,” Tanner whispers. “Ask him about the files.”

“Don’t press her,” Mare says, her voice finally sounding something close to normal.

There’s a curtain covering the sliding glass door. There’s no indication that Tanner is so close. I’ll have to walk past Drew to unlock the door. I don’t move from my spot on the wall. “You’re looking for the Juiced formula?”

Drew smiles in his nonthreatening boy-band way. “You make it sound so dirty. I’m going to the FDA, Berry. I’m shutting Moss down before he can hurt a lot of people.”

“Lose the act, Drew. That formula is old news. The only reason you want the formula is because someone else is going to try to market it.”

Drew puts a foot up against the wall, blocking any path by the bed. “You’re not far off. Someone is going to try to market it. I’m here to stop them.”

“You’ve got him talking,” Tanner says. “Ask who he works for.”

I step closer to the bed. “If that’s true, then we want the same thing.”

“Do we?” Drew leans back on his elbows, and it’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

I can feel how close he is to letting me in. Drew will tell me everything. I just need to play this out. I sit down on the bed next to him.

“Berry, what are you doing?” Tanner raises his voice in my ear. “Now’s your chance to unlock the door. He’s admitted he wants to steal the formula. Find out who he works for and we can take him into custody right now.”

“Now?”

Drew laughs. “Slow down. We need a game plan.”

I wasn’t talking to Drew. I was talking to Tanner, who’s gone silent. I can’t let him take Drew down now. Tanner will never let me near those files. Drew will.

I lie on my side, propping myself on my elbow and resting my head in my palm. Drew turns on his side to face me. We’re like friends at a slumber party, sharing secrets. “What do you think happened to my mother?”

“I have my suspicions. Someone wanted her out of the way because she figured out what was going on with Juiced. You have all the same information I do at this point.”

“Why’d you pay Heather Marrone to go to the police?”

He shrugs. “You want to see the people who hurt your mother pay, don’t you? And the distraction gives us a nice opportunity to get into the warehouse. Did you get the key from Mary Chris?”

“Like I’d give it to him,” Mary Chris says.

I ignore Drew’s question. “Who stands to gain from Mr. Moss going to prison?”

Drew’s smile falters. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?”

I look past Drew’s face to a pile of clothes in the corner. A shirt is draped across a familiar black box. My desktop. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

He looks over his shoulder at the small black box that brands him a thief. “Berry, I can explain.”

I stand up, backing up to the wall. “You broke into my house.”

“I had to see the pictures you got of Moss.”

“I thought you were my friend. You were helping me. You could have asked to see the pictures. Instead, you made me go to a dance by myself so you could break into my house and steal my computer?”

The words are out of my mouth before I realize that Mary Chris could have given me the exact same speech. She may have, actually.

Is this what I’ve become? Am I no better than a guy who would hold a gun to a dog in order to get what he wants? How did this happen?

“You’re not listening.” Drew stands up, grabbing my wrist. Hard.

“Let go of me.”

“Berry,” Tanner says in my head. “I’m coming in.”

“No,” I say, “Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Drew repeats. He pushes me against the wall, trapping me with his weight. “Who are you talking to?”

“Berry, you need to get out of there.” Mare is panicking in my ear.

“Keep away from the glass door, I’ll blow it open in twenty seconds,” Tanner says.

Drew keeps me pinned to the wall. He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear and fishes out the earpiece with his finger. “What kind of game do you think we’re playing here?”

I force myself to look at Drew. “I can’t let you sell that formula to the highest bidder.”

Drew shakes his head. “Why can’t you admit you might be wrong? I’ll give you the files you want. Can you say the same thing about him?”

He’s right about Tanner. There’s nothing I can say. But suddenly getting the files doesn’t seem nearly as important as stopping Drew. He’s right in a way. I need to finish what she started. She can’t have died for nothing.

“I didn’t think so.” Drew steps back, freeing me from his makeshift prison.

There’s a loud crash behind us as glass shatters and rains onto the carpet. I move toward the sound as Tanner bursts into the room, but when I turn back to look for Drew the front door is closing and he’s nowhere to be seen.

L
ittle pieces of safety glass coat the room like a layer of snow. Tanner reaches for my hand. “We need to get out of here.”

I ignore him and run over to the pile of clothes covering my computer. I tuck the computer under my arm and walk through the hole in the wall on my own. I don’t start running until I’m covered in the darkness of the parking lot.

“Are you okay?” Mary Chris holds open the van door.

“I’m fine.” I turn on Tanner. “I thought the plan was to take Drew in after he gets the files.”

“Too risky.”

“For future reference, you might want to clue in the rest of the team on the real plan, instead of sending me in there at a complete disadvantage.”

“It’s not like that. A plan is a fluid thing. Once Drew admitted he planned to steal the documents, we had enough to bring him in.” Tanner turns to look at me. “What Drew said. About me not helping you.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not relying on you to get me anything. What matters is thanks to your stunt, Drew is going to go after the files on his own. We have to stop him the hard way.” It’s the truth. Getting the files for myself is not nearly as important as keeping them from Drew.

Ryan looks over his shoulder at us from the driver’s seat. “I’ve got him. He’s headed to the west parking lot.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “Where have I heard that before? Oh, I know, right before I walked into an ambush.”

Mary Chris looks back. “I’m the one who thought I saw Drew leave the hotel. Yell at me if you want to take it out on someone.”

I close my mouth. “Sorry.” Nothing is going the way it’s supposed to. All that matters now is stopping Drew. There’s no way I can take the chance that he’s going to give the formula to the wrong people.

As we drive, Tanner keeps trying to talk to me, but I stop him every time. I don’t need to hear an explanation. I know the answer. He jumped the gun again. Because of me. If there was any doubt that we don’t belong together, it’s clear now. I am pure poison.

Tanner hands me his earpiece. “Ryan will need to talk to you.”

“Not interested.”

“Don’t take this out on him, Berry. He’s trying to help.”

“Help with what? Making sure I don’t get anywhere near the files about my own mother?” I lash out at Tanner as a means to put some much needed distance between us. The only way we get Drew tonight is if he focuses on the job at hand. It will be easier if Tanner’s not trying to save me from invisible threats.

“So you’re willing to take Drew’s word for it without even listening to my side of the story?”

“I’m not talking about Drew. I heard you say it, okay? I heard you talking to your mom.”

Tanner doesn’t deny it. He just looks at the ceiling and shakes his head. “I’m not the only one who was trained to do this.”

We pull into the parking lot for Moss Enterprises.

Mary Chris brings up a blueprint of the warehouse on a monitor. “Drew thinks the second file is in the warehouse computer. There’s only one. It’s downstairs near the main loading bays. The bays are sealed with metal doors, the best way in is through the door on the east side.”

Tanner flips through the screen in front of him. “What about vents?”

“None large enough to fit through. Ryan and I will go into the main offices to access the real file from Preston’s desktop, but I’ll be monitoring the grounds remotely.” Mary Chris sounds like a pro. I should take her on more jobs.

Tanner holds out his earpiece to me.

“No thanks.”

“Mary Chris will keep an eye out for Drew on the laptop and let us know what direction he’s coming from,” Tanner says. “Trust me, it’s information you’ll want to know.”

“Did you seriously just ask me to trust you?” But I’m not a fool, and I take the earpiece from his hand. I put my messenger bag over my shoulder and follow Tanner to the warehouse, while Mary Chris and Ryan head in the opposite direction.

“Berry, I can explain.”

“Don’t. We’ve only got a few minutes head start. We need to find a
spot to wait for Drew, then we’ll grab him when the time is right. No sooner. Got it?”

“I’ll grab him. You are not going anywhere near—”

“Stop. Get over this knight complex or jealousy or macho man stuff or whatever it is that makes you want to keep me out of Drew’s path. I’m in this, okay? Toughen up and act like a professional.”

“I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

“I’m not going to let him get near that formula. That’s our priority. You’re not my guardian, Tanner. You’re not my—” I hesitate. “Anything.”

Even in the dark, I can see the cloud that crosses Tanner’s eyes and turns them stormy gray. “Fine.” The single word is clipped.

Good. It’s better if he hates me. He needs to focus on the mission. Logically, this makes sense. It hurts, but it makes sense.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the back door is locked when we get there. Still, Tanner looks at a loss.

“No plan?”

“Not anymore. I used my explosive pack to get into the hotel room.”

“Oh. I’ve got one.” I take the tennis bracelet off my wrist and wrap it around the door handle. “You have a light?”

Tanner pulls a small lighter from the pocket of his jeans and lights the fuse. He grabs my arm and pulls me back about fifteen feet. The explosion is loud, but since the door is wood, it’s more muffled than at the hotel.

Mary Chris talks in my head. “Assume the blast triggered an alarm. We have twelve minutes tops to get in and get out. Drew better get here soon.”

We move quickly through a dark lobby and into a large one-room warehouse. There are pallets stacked with cardboard boxes in long rows along the concrete floor. It’s like an indoor corn maze, minus the apple cider, hay rides, and any actual corn.

It’s eerily quiet. We run up and down the rows for about three minutes before Tanner stops.

“Do you see the stairs anywhere?”

I point out a door in the back left corner. It looks like an exit door, but the only exit is the one we came in. The door must lead somewhere. It does. Right into a set of stairs that head down. “Let’s go.”

The stairs twist in a circle as they go down, then go down some more. Finally, they end at another door. Tanner gives it a try, but it’s locked. “I don’t suppose you have more explosive powder?”

“We won’t need it.” This door is standard issue. The lock is old and unprotected. I take a bobby pin from my messenger bag and slide it into the lock, jiggling it until it catches.

“There’s a car pulling into the lot,” Mary Chris says in my ear.

“Let me guess, red hatchback?”

“It’s Drew,” Mare confirms. “He’s headed straight for the warehouse.” She can’t hide the pride in her voice. Drew believed her lie about the second file being in the warehouse.

The door clicks open, and we slip inside. The basement is dark except for a light high on the ceiling, at least three stories up. It casts just enough light to see the stacks of boxes piled nearly two-thirds of the way up, casting long shadows on each other.

“Any idea where the computer is?” I hesitate at the threshold, reluctant to go in. The air is stale and heavy.

“Nope.” Tanner moves past me. “Only one way to find out.”

I follow him as he runs along one shadowed corridor to another. He starts to turn right when we get to a wall, but I grab his arm and stop him. “Look.” I point up. There’s a lower ceiling, about ten feet above our heads, about the size of a small room. “How do we get up there?”

Tanner looks around and points behind us to a row of iron rungs in the wall. We change course and climb up. As our hands and feet make contact with the iron, the clunking sound echoes in the large room.

We come up on a small landing, just wide enough for us to walk to a tiny office with just enough room for a single desk and file cabinet. The computer monitor flashes a screen saver involving women in bikinis. I start skimming some of the purchase orders on the desk.

“We don’t have time to look around.” Tanner picks up a piece of paper and reads it anyway. “They’re just delivery receipts. And Drew is here. There’s only one way in. We’re better off waiting for him on the ground.”

I pick up one of the purchase orders anyway. It’s huge. From a retail chain for all of its stores across the country. Fifty thousand cases. Cases of what?