Close Cover (Masters and Mercenaries #16)(83)

“Are you saying you’re done for the night? It’s barely midnight,” she pointed out.

He’d found things that would keep him busy long after she’d gone to bed. He wasn’t going to do that tonight. They were on a deadline and she could be far from him a week from now. “I thought we could talk.”

Her brows went up in surprise, but she seemed to go with it. “About what? About the fact that Zep flirted with my senior citizens? I went out with dessert and he was letting those sweet old ladies pat his abs. I swear I expect to find him stripping for cash one day. He’s incorrigible.”

Remy couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll talk to him about that.”

She shook her head. “Don’t. We’ve already got three new reviews on Yelp about how amazing our service is. And a poor review about how that young whippersnapper of a waiter should keep his clothes on. I expect the reservations for girls’ night out to start flowing right on in.”

If only his pop-pop could see them now. “I’ll count on it.”

“Are we staying here? Or moving into the house? Seraphina was asking about it. She said Chartier House is nice and has several bedrooms.”

Well, that was one reason he hadn’t moved her in. “I thought it was easier staying here in the beginning, but obviously if you don’t want to share a room with me, I’ll make arrangements.”

Her eyes shifted away. “That’s not it. I don’t mind. Honestly, I was wondering if you were the one who doesn’t want to share a room with me.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Remy, you avoid me every night around bedtime. I thought we’d kind of agreed to be friends.”

Friends. He wanted more than that. “Yes, that’s why I’ve avoided you.”

Her lips curled up in a slight smile. “Is there a reason we can’t be friends with benefits?”

Because I need more than that. “You want to have sex?”

She sighed. “I wouldn’t hate it. The way I look at it, we’re not in such a different place than we were before. We know this won’t go on forever. We can be friendly and if we consent, sure, why not have sex?”

Because I want to make love to you. She didn’t want to hear that from him so he moved on to something she needed to hear. “I talked to Maia Brighton earlier today.”

He hated how tense her body got.

“What did she have to say?” Even her voice was tight.

He moved toward the bar, wishing he had the right to wrap her up in his arms. “There’s definitely something wrong with the way they lost those pages of the book. And there’s something else. A young woman was shot in the parking lot behind your office building the same day you blew the whistle on Vallon. She fit your description.”

Lisa dropped the pen. “Is she alive?”

He was so glad he could tell her the truth to that question. “She made it. I read the police report. It’s up in my backpack if you want to read it. She said the man who shot her wore a mask and apologized as he walked away. We think he realized he shot the wrong woman and that’s why he didn’t finish her off. I should have told you earlier.”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m happy to have had the afternoon without that knowledge.”

“It’s not all bad news.”

She shook her head. “It is for that young woman. I didn’t drive myself home that day. I was unsettled after I called into the tip line and then talked to the FBI. I called Laurel and she and Mitch picked me up. That was when I told them what I’d done and Mitch turned into super lawyer. We picked up my car the next day, but I didn’t go back to work. That poor woman.”

“It’s not your fault. You can’t feel guilty about that.” He moved behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon, pouring out two fingers between a couple of glasses. He passed her one.

She downed it in a shot. “Oh, I can feel guilty about a lot of things.”

“She’s okay,” he promised. “And there hasn’t been another incident until we came up against the Italian, and I’m starting to wonder if he really wanted to talk to you. Those numbers you memorized, they were account numbers, right?”

“I memorized all of them.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

She turned the laptop around his way. “Ask me.”

Was she saying what he thought she was saying? Was it even possible? “Okay, what was our take today at the bar?”

“We brought in two thousand five hundred and ninety dollars and twenty-three cents in credit card receipts and another seven hundred and thirty dollars and eighty-three cents in cash. Would you like me to split it up by type of credit card?”

So his girl was a machine when it came to numbers. “And you’ve been able to do this all your life?”

“Since I was a kid. I was a whiz at numbers and calculations. I wasn’t as good at things like abstract math,” she admitted. “But if what you’re asking is could I possibly remember an account number, then yes, I can. I’ve got those pages in my head. Oddly enough it actually makes it easier that they took those two pages. Otherwise, I would be awash in a sea of accounts. Those two pages only held the data for four accounts, so easy peasy. If the Italian guy wants a number, I can give it to him. But I don’t know how that gets the mob off my back.”