Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade #1)(15)
“Oh.” Her indignation faded…just a little. “You’re setting a trap.”
“Indeed.”
“Who do you expect to catch? What do you believe they’re doing? Are we talking simple theft, or am I facing potential violence?”
“I’m handling the matter and no one will be in danger.”
Her indignation rekindled. “Who’s going to apprehend these untrustworthy members of the staff? You’re not going to be here!”
He acted as if she hadn’t spoken. “Follow me. I’ll acquaint you with the inner workings of security procedures and the resort video room.”
6
After her security tour, Kellen should have grabbed lunch. Instead, aggravated and with a nagging worry about those bones moldering out on the plain, she bundled up and fought through the worsening wind and rain to the maintenance buildings to spend a few minutes with her friends. Or, as she called them, the real people.
The resort had a three-bay garage complete with hydraulic lifts, air compressors, welders, tire storage and enough steel tool cabinets to work on jeeps, ATVs, vans and the old-fashioned tour buses used to convey guests and staff. Maintenance for everything else—heating, air-conditioning, plumbing, electrical—was next door in an equally spacious and well-supplied area. A long table, chairs, benches, stools, vending machines and two small, old refrigerators separated the two trades. All was housed in a structure that mimicked the castle’s architecture and included a loft that overhung the back of the shop with storage for vehicle and operational manuals, light bulbs, Christmas decorations and odd tools they occasionally needed but that were too fragile to leave on the main floor.
Adrian Wright stood at a workbench filling grease guns. He glanced up and gave Kellen a half-assed salute. “Hey, Captain, want to get dirty with me?”
“Hmm.” Kellen pretended to think. “No.”
ADRIAN WRIGHT:
MALE, WHITE, 23, 5’9”, BROWN HAIR, BLUE EYES, BURN-AND-PEEL SKIN. BORN NEW ORLEANS: PICKPOCKET + STREET GANG. ARMY VETERAN, HONORABLE DISCHARGE. GOOD WITH WEAPONS, ENGINES. MOUTHY, BRASH, EDGY. EMPLOYED 49 DAYS. FRIEND. POSSIBLE TROUBLE?
He lifted his greasy hands and wiggled them. “Admit it. You want me. You love me.”
“I do love you,” Kellen said. “Like a disgusting, loud, gross younger brother who deserves to have his head stuck in a toilet and flushed.”
“Sweet talker.”
“Where’s Birdie?”
“She’s getting dressed.” Adrian went back to work. “Someone has to go to the landing strip to pick up guests.”
Kellen called up the schedule in her mind. “Right.” She checked the housekeeping schedule. “Rooms will be ready. Where’s Mitch?”
“He’s not back from taking Leo and Annie to the airstrip.”
“Really,” she said flatly. She checked her device to see when their plane had taken off.
Mitch should have returned an hour ago.
Temo sat at the cluttered table. His prosthetic leg leaned against his chair. He was massaging his thigh and talking into his cell phone in rapid Spanish, none of which sounded like a compliment.
TEMO IGLASIAS:
MALE, HISPANIC AMERICAN—SECOND GENERATION, 25, 5’7”, 150 LBS., BLACK HAIR, BROWN EYES, FIT. SPANISH SPEAKER. ARMY VETERAN, HONORABLE DISCHARGE. PROSTHETIC LEG. BORN EAST LA. FATHER DEAD, DRUG-ADDICTED MOTHER, BROTHER TO YOUNGER SISTER, REGINA. EMPLOYED 62 DAYS. MECHANIC, HANDYMAN, LEADER. FRIEND.
She had tempted Temo, Birdie and Mitch to the resort with the offer of a job, and they had all taken her up on her offer.
Adrian had come by a different route. One day, he’d appeared, told her he’d hit the skids, offered his services doing anything. She knew him pretty well; she’d served with him for most of her deployment in Afghanistan. He never knew when to shut up and lately, when she caught him glancing over his shoulder or jumping at an unexpected noise, she suspected his big mouth had finally caught up with him.
Temo got quiet; he sat listening to whoever spoke at the other end. He met Kellen’s gaze and rolled his eyes, then launched into another tirade in Spanish that ended with him slamming the phone on the table, picking it up, hanging up and slamming the phone down again.
“Those phones don’t grow on trees, you know,” she said mildly.
“It’s not broken.” He flung it on the floor.
She picked it up, examined it. The tough case had saved it. “This is why we call you…Lucky.” She tapped his artificial leg.
“Call me by my real name… Cuauhtemo.”
She laughed. “Like I could.”
In Afghanistan, when Kellen met Temo, he had been belligerent; he hated her for being white, in charge, an officer and a woman, and he let her know it.
She hated him for being smart, mean and tough.
Then on a dark mountain road, he spotted a trap.
She rerouted the convoy, got them in a defensible position and saved his sorry ass.
They made a great team.
He lost his leg on his next assignment, in Peru, to a car bomb.
When she offered the job in maintenance for the resort, he took it sight unseen. In the first month, he discovered his boss was siphoning materials to a construction firm south of Portland. Temo went from flunky to manager of a thirteen-man crew, fixing whatever needed to be fixed: HVAC, leaky toilets, fire damage caused by a cigarette smoked in a nonsmoking room. In the spring when the guests arrived, that crew would double.