“Hey, Lex.”
“Evan.” I can hear the smile in her voice, and when I catch my reflection in the mirror, I see my own grin spreading across my face.
“Come to my place on Saturday? I want to cook for you.” I leave that hanging in the air, but it’s more than that. I want to share my space with her, I want to talk to her with the knowledge that no one else can hear.
That’s one of the problems when you do what I do. No matter how much you block people’s signals, if you’re not in a secure place—like my cabin—then you can never be sure someone isn’t listening in. Like this phone call, it’s a landline, not one of the cells that I adapt.
Why the hell haven’t I given her one of my cells? That’s another thing I’ll be rectifying.
“I… what time?” she asks.
“About seven?”
“Okay.” I hear her gentle breathing over the line and I lean back in my seat, letting my hand rest lightly on the side of the steering wheel. Having her on the other end of the phone has me relaxing like nothing else ever has.
How can someone have this kind of effect over another person?
I start driving up the road that leads to the compound and sit up straighter. “I have to go, baby. I’ll see you on Saturday, okay?”
“Yeah,” she breathes. “I’ll see you then.”
I click the button to end the call at the same time as I hit the button for the gates to open.
When I pull up into my usual space, I spot Seb’s car and a few minutes later, Luke is pulling in on the other side of me.
“What was the rush?” he asks as he climbs out, Dean following behind him from the other side.
“He gave me a rough date, I want to know what Seb and West know.”
Luke nods his head in understanding and then follows me into the warehouse where Seb and West sit at the meeting table with Ty, Kay, and Kitty.
“What’s going on?” Seb asks, standing up.
“I just met with Darrell.” I sit down in my seat, leaning my arms on the table in front of me. “What do you know about this job?”
“Nothing we haven’t already told you,” West answers, his gaze meeting mine and narrowing slightly. “It’s the gallery, something to do with them.”
I nod my head slowly before opening up my laptop that I left on the table before I left. My fingers flying over the keys, searching for any shipments that are scheduled. The piece of art still hasn’t arrived, which must mean that Darrell got word on when it would be arriving.
“There’s nothing here,” I say out loud. “He must have an inside person in the ga
llery to know when it’s happening.”
“Wait… what are you talking about?”
I move my gaze from my laptop screen before meeting Seb’s eyes. “He told me the job is in four weeks’ time. He knows something that we don’t.”
Seb turns to West, both of them sharing something silently through their eyes. “He hasn’t told us anything yet.”
I tilt my head to the side, my gaze flitting between them both as I assess them. Why wouldn’t he tell them but would tell me? They’re the ones who have been working with him all of this time, yet he hasn’t said a word. I huff out a breath coming to a conclusion. “He doesn’t trust you.”
West’s head reels back before he pushes his chair back, his hands clenching into fists. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I lean back in my seat, watching as a vein in his neck pulses.
“He’s right,” Dean interrupts. “If he trusted you, you’d be one of the first people he’d tell about the date… not Evan.”
I hook my thumb toward Dean. “What he said. The question is, why? Why doesn’t he trust you?”