Shot in the Dark (Blackbridge Security 2)

“I fucked up,” I mutter, hands scraping over the top of my head for the millionth time today.

Whitney Nelson is completely offline. Other than the flight manifest—and the video from the LAX airport—she hasn’t been seen in public in thirty-six hours. Believe me, I looked.

How can one little box of sex toys ruin a man’s life?

She hasn’t activated any of her accounts, and going by the cell phone towers, she’s left her phone sitting in the middle of her apartment. I’d be afraid for her safety if I hadn’t watched her hug her friend near the baggage claim over a hundred times.

“What the actual fuck are you doing?”

I don’t even bother to turn around at Brook’s voice. Nor do I close out the building schematics of the boarding facility where Simon is being housed.

“Wren?” I growl at the slap that hits the back of my head.

“Leave me the fuck alone, man.”

My office door closes, but I don’t have time to feel guilty for being an asshole. Nothing else but her matters to me right now.

I only get a moment’s reprieve before my office door swings back open.

“I said—” Spinning around in my chair, my words die on my tongue.

Brooks is back, only this time he brought reinforcements, and the frown on Flynn’s face and the matching scowl from Ignacio isn’t much better.

“He’s going to kidnap the fucking cat!” Brooks points to the screen behind my head, but I don’t turn to look at it. I know what it says, and that fucking place is much more secure than you’d think for a damn cushy animal hotel. “He’s going to go to jail over pussy.”

“Whoa!” Ignacio holds his hands up, offended on my behalf.

“A fucking catnapping!” Brooks clarifies. “Tell him he can’t do this shit. Remind him of the time he thought he could sneak into that party.”

Ignacio grins. “He couldn’t convince the bouncer to let him through the front door.”

“Saw you coming from a mile away,” Flynn reminds me, but his face doesn’t hold the same humor as the other two. “Even with perfect credentials… what’s going to be your story? You going to tell them the animal has to be quarantined because of some weird reaction to a chemical? It won’t fucking work.”

My frown begins to match his own because that’s honestly something I’d considered. I even drew up the correct documentation to do exactly that, but then I remembered how easily I get distracted, and my acting skills are absolute shit.

“I wasn’t going to go through the front door.”

“Holy shit.” Brooks gasps with a little more surprise than warranted in this situation, but he’s always been a little dramatic. “He was going to break in at night. A downright fucking cat burglar.”

“Look, man! I got what we need—” Finn stops dead in his tracks when he steps inside my office and notices the other guys.

Like an accident happening right before our eyes, Finn looks down at the ski masks and back in our direction three times before he slowly drags them behind his back.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Flynn says, each syllable slow and filled with warning.

I know now wouldn’t be the best time to lie and doing that while caught red-handed never worked out for anyone, but Finn pipes up before I can open my mouth and lets the shit fly.

“Come on! I’m fucking bored. They have twenty-four 4K 8MP @30fps IP Vandal-Proof Cameras, with inside and outside motion detectors.”

Flynn holds his hand up. “Don’t talk that shit to me. Did you understand any of that shit?”

Ignacio chuckles. “I speak many languages, but techie isn’t one of them.”

“What he’s saying is that—”

“Don’t care. You guys aren’t going to go abduct her damn cat.”

I slow blink at Flynn. “Then you’ll call in some favors and go pick him up?”

He clenches his jaw so tight, I’m certain I hear a few teeth crack. “Not a chance in hell, and you need to stop getting others involved in your messes. What the hell is wrong with you anyway?”

“Whitney found the fucking box the night Jones went down.”

He tilts his head to the side, jaw still working like he’s preparing to chew through steel ropes. “The box? The one you told Deacon weeks ago you gave back to her?”

“I didn’t—” I grip the back of my neck.

“You’re an idiot!” Ignacio points to the bird as if doing so qualifies it as truth.

I happen to agree with both of them right now.

“I told him I took care of it.”

“Meaning you returned it.” Flynn stares at me, refusing to let my eyes drift away.

“I got it out of the office and took it home. She found it in my closet while looking for a blanket.”

“Idiot,” Brooks mutters, his arms crossing over his chest. “Why didn’t you just trash it.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem,” Flynn interjects. “Deacon will be home in a few days from his honeymoon, and no matter how happy and in love that man is, he’s not going to be very happy with the way shit went down while he was gone.”