Pierce buried the used condom and tossed the wrapper in the back of the jeep. There wasn’t much else back there, but he consolidated everything they might need into one bag. If a quick exit was required, he might only have a second to grab the antique that had started this magnificent mess.
He cared about the Olmec piece less and less by the second. He ran his thumb over the wrapped edges with the full knowledge that he’d rather be touching Melody.
Every few seconds, he’d turn to watch her dress. Her body was still flushed from their lovemaking. Hell, so was his. Just the thought of her was enough to tighten his belly and make his cock twitch again.
“You’re staring.”
“Can’t help it. I wasn’t too rough with you, yeah? Your shoulder? If you need more...it’s a cutting edge local nerve blocker, but—”
She zipped her pants and toed the log. “If I say yes, will you promise to do it again? After this patch of hair grows back, ya know.” While his face burned with legitimate regret, she wiggled her finger in the air. “Kidding. What are you doing over there? I wasn’t enough? Now you’re playing with your bag of tricks again?”
“Just checking supplies. Everything we need to survive is right in here.”
Leaning against the jeep, he held out his hands until she took them in hers. He drew her close, tasting her and reigniting a passion they didn’t have time to properly quench. “When this is over, we’re going to try that in a bed.”
“You were supposed to be my one-night stand,” she said with lips that brushed along the side of his neck. “Two night, maybe.”
“We could shoot for more.” He backed away, knowing full well that if this continued, their window of opportunity would close.
While he had her here, he clipped an inner waist band holster and gun to her back. “If anything happens, don’t hesitate to use this. Grab the bag, get in the car and drive.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that.” But she hadn’t looked at him when she’d said it. Maybe she was just starting to realize the level of danger her quest for justice had put her in. Hopefully, she was right. On the chance that she wasn’t, he wouldn’t leave her unprepared.
As before, they drove up the lane to the facility without interruption. Factory didn’t describe it. The grounds were too empty for that. This was Chernobyl, the morning after. Nothing here but three cars in an otherwise massive empty lot.
He made note of the tires. Fresh road sludge still clumped beneath the mud flaps. No heavy duty trucks around. This all lent creditability to the theory of corporate theft. Those guys were easy to deal with. A little strong-arming and they usually caved. “Ask for a review of the facility when we get inside.”
“I’d planned on it,” she said, eyes scanning the length of the complex. “This is creepy, right?”
“Everything’s creepy with you,” he said with a grin. He opened his mouth to add more, but a clanging door stilled all conversation.
“Noah,” Melody shouted with the best fake enthusiasm he’d seen in a while, then jumped out of the car.
This was the man she’d trusted with her money?
If there was one thing in the world Pierce hated, it was stereotypes. But this guy...
Pierce followed close behind as he sized Noah up. He’d envisioned Noah as...well...Noah, complete with a long beard and robe. That was dumb. This Noah was a freaking Nordic lumberjack without the plaid. He had muscles on muscles that dwarfed his other muscles.
“You went into business with the white Mr. T?”
She didn’t answer, aside from flicking her wrist behind her back. “Noah, meet Mr. Jones,” she said, throwing her thumb towards Pierce. “He’s an IRS investigator.”
Okay. Pierce played along with a nod, still unsure of where she thought this was going.
Noah’s eyes swept them both. He even leaned around, as if to see if they were alone. “Melody. You didn’t call.”
“I couldn’t. Something about discovery.”
Discovery? Did she even know what that meant? Probably not, but it didn’t shut her up.
“He and the government are trying to take over my whole business. I get a tax break for working with small sourced products, as long as I can prove it. Now they’re coming at me with questions about misspent funds. I dunno. Look, help me out. Show the guy around and prove that I’m getting legitimate sourcing for my chocolate. Then I can go home.”
This was dumb. He knew it. Noah sure as hell did too. The man crossed his arms, a neat trick seeing as how they were tree trunks, and stepped forward. “I’m glad you’re here, but this isn’t making any sense, Melody.” He unhooked two wiggling fingers. “Let’s talk inside. Get out of the sun. I’ve got some beers on ice,” he said with a smile that didn’t gleam in his ‘roided up eyes.
That was the first hint.
Melody followed Noah inside. Pierce brought up the rear. He tried to, anyway. But both times he sidestepped to let Noah go ahead, that same lame-ass smile appeared on the man’s face. “After you.”
Those were the second and third hints. He wouldn’t need a fourth. Right.
Pierce ripped out his gun and shot.
Twice.
Guys that size usually needed a double tap. Melody whirled around with a look of absolute horror on her face.
Pierce shrugged and kicked the lump at his feet. “What?”
*****
Melody had whipped around at the first groan. Only groan, actually. The next thing she heard was a thud as Noah crashed to the floor. “You killed him?”
Casual as crap, Pierce dropped to search Noah’s pockets. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just shot him. Hold his gun for a minute.”
“What?”
“With tranquilizers. Nothing permanent. He’ll be fine,” he said, rising with Noah’s keys and a cell phone in hand. He tossed both over. “Hold these. I’m going to drag our friend into the next room.”
“No, but why did you do this?”
Pierce paused with his forearms latched between Noah’s armpits. “You did this. The IRS? C’mon. No one was going to believe that. And the guy had a gun. See,” he said, nodding at the object on the floor.
“Well, I froze. I guess.”
Still dragging and walking backwards into another room, Pierce shook his head. “No...no, no. You did the opposite of freezing. You ran, jumped in the fire with a can of kerosene on your back. Then you pulled me along with you. IRS. Geez. One, he saw right through it. Two, I’m not trusting a guy who won’t let me walk behind him.”
She kept her mouth shut at the obvious irony that Noah had rightly felt the same way. “Just because he had a gun didn’t mean he was going to use it on us.”
“You’re referring to the guy who’s been stealing from you?”
“Says the guy who stole from a monastery.”
Pierce ignobly dropped his bundle and shut the double French doors to the side room. “That’s different. I’m one of the good guys,” he said, tapping himself on the chest and walking past her. “We need to get out of the open. Any clue where his office is?”
“No, but the whole bottom layer is refrigerated. I could go down there while you root around up here.”
“You’re insane if you think we’re splitting up.” His fingers crunched around her wrist as he pulled her along.
The building was a strange mixture of house and barn. The massive interior space had few options for them to go. There was the room where Noah was, and closed doors on the opposite side and finally a set of stairs leading above and below. Pierce’s gun was firmly in hand. It looked as natural there as a scalpel. “I need to find his office.”
“I need to see what’s downstairs.”
“No you don’t,” he said, holding onto her like a parent dragging his kid through an amusement park. He peered a room. Looking over his shoulder, she didn’t see anything other than a widescreen TV and a desk. Pierce finally let her go, but put her right to work while he stayed by the door with his gun in hand. “Check for a laptop or tablet.”
A shiver of excitement skipped down her back. She should be horrified that her life had come to this, and she mostly was. But on the same day that she’d made love to a beautiful man and been shot at, now she was secret agenting herself through a strange house.
She allowed herself to savor it as she opened drawers with her fingertips, feeling for levers and hidden latches as she’d seen in spy movies. Each time she almost felt bad about it, she reminded herself that Noah was taking her mother’s retirement money.
“Find anything?”
When she shook her head, they moved back into the main room. Pierce’s gun was slightly overhead as he looked up the stairwell. “His office must be upstairs.”
“Or down. Next to the product. That’s what I’d do.”
“No shit,” he said, deadpan as ever. “Fine. You win. Again. Follow me.”
The air down here should be rich with the aroma of chocolate. The farm’s small operation was simple and genius in its nature. After harvesting and drying the beans, they would be brought to a building on-site for packaging and then to the bottom floor of this building for mixing, conching and tempering before arriving at her shop. According to Noah, the bottom layer stretched out underground for a quarter mile, eventually rising to a building with a docking area for trucks.
Machines whirred down here. Somewhere. But it was too hot and too quiet. Without people and fresh chocolate, the space was nothing but a massive gray coffin with unused conveyor belts and bare trolleys.
Rows of refrigerated rooms lined the tunneled walkway. She dragged her hands along the warm doors. Every few steps, she’d pop to her tiptoes. Each one just as empty as the last.
Pierce’s shoulder muscles seemed to twitch with every step. The gun never left his hand. “Shouldn’t we have seen something by now?”
“Probably the office is at the end of the...row. This door’s cold.”
He turned and peered inside. “Bundles.”
It took a few jerks and twists, but the door opened, bathing them in frigid air. Inside were stacks of premade chocolate. She put her nose to the crates. “Eww. Where are these from?”
Pierce knuckled some script on the side. “Russia.”
“Russia doesn’t produce chocolate. That’s not me being snobby. It physically can’t.”
He pulled out the knife at his ankle and shaved off a sliver of what sure as crap wasn’t cacao. “Looks like they do.”
She yanked the “chocolate” out of his hand. “This is crap. The same crap they’ve been sending to me for the last two shipments.” She went around to another stack and found a slip of paper stuck between the piles. She held the blue and red printing up to the light. “Sonofabitch.”
“That’s new from you.”
She stomped back over, slapping the paper against Pierce’s chest. “Noah’s been remelting pre-produced chocolate. Bastard.”
“That ain’t all.” Plastic ripped again. This time, Pierce waved a stack of bills pulled from the bundling. “These are great counterfeits. Printing your own money is a lot less work than paying a bunch of farmers.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“You won’t. We’ll do the rest of this somewhat legally. Get out your phone and take some pictures. Then we can go home.”
Damn straight. She’d photograph his ass right into a jail cell. “He’d better not ever come back to the States. My insurance has gotta cover this. Scoot over out of the shot. I want a full view.”
She stepped back to get in as much of the refrigerated unit as possible. She leaned back, when something – someone – grabbed the back of her head. A hand clenching around her throat kept her from screaming. She managed the briefest of whispers. Pierce turning around was the last thing she saw before the wall forcefully introduced itself to her forehead.