Page 48 of Layne Closure Ahead

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Iwish you had stayed home. I don’t like the idea of you tagging along for this.” Joey kept his voice low as they stood there waiting inside the small cafe.

Layne grinned and shook her head. “Since when do I ever listen to what you want?”

“Well,” his hand slid up along her spine and began to possessively take hold of the back of her neck.

After her cheeks began to feel warm with a slight flush, she interrupted his response. “Don’t answer that.”

Joey smirked at her, leaving his hand gently massaging the tiny muscles on the back of her neck a few times before dropping his hand back down to his side.

The young barista at the Every Day I’m Grindin’ coffee shop in Greenwich Village looked like she barely was in her twenties. She looked at Joey with wide eyes that damn near had hearts popping out of them. “Can I get you anything else?” She extended her arm out to hand him the coffee he ordered.

Layne reached over and gently took the coffee from the girl’s hand. “He’s fine.” Not bothering to toss a smile at the girl. Helping herself to the piping hot beverage she walked with Joey out of the cafe.

Joey chuckled as he looked over at Layne. “You weren’t getting jealous, were you?”

Layne scoffed at how ridiculous that sounded. “Of a girl that looked like she should be the spokesperson for Squeaky Clean magazine? Please.” She walked with him toward their destination, an unassuming brownstone at the end of the block that had a “FOR RENT” sign in the front window with an invalid telephone number listed on it.

She caught the amusement in Joey’s face when he took her elbow with a gentle hand and paused her in her path. He leaned in and gave her the type of kiss that was slow but did powerful things low inside of her body. When he pulled back, she had almost forgotten all about the googly-eyed barista.

He smiled at her. “You’re cute when you’re jealous and don’t want me to know it.”

She wrinkled up her nose at him. “You’re a pain in my ass.”

His hand lightly patted said ass. “Maybe later if you ask me nicely for it.”

She shot him a look that was an attempt to be irritated with him, but he made it difficult when he gave her a wink that promised dirty things. Layne finished off the coffee before dropping it into an empty trash can next to the front steps of the house in front of them.

Joey jogged up the front steps of the rental and knocked on the door. Layne followed, letting him take the lead since these were his people, not hers. A raspy and cranky male voice came over the intercom to the left of the door. “What do you want?”

Joey grinned. “Open up, jackass.” He placed his hand on the doorknob waiting for access inside.

With suspicion in his voice, the unknown guy’s voice replied. “Who’s the broad?”

Layne straightened and stepped forward to give the man an earful, but Joey put a hand out to get her to back down. “She’s good. Stop fuckin’ around and let us in.”

There was a grunt on the other end of the line before the door audibly unlocked and Joey opened the door and went in ahead of her.

When she got inside, she closed the door behind her and took a look around. It appeared to be a vacant home that hadn’t yet been rented out. There was no furniture, no personal touches, and the wooden floors could use a good cleaning from the dust and dirt gradually collecting on them.

Joey waved for her to keep up as he went to the door that led down into the basement. Once they descended a level underneath the house, the air became musty from lack of air circulation and the lights remained dim. There was only the glow of an excessive number of computer monitors displaying lines of code on the wall above an oversized desk that sat two men with several keyboards in front of them.

The man to the right had scraggly grey hair that hung down to his shoulders. He had to be approaching sixty if he wasn’t already there. When he turned, he huffed at the sight of Layne and then looked over at Joey. “Do you have it?”

Joey reached deep into his pocket, pulled out the thumb drive, and tossed it over to the gruff old man who caught it in his hand and began to get to work extracting the data from it.

The man to the left had short and spiky brown hair and a set of wire-framed glasses over his eyes. He was considerably younger looking; Layne would have been surprised if he was even of legal drinking age.

When he turned around and saw Layne, he made a sound akin to a schoolboy giggle. His pale face turned a dark shade of red as he fumbled to get out of his chair. “Oh, um, hi. I’m Brandon, but my codename is Cowboy.” The poor guy was barely able to avoid tripping over his feet as he approached Layne, extending a hand out to her.

“Cowboy? Somebody ought to save a horse. I’m Layne.” She shook his hand with a smirk, teasing the poor kid who seemed like he had never spoken to a girl before in his life.

While the innuendo went over Brandon’s head leaving him looking confused, Joey caught onto it and rolled his eyes at her. She flashed a cheeky smile right back at him.

Brandon nervously chuckled while standing there staring at her and fidgeting in his spot. “Uh, do you have it? The phone?”

Layne pulled out Eric’s phone from her jacket pocket and handed it over to him. She was more than happy to be relieved of it after what she had to endure to get it the other night in the makeshift torture chamber. “I powered it down as soon as I could after I got my hands on it.”

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