Page 83 of Fool Me Twice

Taylor was sitting at the front desk, a small mirror with an LED light on it perched on her desk as she plucked her eyebrows.

“Everyone is in the…” she started before lifting her head up to look at him and freezing mid-sentence. She ran her eyes from the top of his head all the way down to his shoes, raising one half-plucked eyebrow. “You okay?”

He huffed, waving the question off with his hand.

“Fine,” he said, walking through the long hallway toward the meeting room. He wanted to stop by his office and grab his tablet and the notes he had on this case. He wanted to have a list of questions prepared and be as thorough as he could be, but it felt like something inside him was screaming to just get to it and get it done. There was no time to dawdle when everything Cane was and had was hanging by a thread.

He burst through the door, finding everyone already settled around the large desk.

Fix was sitting with his back to the door. Ash was next to him and his mouth fell open the moment Hart walked through the door. Midas was absent, as usual. Wren was somewhere in the building, if the sounds of screeching were anything to go by. Black was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk, leaning into someone Hart had never seen. He was roughly Ash’s build and height, but looked much more polished and put together than Ash usually did.

He had a dark brown knit sweater on, and his dark hair was styled into a thick coif on top of his head. He was classically handsome, with a sharp jawline and thick, expressive eyebrows.

Black nodded at something the man said, then looked up, eyes growing wide when they landed on Hart. He was starting to get irritated with their reactions.

“What?” Hart snapped, walking fully into the room and pulling out the chair next to Fix. He ignored another set of eyes landing on him with questions written all over.

“Your hair.” Black pointed to Hart’s head, and he raised his hand, running his fingers through it.

It was unstyled and soft to the touch, a few locks falling onto his forehead. Hart found it surprising to feel it like that when he was at work, since it was usually gelled into submission. It almost felt like a decision someone else had made for him that morning without asking for his input, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care all that much.

“I was in a hurry,” he said as an explanation.

Black nodded slowly, the finger still up in the air and his eyes still glued to Hart’s hair. It was annoying beyond reason.

“And the outfit?” Ash asked next.

Hart looked down at himself, realizing he had zero recollection of getting dressed before leaving Cane’s apartment, which had resulted in him wearing the suit trousers he’d had on the day before, his boots, and one of Cane’s long-sleeved t-shirts that hung on his frame. It was obvious to anyone who had ever met him that it didn’t belong to him.

“I spilled coffee on my shirt,” he said, knowing it sounded completely hollow, but again, it wasn’t important at all.

“You have changes of clothes in your car,” Black said. “Multiple, color-coordinated ones. Like a psycho.”

“And a few in your office,” Ash added. “Which you walked by just now.”

Hart glared at them both, wishing they’d just stop talking for once. He was feeling raw and unmoored and he just wanted to get to the point. He pushed his fingers into a bruise Cane had left on his thigh the night before to ground himself, and swallowed the curse that threatened to tumble out of his mouth.

He was becoming slightly more aware of how removed from his usual self he was that morning. He didn’t know what to do about it other than to just try to fix the root of his issues, which was Cane’s struggle.

“How about we hear what Damir has to say?” Fix said, as usual, the only one who realized there were more pressing matters than Black’s and Ash’s madness.

He pointed to the man sitting next to Black. Hart squinted at him, looking the man, Damir, over and trying to place his face. He was sure he’d seen him somewhere before. It was putting him on edge that he couldn’t remember where, though.

“Do I know you?” he asked sharply.

Damir’s brows winged up toward the dark, wavy tresses falling over half of his forehead. “Not that I know of?”

Hart scanned his face again, trying to grasp the elusive strand in his head. All he could find was thin air, and he felt immediately shamefaced. “Never mind. Sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Maybe I just have one of those faces,” Damir said with easy humor, giving him a gracious exit. “And you look around my age, so we would have been at Nexus at the same time probably.”

It did make sense. After being split into teams they’d rarely spent any significant time with others, so at best, Hart might have seen him in passing and it had triggered a memory of a face among the masses.

“Probably.” Hart offered his hand, doing his best to circumvent the weirdness of how he was feeling and do his job. “I’m Hart.”

Damir accepted Hart’s hand, giving it a firm, friendly shake without breaking eye contact. “Damir. Interpersonal specialist from Arcstead.”

“Thank you for coming,” Hart said, schooling his voice to match Damir’s steady, soothing one. He knew he could do it, it was just taking some extra effort at the moment. “We really appreciate all the help we can get with this.”

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