Page 21 of Taming Achilles

Detective Tanner graciously pulled out a seat for me, and slipped it in behind my legs as I sat down.

“Thank you,” I fluttered my lashes at him again, knowing that I needed an ally. A little flirt and a display of admiration could do wonders to get someone on your side.

Geordie growled and I jumped, turning to him with a raised brow. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Tanner’s hand on the back of my chair. Detective Tanner noticed, but didn’t move it, choosing to speak to his partner instead.

Were these men in the middle of a proverbial sword fight? If they were trying to see who the top dog in the room was, it was neither of them. I put my money on Hugo every time.

“Any more on the footage?” Detective Tanner had used a kind tone with me. With his partner, he could have been talking to a drinking buddy. Thank God, because I was sick of Geordie’s admiring glances toward the boxy Detective Delgado. I needed to get my jabs in too.

Detective Delgado shook her head. Her eyes flashed to Geordie, then to me. Something crossed her mind. I saw it. Her eyes widened, just a little, before she closed off her expression again.

“No, all wiped. The hour before Miss Fox called us, every camera in the vicinity was put on a loop.” She leaned back in her seat. “Including the CCTV in the private elevator.”

Of course, she wasn’t talking to me. To her, I was just a walking clothes hanger. Incompetent, and ridiculous. She was one of those serious women who despised superficiality, I’m sure. The kind of woman with a stick so far up her arse, that only a deep-dicking would ever loosen it out.

Geordie’s fist tapped, absently on the table. “So we’re dealing with a professional?”

“It seems like it,” Detective Delgado’s eyes locked with mine. “Miss Fox, is there anyone that you could think of with these skills that would wish to leave you the kind of message that they did?”

“A message?” I asked, keeping my voice small, and frightened. Light and breathy. Playing into the stereotype they would have of models. Like I was in shock. A facsimile of a woman finding herself in a frightening situation.

I could feel Geordie’s eyes boring into the side of my face, but I kept my eyes on the detective. Geordie probably knew I was putting on a show. But he wouldn’t say it out loud.

“The specimen he left on your bed.” The woman had zero compassion or empathy. Figures. “We are interpreting it as some kind of message, since we’ve eliminated robbery as a motive. Do you know a person with the skills to tamper with CCTV cameras in order to do something like this?”

I took a deep breath.

Sure. There was the Kosovar arm’s dealer who I had shot on an Albanian backwoods route. But he had been arrested by Interpol, so it probably wasn’t him. There was that one Russian arm’s dealer I had clashed with in the Hindu Kush. But he wasn’t very tech savvy, so probably not him either. There was Alex Baas, but he was definitely dead. Callum’s wife had killed him, and I had splattered his brain across his office wall and staged his suicide.

No. There was only one person. I was sure of it.

“I can’t think of a single person.” I am a very, very good liar.

Geordie beside me flinched, as if I had splashed him with cold water.

“Really? You can’t think of a single one?” Geordie leaned toward me, his fists clenched. He was challenging me. I met his challenge straight on.

“Not a one,” I said, still looking at Detective Delgado. “I don’t exactly run in those kinds of circles.”

I needed to get a call out to my American counterpart, Brett Bradley. He needed to be updated on this.

I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I had a Jason Rhodes problem.

Chapter 9

Geordie

The bitch was lying through her teeth.

She had no tells. She’d make out like gangbusters if she ever decided to play poker. But she couldn’t hide anything from me. I knew when she lied. It was like her body sang its deception to me from the electricity in the air. Like a wrong note in a perfect song.

I wanted to put her over my knee and belt her arse until she learned to tell the truth. I wanted to shake her until her secrets fell out of her skull and into my waiting hands.

“Excuse me.” She picked up her phone from her bag. She looked down at the screen and typed a text message.

Then she put her phone face down. When it dinged, she looked at it. She rose and turned to Detective Tanner.

“I’m sorry, is there a Ladies’ nearby?” Those fucking eyelashes did their work, charming the poor sucker.

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