Page 3 of Talk to Me

FIVE YEARS LATER…

The alarm went off at four. I was already up and moving before I hit the button to turn it off. In the bathroom, I started the shower before I turned on the lights. While I waited for the water to heat, I brushed my teeth.

The shower took me seven minutes. I debated blow-drying my hair but I’d rather get coffee going. I checked my watch as I pulled on sweatpants and an oversized slouchy shirt. Fuzzy socks completed the work ensemble. I pulled the covers up in a show of making the bed then headed for the kitchen.

A pot of coffee was already hissing and spitting away. My espresso machine waited for me and I grabbed a protein shake out of the fridge to drink while I made myself a latte. When the coffee was ready, I poured it into a thermos, then carried everything downstairs to the basement.

The door unlocked with a single code and then I was sliding inside to my office. What had originally been a fallout shelter had required a facelift and a series of installations.

I put together the best set up I could by using a wide variety of contractors. A relative few had been given access to the house, but that was before I moved in. Privacy was important. I set the thermos on the desk to the right as I woke my systems up.

An array of fourteen monitors rippled to life as I settled in my chair. A pop-up appeared on the center screen as I settled the headset on over my damp hair. I entered the code for the VOIP and verified all firewalls were active before I hit answer.

“Talk to me,” I said, then took a long drink of my latte.

“Hello, Patch. It’s always good to hear your sexy voice. Did you roll out of bed just for me?” Justus Locke’s name appeared on a screen as the log noted his location. He was coming into the switchboard from somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Ah, Sydney.

“Didn’t want to miss my favorite guy,” I teased. It took a few keystrokes to work my way into the street CCTV in Sydney. At least he was in one of the most surveilled cities in the world. They had some sixty thousand odd cameras. Triangulating his location took a couple of minutes.

Ah, there he was. He was dressed in a t-shirt, khakis and what looked like loafers. It was summer down under at the moment. He had a cell phone to his ear and a bag slung over his shoulder. His position on the bridge in Darling Harbor afforded him a nice view.

“You never let me down,” he said with a sigh. I switched cameras, going for a close-up. It took me a moment to find one.

“You sound tired,” I said, downing more of the coffee. Now that I was in my chair, the adrenaline joined the caffeine. He looked tired too.

“I am tired.” That admission wasn’t like him. “But I would never miss our date.”

I chuckled. An alarm showed on the left-hand screen, and a second camera view opened. “That’s one of the things I love about you,” I murmured as I did my scan. The target was a bank building less than a half-klick from his current location.

“That I’m tired?” The retort just made me roll my eyes.

“That you never leave me hanging.”

“I do like it when you talk dirty to me.”

That earned him a snort. “So, are we doing this or just hanging out for a bit?”

“All business and no play, girl, makes Patch?—”

“A busy woman. I can play while we work, remember?”

“You know what that does to me,” he complained, but he was already in motion. He tucked his phone into his pocket but our call didn’t drop. He had an earbud in.

“It makes you move your ass.”

“Yeah yeah, you keep your eyes on my ass.”

It was my turn to chuckle. “Then put a little sway in that step.”

His snort required no explanation.

“At the next alley,” I said. “Follow it to the back of the building.” I was already into their security system. Their internal cameras were coming up on a third screen. “The upgrades we were worried about don’t appear to be installed.”

“Tell me more,” he said, even as he detoured down the alley I indicated.

“Hold position,” I told him and he stopped, vanishing in the shadow between two lights. The door to the alley opened and one of the security guards stepped out, pressing a brick into place to keep the door open. “On a count of five, move. Leave the brick in place.”

The security guard repeated a routine he’d demonstrated over the past few weeks. In his attempts to vary that routine, he’d just alternated by hour and door. This was just the night he used the door in this alley. He moved to the opposite end, lighting a cigarette and planting himself where he could people watch.

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