Page 94 of Burn

A light hand feathered over my shoulder and I glanced up at Gracie. Hitting one button on the keyboard, I muted myself. “This could take a while…”

“Can I help?”

I blinked at her. It was a lovely offer, but…

“I can get you drinks, food, you can even have me read something to you if you need it. You have more than one laptop here. I’m not—” She waved a hand to my setup. “Whatever this is, but I can follow instructions.”

“Not yet,” I said. “But let’s keep that in our back pocket. Water would be great, get some for you and drag a chair over here.”

Her whole expression brightened. “On it.”

Bones would be pissed, but he was there and what he didn’t know wouldn’t get me in trouble. I scratched at the scruff on my jaw. I really needed to shave. She settled into the chair next to me and I went to work. I got images of most of the people coming in.

It was definitely more security arriving. The world faded as I snapped screenshots. The cameras on their property weren’t the best and enhancement would be impossible, but we should have enough to start an ID.

Two hours after their arrival, the larger trucks arrived. The soldiers were everywhere. So far the team had remained silent, but I didn’t see any direction for this to go in that wasn’t sideways.

The longer this dragged on, the more uneasy I became. Outside, the sun was going down. The schedule was out the window.

“Blow number two,” Bones said, the hush on the order giving it a more ominous tone than if he’d yelled. That was definitely one way to test it.

“Standby,” I said, answering in the same solemn tone. They’d been offloading pallets of product. Or at least it looked like product. The cleaners had all changed their clothes and wore plastic gowns over everything and face masks.

The guards were still thick around the edges of the room, they had all the angles covered in theory. Chances were they had eyes on the cameras too and I could see quite a bit.

Tabbing over to the second factory that they’d basically just abandoned, I sent the signal to the bombs they’d wired intoplace. The first detonation filled one of my camera views with fire. The second took out the camera.

I flicked my gaze back to the location with the full staff. The women were already working on breaking the bricks up…

Several men bolted and activity outside increased.

“They have enough here to field an invasion force,” Lunchbox said in a softer whisper. “If we don’t want to blow everything, we could always throw some bleach into the sprinkler system.”

“I’m so glad you think their buildings are up to code and have sprinklers.” I resisted the urge to snort. Pun intended. “The issue we have here is we still don’t know what they are doing…”

“Making craft cocaine.” Three words that I never thought I would hear from Gracie.

“What?” I asked at the same moment as Bones, though she couldn’t hear him.

“Put her on,” Bones said, but I ignored that order for the moment.

“Craft Cocaine. It’s really popular in some circles. It’s a high end business. You want the organic not the chemical-infused, although they call it petrol-infused. Some of the dealers fancy themselves to be like a sommelier for cocaine the way some are for wine. They’ll tell you if it’s earthy or salty or sometimes if it’s just too stinky. The more chemicals it’s cut with and the cheaper it is and you won’t get much for it.”

“It gets you high either way.” I had to know, cause that just sounded about as stupid as the pharma-parties I’d heard about.

“In theory, I suppose. I’ve never used it.”

“Good girl.”

“Alphabet,” Bones said, interrupting. “Stop flirting with the client and put her on the headset.Now.”

“The boss wants to talk to you,” I said, then switched to the speakers. “She can hear you.”

“Good.” The snap in his voice made me frown. “Miss Black, I appreciate your expertise on designer drugs, but we’re working. You need to find somewhere else to be. Perhaps in another room and stay out of matters that don’t concern you.”

I sighed.

“Bones, you and I are going to have a very long discussion when we’re done,” Voodoo warned. “Make time for it.”

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