Page 36 of The Company We Keep

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” he admitted.

“Why’s that?”

Dust peeked at him over the edge of the book, maybe deciding whether or not he should tell the truth.

“A wealthy recluse surrounded by people he hand-picked, secluded on an island where he controlseverythingand pulls all the strings… Don’t tell me you’re not self-aware enough to see the parallels.”

Carrow rolled his eyes.

“You’re right, of course,” Carrow said. “But… recluse? Really?”

“An armored penthouse isn’t that much different from an obscure Greek island. I didn’t mean any harm by it,” Dust said, shaking his head. “I get it. It’s for protection.”

Dust went back to flipping through pages.

“Does it get old, seeing the same people every day?”

“Never,” Carrow answered quickly. “But it’s been… too quiet since we lost our demolitions man. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to add another body to the equation.”

Carrow bit down a frown at his own phrasing. That was a hell of a way to put it. To his credit, Dust didn’t miss a beat.

“In that case, I hope I’m the body you’re looking for.”

Carrow resisted the urge to close his eyes and will himself out of existence. He’d walked right into that one. Dust moved on quickly, but the smile stayed on his face.

“So there’s the armory, the garage, the tech lab… Could I bother you to give me directions to wherever your demo guy used to do his work?”

“The explosives lab. I’ll take you.”

Dust knewhe was pushing his luck coming on so strong — buthell. Seeing Carrow respond to every little piece of flirting he did was beyond satisfying. Charlie Judge had never been a charmer, but it was delightful to find that Dust Wrenshall always seemed to have the right thing to say.

He followed Carrow out of his office, down the hall, across the living space, and back down towards the armory and tech lab. There was an unmarked door on one wall, and Dust had assumed it must lead to a storage area. But when Carrow opened the door and flicked on the lights, there was a huge lab inside.

Good God, Dust thought.There’s enough equipment in here to explode the whole state of California.

“I doubt you need me to show you around the lab,” Carrow said, noting the awe on Dust’s face.

“No,” Dust said, stepping forward, finally finding the first thing that could distract him even momentarily from Carrow’s magnetic pull. “I think I can take it from here.”

“Dinner's at eight, if you’re hungry,” Carrow said. “Herron’s cooking — none of us miss their meals.”

“I’ll be there,” Dust said, turning and winking. “Thanks, boss.”

It took almostno time for Dust to come up with a plan to impress Carrow on the museum job.

When he’d trained explosive and demolitions at AIIB, everything had been tightly controlled. When he wanted to create an explosive device, it meant submitting hours of paperwork and specs — and then waiting on the bureaucratic process that would eventually decide whether or not he could have what he needed.

There had been so many safety procedures, so much redtape to cut through before he put anything together —let aloneactually blew anything up.

So walking into The Company’s explosives lab made Dust feel like he was a kid who’d just been unleashed in a toy store.

They had piles of equipment, explosives, fuses, timers — and plenty of supplies he’d never even seen before.

He had free reign over things that would’ve made the people in charge at AIIB lose their goddamn minds.Dangerousvolatile stuff. Yes, in the wrong hands, it would’ve been easy for someone to do something stupid and blow up the whole goddamn building. But it was clear that no one had spent time in the lab since Nick Short had been off the scene. They respected the power held there.

He had a plan in mind within just a few minutes. In an hour, he was elbows deep into a new device — the type of thing he’d always wanted to build at AIIB but never been allowed to due to the strict protocols.

Dust didn’t realize he was late to dinner until he stuck his head into Wayles’ lab down the hall and found it empty.

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