Page 16 of Dead Serious with Benefits
I glanced at him and frowned. “I wouldn’t say stress, more like annoyance. Honestly, what’s the point of having backup plans in case something goes wrong if people aren’t going to remember what I told them in the first place?”
“Most people don’t do well in emergencies when a life is on the line,” Arlo commented as he looked up at the building and then straight ahead. “Is there anyone in that apartment?”
Frowning in confusion, I followed his gaze toward the apartment building and realized he was talking about the one directly across from where we were standing. “I...no. They were moved out a month ago.”
“They were moved out?”
“Yes, turns out that if you’re going to have wild parties, you need to be willing to fork over money for the privilege, otherwise the building has to pay and they’ll throw you out for wasting their money rather than your own.”
“Ah, well, that explains why you’re able to get away with your parties?”
“Money makes the world go around, and it’s useful in greasing palms and diverting attention from yourself.”
He chuckled again, moving toward the edge and looking down and across. “Interesting.”
“Are you…” I began and stopped as I stared at him, torn between wanting to jerk him back from the edge and watching to see what he was going to do. The composed and controlled man I had been talking to was apparently being replaced by someone...else. It was hard to describe, but something had shifted in his body language. The slow, steady, patient way he behaved had been replaced by someone focused and thinking intensely. I could practically see him weighing the thoughts and decisions in his head in real time. “What are you doing?”
“Courting death,” he said calmly, but I cocked my head because I wouldswearI heard a note of amusement in his voice. Great, the guy had a sense of humor even when he was going to do something astronomically?—
My eyes widened as he took a few steps back and shifted his weight, and before I could say anything, he leaped forward with a speed that took me by surprise. My chest clenched, and his foot hit the edge of the building before he soared through the air. I could only stand and watch, mouth open, as his body crossed the distance and, with a grace that should have been inhuman, hit the edge of the balcony. His foot slid between the bars, his hands wrapping around the top of the railing, and before I could do much more than gape, he swung himself up and onto the safety of the balcony.
For the first time in a long time, I felt like an idiot as I stood and gaped at him as he tried the sliding door that gave access to the balcony. Almost enraptured, I stepped forward when he bent down, reached into his pocket, and rooted around beforesliding something into the doorway. It took less than a minute, and though I couldn’t hear anything, I watched as the door slid open, and he turned and looked at me.
“Am I supposed to follow?” I wondered aloud.
“Will they let me in if I go without you?” he asked, and it was only then that I realized he was hurrying to get up to the party.
Huh. The man, supposedly surrounded by death, was trying to save a life.
“I lack the required athleticism to make the jump,” I told him, though it was more a lack of courage than athleticism. Despite my hedonistic ways, I had never neglected my body, at least not in terms of getting exercise. I was probably capable of making the leap, though I doubted I could make it with the same grace...or as successfully. I did not desire to crash to the ground below to get upstairs quickly. “And they’ll let you in because nothing is locked.”
He thought about that for a moment before nodding and heading into the empty apartment, leaving me to wonder what sort of weird person I had been dealing with. It didn’t stop me from taking the staircase, my feet pattering on the steps rapidly as I descended far faster and far less carefully than I had ascended. As I neared the bottom, I realized for the first time that I might be dealing with a genuinely insane person.
Yet that didn’t change my interest.
“Evening, Dave,” I called as I swept through the lobby toward the elevator. The doorman gave me a curious look as the doors slid closed, and I let out a breath of relief.
Just what I needed, a potential disaster to end a night that had already proven irritating. Well, it had been aboringone to begin with, but now it was just irritating. Sure, I was irritated because the chance of an interesting night had just been ruined by someone’s inability to moderate themselves, which probably wasn’t the best look. Then again, if I were someone who worriedabout how I looked, I wouldn’t have had a full-on drug and alcohol fueled party in my penthouse.
God, I was going to have to put actual effort into the night now that something had gone wrong. The trick wasn’t keeping things quiet from the world; I could manage that just fine. Enough money slipped into the right hands meant that only my guests would talk, and at least half would have a good reason to keep their mouths shut. The rest? Well, perhaps in the past, there might have been no threat from the average person, but all that had changed with the advent of social media. That meant I was going to have to put Sophia on the case to make sure no one started running their mouths.
No, the real trick was keeping it from my mother’s hawk eyes, which was...difficult. She hadsomeonefeeding her information, and the fact that she knew a party was going on right now was telling. Of course, she could have been guessing since parties and I went together like fire and smoke. If not, though, she had someone in the building actively feeding her information.
The first choice would be David, but...I kept him well paid, and in my conversations with him over the six months he’d been working here, I felt he was content to live his life peacefully without getting sucked into politics. Calling the silent and subtle war between my mother and me politics was the closest way to describe our relationship accurately.
That left...the other residents. But which ones? The busybodies on the floor beneath me who always knew everything I was up to? Then again, it could be the older couple who kept to themselves. So, which one did I have to worry about?
My thoughts shifted as the elevator stopped and I stepped out to let myself into my penthouse. Someone had turned the music down, which helped, but most people were too busy panicking to worry about communicating with one another. But at least all the freaked-out people were clustered in a way thattold me the incident was in the back guest rooms, so I made my way there.
“Move,” I said in a low voice at the crowd, and they parted like the Red Sea. I could see a few more people near the bed, but it was Arlo I homed in on. “What are we dealing with here?”
“This woman found the Narcan for me,” Arlo said, nodding toward the woman I’d seen earlier.
“Oh, the coldhearted Lydia,” I said with a snort.
She made a face. “Ass.”
“She’s not wrong,” I said with a chuckle, approaching the bed. “And our patient?”
