Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I slumped. “Oh, that’s good.”
He gestured toward the girl’s fingers. “Whatcha doing?”
I explained what I was doing, and he looked quite shocked. “Do you work on live people still?”
“Not usually, no,” I admitted. “The dead ones really keep me busy, and they’re easier to work with because they don’t expect you to hold conversations with them.”
“I can see that.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “So you moved in with Gunner?”
“I did,” I confirmed as I sat back in my chair to admire my work. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” He moved to inspect my work as well. “This is nice.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “I’m glad that I got to do her nails for the last time. She was a gorgeous girl.”
“She was pretty great,” he said. “You headed home now?”
“Actually, no. I’m headed to Gunner’s job site because I need to get a garage door opener from him and he forgot to leave it this morning. He said that he was going to give me the code to get into the house, but the Wi-Fi was out when I left, and he doesn’t think that the gates will work.”
“What a pain in the ass,” he murmured. “I’ll meet you there. He has a key I need to pick up.”
We walked out of the funeral parlor, and I waved at the front desk lady to let her know I was leaving. She waved back, and I pushed out into the freezing cold moments later.
I shivered, and Webber looked over at me with a frown.
“You’re cold?”
I nodded, shivering again. “It’s freezing. And, saying this with absolutely no vanity on my end, I have a really low body fat percentage. When you have a low body fat percentage, you tend to freeze like I do. Even in mid-fifty degrees.”
“I think I have a sweatshirt in my saddlebags,” he murmured as he walked up to it and started rooting around.
I shivered again.
“Just make sure you give it back, or my wife might hate you for the rest of her life.”
“Is it hers?” I asked as I quickly shrugged it on.
Sometime in between the time I arrived at the funeral home, and the time that I left, it’d dropped fifteen degrees. With the wind blowing, it felt downright frigid.
“It’s mine, which also makes it hers.” He laughed. “Between her and Eedie, I barely have a sweatshirt to my name.”
“Eedie’s sweet,” I said. “She works with Audric, right?”
“Correct.” He mounted his bike. “See you there.”
I saw him at the school that Gunner was working at forty-five minutes later.
“Want to test the security?” he asked as I pulled up beside him and got out.
I looked up at the fortress and said, “I’m not sure we can get in.”
The kids were out of school today because there wasn’t a single soul in the parking lot other than the work trucks that were labeled as Angel Security.
All the gates and doors were closed, and I wasn’t even sure where I needed to go in to park for real.
We’d stopped in the middle of the street practically nearest a gate that was closest to the Gunner’s work truck.
“Thinking this’ll work really well.” Webber flashed me a grin. “Pick a place that you think you can get in and go with it.”
I looked up at the eight-foot-tall chain-link fence.
“I haven’t climbed a fence since I was a kid,” I murmured. “And even then, I jumped over and got my shorts stuck on the chain links, and Gunner had to physically lift me off of them because I couldn’t do it myself.”
Webber chuckled, and it made the man seem a whole lot less scary than he actually was.
But his eyes. Those eyes always told a different story.
He could laugh and seem approachable all he wanted, but those eyes told the truth.
He was dangerous.
“Come on, and I’ll give you a boost up on the side of the building over there. See that window?” he asked.
I did.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“You can fit through there.”
Twelve
I may not put a twinkle in your eyes, but I can put that WTF crease in your forehead.
—Gunner to Sutton
GUNNER
“Where is the monitoring for the west half of the campus?” I asked, watching a couple of blank screens that were giving us a huge blind spot.
“Wiring over there is atrocious,” Yates swore. “Whoever wired this building is a complete imbecile and should be shot in the face.”
He’d been working on the west side of the building all morning, and had yet to get the cameras up and running.
Something caught my eye on the monitor all the way to the left, and I grinned when I watched Webber scale the fence and hop over like he was a young buck, instead of the old fart that he was.
“Be right back,” I said as I left the office.
I met Webber in the parking lot and called out, “You didn’t make it this time, either.”