His breath’s a little raspy, too. I chalk that up to the fact he just about had his ass made into Swiss cheese.
“It’s invisible from the outside. You’d have to know it was here in order to locate it. So unless the shooter is some old close family friend my father let in on his little secret, we should be safe.”
“I don’t know what’s safe right now,” Noah growls. “Someone shot at us, and now I’m locked in here with you.”
I nod, then realize that’s pointless to do in the dark. I feel along the panel for the button that turns the internal light on. The first try, I get a sprinkler. Queen Boudica yowls with fury. I quickly turn that off again. On the second try I pop up the footage from the CCTV cameras. On the third try I manage to get a low red LED strip to light up, illuminating the corners of the room and giving me a faint outline of Noah’s features.
“We can’t have the lights on.” He reaches up to turn it off.
“Relax. They can’t see it from outside. The walls are so thick, we won’t even show up if they do an infrared scan of the building. At least, that’s what the manual said.” I think. After I read all the books in the library, I moved on to the panic room manual. (Hey, you try being stuck in a mansion for four years with only a cat for company). I got halfway through the weighty tome when Queen Boudica let a rat loose in the ballroom and I used the manual to crush it. I wasn’t going to pick it up again once I’d covered it in rat innards.
But Noah doesn’t need to know that.
“Impressive.” Noah gazes around, his hands fiddling with something in his trouser region. I hear a clattering noise. “Shit. I dropped my phone.”
“Serves you right for playing with yourself during our time of crisis.” I focus on the CCTV cameras, flicking through the different views. I can see the damage to the front door and stone pillars from the bullets, but no sign of a shooter near the gate or at the perimeter.
Noah does this weird penguin hobble, but his shoulders are too broad for him to bend down. “Can you pick it up? We need it to try and call for help.”
“Oh sure,” I roll my eyes, even though he probably can’t see. “With you in here taking up all the valuable real estate. I’ll just wrench my arms out of my sockets to save your precious phone.”
“You should be able to manage it. You were always freakishly flexible in gym.”
“There’s flexible and then there’s defying the laws of physics. Besides,” I slam my palm into an invisible panel on the wall. A dial pad and receiver slide out. “We don’t need your phone. This is a secret line. No one can tap it.”
“Impressive.” There’s a dark edge to Noah’s voice I don’t like. “Howard Malloy thinks of everything.”
I grab the phone on the wall and punch in a number. “Antony? I need your ass over here, now.”
“At your Barbie Dreamhouse? Why? Someone giving you trouble again?”
“Close. What happened to Tiberius? Someone shot Barbie’s Dreamhouse to hell, and I need you to take care of it. ”
Even in the low light, I can see Noah’s eyebrows shoot way up.
“I’ll find out,” Antony growls, and the fury in his voice is terrifying. “I’m on my way. Stay where you are.”
I burst out laughing. It’s a joke we have – he can see from his phone’s ID that I’m calling from the panic room. I’m not going anywhere.
I hang up the phone. Noah cups his hand on my shoulder, his fingers digging into my collarbone. It hurts. Maybe the situation has my head all fucked up, because I don’t want him to stop. “What do you mean, take care of it?”
“It’s better you don’t know. Antony will call when he’s assessed the situation. He’s the only person who has this number.”
“And who is this Antony? He’s the guy you had Gabe text in Alec’s car. You don’t seem the type to trust a boyfriend, especially one you’re sleeping around on.”
“Fuck you, Noah. He’s my…” I search for the right word to describe him. ‘Bodyguard’ doesn’t cut it, and ‘enforcer’ is just going raise questions with Noah I’m not answering. Finally, I settle on something that approaches the truth. “…cousin.”
“Your cousin who’s somehow going to sort out a fucking shooter?