Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,54

She peels out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel in her wake.

“You said you weren’t following those stupid guidelines,” I accuse.

“If I was following them, you’d be dead already,” he points out. He isn’t wrong. It’s day six, by my count.

Pike stands before me and bends at the waist, placing his hands next to me on the arm rests of the chair. “We both know that you already know what a bomb is, so we’re on the same page there. What I do have to explain is that if you go further than the parking lot or back alley, you’ll get a warning beep. After that, you have ten-seconds to get back to where you need to be before it goes off. The same thing goes with tampering with it, except you’ll get no warning.”

Pike heads into the back room.

With my newfound freedom, I should go outside and breathe in some fresh air, but instead, I find myself following Pike. When I find him, he’s bent over some kind of ledger, and to my surprise, there’s a pair of black reading glasses perched on his nose. “Why did you take me to see Gutter the other day?”

“I told you. I needed to talk with him.”

“You mean you needed to give him money?”

That gets his attention. He glances up at me. “He told you that?”

“Amongst other things, but what he didn’t tell me is why you took me there. You could have left me tied to something. You didn’t really have to bring me at all.”

Pike closes the book and heads for the parking lot. “Remember, if it beeps, you’ve been warned.”

I stomp my foot on the ground. “Arrogant child,” I mutter under my breath.

“Because he wanted to know the truth,” Thorne says, making her presence known. She’s bent over in the corner, taking pictures of a china set. “To post in the online store,” she explains when she sees me staring.

“What do you mean because he wanted to know the truth?” I ask, perching on a stool.

“Gutter is an enigma. One of those savants or whatever you call them.” She arranges one of the delicate blue teacups to hide a chip in the corner then snaps a few shots, checking the screen on her camera after each one. “He can see your cracks when other people can’t. That’s why Pike took you there.”

“He’s a genius?” I nearly fall off my stool. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“No one would.”

“I like Gutter,” I admit. “Now, I feel like I judged him too quickly, and I don’t want to ever be that person. One who puts someone in a box they don’t belong in.”

Thorne removes the tea set from the backdrop, carefully wrapping each one in newspaper before delicately placing it back in a box with clothe dividers for each piece. “Can you grab me that violin?”

I slide off the stool and spot a violin case on a nearby table. I click unlatch it and carefully pull it from the blue velvet lining. She places the box with the tea set on the shelf above her desk and holds out her hand for the violin. I hand it over and she again begins to meticulously arrange it in front of the bright green backdrop. “Don’t be too hard on yourself for judging him. Gutter belongs in the box. In fact, he put himself in that box.” She looks up from the camera. “No, scratch that. He built the fucking box.”

Thorne laughs and takes another photo. She looks at the screen on the camera then turns to me. “He’s not a technical genius by any stretch of the imagination, but he does have a superhuman ability. He even had a contract with the military as a torture specialist because of it.”

Torture specialist?

I’m now wondering if the sensory torture wasn’t entirely Pike’s idea.

I watch Thorne work, fascinated by how careful she is with each piece as if it was something handed down to her by a beloved relative and near and dear to her heart.

“What exactly is this ability that makes him a good candidate as a specialist in torture?” I ask, puzzled.

Thorne snaps away, contorting her body into several different positions until she’s finally satisfied with the shot. “Gutter was known in his day as the human lie detector.”

“I told him everything,” I say. “Well, almost everything.”

“I know. He told Pike that you’re telling the truth as you see it, which isn’t the same as the truth. But also that you’re hiding something.