And the moment I go inside, I intend to check my security feed to find my thief. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You can have mine.” He pulls it from under his arm and offers it. “Free and clear.”
“Oh… no. It’s fine. Come, Galileo.”
“Nora.” His sharp voice stops me in my tracks, but when my gaze comes up, his smile puts me at ease. “Have mine.” He tosses it, so I’m forced to catch. “If the thief steals mine tomorrow, you can drop this one back over and I’ll catch up.”
“Um…” I glance into my mug, my cooling coffee, and nod. “Okay. Thanks.”
“See you around.” And with that, he turns on his socks and steps back inside his apartment. He closes the door, not a slam, but not quiet either, and leaves me in the hall with my mouth agape.
In a trance, I reverse and go back inside my apartment. I close the door, wait for the sound of the locks engaging, and, taking my coffee and Tucker’s newspaper to my desk, I sit down and simply… breathe for a moment.
“Damn. He’s… I’ve…” I look to Galileo as he sits by my leg and looks up into my eyes. “I’m confused, buddy. I don’t like being confused.”
In answer, he lays his head on my thigh and exhales.
Running my hands over my face, I drop them again and switch my computer on. Just a minute later, I pull up the footage of the security feed that Checkmate set up in this building the day I moved in.
Or, more accurately, weeks before I moved in. Their way of making me feel comfortable in a new space.
I navigate to the camera I need – I have many, in every hall of this building, on the main door on the street, and another on the outside of the building so I can see the street, and no, they’re not legal. When I catch sight of my front door, my newspaper sitting just outside where it should be, I fast forward through an hour of footage.
No one moves up the stairs. No one comes down. No movement is registered until Tucker’s door opens. In boxer shorts and socks, he peeks at my door, at the stairs, then down at himself. When the coast is clear, he dashes into the hall and under the camera so his broad back is all I see for a moment. He snatches my paper, and then scrambles back across the hall. He drops the paper in front of his door, and sprints back into his apartment like he thinks he’s a sneaky thief.
Then, for the next half an hour, he opens his door every few minutes, only to close it and try again.
During one of those periods, he got dressed.
Finally, I come out in search of my paper, and he just so happens to open his door at the same time.
Sneaky, sneaky man.
I find it annoyingly charming that he worked so hard to be in the hall at the same time as me.
Shaking my head, I unfold my own damn paper, and sip my cold coffee while I snicker and scan the headlines.
“Oh, hey there, Agent 99. You look fresh today.” Jay Bishop is Kane’s younger brother. The genes are strong in the Bishop family, because he looks much like his oldest brother; they share the same eyes, the same shape to their jaw, the same wicked grin and quick wit.
Kane is a tiny bit taller than Jay, a bit broader. But though Kane is fast with his snark and comebacks, no one quite stacks up to Jay’s silliness when he has the freedom to relax. At work, when he needs to be serious, he’s quite possibly the scariest man I know – except Kane, of course.
His marksmanship is almost always perfect, but his ability to teach… not so much. It’s not that he can’t teach, it’s just that he lacks the patience. He doesn’t accept panic, he refuses to fold under tears. Over the years, he’s placed a gun in my hands thousands of times, and the first few were messy. He expects spine and guts, and all I gave him was a panic attack and an inability to stand on my own two feet.
Jay does not accept weakness. He considers it a waste of time. So on those days when I could barely function, Kane would teach me. Because though he doesn’t accept excuses either, he has a little more patience for them. He walks me through the messy tears and