Hello My Angel - Sue Brown Page 0,10
bought something for you too.”
Josh looked in the plastic bag and pulled Cal down for a fierce kiss. “I love you.”
He rushed away to the bathroom, uncaring of the chuckles behind him. All he cared was he could shed his suit and preferably burn it. Cal had bought him a dark green cashmere sweater, a pale gray shirt, and dark gray pants. Not Josh’s taste but he didn’t care. He slid off his suit jacket and hung it behind the door. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and shimmied out of his pants. He looked in the bag and realized Cal had provided briefs, socks, and shoes too.
“You are so getting laid tonight, Charlie,” he muttered. Josh didn’t care if he had to drag Cal into a bathroom stall, Josh was going to show his appreciation in a way they both enjoyed. He finished dressing and splashed cold water onto his face to wake himself. Today was going to be a long day and he needed his wits about him if he was going to survive.
Josh’s next priority was caffeine. He took his place next to Cal in the booth and held back a grin as he glanced around. It looked like a muscle convention, which technically was true. Gil had been his muscle at CDR. Dave and Rick were his muscle from the agency. Dave was half the size of his partner but wide and just as fierce. Cal was huge anyway, a good six inches taller than Josh’s five-feet-ten. The only one who looked out of place was Max.
“What have I missed?” he asked.
“We were discussing Lucy Raymond,” Cal said soberly.
“I can’t believe she was dirty,” Dave declared.
Rick nodded his agreement. “We don’t know she was working for Chyna.”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence,” Cal said, “and I’m not taking any chances. Billy said the agency was corrupted from the top downwards. Well, the top has gone apart from Mullins. Where do we start?”
Cal sounded defeated which was unlike him, but then, he’d had a tough couple of weeks. Losing Sir Gideon had left Cal alone in the world apart from Josh.
Josh patted Cal’s thigh, pulled out his notebook from the bag that had contained his new clothes, and started a fresh page. “Let’s start at the beginning. We need to be organized.” He smiled at Max. “You say our Chyna Moles is Ileana Ramirez?”
Max nodded, his long dark hair falling over his face. He pushed it back with an impatient gesture. “She’s the niece of Jesus Ortiz, who’s a minor druglord and all-round asshole.”
Dave frowned. “And he was the one who held Jesse hostage for nearly a year for killing his nephew?”
Josh scribbled in his notebook before he spoke. “So Ileana’s here for what, revenge?”
“It’s the obvious motive,” Gil rumbled.
“Let’s call her Chyna,” Cal said. “I can’t think of her as Ileana, and I want to keep the fact we know her real identity under wraps. We know Jesse killed Feliz Ramirez because the intel was faulty. The boy wasn’t meant to be in the warehouse at the time. But he was high and he tried to kill Jesse. Jesse had no choice. But it doesn’t make sense. They had a year to kill him and yet they let him go?”
“She comes over here, infiltrates the agency, and then what’s her plan?”
“Who knows?” Gil said. “I think we need to take a closer look at her victims. How many of these people were involved in Chyna’s schemes?”
Josh cleared his throat. “I wasn’t.”
Josh had been pushed off the platform at Victoria Underground Station in front of an oncoming tube train. If it hadn’t been for a vigilant track worker, he wouldn’t be sitting here today.
Cal squeezed his thigh and Josh appreciated his lover’s warmth. “We can discount you, Jesse and Dan.”
“And Erica Wilde,” Rick added quietly.
The men around the table quietened down. Of any of Chyna’s victims, Erica had been a true innocent. She had been killed for her husband’s failure to carry out Chyna’s devilish plans. Billy had confessed it all to Cal before taking his own life jumping into the Thames from Lambeth Bridge.
Max coughed and they turned to him. Josh had almost forgotten he was there. “So where would Ile—Chyna take Weatherly?”
“If we knew that we wouldn’t be sitting here,” Cal snapped impatiently, and Max flushed.
“It’s a good point,” Josh intervened, returning Max’s grateful smile. “We need to find Weatherly fast or she’s dead.”
Cal gave an impatient nod. “Gil and I will focus on finding Weatherly.