Fox climbed the stairs, a low chuckle in the back of his throat.
CHAPTER 38
PRESENT DAY
Court woke in pain, the injuries from the night before clawing their way back into his conscious mind. His back still hurt, though he didn’t remember why, as did his jaw and his ribs on both his left and right sides. These blows he had no trouble recalling. But his eye felt okay, he could see through it, and the bruises all over his shoulders and neck weren’t bothering him much anymore, at least while he lay here still.
He turned his head and saw Zoya facing him, but her dark disheveled hair hid her face. He couldn’t allow this; he brushed her hair back behind her ear. She stirred a little, and he just looked at her.
Court still had all his clothes on, and she wore a T-shirt and panties. They’d had moments of intimacy before they fell asleep, but nothing physical beyond a few kisses, because Court was just simply beaten too badly to move. He cursed the big boxer who’d put him in this state, because there was nothing more in the world he wanted to do right now than to roll over to the Russian woman and wake her up with his touch.
But that would involve physical labor that required muscles he could not employ right now to save his life, so instead he slowly and painfully rolled in the other direction, out of the bed, and lumbered for the shower.
While the hot water did nothing at all for his ribs, it did loosen his back some, indicating that he was dealing with pulled muscles more than bruising back there, and with this new mobility he slowly changed into jeans and a threadbare gray and black Fulham FC Soccer T-shirt he’d bought at a used clothing store when he’d arrived in the city.
He brewed instant coffee in the kitchen, restarting the process when he realized he’d forgotten to double his usual portion of coffee and water to account for his guest.
Court didn’t have a lot of sleepovers.
When his coffee was done he sat down slowly and laboriously on the sofa, pulled the iPad to him, and reached for his backpack. Rummaging through it for a while, he retrieved a cable. Unsure exactly how to proceed, he put in his earpiece and placed a call to the one number in his phone.
Fifteen seconds later a sleepy voice answered. “Brewer.”
“It’s me.”
She cleared her throat. “Haven’t heard from you for six hours.”
“I count the minutes between our chats, as well.”
Brewer ignored the sarcasm and fired back with her own. “Anthem hung up on me last night. It’s seven a.m. in London. I’m assuming she’s still with you, and you two shared a lovely night.”
Court touched his aching ribs absentmindedly. “It was a hell of a party.”
“What did she tell you about—”
Court interrupted. “I have a new-model iPad here that she took from Terry Cassidy’s safe. Can you get into it remotely?”
“Of course. You still have the phone we gave you?”
“Affirmative.”
“That’s odd,” she said with sarcasm. “It hasn’t been transmitting since it was handed to you.”
“I disabled it and tossed it in a Faraday cage. It will take me a minute to put it back together.”
“When you do, plug in the iPad and follow directions on the screen. It will upload to me, and you’ll be able to see what I see simultaneously on the device.”
“Roger.”
Court pulled the lead-lined bag designed to hide the phone’s signal, known as a Faraday cage, out of his backpack and put the phone back together. While he worked on this Zoya entered the living room wearing her black climbing pants and the gray T-shirt Court gave her the night before. They smiled at each other as she passed him to head towards the coffee, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
She said, “Nobody has woken me up with fresh coffee in a very long time.”
Court shrugged. “It’s just instant,” and then immediately regretted saying that. “But good instant.” It wasn’t much of a recovery, but Court wasn’t much of a Casanova.
She poured a cup and took a sip. “Better than at the safe house.” She sat next to him, and together they waited for over twenty minutes while Brewer and her night-shift technical team cracked into the iPad. Eventually, however, Court and Zoya had access to all the files.
There wasn’t much on the device out of the ordinary, but an Excel contact list had its own icon.