Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,83
on his hips as the driver lowered a BMW coupe from the back. Not a bad vehicle, admittedly, but what was it doing outside my house?
“Your new car?” the guard asked. He must have caught my puzzled expression. “You didn’t know about it?”
Last time a car turned up unexpectedly like this, it had been a late birthday present from Black, but my fake birthday was last month and my real birthday wasn’t until December.
“Are you sure it’s come to the right place?”
“It’s got your name on the plate.”
What the fuck? I took a look, and sure enough, the vanity plate read “E BLK.” It also had a picture of a horse on it.
The driver stopped what he was doing and fetched a sheaf of papers from the cab. “Paperwork says it was ordered by a Mr. B Miles. Friend of yours?”
I. Was. Going. To. Kill. Him.
Or at least, I was when he came back from New York. I took out my phone and pressed speed dial two.
“Bradley, why is there a BMW on my driveway?”
“Oh, excellent, it arrived.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You have three gas guzzlers, and we should all be doing our bit to save the planet. So I got you an electric car.”
Give me strength. We’d had this discussion the other day. Bradley wanted me to go green. I pointed out that if I was driving somewhere in a hurry, I needed to fill up with gas, not wait hours for a battery to recharge. He said he’d look into battery ranges and charging times, which in Bradley’s world clearly meant just go out and buy a damn car.
“I thought you were going to research this.”
“I did. But what better way to test a car than to drive it around? You’ll love it. The seats are heated, and if you press the button on the steering wheel, the cupholders pop out.”
“It has a vanity plate. I don’t do vanity plates.”
Because how was I meant to run surveillance if the target could look in their mirror and literally see who was following?
“The gentleman at the auto dealership threw those in for free.”
Arguing about the car was pointless, I realised that. If Bradley had decided I was having a fourth car, then I was having a fourth car, and I had to concede that the other three drank petrol like I drank gin. But my patience was at breaking point that day.
“Get rid of them.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll have them changed. How about the horse? Can the horse stay?”
“Just get me plain, regular, bog-standard plates.”
Did anything else want to try me?
Ana was laughing at the window when I made it inside, and I scowled at her.
“It’s not fucking funny.”
She schooled her features into something more appropriate. “I’m sorry.” One corner of her lips quirked. “You make dictators nervous, yet your assistant runs rings around you.”
“Shut up.” A long sigh escaped. “We need to talk.”
Immediately, she grew serious. Funny how tradecraft kicked in, wasn’t it? No phone calls, no text messages, no emails, even while my life got flushed down the toilet. And we went outside to speak in case Bradley had bugged the fucking house again. Luckily, he didn’t seem to have listened in on our initial conversation, or the whole world would know about our suspicions by now.
“And?” Ana asked.
“The timeline fits.”
She didn’t say anything, just hugged me. Ana wasn’t a touchy-feely person, not at all, but she gave good hugs when the need arose.
“I spoke to Sam,” she murmured. “He’ll make the jump.”
“I thought we were keeping this between us?”
“Sam won’t say a word. And besides, I didn’t tell him the whole story. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just helping us to settle a bet.”
That wasn’t entirely untrue. I wasn’t thrilled about another person being in on the secret, even marginally, but I trusted Ana’s judgement, perhaps more than I trusted my own at that moment. The jigsaw was finally coming together in the most horrible way, and all I wanted to do was flip the board.
“When?”
“Anytime you want. He’s working from home this week and next.”
“I’ll have to check the schedule. We obviously can’t do it with Black watching, or Bradley, or anyone else who might talk.” We’d basically have to clear the estate. A logistical nightmare. “I’ll need a few days.”
“Take as much time as you want. It’s been eight years—another week or two won’t make a difference.”
But it would.
Because every minute was another sixty seconds that I’d have to spend acting normally while I was