Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (55 page)

Even her stubbornness is kinda hot
, Garrett thought.

“Okay,” he said. “Not here, though. Come with me and do exactly as I say.”

“Exactly?” asked Ellie.

“Exactly,” Garrett said.

He wanted to say
let me kiss you
, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned and left her office.

At the door, Ellie paused for a moment and looked back through the shattered glass.

“You forget something?” Garrett asked.

“No,” she said. “I just had the weird feeling I wasn’t going to see it again.”

“You’ll be back in business before you know it,” Garrett said. “Promise.”

H
alfway down the stairs
, Garrett stopped and turned to face Ellie, his face serious.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

Yes,
she thought.
Even though I have no reason to.

“Kind of,” Ellie said.

He tapped a finger on the bannister and thought for a moment.

“Would you believe me if I told you I was wrapped up in something strange, and I think that we might be followed once we leave your office?” he asked.

“That I can do,” she said.

“Well, that’s all true,” he said. “Stick with me, and act like we’re going to get coffee, or something.”

Ellie’s heart was already beating madly, and she felt electricity zipping through her nerves.

You should be calling the police and your insurance company
, she thought.
Not following someone you don’t know on a wild goose chase
.

This is stupid and probably dangerous
.

She knew she should drop Garrett’s case, get her insurance to pay for a new computer, and forget this had happened, but that wasn’t what she
wanted
.

She
wanted
to find out who’d trashed her office, and who thought they could order her around like that.

Garrett opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, and for the first time, Ellie realized that his inner forearm was bleeding. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed, and he pulled his sleeve down.

From where he opened the door before
, she thought.

They emerged into the narrow alleyway and Garrett walked to the sidewalk. When they got there, he took her hand, and Ellie’s head whipped around.

“Pretend,” he murmured, and they walked down Main Street.

She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, big and warm and comforting.

Pretend
, she reminded herself.

First they walked to a coffee shop. The owners waved to Ellie and she waved back as Garrett pulled her past the counter, toward the hall with the bathrooms, then past the bathrooms and out the back door, into a parking lot.

From there they went into the library through a side door and out through a different side door, down an alleyway, onto one level of a parking garage and out another, and into a grocery store.

By the meat section, Garrett stopped, dropped her hand, and turned to face her.

“The bathrooms are there,” he said, pointing. “Go into the women’s. Stay there for three minutes, and when you come out, make a left. If someone looks at you, just give them a professional nod and keep walking. They’ll think you’re from corporate or something. Leave through the loading bay and then go through the hedge and over the fence — it’s an easy fence, don’t worry — and follow the sound of the dryer. Knock once on the gray door next to the AC unit on the first green building.”

Ellie blinked, holding her breath.

Bathroom, loading dock, hedge, fence, dryer, green building, gray door by AC unit
, she thought.

“Got it,” she said, repeating it to herself.

Garrett reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

“You’re doing great,” he said.

Then he walked through the swinging doors to the back of the grocery store.

Ellie went into the ladies’ bathroom and stood there, staring at the toilet. She didn’t have to pee, but after two and a half minutes, she flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and walked out to the left.

A kid, maybe sixteen, saw her and frowned, but she gave him a professional nod. He looked away, and Ellie almost smiled to herself.

That
was something she used almost every day. If you acted like you were supposed to be somewhere, few people would stop you.

At the loading dock she descended the steps and walked across the asphalt. She looked left and right and stepped through a wide spot in an evergreen hedge.

Right behind it was a simple wooden rail fence, and even with heels on, she was over it in half a second, looking around, as she brushed herself off.

In front of her was a blue apartment building, a green one to the right. She could hear a dryer going, so she followed the sound until she saw a gray door next to an air conditioning unit, and Ellie raised her fist.

This could be a very complicated way to murder you
, she thought.

She knocked anyway.

A moment later, the door swung open and Garrett pulled her into the utility hallway.

“Perfect,” he said, his hand still on her upper arm. He closed the door, and the hallway went dim.

Suddenly, Ellie realized how close together they were, his hand still on her. For a moment she forgot everything that had happened that morning and looked up into his face, his golden eyes looking down at her, smiling.

Her heart leapt.

Then
she remembered what she was doing there and stepped back, releasing herself from his hand.

“What’s this about, then?” she asked, her voice echoing a little.

“Come on,” he said. “Upstairs.”

* * *

G
arrett’s apartment
had a welcome mat with pinwheels on it, and that was the first thing that made Ellie hesitate.

This is not the welcome mat of a single man
, she thought.

Shit. What if asking me to dinner was a ruse after all?

He opened the door and held it for her, and Ellie stepped into a lovely, homey apartment.

It was
also
not the apartment of a single man. There was a huge
Le Chat Noir
artwork hanging on one wall, along with a photo of the Eiffel Tower at night. A side table had a candle on it, along with some sort of geometric golden sculpture... thing.

The door shut behind Ellie and she swallowed. Garrett tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter.

“It’s safe to talk here,” he said.

“Your girlfriend’s not home?” Ellie hazarded.

Really?
she thought.
That’s the first thing you ask? About his girlfriend?

He looked at her and frowned.

“Huh?”

Ellie waved at the whole apartment.

“I mean, unless those are your candles and throw pillows...” she said, starting to feel dumb.

Garrett laughed, an easy, deep,
very
appealing sound.

“I’m subletting this place,” he said. “From a lady with better decorating sense than me.”

“Oh,” Ellie said.

She could feel herself blush.

“Don’t worry, I’m single as the day is long,” Garrett said. “Did you already forget that I asked you to dinner yesterday?”

“A
lot
of weird shit has happened already today,” Ellie said, crossing her arms in front of her.

“Fair,” he said, and plopped down onto the couch, rearranging a throw pillow that said
follow your dreams
in script.

Ellie turned to do the same.

Then she saw
the wall
, and sucked in a breath.

At the top was a giant question mark, connected with red strings to cards with his parents on them, his brothers, himself. Below that was a network of red webbing, like some spider had gone utterly mad connecting maps, newspaper printouts, pictures, and index cards.

He’s a serial killer
, she thought.
This is definitely the kind of weird shit that crazy people do
.

She stood and stared.

“I’m a visual thinker,” Garrett said, still sitting behind her.

“I see that,” Ellie said.

And a serial killer?
she half-wondered.

“I think someone’s after my family,” he said.

“Why?” Ellie asked.

“Family members keep getting attacked,” he said. “My parents were killed, then my oldest brother had to fight off this mining company—”

“No, I mean why is someone after your family?” Ellie asked.

Garrett cracked the knuckles on one hand.

“There’s a rare genetic anomaly,” he said. “My mom had it, and my brothers both have it.”

“Do you?”

“No,” he said. “I think that’s why I’ve escaped so far.”

“What’s the anomaly?” Ellie asked. “And why is someone after you for it?”

He cracked the fingers on his other hand.

“That’s not really important,” he said.

Ellie sat on the couch, kicked her shoes off, and pulled her feet up under her.

“If someone’s trying to kill people over it, I’d say it’s pretty fucking important,” she said. “What is it? You don’t get cancer or something?”

“Not quite,” he said.

“Are you a mutant? Can you shoot laser beams from your eyes?”

“Closer,” Garrett said.

Ellie rolled her eyes and tossed a throw pillow at him. He batted it out of the air.

“Anyway,” he said. “Sixteen years ago, my parents died under possibly-suspicious circumstances.”

Ellie listened as his voice went quiet and serious.

He still misses them
, she thought.

From his parents he moved onto his oldest brother, Seth. He’d fought against a mining company that wanted to kick him out of their home and destroy their land — leaving him and Zach, the youngest brother, destitute.

Garrett stood and reached up to an index card that said QUARCOM, tapping it with a finger.

“Remember that,” he said.

His younger brother, Zach, had made headlines when he’d been kidnapped by a bioengineering corporation. MutaGen, the company, had placed all the blame on one rogue employee, and
that
guy was in jail. The company itself had settled with Zach for an undisclosed amount.

“Well, it was two-point-five million,” Garrett said.

Ellie whistled. Garrett shrugged.

“I think they donated some and put the rest into savings,” he said. “He’s still working as an engineer, and so is his wife. Girlfriend. Fiancée?”

“Wait,” said Ellie. “He told you how much he got but not whether he’s married?”

“Not exactly,” Garrett said.

“Did they elope?” she asked, frowning.

Garrett didn’t say anything.

“You don’t know?” Ellie asked.

“I don’t talk to them all that often,” Garrett said. He ran a hand through his dark hair.

“Do you talk to them
ever
?” she asked.

No answer.

“When was the last time you talked to your brothers?” she asked.

“I send postcards sometimes,” he said. “They know I’m alive.”

“How long?” Ellie demanded.

“A while,” he said.

“How
long
?”

“A long time, okay?” he asked, his voice going rough. “I haven’t talked to my brothers in a long time. Can I move on?”

Ellie laced her fingers together in her lap.

“Sorry,” she said.

Garrett pointed up again.

“Both Quarcom and MutaGen have lots of investors, board members, that kind of thing. But if you wade through it all, it turns out that slightly over half of each company is owned by other shell companies.”

Ellie saw where this was going.

“And they’re owned by...”

“Other shell companies, who are owned by
other
shell companies, but if you untangle those threads long enough, they all come back to one name.”

He pointed at an index card she hadn’t even noticed before: BTVS.

“What does that stand for?” she asked.

“No idea,” Garrett admitted. “They’re registered in the Dutch Antilles, which is an offshore tax shelter, so it’s hard to get information about them, no matter what I try.”

Ellie leaned back and chewed on one thumbnail.

“They must have an entity in the US somewhere,” she said.

“Sure, in Delaware,” he said. “Filed by one Mrs. Lena Walsh, who’s a very nice notary public in Charleston, South Carolina.”

“So it’s her?” Ellie asked.

Garrett just shook his head.

“It’s part of what she does for a living,” he said. “Registers offshore business in the US. Her name’s on the paperwork, but the actual owners get to stay anonymous. Those documents are sealed.”

Ellie frowned.

“I think I killed an entire forest with all the paperwork I had to file when I incorporated,” she said. “There’s
none
of that here?”

“Maybe in the Antilles,” Garrett said. “Things work differently for billion-dollar companies, or holding corporations, or whatever BTVS even
is
. I mean, when I owned a business, I had stress dreams about the IRS for a month every year, but I doubt these guys do. I think they pay people to have stress dreams for them.”

“You own a business?” Ellie asked, looking around.

Subletting a place in Grand Junction for a couple of months didn’t really seem like business owner behavior.

“Not anymore,” Garrett said.

“What happened?”

Please don’t say “I quit to become a crazy person with a murder wall,”
she thought.

“I sold it,” he said. “You ever heard of SnapGram?”

“Is that one of those photo apps for phones?” Ellie asked.

“Yeah, you can draw on a picture and show your friends,” he said, and shrugged.

Ellie stared for a moment, her eyes narrowing.

“Wait,” she said. “You made SnapGram?”

Garrett nodded.

“I thought that was that other guy? The one who writes a lot of editorials about tech and does TED talks and says ‘disrupt’ a lot?”