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Chapter 23

Shayla

I woke up in my brother's guest bedroom hung over. I'd spent the night drinking wine with Scott and Cyn while everyone else went to bed because they were smart. I was regretting the last few glasses very much when I sat up and yawned. I jumped when something stirred beside me. I smiled looking down.

"Morning." Cyn said, yawning. She was fully clothed and sleeping on top of the covers. We talked until we fell asleep. It was nice. Cordial. Friendly. So friendly I forgot she was laying next to me.

"Morning, beauty." I told her, placing my head down on her belly. She ran a hand through my hair. Then quickly she was out of the bed like it was set and fire, gone behind the bathroom door. I groaned, laying back in the bed.

"I was thinking." She started to tell me coming out of the bathroom. "We should date. We should go on a date. Do you wanna go on one with me?"

"Very much so." I looked at her sitting up. "When?"

"Tomorrow night there's a showing of Dirty Dancing at the drive-in. That seems cool."

"I'm down. We can take my new truck."

She blushed at me. "Alright. See you at work."

"Work? You work with them too?" I asked, finally getting out of bed.

"Yup. See ya in a bit."

"Alright."

Dumbfounded. That's how I felt at this moment. It was all to easy.

*****

I decided to wear my gray suit and white t-shirt today. I pulled my hair back into a bun and threw my sunglasses on. Starbucks was a bitch to get through, mainly because I didn't know how many coffees to buy. I ended up getting 6 cups just in case.

Once I got to the office and set everything down. I grabbed my own and told the rest to grab what they wanted. 6 was the perfect number. The boys got one, Cyn got one and so did the two secretaries. I was sort of proud of myself.

"Come on, let's get started." Stan told me in his usual bossy way that he has.

I sipped my coffee as we got debriefed on missing kids and murdered kids two counties over. I'd ran over the statistics and data on the plane here and already knew most of the details. There was just one thing I didn't understand.

"I get the jest of this. But why are we involved? Why isn't the FBI dealing with this one?" I wanted to know. It was weird to me that it was such a high profile case and yet we were looking into it.

"We are who they call when they think an agent had something to do with it." Stan said, simple, like I should understand and was dumb for asking.

"So, they think one of their own is involved?" I asked with a nod.

"Yes. This guy." Kam threw a file at me.

I opened it and went over the information. I understand now. War hero veteran turned agent. Was fired for indecent comments and now he was on the warpath. Got it.

"We need to do a night surveillance of his place up on the ridge. I'm sure he's our guy. I can feel it. But we need proof before we move in, obviously. Are you ready to put your skills to use?" Kam asked.

"Of course old man. I just spent two years in isolation with nothing except Eddie and a mountain that didn't talk to entertain me."

The boys chuckled. I heard Cyn murmur something under her breath.

"What was that, darlin? I don't think I heard you."

"You weren't meant to. There's a problem with the plan. His security system has facial recognition. I don't know how to get around it."

"I'll cut the power to the box." I said with a shrug.

"Where he lives looks all fancy. But that's my neighborhood. All the power goes to one box on each grid. I've got this in the bag." I told everyone at the table.

"Sounds good." She said with a nod. "When do we want to set this up, guys?"

"Thursday night. It's when there's the most activity after midnight." Stan told us.

We talked some more, and went about the day. Cyn was in her office making appointments when I sat down in an office chair across from her. She smiled at me and hung up the phone.

"Yes, Bowers?"

"I hate that." I whined, putting my feet up on the desk, crossing them at my ankles.

"Yes well, I hate you when you put your feet on my desk." She pushed them off with her pencil in hand.

"Wanna go get lunch?"

"She can't." A female voice behind me chimed. "She's coming with me to the mall. We have to buy a dress for my ball."

"Angie, it isn't your ball. It's your wedding reception." Cyn rolled her eyes at her best friend.

"My wife said I can call it a ball if I want."

Cyn rolled her eyes, flying back in her chair dramatically. "No, no. Mildred said, babe if you must call it a ball go ahead. But it's our wedding reception. And you said, then it's a ball."

"Either way. Come with me." Angie protested, pulling on Cyn's arm.

"No. I want to eat with Shay today. We went and looked at dresses yesterday and the day before that." Cyn motioned for me to come on, I jumped out of the chair and followed close behind her.

"Hey," Angie noticed we were running away and tried to catch up.

We were laughing like school girls by the time we reached my car. We jumped in and sped off with an angry Angie behind us with fists in the air.

"Thanks for the save. She's getting really annoying." Cyn told me, rolling down the window.

"Can I smoke in here? I'm legal now." The way she said it wasn't meant to be cute. I could hear the pain in her voice.

"Go for it."

I drove over to Mamas because a burger sounded really good. It'd been a while since I had greasy food. It was weird though. Cyn was silent the whole way through lunch. She never looked at me. She never laughed when I said anything. It was different from this morning when she asked me out.

By the end of the day I was so frustrated I ended up leaving early. I went home and had just got out of the shower when the doorbell rang.

It was Cynthia.

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