It wasn’t safe.
Chapter Four
“What do you think I should do with this?” Taylor asked, holding up the bottle of snake wine.
It was Monday morning — and all too soon. They’d managed to fall back into sync on Sunday, and they’d spent the remainder of their weekend companionably working on stripping and sanding the last of the front room woodwork.
Will studied the cobra weaving gently in the bottle as Taylor tilted it. “Mix it with orange juice?”
“Funny.”
“Probably chock-full of vitamin C and antioxidants.”
“I’ll stick to my Flintstones Plus.”
“You mentioned something about it being an aphrodisiac.”
Taylor extended the bottle. “Feeling insecure?”
“You complaining?”
Taylor’s sexy mouth quirked. “No way.” He added thoughtfully, “I was thinking maybe I could call the bottling company and see if they can tell me who ordered it.”
Will’s grin faded. “Are you worried about this?”
“Nah.”
But now Will was frowning, his investigatory instincts roused. “How much is something like this bottle worth?”
Taylor bridled. “How would I know? It’s not like I hand these out every Christmas to friends and family.”
“Take a guess. You prowl around Chinatown and places like that.”
“I don’t know. Sixty bucks. A hundred bucks?”
His hand hovered over the trash bin; then he set the bottle on the counter. “This probably qualifies as toxic waste.”
* * * * *
They left the house at the same time, Will opening the side door of the SUV for Riley to jump in. He was stopping by his house in Woodland Hills to drop the dog off and then heading down to San Diego. San Diego and David Bradley. Taylor was determined to be practical about that; he believed Will when Will said he hadn’t volunteered for the assignment with Bradley.
Granted, Will hadn’t refused the assignment either. But Will never refused assignments.
Either way, this was good-bye, probably for what was going to be a long and stressful week. It was a five-hour drive to San Diego, and Will would be working late most nights, so it was unlikely they’d spend any real time together before next weekend.
Taylor was determined not to be an asshole about it. He’d already been there and done that on Saturday.
“Bye,” he said briskly, leaning in to kiss Will. “Talk to you later.”
Will’s mouth was firm, his kiss a statement that everything was good and normal between them. Taylor turned away, going to his Acura and unlocking the door, sliding behind the wheel.
He spotted a folded sheet of white paper beneath the wiper blades, and he leaned out, tugging it free.
Japanese kanji. Precise black characters on a field of white.
He stared at it for a long time.
Vaguely, he was aware of Will getting back out of his vehicle, the scrape of boots on cement.
“What’s up?”
Taylor looked up blankly. How the hell did Will know there was a problem? He did, though.
Without speaking he handed the folded sheet to Will.
Will scanned it. “What do you make of it?”
Taylor shook his head.
“Do you know what it says?”
Another shake. His oral Japanese wasn’t great; his written, even worse. He’d learned the necessary minimum to find his way around the city and work efficiently within the confines of the American embassy; that was about it.
“Advertising flyer from the Red Dragon?” Will suggested.
“We took your car.”
Will considered this and shrugged.
Well, he had a point. The alternative was too bizarre to consider. Taylor got out of the Acura, circled it, checking his vehicle to see if someone had backed into him or scratched his paint job on Friday while he’d been out shopping, and maybe he hadn’t noticed.
Everything looked fine.
Riley poked his nose out the window of Will’s Land Cruiser, snuffling at him.
“Hey, Riley,” Taylor murmured absently. He returned to Will, who was watching him curiously. He retrieved the note from Will’s hand — Will letting go reluctantly.
“Everything okay?” Will asked.
“Of course.” Taylor opened the Acura door, climbed in, shoved the note into his glove compartment. In his rearview he watched Will walk back, get inside the navy blue Land Cruiser. Taylor pressed the automatic opener, and the security gate slid slowly open across the driveway.
Will nodded to him in his rearview before putting his vehicle into gear. Taylor nodded back.
It was weird, though. If that note hadn’t been there on Friday afternoon — and Taylor was pretty sure it hadn’t — someone had climbed over the gate and bypassed Will’s Land Cruiser to tuck this note on Taylor’s windshield.
Why?
* * * * *
Denise Varga was small, dark, and bellicose. She had probably had to fight — and fight hard — be taken seriously in the mostly all-male world of international security, and it had left a sizable chip on the shoulder of her Anne Klein onyx suit. She made a point of never making the simple, courteous gestures of one coworker to another in case anyone mistook her for a woman. She charged out of doors first, letting them slam in her male coworkers’ faces, she never made or bought anyone coffee when she got her own, she interrupted and talked over and contradicted. It was hard working with her. It felt like penance.
Taylor would have preferred to work on his own, but that idea was shot down instantly by Assistant Field Office Director Greg Cooper, who welcomed Taylor back to active duty and informed him he’d be working with Special Agent Varga until further notice.
“Further notice?” Taylor had repeated woodenly.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Cooper said, shuffling papers.
Taylor was smart enough to nod and keep silent. If Cooper did suspect that Will and Taylor’s relationship had changed, and that that change might ultimately conflict with their loyalties to the DSS, any objection would hammer the last nail into the coffin of their partnership.
He listened unemotionally to their briefing, let Varga do all the bitching about the fact they were being landed with a low-profile babysitting job. Varga was taking it personally,
