The Spider cruised down the road, heading in the general direction of Warehouse Two. She still had a while before she arrived, even with the light traffic, unusual for LA.
It was a good day to take her favorite route, winding through the canyon, lowering the risk of being tracked. That gave her more time to make a mental inventory of everything she’d need to move.
I’ll need a van or a truck. Fuck, I’ll need to stop off at Warehouse Three for explosives or thermite charges.
Shay turned sharply at a blind curve, almost clipping another driver. He honked, but she ignored it.
There’s not going to be room for anyone getting that close to me in this lifetime. Stick with a virtual PA. Never has to know who I really am. I can get what I need and pay them, move on with my day.
Shay’s stomach was still in a knot. She’d made a mistake with Peyton. Do that too often and she was as good as dead. Time to correct the mistake, starting with emptying the warehouse and removing any trace that she was ever there by blowing it out of existence. No more cubicle walls.
“Who knows?” she muttered. “Maybe this will be cathartic.” Fuck me. I miss the yuppy Peewee Herman.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The fire in Shay faded into a dull pain by the time she made it back to Warehouse Two. She decided to wait on collecting her arson supplies. There’d be a delay, she figured, between Peyton being captured, tortured, killed, and traced back to her.
A soft sigh escaped Shay’s lips as the loading bay door closed behind her car, and she turned off her engine. A fucking waste. That’s what it was. He could have made something of himself with his tech skills and her training. He would have become a well-rounded badass who didn’t have to run from his family.
If only Peyton Coolidge could have understood everything he wanted was within his reach, instead of letting his emotions get the better of him and pushing him into an act of suicidal stupidity.
Shay stepped out of her car and made her way to the cubicle jungle and the office. She halted, blinking, surprised at her relief.
Peyton was sitting in his lounge chair, the footrest up, a comic book resting on his chest. He didn’t acknowledge her or move. For a second her heart rate kicked up, and she wondered if someone had gotten to him when she was gone, but the shallow rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive.
Shay got close enough to give a kick to the footrest, her arms crossed and stared down at him in silence, her face a careful, stony blank.
“Comic book seems a little on the nose.”
Peyton looked down at the Green Lantern rare edition from twenty years ago. “Some things are a cliché for a good reason. It’s the way I relax when I’m stressed out. You should try it.”
“My way helps with population control.” She smiled despite her best instincts telling her to kick him out. “Fuck me.” She said it under her breath but Peyton still noticed and raised an eyebrow, staring up at her.
“I owe Player 4839 a ten spot. I bet him you didn’t have a beating heart.”
Shay easily lifted him onto his feet and dropped him to the ground. He landed on his side and rolled over, jumping to his feet. “I know this is your version of an office party. I missed you too.”
Shay took a step toward Peyton as he leapt onto the desk and leap-frogged across the room, never landing on the floor. His comic book slid to the floor and he gave a worried look back but didn’t go back to retrieve it.
Good instincts.
“That was stupid and impressive.” Shay was doing her best not to prove him wrong or laugh. “You set up the room just in case you had to get away like this, didn’t you?”
“My own jungle gym. Had to entertain myself somehow all those hours cooped up in here. Invest in cable. It’s not fun to watch a seventy-year-old Hoda drink wine and cook cauliflower pizza.” He stayed where he was, ready to jump again, if necessary.
Shay was tempted to take a run at him just to see him move through the rest of his hidden training circuit.
“Nice try, Shay. I can see the wheels turning. I told you, I managed to keep myself alive all these years and I proved I’m useful to you. Quit underestimating me.”
“You made a gym out of office equipment.”
“Have to use what’s handy.”
“It’s entertaining but don’t get ahead of yourself. Your skills were impressive when you were back East right up to the day you had a target on you. They’re not enough anymore.”
Peyton scoffed, jumping down even as he kept his distance. “I thought about what you said, all of it, and I realized you own my ass. I’m fucking dead, and you’re right. If I headed back home, Randy would make sure I was full of Russian poison within a couple of hours. I’ll make your day and admit you were right. I’m not ready to deal with him, otherwise I would have left.”
Shay dropped into a lounge chair. “Speaking as someone who has been dead longer than you, it’s not so bad once you get used to it. It’s useful in its own way.”
“Useful? How the hell is being dead useful?”
“Most people have to carry around their baggage with them forever, but once you’re dead, you can let it all go, reinvent yourself, and do it the right way this time. Come up with a new version of yourself.”
Peyton sat down in the other lounge chair, scooping up the comic book and brushing it off. “Is it really so easy? Just let it all go. I had a life, people I gave a crap about, at least one person. I…” He
