Chapter Twenty-Nine – Kris Cole

 

“Can’t you fucking hurry?” Kris asked, her foot tapping uncontrollably against the concrete slab, fist planted on her hip. Hunter had been trying key after key for, it seemed, at least, the last two hours as they went up and down the units.

With that damned easy smile of his, he looked back over his shoulder at her. “You know, Kris, it’s only been five minutes. There are an awful lot of keys to choose from here, so if you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

Short of breaking into the office come nightfall so they could search through their records? No, not really. That had been Hunter’s initial suggestion, but even he knew that might draw unwanted attention to them. The cops might, or might not, put together five seemingly unconnected crimes like that. But she couldn’t really take the chance.

Instead, they’d decided to take the long, hard way on this. To just try the keys they had.

Frustrated, she turned away, turned her gaze down the row of the storage units’ garage-style fronts with their orange-painted roll-up doors. All those people’s memories and transient objects they couldn’t afford space for in their own home. But which they couldn’t afford to lose, either.

“You seem awfully testy today,” Hunter said, pulling another key from his bag. He had two of them. One used, one unused. When he was finished trying one, he’d drop it into the other bag. On the next lock, they switched spots. It was such a good system, Kris figured he’d used it multiple times already.

“Testy?”

“Yes. Testy. Pissy. Angry. Your fuse is about as short as—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You can stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

She nearly growled. She didn’t want to discuss Carter’s little run up to Shamrock, or how fucked he’d been. If anything, she was hoping this stupid little trip to find Harrington’s bolthole would soothe her nerves, give her something else to focus on. But, it hadn’t, and Hunter bringing it up didn’t help matters.

“Kris?” Hunter asked as he switched keys.

“What?” she asked, this time actually growling as she snapped back around to face him.

He was looking up at her, his face completely unperturbed. Dammit, almost actually sincere. “You can always talk to me, you know. I know we don’t see eye to eye on many things. But, I’m not going to talk to the guys about this any more than you ever would. Can you see me hanging out with them over drinks, or the like?”

She sighed. “Fine.”

He turned back to his work, listened to her as she recounted the story of the mess Carter had gotten himself into. Even chuckled at the news report. “Well, Carter is a big boy, and can probably take care of himself. Just set Tabitha and Ryder to keep a closer eye on him in case he does something stupid up there.”

“Does something stupid?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Like leaps out a three story window in the middle of a fight, after a gun battle?” He paused. “Aha!”

“Did you—?”

He looked back at her, grinning from ear to ear as he waggled his eyebrows. “I did.”

With a little click, the solid puck of a lock released its bolt, and Hunter removed the whole assembly from the latch. Dusting off the knees of his woolen slacks, he straightened up. “Ready?”

He didn’t even have to ask, though. Kris was already bent over and pulling up the rolling door, walking it up and sliding it back.

Both sucked in a deep breath as they saw what was inside.

“This is what Harrington was hiding?” Hunter asked, a bit of derision in his voice as they both looked over the file cabinets, the small desk, and the visual aids hanging from the walls. Pushpins with threads tied to them covered the highlighted regional, world, and city maps.

Kris, suddenly more confused than she’d been for the last month, walked into the room as if in a daze, mentally inventorying everything inside. “Yeah. This is what he was hiding.”

“What is it?” Hunter asked, stepping in after her, his footfalls hollow and dead-sounding.

“I don’t have a fucking clue,” she said as she stopped in front of the small desk, with its piles and piles of leather-bound books on archaeology and loose paper all covered in Harrington’s small, tight print. Gibberish that scrawled up and down the page. It looked like it was almost a foreign language. Quickly, though, she recognized it for what it really was: Col. Harrington’s shorthand.

“Well?” Hunter asked from in front of the maps, where he was glaring up at the stretched strings and drawn lines. “What do you think?”

She turned around, leaned back against the desk, and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. Archaeology texts, maps, notes. It hit her.

“I think he was looking for something.”

“Like what?”

“An artifact, maybe? A place? Who knows?”

Hunter didn’t reply, just turned back to her. “Well? What was he looking for, do you think?”

“No idea,” she replied, as she turned and fixed her flaming green eyes on Hunter. “But we’re going to find out.”