Hyper Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 6) by Fiona Quinn (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📗

distance if you liked a good hike. Two miles wasn’t bad if you were fresh from a good night’s sleep. But two miles coming home from eight hours on your feet would be miserable.

Especially in this heat.

Destiny was sitting shotgun in my POS car, looking wrung out. “It’s there.” She pointed.

I had picked her up from her shift. Mine wasn’t for another hour—just enough time to move my backpacks and jar of peanut butter into her place.

Finley and Prescott were pleased by my arrangements. The fact that I’d gotten the job and was now moving in should keep the mission heading right along. We were speeding ahead with the case, and I was told that was imperative. And more importantly to this moment, Finley had told me that they didn’t think anyone was actively looking for this woman, though, yes, if she was found, she’d be in danger.

Destiny knew what was on the line. That’s why I was here. They hoped it wouldn’t take more than a couple of days to figure out her Achille’s heel so they could wrap her into their program.

“Why are you driving past?” she asked as I turned the corner and parked off the side of the road.

“Uhm…” I chewed on my lip, trying to come up with the right feel for this information. It needed to align me with her situation but at the same time not make her feel fearful of having me with her. “So this car comes from the place I ran away from. It was mine to drive while I was there, maybe not quite so fine for me to have driven off in.”

“Stolen?”

“Borrowed,” I said. “Ohio plates. No one in D.C. is going to care. But, all the same, if my plates came up on some cops computer system, I’d like to make it hard for them to track me down.” Now I needed to switch things up. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Barb is on the run from her ex. You said Jim hires women who are in danger. Who’s after you?”

Her lips sealed tight. Her teeth locked.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. Just scale of one to ten, how dangerous is it for me to bunk with you?”

She looked at her lap for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

Wow. Not what I expected. I’d have to run that by Prescott and Finley. If this was an imminently dangerous assignment, things needed to be reworked. I was not an operator.

Minimally, Iniquus would have me covered with Strike Force back up. They’d be running all kinds of systems and diagnostics. I wouldn’t be dangling in danger’s way without support.

“We’ll just need to stay low profile,” I said. “Get some money in the bank. Head down to Costa Rica and start a charmed life filled with coconuts and fresh fish.” I pulled the keys from the ignition and opened my door.

“How was the beach yesterday?”

I closed my eyes with a smile and inhaled like I could still smell the salty air. “Perfection.” I tugged my backpacks and sleeping bags from the backseat. “I haven’t got much. Would you mind lending a hand?”

We walked back up the street. I waited in the drive while Destiny went and rang the guy’s doorbell. “Hey there, checking in.”

“All’s good, chicky. You got a friend?” The homeowner’s wife-beater dangled from bony shoulders. His pants were belted under a rounded belly. He was barefooted and could use a shave, a shampoo, and a haircut.

“Yeah, she’s gonna hang around a bit.” Destiny turned. “I’ll check in tomorrow.” She skipped down the three brick steps and walked around the back of the house.

A two-story garage was tucked under the trees. The stairs on the right looked untrustworthy. I climbed behind her. “I have a key for you. I’ll give it to you upstairs,” Destiny said over her shoulder.

“Thanks.”

She unlocked the door handle and the deadbolt above, pushing the door wide.

Well…it was safer than sleeping in my car, I guessed.

It was clean.

The linoleum floor looked like it was laid in the seventies. That and the wood-paneled accent wall. The other walls were dingy neutral. Two massive, upholstered chairs looked like they’d either been left by the previous resident, or Destiny had dragged them from the curb before the garbage could pick them up.

I looked in the bedroom. She slept on a single mattress on the floor. Her clothes were folded in neat piles and lined up along the wall.

I moved to the bathroom with its avocado-colored ceramic toilet, bath and sink, and turquoise walls.

The galley kitchen was part of the great room.

“Get yourself settled in. I’m going to take a cold shower. No air conditioning.” She leaned over and turned on the box fan. “It’s not terrible. The trees keep the sun off. On really hot days, I go to the library and hang out. It’s two blocks past where you parked your car.”

Destiny went into the bathroom with a change of clothes tucked under her arm and shut the door.

I took the opportunity to do a security assessment. I’d need to report the situation to both Strike Force and the FBI.

Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I videoed the setup's locks, doors, and windows.

Fire trap. It looked like the only exfil was the door we came in.

Destiny didn’t have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

Peeking in her cupboards and fridge, I discovered there was little in the way of food. It looked like Destiny ate sandwiches.

She didn’t even own a pot.

I stalled at the kitchen window, looking between the trees. In my mind, I was trying to position myself geographically.

When I angled myself correctly, I could see the bar where Hanasal had been drinking the night he killed my dad.

Sometimes I loved how the