“Say please,” I teased him with a saccharine smile on my face, “And I’ll untie it for you.” All the muscles in his stout upper body flexed as he held himself up.
He glared at me in agitation. “Please, hurry the fuck up. We don’t have time for games, Novak.” Yeah, yeah, I know.
I untied his shoe, and when it dropped to the floor, I used it to carefully prop the door open. Fifty-five minutes left. I traversed the office as Vaughn disappeared down the hall, barefoot and cursing under his breath. Who knew our mate would come with so much trouble?
I removed the computer from under the desk, delicately pulling all the wires and rolling them up together in a bundle that I wrapped in my shirt. The wires had a little blood on them, and I didn’t want to leave any on the floor when I set them down. I left the monitor but removed the files from the bottom desk drawer first, the one that didn’t have a hand hanging from it, so I could set everything on them. Arranging them on the carpeted floor outside the door, I placed the computer on the paper file folders to absorb any missed blood and stacked the wires on top. This wasn’t my first time doing this.
The top drawers held nothing of importance, so I moved on to the last bottom drawer. The one with the hand dangling from it. I used a pen to maneuver the drawer open, letting the hand fall naturally to the floor. I put the pen in my pocket so I didn’t set it down anywhere and leave partial fingerprints. I was already in the database, and I didn’t want a murder charge pinned on me. Inside the drawer was a broken, empty safe. Well, almost empty. I took my phone out and snapped a picture, then removed the envelope and placed it outside the door with the rest of the stuff. Forty-five minutes left.
Moving over to the shelves, I visually scanned them for anything noteworthy. I picked out eight books with Latin titles, or what I thought was Latin. They favored the books Palmer had in his room. I added those to my stack outside the door. I found three more books with old, worn leather bindings that looked like they could be something useful. There were a few trinkets on the shelves that caught my eye as well, so all that went into the pile. Thirty-seven minutes left.
Vaughn was making his way back to the office when I made my last trip, so I took his shirt to cover my fingers while I opened the rest of the books. Nothing hidden in them. Boring titles of no concern. They all went back on the shelves where they came from. I looked around the room one last time, spotting a jacket hanging on the back of the door. The pockets were empty, so that was a bust. No cabinets and no closets. No hollowed out wall panels either, I checked. Twenty-four minutes left.
The last thing I grabbed was the bloody fucking phone with some poor old man’s prized possession lying on it. Don’t touch the dick. Don’t touch the dick. Don’t touch the--
The squeal that left my mouth was never to be talked about again. I was not proud of it. Godsdamnit. I tried to pick the phone up from either side, but when I lifted it that dead dick rolled right against the palm of my hand. The dick touched me. I was gonna be sick.
“What the fuck was that?” Vaughn whisper-shouted from the doorway as he packed everything into the three boxes he’d brought with him.
I hurled the phone into the box sitting on top of the two he had already filled and started untying my boots to slip out of the office. “Dude, I touched the fucking dick.” I stopped what I was doing to rub my hands on my pants. I could still feel it touching me.
Vaughn let out a surprised hoot and shook his head at me. “That’s why you squealed? You’ve touched dicks before. I don’t see what the issue is with brushing up against that one.” He looked me over like I was the biggest idiot he’d ever met. He didn’t get it.
“Yeah, but those dicks were warm and attached to someone. That one is NOT attached to anyone,” I whisper-shouted right back at him. “It’s cold and lifeless and severed at the end.” Another full body shiver worked its way through me as I described why I was freaked out. That motherfucker was still laughing at me. He was folded over at his waist with his hands on his knees, sucking in breaths as he tried to contain himself. It was not fucking funny! I gave him my back and began wiping down the door handles on both sides of the door.
“Cold and lifeless, huh?” he jeered. “I thought you were describing your own dick for a minute there.” He handed me the open box full of computer equipment while he picked up the other two filled with paperwork, books, and random shit from the shelves.
“Get fucked, asshole. I’m scarred for life after that,” I muttered to him as we made our way back to the elevator, barefoot and carrying boxes full of stolen shit. I wish I could say this was the first time I’d done this, but I don’t want to lie. It wasn’t. I glared daggers at Vaughn as he silently continued to laugh at me. His shoulders lifted up and down and his reddened face was canted to the side. We stepped into the waiting elevator to make our way back down to that boring ass lobby. I set my box down and backtracked quickly to wipe the outside button down before the door closed. I swiftly wiped the inside buttons and shoved Vaughn’s shirt in the box so I could pick it back up as we waited for the elevator to take us to the ground floor.
“You’re being a really shitty friend. You know that, right?” I patronized him with a murderous look before turning away from him.
“Yep,” he boasted, and I could hear his fucking smile with that single word. I wanted to hit him, but my hands were full, so I’d have to wait. The elevator dinged when it reached the main floor and we peeked around before stepping out. The guard was still asleep. I didn’t know why that shocked me, but it did. I briefly hoped he got fired for sleeping on the job, and then I remembered that he was about to find a gruesome murder scene in... sixteen minutes.
Damn, we made good timing. Quietly setting my box down again, I grabbed Vaughn’s stupid shirt and angrily wiped down the last button. I didn’t put it back in the box because I knew I’d have to dig it out again to clean the handles on the doors leading outside. What I really wanted to do was strangle him with it.
We made it back to the car and loaded up our stolen goods with no further issues or confrontation. I mean, other than the dead body. All fingerprints had been removed, and we were driving off company property. That meant it was time to call Franklin and let him know we were done so he could override the security footage of us being there. Then it was a done deal.
“Franklin, we're done and heading back,” Vaughn confirmed as soon as Franklin picked up his end of the call. He paused to listen and then sighed loudly. He’d done that a good bit today. “Great, okay. We’ll take the long way around. Tell Palmer we’ll be there in an hour.”
“What did he say?” I was too curious about what had his kacks in a twist. I loved that word. Kacks. It was what Palmer called his panties. His accent was light after living in the States for so long, but he still used some of his Irish slang. Most of it didn’t make any sense to me. Don’t let him know I called him Irish. He’d give us the speech about how Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland are two different places. Again.
“He said to leave here and not head to Sloane’s yet. We need to toss our phones out first. She told him Nathaniel and Samuel had bugs. Everyone else has already dumped their phones. So we’ll head into town, grab some lunch, and toss our phones in the garbage before going back to look through all this shit we just stole.” He sounded exasperated.