“Hours.”
“Awesome.” Their bearer of bad news probably had orders to stay put until they arrived. The guy would be hungry and have to take a piss. Exactly what Spiker had hoped to deal with tonight. He threw open the car door and didn’t bother with niceties. “Hey, buddy. Hold up a minute.” He stayed behind the door, using it as a half-cocked defensive position. “Who sent you?”
“Buck.” His hands were empty.
Their delivery was either small enough to fit in the man’s pockets, or he and Vanka would have to listen until the courier had shared what he came to deliver.
Vanka stepped out of her car and rounded the hood. Spiker closed his door and stepped to her side. “You have a name?”
“Akira Takahashi. I work out of the Baltimore office.”
Spiker grumbled. “Nothing good has ever come from the team based out of Baltimore.”
“I’m new to the team. Don’t hold that against me,” Akira said.
“The new guy. Great,” Spiker grumbled like a curmudgeonly old man. “You’ve landed yourself one hell of a choice assignment tonight.”
“How’s that?” Akira asked.
“I already had plans.”
Akira glanced at Vanka and understood just how unwelcome his arrival was. His chin dropped. “Orders require—”
“Don’t listen to Spiker,” Vanka chided and followed the stone path toward the front door. “Let’s get started. I’ll make tea.”
Akira mouthed an apology then followed Vanka.
Spiker closed his eyes and demanded an internal attitude adjustment. What he wanted—Vanka on him in every conceivable way—wasn’t possible. He tried to see that as a good thing. Rushing Vanka into an empty house had significant risks. As much as he wanted to take his time and soak her in, the truth was, they’d probably have fucked on the stairs.
Not that that was a terrible idea. He might even mentally draft a top-ten-location wish list and rank the staircase near the top.
A light shone from the living room. Vanka knocked on the window and made a what-the-bloody-hell-get-inside face that made Spiker laugh. Man alive, he had it bad for her.
He followed the stone path around the house. Akira’s arrival wasn’t a bad thing. Besides slowing the inevitable tumble into bed—or onto the stairs—it was clear that Spiker had no patience for his job any longer. To have even considered asking an analyst to take a hike . . . that was problematic. To have suggested it aloud? More so.
By the time he walked into the house, Vanka had retrieved their paperwork from the living room and set it in a tidy pile on the dining table. She and Akira were chatting away. Neither acted as though they weren’t happy to do their jobs.
The storm cloud brewing in his chest stayed at bay. Spiker took the chair next to Vanka and tried to relax. It didn’t work, so he settled for not acting like a dick.
Akira and Vanka had found a common bond while he’d been outside. They had both spent time on the observation deck of an art museum that overlooked Tokyo, but had been brought there for very different reasons—her, a fashion exhibit, and him, an academic presentation of manga superheroes.
“Have you also visited the Mori Art Center?” Akira asked Spiker.
Since when had everyone they worked with taken an interest in art? Spiker crossed his arms. “Nope.”
Akira pressed his lips together. Vanka shot Spiker a look. So much for controlling his crap-on-the-world rainstorm.
“It’s been a long day,” Vanka apologized. “Shall we get started?”
“Why not?” The chair scraped loudly when Spiker scooted in.
Vanka glared. One thing became clear: Even if Akira were to walk out the door right now, the chance of bedroom fireworks was about as likely as her roasting marshmallows in the arctic circle. So much for not screwing things up between them.
Akira Takahashi was a gift to the Baltimore office. Vanka hoped he remained a lovely person. GSI could drain analysts of their life force or—she glanced at Spiker—twist a person into a pain in her arse.
The courier’s arrival had less to do with delivering a message and more with following up on questions from GSI’s analysts, who were struggling to combine her and Spiker’s reports on Alec Oliver. Apparently, they had submitted such vastly different accounts of what had happened that GSI thought it necessary for in-person clarification.
After Akira left, Vanka and Spiker didn’t have much to say. She cleared the tea and coffee cups, and after double-checking that Akira’s vehicle had departed, Spiker swept the dining room and exterior of the house for electronic surveillance and bugs. She appreciated that the hot-and-heavy Amtrak session hadn’t thrown them off their usual routines.
Once Spiker dubbed the house all clear, she returned to the table. “Pouting isn’t a good look on you.”
“Noted.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. With a heavy, exhausted sigh, he shook his head and rested his elbows on the table. “But this is about way more than an interruption.”
She’d been afraid of that. Spiker had gone from disinterested to increasingly unpleasant the more Akira asked about what might keep Buck in Alec Oliver’s good graces. They were far more used to finding pinch points to leverage. Ass-kissing didn’t sit well with either of them. The more Akira interrogated them, the more clear the direction Buck intended to take GSI became. Buck didn’t care one iota about stolen arts or Robin Hood.
“I know.”
“Then what the hell are we doing?” He held out his hands. “This is the kind of job we walk away from.”
“I can’t just—”
“Yes, Vanka, you can. It’s easy.” He pantomimed a phone at his ear. “Hey, yeah, Buck, fuck off. I’m done.” Spiker slammed the imaginary phone onto the table. “Just like that.”
His eyes held hers so tight that she forgot to breathe. This was why surgeons weren’t allowed to operate on their spouses. Relationships made people bloody fools. She wasn’t thinking about ramifications or pragmatic discussion. Vanka wanted to agree and run away to whatever private island had been Spiker’s destination a week ago. “I need to go to bed.”
Spiker’s jaw tensed. “Night.”
“Good night,” she clipped, aggravated that he let her go without a fight. Wasn’t that what they did? Bicker over details until one of them won out?
Vanka stormed upstairs and ran a hot shower. The lavender shampoo and chamomile body wash did not live up to their promise of relaxation. She lit a spearmint-scented candle and blew it out before it had a chance to melt the wax. None of the books on her nightstand put her to sleep or calmed her down. The one on perennial gardening fell as flat as the illustrated Sun Tzu spoof. How a book entitled Flank ’em Before You Spank ’em hadn’t held her attention, she might never know.
Except she did know. From the moment she’d stomped upstairs to the point where she’d climbed into bed, Vanka was aware of Spiker. She cataloged how long he had stayed at the table, the cadence of his steps as he climbed the stairs, and the unhesitating beelined he made for his bedroom.
She should get her arse out of bed and knock on his door. Vanka wanted to argue—her stomach turned. That wasn’t what she wanted. Vanka wanted to have her way. She didn’t want change, but hadn’t explained why. They would bicker over trivial matters like who filed reports or who ate the last biscuit during a stakeout. The inane banter hadn’t mattered, and their motives were as obvious as they were self-serving.