He vanished a second later.
“You heard him,” David said. “Let’s get moving.”
Chapter Eighteen
Because the state was so large, Texas boasted three network hubs: one outside of San Antonio, another in Houston, and a third up by Dallas.
Nicole stood in what some referred to as the wardrobe department of the Houston headquarters, waiting her turn for Henderson’s crew to tell her what she should wear.
Beside her, Sean whistled.
She glanced up at him. “What?”
His head swiveling this way and that, he took in the rows and rows of clothing. Some garments were folded and stacked neatly on shelves. Others adorned hangers on long racks. “It’s like something you’d see backstage at a theater. Or maybe at a film production company.”
She smiled. “You’ve never seen their costumes before?”
“No.”
The network kept a wide variety of emergency responder uniforms in stock. Police. Deputies. Constables. Paramedics. Firemen. FBI. CIA. DEA. All excellent reproductions, but totally fake. If immortals made a mess, things often worked out better when network employees hit the scene first and acted as authority figures.
The massive wardrobe included clothing suitable for other professions and occasions as well. Doctors. Nurses. Postal employees. Delivery persons. Waiters. Waitresses. Janitors. Maids. Military uniforms. Suits. Slacks. Skirts. Jackets. Formalwear. Beachwear. And everything in between.
“Next,” a burly man called as he waved them forward. “Sean and Nicole?”
“Yes,” they answered.
A woman beside Burly Man stared down at an electronic tablet. “Cleaning crew. He’s immortal. She’s mortal.”
The man swept his gaze down Sean’s form, turned away, plucked a stack of fabric from a shelf, added shoes, and topped the pile off with a folded cloth bag. “Here you are.” After thrusting them into Sean’s arms, he did the same for Nicole, adding a bulletproof vest. “Go through those doors. You can change in there.”
Clutching her bundle to her chest, Nicole led the way into the changing room.
There wasn’t much to it, just a large room with benches along one wall and partitioned stalls attached to another. Anyone wanting a little privacy could duck into one of the latter and draw a curtain.
Darnell passed them on his way out of the room. Clad in dark slacks and an untucked beige oxford shirt, he looked handsome as hell.
Bastien stood in front of a curtained stall, facing the room with his feet braced apart and his arms crossed over his chest. Already changed, he now wore black slacks and a muted green oxford shirt. He’d left the top button unfastened and rolled the sleeves halfway up his muscled forearms. Instead of combat boots, casual dress shoes now graced his feet.
Over by the benches, Cliff and a man Nicole didn’t recognize had stripped down to their boxers.
“Damn,” Nicole said as she watched Cliff tug on a pair of navy pants. “Cliff is ripped.” He had packed on some serious muscle.
Cliff tossed her a grin over his shoulder.
“I’m right here, you know,” Sean grumbled.
She laughed. “And you’re ripped in a way that I find utterly irresistible. But you already know that.”
“Hell yes, I do,” he said with a roguish smile.
The man next to Cliff blurred. When he stilled, he wore navy pants, a white short-sleeved sport shirt, and an aqua-colored smock with pockets on the front.
“I’m guessing that’s Rafe,” she said.
Glancing at them, he nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too. I’m Nicole. This is Sean.”
Rafe motioned to the bundles in their arms. “Looks like you’ll be joining me on the cleaning crew.”
“Yep.”
Sean frowned as Cliff drew on a pale gray dress shirt and dark slacks. “You get to pose as a researcher?”
Tilting his nose up, Cliff arched a brow and feigned arrogance. “Apparently, I look smart.”
Nicole grinned. “You are smart.” Now that Cliff no longer battled insanity, Chris had been lobbying hard to get him to accept one of the higher-up positions at network headquarters in North Carolina. Right now, Cliff worked with the vampires on sublevel five, counseling them and helping them find productive ways to combat growing aggression and—for those who heard them—quiet or subdue the voices in their heads. But she suspected he would catapult high up the ranks once Chris wore him down.
Sean nudged her. “Let’s get changed.”
“Okay.”
A habit from her special ops days, Nicole started toward a bench. Reordon had placed her on teams that were given only minutes to dress and prepare for action so many times in the past that she didn’t think much about changing in front of others. Since she always kept her bra and panties on, Nicole figured her teammates didn’t get an eyeful of anything they wouldn’t see at a beach or swimming pool anyway. But Sean snagged her elbow and guided her over to a stall instead.
Biting back a laugh, she indulged him and ducked inside.
When he tried to join her, she gave him a hard push. “Sean, we can’t both change in here. You’re huge. And I don’t want to get elbowed in the face. Get your own space.”
Grumbling something under his breath, he backed out, closed the curtain, then dropped his pile on the floor just outside. A second later, he toed off his boots.
“Bastien tried to do the same,” Melanie said in the next stall, her voice full of amusement.
Laughing, Nicole swiftly doffed her clothes.
The navy pants fit well. So did the bulletproof vest, white shirt, and aqua smock. Network employees in the wardrobe department never failed to impress her with their ability to accurately assess a person’s size. Though she would rather not forgo her boots, Nicole replaced them with serviceable and very generic-looking black sneakers.
Even those fit perfectly.
She didn’t bother to fold her clothes before stuffing them—and her shoes—into the cloth bag provided. Once done, she thrust the curtain aside.
Standing with his back to her, Sean glanced over his shoulder.
She grinned. “I half-expected you to be bent over, mooning me.”
Laughing, he shook his head and stepped aside. He had already replaced his hunting blacks with navy blue pants, a white sport shirt, and an aqua smock identical to hers, all of which seemed to accentuate his broad shoulders and muscled chest.
Feigning irritation, she motioned to him. “How can something that makes me look frumpy make you look positively edible?”
He snorted. “If you think you look frumpy, you haven’t looked in a mirror.”
Melanie exited her stall and joined Bastien beside them, wearing slacks, a button-down shirt, and a white lab coat.
“What do we do now?” Sean asked.
All watched Nicole expectantly.
“Follow me.” She led them to a wall composed of wooden cubes stacked floor to ceiling. A small white strip adorned the lower edge of each with a whiteboard marker attached to it via hook and loop tape. Once she placed her bag of clothes and shoes into a cube, Nicole wrote her name beneath it with the marker. “So we can find our stuff easily when we return.”
While Sean, Melanie, and Bastien followed her example, she glanced around. Cliff and Rafe had left while she changed. But others had taken their place. Two men and two women garbed in cleaning crew uniforms sat on benches, tying their shoes. A fifth figure…