Good Behavior: Chapter 20

Charlie and I are in his truck, watching the video feed through an app on Charlie’s phone, as Nacho and Justin pull up.

“Y’all are ,” the lady—Joanna—barks out.

Stretching my neck, I remind myself that Nacho knows how to handle rude people and I don’t need to go over there and correct her manners for her.

Justin answers, “Yes, ma’am. Apologies for the delay, but we’ll have you squared away by sundown.”

“Fine. I’ve got some permit issues to deal with. Can’t even build on my own fucking land without the county halfway up my ass. Are y’all actually going to get this done today?”

One of Charlie’s contacts is good with hacking systems and did a solid for us. That little permit situation she’s having to deal with is totally our fault and should keep her busy for at least an hour.

“Yes, ma’am. Me and Nacho are the fastest guys on the crew, and we’ll have this done in under an hour.”

“What happened to the other guy?” she asks, venom in her voice as she looks past them to the partially fenced-in building. “The little gay boy.”

Fuck this bitch.

“Well, ma’am, it was his error that led to the delay,” Justin explains. Nacho’s cam picks up Justin’s sincere expression, and I’m glad they sent him instead of Ant because Ant has zero poker face. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t his first issue with this kind of job, so we had to let him go.”

Her sigh is long-suffering and irritates my sinuses.

“Can’t trust those Mexicans to do anything right anyway,” she says a little too comfortably.

Nacho’s camera angles off as though he’s stepped away. Charlie and I catch a few colorful words uttered under his breath.

“Like I said, ma’am, won’t ever happen again. Me and Nacho will have your fence up in no time flat.”

“Fine. Just get it done. And what kind of name is Nacho, anyway?” she asks, mocking him. “What was your mother thinking?”

“Well, I was a crack baby, ma’am,” he answers completely deadpan. “So I doubt good ole Mom was thinking very much of anything.”

Charlie and I know that’s a complete fabrication, and we stifle our laughter.

“Of course. You people can’t even take care of your own babies.”

From the challenge in her voice and the downturn of her lips, I can tell how desperately she wants to start a fight, but Nacho is smooth as silk.

“And see, ma’am, I’m gay. Don’t have to worry about no unwanted babies from me. Now, if we can, we’d like to finish this job for you.”

He ignores her disgusted look and doesn’t respond to whatever she’s muttered under her breath.

Charlie chuckles. “He’s enjoying himself.”

“If he decides he doesn’t like someone, he’s rather adept at getting under their skin.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Charlie asks, “What happens if he like someone?”

My lips twitch. “He’s even worse.”

That might be a little more information than totally necessary, but the fact Charlie is stifling a laugh rather than handing me a pink slip settles some of the angst I’ve had about the possible fallout around our relationship.

The client continues to mutter something we can’t quite pick up on the feed, but I can’t imagine it’s tasteful or kind. Justin and Nacho head toward the impressively tall fence and prepare for the work. A few moments later, the lady tears ass out of her property, scowling.

“She’s clear of the property,” Charlie says. “Anyone else we need to worry about?”

Nacho answers, “Nope. We’re the only ones here now.”

“What about the dogs?”

“They’re in the backyard,” Justin answers.

“Don’t forget, there is a set of cameras around the building,” Nacho warns.

“Erik and I already identified blind spots we can take advantage of,” Charlie explains.

Charlie turns to me. “My plan was to let you stay in the truck while I did reconnaissance, but since she took the bait, it’s a little safer. Would you like to come with me to see what this part looks like?”

“You know I would,” I say, dead serious.

“Gentlemen,” Charlie announces. “Bram and I are going in. We’re looking for evidence and will be in and out before you know it. Just finish the job and leave as quickly as you can.”

“No problem, baby,” Justin says. “I wasn’t lying. This project will go quick.”

Pulling the truck up to the carport—directly in a blind spot—Charlie hands me a balaclava and a pair of black nitrile gloves.

“Damn,” I say, pulling the balaclava over my head. “As Levy would say, shit just got real.”

“What just got real, brother?” Levy asks.

I forgot Levy’s listening in back at the ranch.

“I look like a cat burglar, if that tells you anything,” I say.

Levy whistles across the line. “Jealous.”

Charlie cracks a smile, then goes absolutely serious as he dons his mask.

“I don’t know what kind of recording devices they have, so keep talking to a minimum. We’re looking for documents, ledgers, anything that indicates what their business is and what they have planned next. Most importantly, we can’t leave any trace of our presence here.”

“Do you know whether or not they have a security system?”

“They do. But it’s controlled by Wi-Fi, and one of our friends has already hacked it. We’ll be able to get in. We just don’t know what they have on the inside.”

With that, we exit the vehicle and enter the carport. I’m creeped out by the shadows and the dogs watching us silently from behind the backyard fence, but we ignore them and walk straight to the side door. Charlie points at a camera above the door, and he makes a slashing sound at his throat, meaning it’s dead.

He points to another camera in the window, and its light is red.

“Wi-Fi?” I ask.

He nods, sending off a quick message. By the time he gets the door unlocked, the red light on that camera is also out.

We walk in through the cluttered kitchen and scan the equally cluttered front of the house. The living room and dining area are on the left side of the house, and the living quarters are on the right. The dining area is more of an office, with multiple desks and monitors, like a command center.

I check with Charlie, and the set of his jaw tells me we’re thinking the same thing. He pulls out his phone again, gesturing for me to do the same.

I send him a thumbs-up, and we split, him on one side of the room, me on the other. The first desk is fairly clean, save for a notebook filled with some kind of code—a series of letters and numbers that don’t make much sense. I flip through the notebook, taking pictures of any pages with writing. There’s definitely a pattern, but now is not the time to try and decipher it.

I move the mouse, grateful Charlie brought gloves for me.

The screen comes up and is password-protected. These are older computers, so I hit the enter button to see if they actually used a password, which they did. Not going to try and crack it myself, so I move on to the next desk. This is just as clean as the other, again with a notebook that contains the mysterious pattern of letters and numbers. I take pictures of all those as well.

To the side of that desk are a printer and a wastebasket. Nothing’s in the printer drawer, but a few crumpled pieces of paper are in the basket. I grab them and flatten them on the desk, taking pictures of everything before recrumpling them and tossing them back in the basket. I’m pretty much done, but jiggle the mouse on this computer as well, just in case. Another lock screen. I hit enter, not expecting anything and…shit.

“That actually worked,” I say, probably a little too loudly.

Charlie turns toward me, questions in his eyes.

I point at the monitor and shrug. His eyes are wide, and he sits in front of it, pulling up document after document. At some point, he pulls up a spreadsheet, and red splotches appear on his cheeks.

He points out a Minneapolis address at the top of the screen. Damn, Nacho was right. They are connected to the earlier rescue mission.

Charlie then points to the bottom of the screen, noting all the tabs. They disappear to the right, and as he clicks over, there are at least two dozen.

“None of these computers are connected—no Wi-Fi signals, no ethernet cables, nothing.”

Cursing, he pulls out his phone and connects it to the computer with a USB cord. He pulls up an app on his phone, types in a code, and it connects to the computer, pulling up a finder window for the phone.

Working quickly, he highlights and drags all the documents he can into the folder. We wait as the bar across the screen slowly creeps over.

“Sit here. I’m going to check the rest of the rooms.”

It’s a little nerve-racking, being left alone in a room while breaking and entering to possibly stop a human-trafficking ring, but I do as asked, my eyes never leaving the screen.

A few moments into watching the bar creep across the screen, I sense the presence of something else in the room.

Chills crawl across my skin as I slowly spin in the chair. One of the property’s enormous German Shepherds has crept up and is staring me down. He’s so tall that he and I are face to face. Letting out a low, quiet growl, he bares his teeth.

“Shit,” I whisper under my breath.

“Brother? Something wrong?”

My brother’s voice in my ear startles me, but I lock it down because I don’t want to give this dog a reason to attack.

“The biggest fucking German Shepherd I’ve ever seen in my life is standing right in front of me.”

Nacho’s voice comes over the line, smooth and oddly comforting. “Just act bossy with him. Works for me.”

I ignore the muffled snickers across the line and sit up straight.

“Sit,” I command in my most commanding voice.

The dog ignores the command and moves closer, unimpressed with my presence.

“Say it in German,” Nacho suggests.

“Sitz,” I command, my voice shaking. “Platz.”

and . Ask me how I know those.

For one terrifying second, the shepherd pauses, then puts his butt on the ground and slides onto his belly, sticking his tongue out and panting.

Fucking hell.

Just as one tragedy is averted, the sound of Charlie softly cursing filters across the line.

“You okay?” I ask, avoiding his name.

Before he can answer, Levy’s voice comes across the line, urgent. “Just got an update on her truck’s location. She’s two minutes out.”

“Fuck,” Charlie mutters. “There’s a kid back here.”

“Can he see you?” I ask.

“No. He’s got on headphones and is playing a game.”

“How old is he?”

“Ten, maybe.”

“Does he look like he belongs here?”

“No. He’s Latino, and he’s underweight.”

“What do we do about him?” Justin asks.

“Can’t take him with us. Don’t have time, don’t know the situation. No proof he’s in imminent danger other than the fact he’s skinny. We need to fall back, look at the info we grabbed, and figure out what all this means.”

Charlie walks back into the room and stops short, seeing the dog on the floor.

“Not bad.”

The bar finally disappears from the screen, and I close the window and disconnect Charlie’s phone, sleeping the computer before we race through the back of the house. Jumping into the truck, we get to the end of the driveway when she turns in.

“Fuck,” Charlie says.

She comes up around us, suspicion in her eyes until she takes one look at Charlie.

“Well, hey there. You lost, sugar?”

Charlie slaps on a serene smile. “I own the fencing company and heard we had an incident today. I just stopped by to ensure my guys are doing a good job for you. Looks like they’re almost done.”

“Oh,” she says, drifting her fingers across her mottled, sunburnt décolletage. “Well, what excellent customer service. Thank you.”

“You are most welcome,” he says, piling on the charm. “And, of course, we’ll be giving a heavy discount since you had to deal with a delay.”

“I appreciate that,” she says, smiling wide. She leans out the window, which serves to push up her breasts, and cups her hand around her mouth like she’s telling a salacious secret. “And maybe next time, make sure you hire the right people to get the job done.”

Charlie’s Adam’s apple bobs, and he white-knuckles the steering wheel.

“Ma’am, you can bet we will.”

Looking satisfied with herself, she pulls around us and goes up the drive just as Justin and Nacho begin loading their truck.

“Fuck, that was close,” I breathe as Charlie turns onto the highway. When he doesn’t respond, I look over, and his brows are stitched together in concentration.

“Hey, Charlie—you okay?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve never left a kid behind before. I just more or less told Ant I’d never do that, and not even an hour later…

,” he shouts, banging the steering wheel.

“Hey, now. We didn’t have enough information to remove a child from their home.”

“I should have talked to him.”

“You didn’t have time.”

“I know that,” he says, grinding his molars. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“True. But that’s why you’re so good at this. You’re willing to do the hard things.”

He takes a deep breath. “Thanks, Bram. Now that we have the documents, I can hand them over to our friends, who can go over it with pattern-recognition technology. They should be able to figure out what all these marks mean pretty quickly.”

“Excellent.”

We pull into Wild Heart and park in front of the bunkhouse. A few minutes later, Justin and Nacho join us. Justin and Charlie immediately go to one another, embracing as they murmur in each other’s ears.

I walk over to the truck and get in next to Nacho.

“Don’t forget to take your comms out,” he says, grinning.

“Good call,” Levy says over the comms. “And don’t forget those cameras either.”

He appears on the porch a second later and walks up to the window, holding out his palm. Nacho and I deliver our surveillance equipment to him, waving as we take off.

As we head down the road, Nacho turns to me. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got lucky,” I say, scrunching my nose as we pass the property we just infiltrated.

“You’re telling me. I was worried the German thing wouldn’t work with that dog.”

“Yeah, but that was only kinda lucky.” Tapping my lip, I continue, “I actually feel lucky about something else.”

“Yeah? What do you feel lucky about?”

I hesitate, but Nacho’s sincere interest makes me plow forward. “I feel kind of like this is the thing that’s been missing from my professional life.”

“What? You mean the breaking and entering?” he asks, laughing at me.

“Ha-ha, no. But maybe also yes. Actually getting in and finding out information that will probably lead us where we need to go, having to pivot in the moment, keeping calm while doing so…I think I’m meant to do more with that.”

Nacho catches my eye, pride shining in his.

“It was sexy hearing you work through the problem.”

“I’m glad I can turn you on, Ignacio. If you’re up for it, some time with you would make me feel so much better.”

His smile breaks like a sunrise. “Yes, Dr. Barlowe. I would like that very much.”