Page 10 of Jonas

“What about the guy?” I inquired.

“Running him now.” I could hear Kira pounding on her keyboard when another call came in.

“Gotta take this, KK. I’ll call you back.”

I switched the call and asked, “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Derrika sighed. “I lost him. He stayed on twenty-eight when I exited for the toll on two-sixty-seven.”

Smart.

“Did you get anything from the plate?” she asked.

“Nope. Kira said it belonged to a Honda Civic.”

“Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy,” she mumbled disgruntledly. “Whatever happened to the good old days when the bad guys actually had to work at being bad? Now, anyone can get their hands on a fake plate.”

The woman wasn’t old enough to know about the ‘good old days.’ By the time she’d entered the game, there were already traffic cameras at most intersections and facial recognition had become readily available. But she did seem to know how easy it was to buy a fake plate off the internet.

“Kira’s working on identifying the man speaking to your co-worker.”

“Great. Thanks. Traffic opened up. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I glanced out the window at the luxury white and gray high rise apartment building with the name Hemingway proudly displayed in big shiny silver letters and felt my frown deepen.

“I don’t know how you’ve survived six months in this…” I trailed off, not sure what adjectives to use to describe the monstrous building on a busy street with other equally tall complexes bracketing the Hemingway.

Tysons, Virginia wasn’t New York City, but damn if it wasn’t crowded.

Her deep, throaty chuckle filling the SUV had me shifting in my seat to relieve the tightening behind my zipper.

Damn.

What the hell was that?

“I know, right?” she said through her laughter. “Twenty-eight floors of claustrophobia. It’s more of a hotel than an apartment building. Lounge with workstations, game room, fitness center, outdoor kitchen, and of course a pool. Sometimes I walk into the lobby and I pray this job gets done so I can get the hell out before I turn into a Hemingway Barbie. I’m hoping the condition isn’t airborne or contagious, but seeing as all the women dress the same and the men do too, I fear it might be.”

I smiled, but before I could fire back a retort to her ‘Hemingway Barbie’ comment she rushed on, “Sometimes a girl just wants to run errands and not have to dress for the occasion. Which is how I feel when I walk through the lobby and see all the Barbies dressed in yoga gear when you know they’re not going to work out with a face full of makeup. The get-up is nothing more than a fashion statement. And don’t get me started on the men and their perfectly crafted physiques, which have nothing to do with wanting a powerful body, and everything to do with wanting the V at their hips, and sixpack abs to show off on their social media profiles.”

“Seems like you’ve paid a fair amount of attention to those physiques,” Cash teased, but I frowned.

“Cash?”

“The one and only,” he returned, and I rolled my eyes.

Derrika made a sound that was somewhere between a puff of air and a snicker.

“I see the ego is strong with that one. The conceit is noted.” She snorted, then went on, “The Ken Doll hard bodies are hard to miss when they prance around shirtless in the common areas around the gym. So, it’s not so much I’m paying attention as it’s in my face.”

“It’s not ego⁠—”

Derrika smoothly interrupted Cash, “If it’s true. For the record, that’s what all egomaniacs say.”

Cash snapped his fingers and jerked his head in the direction of the sidewalk in front of the Hemingway. The man Cash had gestured toward was hard to miss seeing as it was late spring in Virginia and he was wearing a leather jacket. There was something about him that screamed ‘out of place.’

“Do any of those men you’ve seen around the apartment building include a Steven Seagal lookalike circa nineteen-ninety?” I asked.

“Steven Seagal?”