Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
“He just found out he has a kid,” Tucker offered helpfully. “So now he’s afraid to put the kid down in case the mom runs with him again. Not that she really ran. She didn’t have to. She left him a voice mail saying she was pregnant, but Brody here erased it without listening to it and now she’s twelve kinds of pissed, except she’s also horny and apparently big Aussie dudes do it for her.”
He sent Tucker a dark look. “Do you mind?”
Tucker shrugged. “Not really. Although all that moaning and screaming made me think about hookers again. I don’t think it’s normal to go without sex for your whole life. I’m a virgin. I don’t think I want to stay a virgin.”
“You’re not a virgin,” Brody pointed out. “I’m sure you’ve had sex before.”
“I don’t remember it so it didn’t really happen. That’s the hardest part. I can’t remember if I’m a tender lover or like a sex machine. It haunts me.”
Burke stared at Tucker for a moment and then a smile of pure joy crossed his face. “All right, he can stay. He amuses me. Come on, weirdo. I’ve got to do a perimeter sweep. You can tell me all about the things you can’t remember.”
“And Burke can tell him about how he sees things that don’t exist,” Wade said with a shake of his head.
“Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there, asshole.” Burke put a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “Tell me about the hookers, buddy.”
“That is one weird dude.” Wade opened the conference room door. “Big Tag finds him amusing, but I worry about that kid. Kai claims he’s perfectly sane, but he talks in his sleep sometimes. I have no idea what language he’s speaking and he claims to have zero memory of any dreams.”
Brody laughed. “Oh, I thought you were talking about my weird dude. Tucker’s good enough as they come, but he’s got no life experience. He’s like a six-foot-three-inch toddler with the sex drive of a porn star. What have you got for me?”
“Remy explained that you wanted someone to do a rundown on a man named Alfred Dauterre.”
“And what did you find out? I know the background material,” Brody said. “He was born in the same town I was in Western Australia. Went into the Army at the same time.”
“So you’re friends.”
“I thought we were. I need to know what he’s been doing since he left the service. I know what he’s told me he’s been doing, but I don’t trust him anymore.” How could he? Alfi hadn’t bothered to tell him Steph was pregnant. They’d talked several times and never once had those words come out of his mouth.
“From what I can tell, he’s done a lot of odd jobs,” Wade explained, his fingers typing on one of several laptops around the room. “He spent time in his hometown. Looks like he went home for a couple of months and then his mother passed away. That prompted him to start to wander. He set up shop in Darwin as a security consultant. That’s where his business is still based. I use the term ‘business’ loosely. I think a better word for it is mercenary.”
“I’m sure he would call it soldier of fortune or some nonsense.” Alfi was forever trying to pretty up the dark side of life with fancy words and phrases. He had quite the imagination.
“And he had his fingers in a lot of pies, as far as I can tell,” Wade said with a shake of his head. “Did you know he was hauled in by the police for fraud? He’s been accused of running cons in a couple of places, but nothing stuck.”
Brody sighed. “He was always trying to make a quick buck. Hell, he conned me right and good.”
And that hurt. He had to wonder why. He knew Alfi had been upset when he’d left the Army, but they’d still been friends. How could Alfi have kept that secret from him for all those months? Had he meant to ever tell him?
Worse, he was starting to worry that Alfi had used the job Brody had been paying him to do to facilitate his never-ending quest for cash. Steph would never forgive him if he’d sent in a man who’d worked with those criminals and gotten her friend killed. “I sent him in to check on Steph after my mission was over.”
“Yes, you were the one who facilitated the rescue of Theo Taggart. I heard stories about that, though I’d only started in at Sanctum at the time. I wasn’t working for McKay-Taggart proper yet. It was a long-term op, right?”
“Exactly six months, four days, and eight hours undercover.” How that half a year, four days, and a few hours had flown by. He’d dreaded it in the beginning, but known he was the best man for the job. He had no ties to Theo at all. No ties to the Agency, and he’d been quiet about his work in London.