Spiker wet his lips and struggled for what to say. “You have food?”
“Of course not,” she snorted and sauntered by him and into the kitchen. “Why on earth would I have food?”
Was she joking or dead-ass serious? Less than twenty minutes ago, he would’ve known that her kitchen was an empty, forgotten part of her home. Stocking a kitchen wouldn’t have crossed her radar.
Vanka dropped her head back and laughed. “You’re acting like a bloody idiot.”
She yanked open the freezer door. Every shelf had a container. “Food.”
He crept closer and spied the frozen dishes with Vanka’s handwriting on the masking tape label. “I’m totally impressed.”
“Good,” she retorted.
“And totally terrified,” he admitted.
She laughed. “As you should be.”
That he laughed didn’t mean it wasn’t true. In a way, he liked this side of Vanka. When Spiker bugged out from a job, he liked to know his jet skis were where they needed to be. She apparently did the same with gardens and food. Then again, how long had they worked together? It still didn’t add up.
“Shove your bag against the wall,” Vanka requested. “I’ll heat up a late lunch, and we’ll get down to work.”
Work—even this ridiculous Robin Hood project—was the only thing that would help clear his mind. He’d never been so glad for one of Buck’s specially requested favors as he was right now.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Food was the solution to almost any problem. Spiker had known this most of his life but it had taken a homemade chicken and rice casserole to remind him. They ate quietly. The meal was nothing if not comfortable, and afterward, they cleaned up as though they were on any other assignment. Dishes in the sink. He scraped and sprayed; she set them in the dishwasher. Their work routine helped with the unknown real world that he’d stumbled into.
By the time they’d moved to the living room and Vanka produced Buck’s paperwork, Spiker had almost forgotten where he should be at that moment. Then his buddy, who was overseeing the renovations at his home base, sent a picture of his living room missing a wall. The message read, Looking good over here. Have a tequila shot for me.
Grumbling, he pocketed his phone and peered at everything Vanka had unfolded. He repositioned to better see the files, but only noticed the faint hint of something flowery. Lotion or perfume, he didn’t know. It was a familiar scent, and usually, if he noticed it at all, Vanka was wearing it for the part of their job that didn’t involve sniper rifles. “What do we know?”
“One second,” she said. “Still organizing Buck’s mess.”
She hadn’t taken a shower. The scent must be from a lotion. Did she use the same personal items on the job and at home? He hadn’t expected her to—no, actually, he hadn’t thought about it before, and it was weird to think of now. For the hundredth time today, he couldn’t explain his thoughts.
Spiker grumbled and reached for the files. “What’d they give—”
Vanka swatted his hand. “Give me a second.”
He crossed his arms and pushed against the couch, watching and waiting until she had everything the way she liked it. Her organizational skills made his look like the space underneath a kindergartener’s bed. Everything was there, exactly where it was supposed to be, but in a crumpled, crowded display.
Reports were the same thing. He lorded his miniscule seniority over her and made sure she always ended up with the paperwork. Vanka could type up a report faster than he could type their names. At one time, he wondered if his motives were unintentionally sexist. Then he’d gone on a six-month report-writing bender, much to Vanka’s annoyance.
The day came when she’d had enough. “If Buck makes one more snide comment about our reports again, I will kill you.” Her sweet smile punctuated the death threat, promising the warning wasn’t hyperbole.
That was about the same time that he noticed she had an extremely specific style of dealing with administrative tasks. Vanka exuded the same discrete perfection as she did when skimming dossiers or sighting targets.
“This assignment is ridiculous.” She scowled at the legal pads and printed intelligence reports. “A waste of time.”
“True.” Carefully, he reached for the analysts’ reports. “Especially since I’m here and not on a private beach with a drink in my hand.”
“Oh, shove it up your bloody piehole.”
That was exactly what he needed to hear. “How’d a guy get this lucky?”
She laughed, and he guessed that she’d deciphered what he’d meant. More or less.
Ten minutes later, they agreed. Nothing Buck had given them had been remotely helpful. The descriptions of Robin Hood weren’t helpful. Generic build. Generic height.
The recovered items were extremely valuable, but their importance lay in their meaning to the people or places they had been returned to. All in all, working against Robin Hood made Spiker feel like a dick.
Even more infuriating were the assholes who’d had the stolen art before it had been re-stolen—was that even the right word? Spiker sighed and gestured toward the papers she’d meticulously sorted and piled. “There isn’t a single person on this list who is worth our time.”
“I know,” she agreed.
It wasn’t as if GSI’s contacts were unreproachable, but the people they were supposedly now working on behalf of? They could all drink bleach and die; Spiker didn’t particularly care. He grabbed a paperclipped stack. The initial reports spanned decades and continents. He didn’t know how to read most of them, instead having to rely on the accompanying translations.
“Why are we starting with the list of assets instead of owners?”
She bristled as though questioning her process was tantamount to asking her to drink coffee over tea. “The who can’t be that important.”
That made no sense. “The why?”
She pursed her lips and ignored his question. “The answer will be in the assets, and that’s where we’ll find a pattern. So, we start there.”
“In the middle of a maze,” he groused. “Fun.”
Spiker ignored the asset list and continued to glare at the owners list.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’re not going to pay attention, are you?” She snatched the inventory report and read aloud, “According to this, Wilbur P. Cohen—” She cocked her head at an angle. “What’s that look?”
He didn’t think he’d had enough time to come up with a look. Nonetheless, she read his mind. “Who the hell is Wilbur P. Cohen?”
“Exactly, Spiker. We don’t need to go over the list of who. We need the list of what.”
Fair—he conceded her the point. “Wilbur P. Cohen doesn’t have the same ring as our usual targets.” The snake. El Jefe the Gigantor. Bobby Big Balls of Queens. “I mean, Wilbur? This whole thing’s gotta be a joke.”
Her expression changed; clearly, she agreed with his assessment. Vanka skimmed the report and turned the page before beginning again, “Wilbur was a hedge fund manager who”—she snorted—“not once, but twice, slipped through the US court system with a slap on his mega-wealthy knuckles.”