The flavors of the broth were unbelievably complex and perfectly balanced. If I hadn’t seen the big stock pot on the stove, I might have assumed he’d ordered takeout from a Michelin-starred ramen restaurant.
I opened my mouth to say so, but Oliver was concentrating on his food, so I filled it with another delicious bite instead. We ate in silence, and it was remarkably companionable for being so awkward. He was deliberately not looking at me, so I found my gaze wandering around the kitchen with interest.
The spice rack was prominent and filled with small jars with handwritten labels. The pans were the kind professional chefs used with bare metal handles, and the stove was big and looked like it cost more than my last car had. A bookshelf at the entrance to the kitchen held several bookmarked cookbooks, and I wanted to pick through the titles to see which recipes each book fell open to.
We finished at the same time, so I stood and picked up both bowls. “Are you done?” I asked. Oliver seemed almost startled that I was still there.
“Yeah.”
I took the bowls to the sink and washed them. When I turned off the water, I was surprised to see him waiting with a hand towel. “That was the best ramen I’ve ever had,” I said as I dried my hands.
He stepped back and leaned against the counter, watching me.
“Why are you here?” His tone wasn’t exactly suspicious, but it definitely wasn’t friendly.
I hung up the towel. “I don’t really know. You haven’t hired us, so you’re not a client.” His expression was stony, and I let my gaze drift out to the room behind him as I spoke. “I genuinely am worried about the holes in your home security. I think you should let Darius and Anna set you up with a new system.”
“You don’t know me. Why would you care about my security?”
I sighed. The question was one I’d been asking myself, and the only answer I could come up with barely made sense. “I was there when the Russian attacked you.”
“So? You didn’t make him do it, did you?”
I scoffed. “Clearly not.”
“It’s not your responsibility, then, is it?” He sounded angry, which made me defensive.
“I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know why I’m here, or for that matter, why you fed me.” I moved past him and out into the office, which was really more of a living room dominated by a big desk.
I was almost to the steps down to the front door when he sighed behind me. “Hang on.”
I stopped and turned to face him. My own expression was as stony as his had been, and I crossed my arms in front of me.
“Could you show me—” He hesitated, as though the words hurt him to say. “What do I need to do to secure this place until Darius can come in and build a new system?”
Something loosened in my shoulders, and I nodded. I didn’t like feeling responsible for him. “Anna said something about upstairs.”
He winced self-deprecatingly. “She said there were at least six ways in. I’ve only found one.”
“Lead the way,” I said.
Oliver’s house was long and narrow, so it felt like it was really only three rooms big. The bedroom upstairs took up the whole floor, with a walk-in closet and large bathroom at one end and two big, gabled windows at the other. Those windows were at the front of the house and looked like eyes from the street. They were also a point of vulnerability from the roof, as gables were easy to climb down onto.
“I wasn’t up here with Darius and Anna, but I can tell you those windows are alarmed,” Oliver said confidently.
I looked out the windows. “You have above-ground power. It’s easy to cut, which renders the alarms useless and the cameras blind.”
“Okay, so that’s two,” he said grudgingly. “What else?”
I poked my head into the bathroom. It was strangely spotless for a guy living alone, with big white towels on a heated rack. I pointed to the window. “Alarmed?”
He shook his head. “No. Why would it be? I couldn’t fit through it.”
“I could,” I said.
Some product he used in the bathroom smelled kind of outdoorsy and nice, and I left before I could figure out which one. I did not need to be sniffing Oliver Curran’s skin products. The same-sized window existed in the walk-in closet, and this time I merely pointed to it. He sighed and rolled his eyes.
“That’s four,” he said.
“Staircase is five,” I said. “No motion sensors inside that I could see.”
He stared at me. “People do that? Wire the inside of their houses with motion sensors? That seems … excessive.”
“Fear is a powerful motivator,” I answered.
While he contemplated whether that tidbit about humanity applied to him, I looked at the clothes hanging around the small space. He had more clothes than my sister and I put together, and everything was hung neatly—even jeans and khakis hung on the lower bars as if it were a retail store. And it smelled good too, not like sweaty running shoes or old socks. I had to get out of there before I started sniffing his shirts.
I moved back into the bedroom and looked around at the furnishings—a big bed, positioned nearly in the middle of one wall, a television mounted on the wall above a mid-century modern credenza, and a leather chair near a guitar stand between the windows. Then I looked up and pointed at the skylight positioned right over the bed.
“Number six.”
He sighed. “It doesn’t open.”
“It breaks. That’s enough.”
“How do I protect myself from that? If someone’s up on my roof willing to break my skylight to get to me, I’m pretty much screwed.” He sounded exasperated.
“Pretty much,” I agreed. “That’s why I have a job, I guess.”
He looked startled. “Because of skylights?”
I smirked. “Because most people don’t live in bunkers.”
He scrubbed his hands through his hair, which mussed it into something resembling artful bedhead. “I don’t want to live in a bunker, and I don’t want a bodyguard.”
I shrugged. “Well, I guess you could give them what they want.”
He looked sharply at me. “Them?”
“Whoever sent the Russian. I presume they want whatever is worth the millions. Maybe if you give it to them and ask nicely, they’ll leave you alone.” I could see his temper tighten his shoulders. I enjoyed putting him on edge, which probably made me a bad person, but I could live with that.
“Are you good at your job?” he said suddenly. I rolled with it.
“Very.”
“I guess you’d have to be, because I can’t imagine any other reason to keep you around.”
“Right,” I said, heading straight for the stairs so I didn’t pick the fight he so richly deserved. “Put 911 on speed dial, don’t bother trying to use your home phone because they’ll have cut the power, and I recommend a baseball bat next to the bed. Good luck, Mr. Curran.”
I was down the stairs and at the door before I even heard him move upstairs. I gave it a fifty-fifty chance that Cipher would see him the next day.
8
Oliver