Page 21 of The Shade of Things
“Thank you.” I hugged her.
She tugged on one of her red curls. “I have gray strands now thanks to you. You owe me a very nice meal at a restaurant of my choosing.”
“Noted.”
“Is Laurent back yet?”
I shot her a dark look. “No. Stop asking. Go work out your stress with that mechanic you’ve been seeing.”
“Oh, I plan to.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “Sometimes I wish we had a connection beyond the physical, and then he eats me out for half an hour and I realize his mouth is already serving the greater good.”
I almost choked on my cookie. “Thirty minutes? Bullshit.”
She threw me a smug grin and headed down the front stairs, waggling her fingers goodbye over her shoulder. “I’m going for forty tonight.”
“Big talk, lady.”
Laughing, she got into her car.
Still reeling, I watched her drive off. Half an hour? On that one thing? No way.
At least Jude and I had gotten back to feeling like us again. Her kidnapping had done a number on our friendship, but after avoidance, denial, a fight, and a lot of talking, we were good again. I smiled because I’d be lost without my best friend.
Eli poked his head out the door. “What’s keeping… Uh-oh. What did you and Jude discuss now?”
I picked up a decorative pillow and fanned myself with it. “Half-hour oral sex.”
Eli scrunched up his face. “I mean, that’s a bit long, but some guys take a while to get there. Props to the woman’s stamina.”
I spun a finger in the air. “Reconfigure what you’re thinking.”
He pressed a hand to his heart, staggering outside and hitting the railing. “No way. Is that some tantric thing?” He lowered his voice and grabbed the pillow from me, holding it like a shield. “Was I supposed to have gone that long?”
Laughing, I snagged it away from him and dropped it back on one of the chairs. “I couldn’t have gone that long.” Could I? Laurent was always game to try new things out.
Eli pushed me inside. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t share.”
I grabbed the remaining two baking trays. “I absolutely wasn’t going to.”
We went into the kitchen, where Jude won all the good karma in the universe for not only baking but cleaning up after herself. I put the cookies into containers, making a small care package when Eli threw me puppy dog eyes.
He reviewed the file aloud, but it wasn’t until he was going through the profile that the Missing Persons Unit had compiled on Teresa Wong that he straightened up with an excited gleam in his eyes. “Shit. I think I’ve figured out how they choose their victims.”
I leaned across the table to see what he was pointing at. “Parkour? Well, Ian was a rock climber. But really? A love of outdoor activities across two people feels less like a thread and more like a coincidence.”
Eli licked his fingertip and turned the page of Teresa’s file. “Sure, but you’re not looking at the bigger picture. Parkour makes any terrain scalable, same as rock climbing, but Ian was also a survivalist. He could build a fire, sharpen a stone into a blade. Wilderness shit.”
“Riiight. Wilderness shit. Did Teresa have other useful skills?”
“No, unless she had a dramatic monologue to bore an enemy to death with.”
“Mock theater degrees at your peril, man. If our kid heard you? Yikes.”
“Teresa only had the one skill set then.” His hands tightened on the file. “Wait. What’s the first thing you do in a video game?”
“If it’s me? Die quickly. I’m the puzzle person, you’re the multiplayer guy.”
“You pick an avatar. A player character with a specific skill set like speed, strength, agility, intelligence, endurance. Teresa only needs one ability because these Sapiens are being chosen as avatars.”
