“Miss me, doll?” Zane asked casually, staying in character.
“I definitely missed something,” Ty murmured as his eyes searched the room again furtively. “We need to get to a computer.
Now.”
Zane raised one brow and slid his arm around Ty"s waist, turning them out to the game room. “By all means, lead the way.” Then he lowered his voice. “And who are we looking for?”
“Armen,” Ty hissed in answer. “If he sees me here with you right now, we"re both in deep shit.”
“I"ve not seen him tonight,” Zane said as he dropped his arm and moved to put himself between Ty and the bulk of the game room as they walked, just in case.
“I have,” Ty said grimly. He took Zane"s hand and began pulling him through the casino faster, barely slowing when someone got in his way.
Zane pressed his lips together hard as they wound their way out of the room and out into the promenade. Ty wouldn"t sound so grim if it didn"t have to do with a death threat. Del sure was a target. Zane quickly angled Ty off into the next hallway, which was thankfully empty. “We can cut around the back way to the library and avoid the public areas. What"s going on?”
Ty stopped and put his back to the nearest wall, looking over Zane"s shoulder first and then meeting Zane"s eyes. “I was sitting out on the deck watching the storm roll in,” he started in a low voice.
“Armen found me out there. The short of it is that he hired Del to get close to Corbin, to spy on him. He came to me to make certain I was still up to the job. Wanted to make sure I wasn"t too attached to my mark,” he spat out.
Zane swallowed on his surprise and cleared his throat. “He hired Del to spy on Corbin—on his own husband? And Del agreed to it?
Jesus.” He set his hands on his hips. “Can this case get any more f**ked up?”
Ty closed his eyes in frustration. “Del is a merc, Zane,” he said through gritted teeth. “He"s not married to Corbin because he loves him. He married him because he was hired to seduce him. We have to contact Baltimore and let them know he"s dangerous.”
Zane went absolutely cold as fury threatened. Yes, Corbin Porter was a thief, a thug, and an ass**le. But no one should be taken in and played like that. Not with marriage. Zane forced himself to take even breaths and look Ty over. “You"re okay?” he checked, just in case. For all they knew, Del turned tricks for Vartan Armen too.
“I"m pissed,” Ty answered emphatically. Whether he was angry for the same reason as Zane was anyone"s guess, though. “And I"m worried that if Del is able to contact Armen, our cover will be blown all to hell. Which is why we need to get to a computer.”
“Let"s go. If Del turned on Corbin, he might have weaseled his way out of custody,” Zane said as he turned to lead the way to the satellite Internet terminals in the library. Then a thought occurred and he stopped still. “Is it possible Armen was playing you? Trying to make you flip cover? That he already knows?”
“Anything"s possible at this point,” Ty muttered unhappily. “I played it as straight as I could.”
“I know you did,” Zane said, already trying to think of contingency plans. “Come on.”
They were in the library in under ten minutes, and Zane sat down at one of the terminals in the back. He quickly logged in, paid for the account time, and launched an anonymous browser session, and within a couple of minutes had gotten through the umpteen layers of encrypted and password-protected server gateways to launch a secure e-mail on the Bureau"s extended system.
As soon as the e-mail was sent off, Ty leaned over the computer desk and banged his head on the table. The little white ball on the tip of his Santa hat flopped over disconsolately. “That"s the most anticlimactic SOS I"ve ever seen sent,” he muttered against the table.
Zane chuckled wryly and leaned back in the chair. All they could do was wait here for an answer. “You should have brought your crossword puzzle book.”
Ty sighed heavily and sank to his knees, then turned and flopped onto the ground, effectively hiding under the desk so no one could see him there with Zane. He propped his elbows on his knees and looked up at Zane, ready to wait, and Zane reached over and pushed the tip of the hat off the desk.
It didn"t matter that they were in what might be a life-threatening situation. Zane"s thoughts focused sharply on just exactly what Ty could be doing while on his knees under that desk, if he"d just scoot over between Zane"s legs. It took a hell of a lot of willpower to try to banish that thought.
They watched each other silently for a couple of minutes before Zane spoke up, more to distract himself from the urge to get on his knees too. “Want to watch a football game?”
That got Ty"s attention. He perked up and leaned forward.
“How?” he asked eagerly.
Zane shrugged and turned back to the terminal. He minimized the e-mail window after making sure it would alert them to a new message and launched a new window. After several clicks, he was scanning through available streaming video from the NFL Network. “We"ve got Jacksonville versus Buffalo, Atlanta and Cleveland, Broncos at the Ravens, and… Arizona at New Orleans. Take your pick.”
“Give me Saints,” Ty demanded as he got to his knees again and turned to look up at the computer. His arms were folded over the edge of the table, and he stayed on the ground, content to kneel there at Zane"s knee.
“Not Baltimore?”
“Ravens are like step-children,” Ty answered as he squinted up at the screen. “I love them, but they"re still sleeping on the couch when the house is full.”
“So what team did you grow up watching? From West Virginia…
the Steelers?” It only took a few keystrokes to pay for the satellite access, and the game from the past Sunday popped up on the screen, just before kickoff.
“We were sort of a perfect storm,” Ty answered as he rested his chin on his hands. “With baseball it was all Braves all the way on TBS.
But football, we caught Cincinnati, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philly, Cleveland. Whoever was on network that week. I was partial to the Redskins. But I got attached to the Saints when I was in Louisiana.”
Another piece of Ty"s life casually revealed. “I never watched any team but the Cowboys before I lived in Miami,” Zane commented, storing away the new little bits of information about his partner.