Working Stiff(122)
Rox and Cash stood on the sidewalk outside of the gate to Brandy’s house.
Five slavering pit bulls leapt and frothed at the chain-link fence, just feet from where they stood. Most members of the pit bull breed are generally medium-sized dogs, but these creatures had obviously been bred from some mutant offshoot of the breed that had crossed pit bulls with buffalo.
Cash watched the dogs slam their boulder-like bodies against the steel mesh of the fence. “Are you sure it’s safe to take the cats into the house?”
“Brandy will put the dogs up. They can stay locked up for a couple hours, probably.” Assuming that they didn’t chew their way through the steel bars of whatever cage Brandy put them in.
The door to the house opened. Brandy danced out, flitting on her tiptoes. The dogs parted for her, herding around her and respectfully wagging their tails. Not one of them jumped up on her.
“Rox! Are you okay?” Brandy held out her skinny arms as she walked.
Rox said, “Are you sure that you don’t mind if we and the cats stay here for a few hours?”
“Not at all! I’ll just corral the hellhounds.” She led the dogs away to the back of the house and returned alone a minute later. She told Cash, “They’re just overgrown puppies.”
Cash smiled and nodded, ever the diplomat.
Brandy hugged Rox as she walked into the yard. “So you’ve had a rough day, haven’t you?”
“I could really use a glass of sweet tea.”
Brandy pet her hair and glanced back at Cash. “We’ll have to find you something to wear. You’re soaking wet.”
“If I could just borrow a towel or something, these clothes should dry.”
“Oh, I can probably find something you could wear.”
He glanced down Brandy’s diminutive body to her tiny shoes and raised an eyebrow. “All right.”
Rox knew what they were getting into, but she didn’t say anything. She wrapped her arm around Brandy’s waist as they walked inside to hide out for a few hours until dark.
When they got into the living room, Rox paused and almost turned around to warn Casimir, but heck, he was a European, depraved sexual dominant who frequented BDSM clubs. Nothing should shock him, right?
An enormous four-poster bed, fifteen feet across, occupied most of the living room.
A probably naked white man was chained to one corner of the bed. A sheet covered his midsection. He grinned at them, and one of his hands flapped, waving, even though an iron manacle chained his wrist to the intricately carved bedpost.
Brandy’s other two husbands were probably around somewhere, maybe tied up, maybe doing the dishes, probably naked.
Casimir stopped in the doorway, taking it all in.
His expression was his classic resting bitch face, not a flicker of emotion.
Rox couldn’t wait to grill him on what he was thinking.
Instead, she asked Brandy, “Honey? After we bring in the cats, we need to work on some things before we go out tonight for our little errand. Could we steal some WiFi, please?”
BREAKING AND ENTERING
“So, this is technically burglary,” Rox said.
In the dark law office, they held their cell phones out in front of them, using the flashlight app to see. The beams swept through the black air, illuminating circles of the blue cubicles where the admins and paralegals worked and shining white glares on the walls and plants. Computer screens glinted in the beams.
Casimir shook his head. He looked just like a stereotypical burglar, wearing black sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt, which fit his trim waist rather better than they had Brandy’s chubby but very tall husband. He said, “Burglary is breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony while on the premises. We might be breaking and entering, or at least entering, but we do not intend to commit a felony. We only intend to send a few emails.”
More like a few thousand.
Rox smiled and hoisted her heavy purse back up on her shoulder. “Yes. Yes, we will. And that’s all.”
They walked between the cubicles, watching the shadows created by their flashlight beams, until they got to Rox’s office. A shiny brass knob had been installed on the door. “That’s new.”
“I figured that they would change the locks to our offices. I was shocked that my keycard worked in the main entrance.”
Rox glanced around the office, looking for movement or red dots from a sniper’s laser sight. “You don’t think this is a trap, do you?”
“I think that they assume we’re dead.” Cash looked around the darkened office, scanning over the tops of the cubicle dividers. “At least, I hope that they think we’re dead.”
Rox bit her lip, staring at the doorknob. “They must have changed our office locks right after we left, but they didn’t bother to change the front door code after the firebomb.”