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“Yeah, you southern boys aren’t used to the cold, are you?” Cam Woods joked. “That coat doesn’t look warm enough for an Iowa winter.”
“It’s not,” Roth agreed. “I guess I need to look for a Salvation Army or Goodwill store to get a warmer coat. And I know I have to get off my ass and find a job. I’m going to check into that temp agency that you mentioned tomorrow.”
“They can hook you up, I’m sure,” Woods said.
“So, you’re planning to stick around for a while, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m planning on it. Why? Do you have a better offer for me?” he said in a flirting tone of voice while flashing a grin at her.
She laughed at him. “Oh, silly boy, you could never keep up with me.”
“Oh, sounds like it would sure be fun to try,” he replied, ignoring the fact that her brother was walking beside him. If it was some dude flirting with his sister Kelly like this, he’d have to haul off and punch him.
Cam Woods sighed and shook his head at Roth. “I’m going to have to back my sister on this one. Not many can keep up with her.”
They all laughed as they crossed into the townhouse grounds.
“Thanks again for telling me about that place. I’ll probably spend way too much time and money there,” Roth said.
Woods laughed. “You and me both.”
They neared Woods’ building. “Catch you later,” Roth said. “Briana, please come say goodbye to me before you leave, if I don’t see you before.”
The two of them angled towards his front door and Roth continued across the street to the borrowed unit. After he’d closed and locked the front door, he mounted the stairs. He found everyone except for Lambchop and Burke in the loft. He knew that Burke would be in the strip mall lot to follow just in case Woods went anywhere this evening. Though Roth was pretty sure the siblings were in for the night.
“Lambchop isn’t back yet?” Roth asked as his eyes scanned the monitors that showed the camera feed from within Woods’ place.
“He just pulled into the guest parking. He’ll be in shortly,” Mother said.
“That was some interesting conversation with those two,” Wilson said. He had his tablet open. Caleb Smith was in a video chat room from the Ops Center at HQ.
Roth greeted Smith. And then answered Wilson. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
“We’ll wait until Lambchop is back to get everyone’s reports,” Mother said.
It was only a few minutes’ wait before Lambchop came in through the back door and joined the others in the loft. “And how was your night, honey?” he asked Roth with a laugh.
“Interesting,” Roth replied.
“I heard most of it,” Lambchop said. “What didn’t we hear?”
“Cam Woods sure was bothered that his internet has been going down. He was tonight, and he wasn’t even home using it. Smith, could his computer have been running something online when the team brought his internet down that was interfered with?”
“Well, nothing automatically resumed when the internet was brought back up. But now that we’re in and monitoring his computer, we’ll see what he’s up to,” Smith answered. “He hasn’t touched it since he walked in the door.”
“I’m telling you,” Roth said, glancing at Smith’s image on the monitor and then at the others in the room, “there was something very off in his reaction to the internet going down and I don’t think it was just because it would knock his home security cameras out of commission. And his sister, she’s someone else that I’d classify as very off. There was one point when there was a palpable tension between the two of them and it made no sense. And she’s very secretive about everything.”
“As well as attractive, huh?” Mother asked him with a grin.
“That’s irrelevant,” Roth said.
“Ah, but he didn’t argue the point,” Mother teased. A few of the others chuckled.
Roth ignored him and the amused expressions on the faces of the others. “Smith, do you know if Garcia got into Briana Woods’ Army records?”
“What specifically are you looking for?” Smith asked.
“I don’t know,” Roth admitted. “I just have a feeling there is something there we should be looking at.”