Page 28 of Edge of Secrets (The Edge Trilogy #2)

Chapter Seventeen

Duncan

I t was the oddest sensation. I observed it as I drove to the parking garage, parked in my spot, and tipped the bewildered garage attendant. Like a helium balloon was inside me, lifting me up. Floating me along. People were giving me strange looks.

Of course, I realized. I was grinning like a fool. My face hurt, for fuck’s sake.

But damn, was it so abnormal to be in a good mood? Was I that bad normally?

The middle-aged lady behind the coffee counter in the building lobby gave me a strange look when I tossed a few bucks in her jar and told her I liked her as a redhead. It was the truth. She’d looked like hell as a blonde.

Damn. It was like nobody’d ever seen a guy in a good mood before.

I headed up to the office. The grizzled divorce attorney in the elevator gave me a dark look and harrumphed. Maybe dealing with divorce all day gave a guy gastritis.

I strode into the lobby. Derek was there with piles of paper on his desk, briskly collating something. He dressed for a Saturday, in jeans and a T-shirt.

“Morning, Derek,” I said.

Derek looked at me as if I’d sprouted wings. “Uh, hi, boss. Everything okay? You’re, uh, later than usual.”

“It’s all good. By the way. I really appreciate you working Saturdays,” I told him.

Derek’s big eyes bulged even more than usual. “Uh, it’s no problem.”

I clapped him on the shoulder as I passed his desk. “You get paid extra for Saturdays, right?”

“Time and a half.” Derek’s face was almost fearful.

“Good. I’ll tack on a bonus. You deserve it. Keep it up.”

The hell? Derek didn’t blink an eye when I snapped and barked at him, but a simple compliment scared him to death.

Come to think of it, all of my die-hard Saturday employees were giving me a nervous look and a very wide berth.

I started glancing down to see if my shoes were mismatched or my fly unzipped. Everything seemed to be in order.

I shrugged inwardly. Fuck it. I was having too good a time to worry about it.

The phone began to ring the moment I walked into my office.

My private line. A fully formed fantasy leaped into my mind, that it was Nell calling to tell me she was in a good mood, too.

This daydream was quickly deflated by the recollection that Nell did not have my office landline number.

Answering the phone became suddenly less appealing.

I sighed and grabbed the phone. “Burke here.”

“So you finally came in to the office!” My mother’s voice sounded even more chirpy than usual. “What on earth is going on?” She paused expectantly.

“Nothing at all,” I said blandly. “Same old stuff. Business as usual.”

“Well, if you don’t tell me, I’ll just have to find out some other way. Have you talked to Elinor?”

My good mood was about to be put to the test. “No, Mom. I haven’t had time yet.”

“Duncan, it’s so important that she change her mind before she makes decisions she can’t go back on! She’s determined to rebel. Please, you have to back me up on this?—”

“I’ll call her,” I said. “As soon as you get off the phone.”

I extricated myself from the conversation as quickly as I could, and punched in Elinor’s number without even thinking about it. Might as well get this over with quickly. My mother was a piece of work if not managed carefully.

Elinor’s roommate, Mimi, picked up the phone. Loud, incoherent music pulsed in the background. “Who is it?” Mimi shrieked.

“It’s Elinor’s brother. May I speak to her?”

“Elinor’s brother? Like, which one? The bodaciously cute one, or the stuffed-shirt one?”

“The stuffed-shirt one,” I specified patiently.

“Yo, Ellie!” Mimi screeched, as I winced and held the phone away from my ear.

“It’s your bro! The stuffed-shirt one!” Mimi listened to some muffled yapping, and said, “She’s coming.

Hang on.” There was a loud, rattling clunk, and I leaned back in my chair, started to shrug off my coat, and stopped myself.

I couldn’t take off the coat. I was wearing the SIG.

Shit. I put my hand in my suit pocket and yanked it out with a gasp, startled by the soft, silky texture.

Rose petals scattered, fluttering, all over the desk, my chair, my lap, the floor.

I laughed out loud, and a graphic designer and a junior accountant to peer through my open door, eyes big. They thought I was losing it.

“Hello? Hello?”

I yanked my attention back to the telephone, and Elinor’s voice. “It’s Duncan.”

“Hi.” Elinor sounded guarded. “Did Mother tell you to call?”

I paused for a second. “Ahhh?—”

“You’re supposed to convince me to change my major back to econ, right?

You want me to consider my retirement plan, split-level suburban home, station wagon, and cemetery plot, right?

Not! Forget it. I’m not going to embalm myself before I even start to live!

So don’t even try, Dunc. Just don’t even start. ”

“That’s great,” I said, without hesitating. “Congratulations. Go for it.”

There was an uncertain pause. Elinor pressed on. “You can’t make me change my mind,” she said, more uncertainly. “I really think that I’ve got what it takes to?—”

“Of course you do,” I agreed. “I never doubted it for a minute.”

There was a confused silence from Elinor. “Ah … what the hell?”

“You’ll be great. Give it your best shot. I’ll cheer you on.” And probably pay for your grad school myself , I thought, but even that prospect could not dent my buzz.

“You’re not being sarcastic, are you?” Elinor sounded bewildered.

“Jesus, Ellie.” I sifted the soft, bruised petals through my fingers, marveling at the glowing depth of the crimson color. “Am I that much of an asshole?”

“Nah, I was just, you know. Wondering if an alien took over your body.”

“Not lately. That I know of.” I buried my nose in the petals. Like Nell’s skin. So soft.

“Mother’s gonna kill you,” Elinor predicted cheerfully.

“I don’t doubt it,” I agreed.

Elinor explained her epiphany about following her heart at great length, and it all seemed completely reasonable in my current mood. We wound up our conversation, and I stared at the crimson mass of rose petals as the balloon inside me steadily reinflated.

Well, that was that. I was officially done being the designated buzzkill and wet blanket of the family.

Why had I ever taken on that role to begin with?

A psychologist would probably say something about being the oldest son in a family with no father, blah-blah-blah, but I was not interested in thinking about that right now.

Talk about a buzzkill. I entered the number of the phone that I’d given Nell that morning, stroking a petal while it rang, savoring the anticipation.

“Hello?” came her low, musical voice. “Duncan?”

“I found the petals,” I announced.

In her pause, I could actually feel her smiling that secret little smile that drove me totally wild with lust. “And? I hope they didn’t embarrass you.”

“Nothing could embarrass me today,” I told her.

She let out a snort of laughter. “Look. Um, Duncan? It’s great to hear your voice, and you’re sweet to call, but I’m sort of in the middle of the lunch rush, so could we?—”

“Do rose petals go bad, like vegetables, or do they dry out?”

“They dry out.” There was laughter in her voice. “Do you think I would’ve filled your pockets with something that turns to slime?”

“I can’t wait for your shift to end,” I told her.

“Me neither. Bye.”

I tried to concentrate, but all the urgent, pressing business that grimly occupied me on every other day seemed trivial today—a whole lot less interesting, too.

And I called Nell so often, she started to snap at me and hang up on me—but always with laughter in her voice.

I’d never been the type who had any luck making girls laugh before, but I finally understood why guys worked so hard at it.

It was an irresistible feeling. I’d do any crazy thing to get that gurgle of laughter out of her.

Meetings, conference calls. Seconds ticked by—heavily, laboriously.

My employees were acting strange, too. I caught several whispering conversations, cut off when I walked by.

Smothered bursts of laughter. Bruce had a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.

It would’ve bugged the shit out of me if I hadn’t been in this altered state.

Gant called in the afternoon, and that snapped me right into razor-sharp mode.

He was with his buddy Braxton, another ex-agent from our NSA days, a guy who now ran a security outfit.

He was expensive as all fuck, but I arranged for Nell’s apartment to be bug swept as soon as I got access to a set of keys.

Not that I intended for her to spend any more time there. Not safe. Or particularly comfortable, either.

I had a nice big extra room in my apartment that was still empty. All her bookcases would fit into it, plus a desk, a chair—a couch, even. Nell’s studio. I loved the very thought of it.

Anything Braxton could reveal would inform us about our opponent’s resources and agenda. That made it well worth every penny. The thought of having that conversation with Nell made me nervous, but hey. I would be as charming as I knew how to be. Which wasn’t saying a lot, but hell, a guy could try.

At ten to five p.m., I just gave in to it. It was hours earlier than I usually left, but I wasn’t getting a damn thing done around here. I might as well head to the Sunset Grill, park my ass there, and make sure she didn’t leave the place alone—personally.