Page 61 of Shrapnel

Elijah smiled thinly. “Thank you, Owen. Jamie was right when he said you were the best.”

That wasn’t the first time Jamie said that, but every time he did a riot of warm, fuzzy butterflies erupted in Owen’s stomach. Which was absurd because people complimented Owen on his abilities all the time. He was objectively good. But Jamie wasn’t someone who would vomit surface-level banalities just to sound polite. He meant it.

And…Owen liked impressing him.

He coughed. “Where is Jamie?”

“Oh, he went to check out the drug dealers that worked with our third victim, Koehler.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah, he thought—” Elijah was interrupted by his phone ringing. “Oh, this is Noah. Do you mind?”

Owen didn’t and Elijah stepped out into the small balcony off the kitchen, pulling the sliding glass door closed behind him.

Before the door had closed, Owen was up and tiptoeing out of the kitchen. If his calculations were correct, Elijah would be drooling over Noah for at least ten minutes.

Finding Jamie’s bedroom wouldn’t be difficult in a two-bedroom apartment. The first bedroom he found was Elijah’s. The room was spotless and there were two pillows on the bed.

Owen moved onto the next door. It was alarmingly close to the first if Noah was spending the night. Maybe he should gift Jamie some noise-canceling headphones.

As with most things regarding Jamie, Owen wasn’t sure what to expect. The room was smaller than the first, without an attached bathroom. A single bed was pushed into the corner, the comforter a jumbled mess at the foot of the bed. Besides the bed and side table, there was a dresser with socks peeking out over the drawers and a desk.

There was an oppressive stillness to the room like even the walls knew Owen was wrong by invading his friend’s privacy. He felt judged as he stepped into the center of the room.

Jamie wasn’t much of an interior decorator. There were no family photos on the wall. Not even any posters. Four bare, white walls closed in on him and he had to wonder how Jamie didn’t feel claustrophobic. One small window was set into the far wall, but Jamie had pulled the blinds. Using the sunlight filtering between the plastic slats, Owen tried to make sense of his cluttered desk.

A battered laptop was covered in a swathe of neon Post-it notes. The brightly colored notes were stuck all over the textured walls of the room. Jamie’s scrawled, blocky handwriting had things like: ‘Porn star name—Rod Hardon’ ‘Password—stampedingsquirrels’, ‘Indiana Jones but make it shitty’, and several with various dates and times.

There was nothing about the Weavers or his work for them. Hardly surprising. Jamie acted like a goofball, but he was very serious when it came to protecting the Weavers.

Owen pulled open the desk drawer and smiled at the collection of stickers littering the tray. Everything from anime characters to computer shortcuts. There had to be dozens of stickers in the drawer but not one of them was stuck to anything.

Looking around the room, it was almost as if Jamie could pack everything up in five minutes and be gone. Like he never existed at all.

His whole life was like that. He didn’t graduate from high school. He had no family or friends outside his line of work. Owen would bet money he didn’t have a legal driver’s license or any government documentation.

Jamie lived like he was expendable.

The thought made Owen’s heart ache.

He yanked open the second drawer and a harsh laugh bubbled past the thick emotion in his throat. A tangle of phone chargers was rolling around the empty drawer. They all had ‘Property of Noah’ written on the wall plugs.

A smile still lingering on his lips, he turned to leave only to stop. Attached to Jamie’s bedroom door was not one, but four massive locks. The kind reserved for exterior doors in crappy neighborhoods. Or a prison.

Owen ran his fingers along the thick metal. They were cold and cruel. Why would a trained assassin, living in a good neighborhood, need so many locks on his bedroom door?

“Need something?”

Elijah had his arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow raised, and looking suspiciously like Grant did when he caught Jamie trying to set a car on fire.

“Uh, I was just…” Owen was caught and he was debating making up some kind of excuse when Elijah beat him to it.

“Are you spying on Jamie?”

“Define spying on him?”

Elijah pressed his lips together. It was an off-putting look on the blonde and the closest he’d ever seen him to anger.