Free Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) by Lisa Hughey

make me more inclined to trust him.
    “We’ve got a lot to do.” He glanced at the titanium steel dial of his watch. I tried not to notice the strength in his wrist and failed. “What first, the lab or the store?”
    The time was nearly eleven. My first priority had to be getting this solution to a lab. The store might be closed. The phone would have to wait until later.
    “Lab.”
    “The lab is out in Livermore.” He picked up the keys we’d gotten with our bill.
    Livermore. East Bay. Lots of government contract work. “How long will it take?”
    “About an hour, maybe less, this time of night.”
    “Will your friend be there at this time of night?”
    He swung open the door to his garage and gestured with a courtly sweep of his hand. “I already called. She’s meeting us there.”
    “You didn’t give her any specifics over the phone, did you?”
    He just looked at me with a small bit of censure in his gaze.
    “Turn around.” He keyed in the code to open the refrigerator. The keypad was silent, no beeps I could recall and re-enter myself.
    True to his word, he pulled out the syringe and handed it to me.
    “Just like that?” I questioned, suspicious.
    “Look at it,” he said drily. “It’s the same.”
    His words spooked me. He really could read me. The feeling was strange and extremely uncomfortable. So I took his advice and examined the syringe carefully. It was the same.
    Going over to the bins opposite the door, he grabbed several containers. “Sterile evidence cups.”
    I set the cups on the counter.
    Efficiently I uncapped the syringe. I looked at the needle. Serious size. The liquid gleamed innocuously. I wondered what they had wanted to inject into my body.
    In the course of my training and my work, I’d taken plenty of drugs that were bad for me. I could speculate until I was blue in the face. I needed more than speculation, I needed identification.
    I squirted the liquid into two equal portions in the evidence cups, screwed on the lids, and tucked them into the little black sequined purse. I saved the syringe. It was possible we could get prints off of it, but not likely.
    “Ready?” he asked.
    Before we left I needed to get into character. Tight black dress, fake eyelashes, and full makeup. Hmmm, southern charm school.
    I smoothed a hand over his sedately patterned tie, drawing his gaze. Then, I thrust my shoulders back and straightened my spine and tossed my head in a flirty move. The act lifted my breasts, pulling his gaze right where I wanted it.
    “Let’s go, sugar.”

TEN
     
    At almost midnight, the lab parking lot was deserted. Powerful halogen lights illuminated the blacktop as Lucas drove slowly into a visitor parking space.
    The Lucky Dog’s Ford was a nondescript sedan, somewhere between tan and beige. Lucas angled the car, parking so the license plate would be in the shadows and impossible to identify on security camera tapes.
    “Don’t get out. I’ll come around and open your door, like a true gentleman.”
    Lucas sauntered around the front of the car and opened my door with a sweeping gesture. Leaning over, he held out his hand and gently pulled me out. “By the way, Mr. Lee has strict instructions to report the car stolen if we’re not back by a certain time.”
    Shit. There went that plan.
    I sashayed to the glass-fronted doors with Lucas trailing behind me. What I wanted to do was punch something. Every time I had some semblance of a plan, he figured it out.
    How the hell did he do that?
    I must have looked perplexed because he answered as if I’d spoken.
    “Remember. I was you.” Lucas pressed an intercom button beside a numeric keypad.
    Through the bullet-proof glass, I saw the security guard, maybe twenty-one, with peach fuzz on his chin and a buzz cut flipped up at the forehead. He sat behind a fake wood, half-circle console monitoring the cameras.
    “Lab is closed.” The tinny voice announced from the intercom.
    “Thanks, but we’re not here for the