Free And The Earth Moved: Romantic Comedy Cozy Mystery (Amber Reed CCIA Mystery Book 1) by Zanna Mackenzie

through the hole, snagging my jacket on a piece of the cut wire. Charlie, still on his knees, deftly separates my coat from the wire then grips my arm and helps me through and onto my feet.
    As he slips the cutters back into the bag I nod towards them. “Standard issue agency equipment are they?”
    “Yes, they are actually.” He grabs my hand and leads me down the steep path towards the offices.
    An automatic, movement-activated security light -well, at least I hope it’s been triggered automatically- comes on, flooding the yard near the offices with bright white light. The huge metal gantry which delivers stone into the backs of the lorries looms above the quarry yard and looks like something from a sci-fi movie – some giant metal monster.
    Charlie ducks out of sight behind one of the lorries parked up for the night, pulling me with him, and stares around him. I love how he seems to take in every detail of our surroundings with just the quickest visual sweep. I squint into the semi-darkness on the outskirts of the security lights trying to do my own visual reconnaissance.
    “Are we going to break in?” I whisper, crouching beside him.
    “No.”
    “OK. I’ll rephrase that. Are you going to break in?”
    “No.”
    “But…”
    Charlie fishes in the pocket of his jeans. “I have a key. No breaking and entering necessary. I’ll just need to disable the security alarm first. Unfortunately I don’t have the code to switch it off properly once we’re inside.”
    “I’m not going to even ask where you got that key from.”
    He lets out a chuckle. “Remember earlier when I accidentally left my hat in the quarry office?”
    “You found a key at the same time?”
    “I wouldn’t say found exactly. More like searched in a few drawers for it.”
    “OK. What are we waiting for then? Let’s go.” I want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.
    He places a steadying hand on my arm. “First, we need to wait until the security light goes off again. It should only be on for a minute or so. Second, we aren’t going anywhere. I am.”
    I begin to protest but he cuts me off. “I need you to stay here. Keep your head down. It’ll take me a few minutes to sort the alarm. Stay here, OK? Promise me. And I mean a proper promise.”
    “I promise,” I reply solemnly. Like I’m about to go wandering off in a dark quarry on my own? I’m not that crazy.
    “Good. From here you’ll see when I get the door open. At that point, when I gesture, come over, but keep low and behind the vehicles as much as you can so you hopefully don’t trigger the lights again.”
    The cheeky part of me wants to ask what kind of gesture he’ll be making but I bite my tongue. Now is not the time. Nerves are making me feel all tingly and scared and I blame those same nerves for making me attempt to crack jokes about rude gestures.
    I wait, hunched up, the smell of diesel and dust making me wrinkle my nose. I watch Charlie doing whatever he’s doing to the security alarm box on the side of the offices. It doesn’t take long before he’s opened the door and beckons across to me. I creep across the uneven ground, avoiding the giant puddles, being sure to stay low and hidden as much as possible as instructed.
    Inside the office Charlie, wearing black gloves, is already opening and searching desk drawers. “Don’t touch anything at all,” he warns.
    “Finger prints,” he says by way of an explanation as he sifts through documents in a folder.
    “But…” I stumble over something and yelp. Charlie gives me a look, shining his torch to the ground in front of me where a rubbish bin has now spilt its contents across the floor. Tin cans, old newspapers and fast food wrappers are scattered everywhere. I bend to pick it all up but Charlie gets there first, waves his gloved hands at me to remind me about fingerprints, and proceeds to scoop the contents back into the bin.
    Frustrated I stand and watch him systematically search the