My hands were freezing and I blew into them to generate some warmth. Rubbing them together, I wondered how much longer it would be before someone would come to get us.
“It’d be a lot easier if you’d relax,” one of them said.
“Relax,” I spat. “I’m locked in a storage shed, with no lights and no heat, with three guys, one of whom is an idiot. Tell me, please, how do I relax?”
The events of the evening had not gone according to plan. I was part of a surveillance team, and at the last minute, we had to ditch in a storage shed. The four of us had been assigned to watch some multi-millionaire with a suspicious wife. The party we had gotten ourselves invited to was the talk of the town. The mansion seldom saw this many guests, but this millennium New Year’s Eve was a date to be celebrated.
The Porter’s had invited the most influential people in the city, including government officials and local celebrities. One stunning blond in particular interested Mrs. Porter, but only because she interpreted her as a threat to Mr. Porter’s fortunes. So she hired our investigative firm to track every move Mr. Porter made. We had gotten some strong suggestions that he had been seeing this blond, but as of yet, we had no concrete evidence. Mrs. Porter had insisted that I come to this party, since I was a female, and wanted three good-looking men to escort me. My firm is fairly large, so the only three decent looking guys I could find were ones that worked in narcotics. They agreed to come along for this experience, mostly to get a glimpse inside the famous Porter mansion.
We had been doing a bit of snooping around the house during the midnight festivities, looking for some sort of clue as to whether there was something romantic going on between Mr. Porter and the blond. Dixon, one of my companions, had witnessed the two slipping outside by the pool. With camera in tow, I signaled to Bryce and Jacobs, my other two escorts to follow us out. We stayed relatively hidden, until Jacobs tripped over a lawn chair, causing us to run for cover. The closest place for all of us to hide was in the pool house supply shed. Unfortunately, Jacobs, the klutz, managed to lock us inside the pool house.
“You are SO fired,” I said to him, rubbing my bare arms. The shed was spacious enough, but it was not heated, and so as not to give ourselves away, we weren’t able to turn on the lights. I was wearing a sleeveless black number, and left my wrap in the house. The men seemed warm enough under the circumstances with their tux jackets on. New Year’s Eve in Virginia Beach was not exactly warm climate.
“Here,” Jacobs said, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders. I took the jacket out of mere necessity, thinking that I would set fire to it once we were out of here.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, looking over my shoulder. The movement caused me to get a sniff of the cologne that was on the jacket. It smelled good and my immense irritation waned just a little.
“Look, CJ, who knows we’re in here?” Dixon asked.
“The only person who really knows that we’re at the party is Mrs. Porter. I was supposed to report to her before we left, so I’m hoping that she’ll look for us as the party starts to wind down. She’s very specific about her directions, so if I don’t find her before this thing’s over, I KNOW she’ll be ticked and want to find me. I can see just a little bit out that window there,” I said pointing to one of the walls, “and it faces the back exit of the house, so if she comes out and the coast is clear, we’ll just have to start yelling or something.”
“Man, this blows,” Bryce grumbled. “I knew I shouldn’t have come on this assignment.”
“Then why did you?” I snapped back, annoyed more at the situation that at him.
“Hey,” Dixon said as he moved closer to me, “there’s not much we can do until this party winds down, which doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen anytime soon.” He moved up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “We might as well make the best of this situation. Are you warmer, CJ?”
“Yes,” I said, although my shaking, petite frame, told otherwise.
Dixon and I had worked together on several assignments and had confided a lot in each other. I was amazed that this sandy brown hair, brown-eyed hunk was still single. I guess the unusual hours and circumstances we put ourselves in for this line of work didn’t help cement any relationships.
“Come here,” he said, pulling me closer to him. He opened his jacket and I slid my arms around his waist, snuggling myself into his thick chest. He wrapped the jacket around me and rubbed my back.
“Get a room,” Bryce snidely remarked.
Through the faint light coming in from the back of the house, I could see Bryce’s expression in a sneering glare.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Dixon asked. “Afraid I’m moving in on your territory?”
