Shift by Sidney Bristol

hand lifting to her neck.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood.” She pushed to her feet and turned a circle. “I’m going to get a drink. Want something?”
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    She muttered something as she strode into the kitchen. He was acutely aware of her movements, the way she made almost no sound when she walked, the sway of her ponytail and how she avoided touching any surface, probably to avoid leaving fingerprints.
    He had to snap out of this. They had a big problem on their hands and too few resources. If he couldn’t solve the matter of the Russians, he could work on something else to clear his mind for a bit. Like figuring out what was going on with the rest of Michael Evers’s operation.
    Before he’d been tasked with the jewel thieves, he’d been following a new lead.
    Michael Evers had dozens of front companies they hadn’t known about. Many of them were completely separate operations from his primary drug trade, the people operating them totally cut off from the rest of the organization. It was how he’d hidden his import-export businesses from the FBI for so long. They could thank Madison for pointing them in a new direction to investigate how the drugs and goods came into the country. But how was Evers’s operation still going without someone in charge?
    The most reasonable thing to figure out was where the money was coming from. People wouldn’t continue to do a job if they weren’t getting a check. So who was running the show?
    â€œHere. I made lemonade.” Tori set a glass of yellow liquid with ice cubes swirling in it down on the table, inches from his laptop.
    He plucked one of the napkins left over from their breakfast order and set the glass on it, an arm’s length away from the valuable electronics.
    â€œI guess there’s nothing much I can do. I don’t have anything with me.” Tori sipped from her glass and stared out the front window.
    Was he supposed to respond?
    It was easier to admire her from afar so he didn’t have to puzzle through what to say or do, how to act, or worry that he was out of line. Women spoke another language, as far as he was concerned. Even Tori, who was a different creature from other women, was a mystery to him.
    â€œYou know, if you don’t talk to me I’m going to start going stir-crazy.” Tori stared at him, a slight wrinkle on her brow.
    Well, at least she was throwing him a bone.
    â€œThere might be some tools in the garage.”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do with them?” She rolled her eyes and sat across from him.
    â€œI’m sure you could find something to tinker with. Too bad we couldn’t bring the Tesla here or you could mess with that.” The car was too recognizable to keep here. Besides, they needed an escape car stashed somewhere in case of an emergency.
    She went very still, the only movement a slight widening of her eyes.
    â€œYou’d let me mess with the Tesla?”
    He shrugged. “Sure.”
    She was the best damn mechanic they had. Even Aiden, who’d been under the hoods of cars since he was a kid, couldn’t match her with a wrench when it came to the cars they built from rusted-out frames. It was a gift. She took something ugly and worthy of a junkyard and made something beautiful.
    â€œMan, I want to, but we can’t risk our only ride being out of commission.” She lifted her hand to her face, tapping her fingers on her lips. “What are you doing? Anything I can help with?”
    His knee-jerk reaction was a firm no . The laptop, his gadgets, they were his. Everything had a place, all things worked in an order, there was a process he followed.
    â€œMaybe.” He clicked through a few of the records he’d downloaded to leaf through. The data they’d confiscated from Evers’s many machines before the cops started collecting evidence was extensive. The man liked his records to the point Emery was