The Men of Elite Metal: Platinum, Zinc, & Francium Read online

  “Great.” She stood up. “It’s nice to make a friend so randomly.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be friends. Not exactly.”

  Her face pinkened when he spoke, which was exactly the response he’d hoped for. Eli didn’t want many things for himself out of life. He’d met most of his goals. He did, however, want Rose Smith tied up in his bed while he gave her what she needed. Even if she didn’t understand she required it yet.

  “Oh.”

  He stood up and took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “Better return to your kids.”

  “Right.” She smiled and fled toward the crosswalk.

  If she also happened to be able to tell him a few small details about The Boy, the child he’d never meet personally, well then, so be it. Why couldn’t he achieve two things he wanted at once? The government required him to live a completely benign, hidden life. It was beyond time to find some fun in it.

  Rose talked. He’d be happy to listen. Except in the bedroom. There, she’d be tied up and want to obey.

  Now

  Platinum stalked toward the car. What could have happened to Kent? Young children with grandmothers who wouldn’t let them eat anything with red dye number five in it—he knew because it was a fact Tony presented him with at the last meeting—didn’t simply disappear in such a way where professional private eyes couldn’t find them. His danger radar went off in a big way.

  “Stop it.” Copper grabbed his arm. “Whatever happened in there, whatever you need to get done, you can’t run off and not tell Chrome or Steele where you’re going. Fuck it, Platinum, you’ve been trained better.”

  “It’s personal.”

  She shook her head. Copper was the strongest, toughest woman he’d ever known. Why she decided to make friends with him, when most everyone else left him to his own devices, never ceased to puzzle him. Copper and Mercury were thicker than thieves, only whatever relationship those two shared—or didn’t—he wouldn’t pretend to understand. Copper had gone and fallen in love with someone other than Merc, and everyone seemed okay with it.

  “Yes. And?” She wasn’t going to let it go.

  “I have a kid.” He could hardly mutter the words. A year of impossibly long days passed since he’d thought about The Boy, let alone told anyone—even the people he trusted with his life—about Kent’s existence.

  “I think you’d better go see Poppy. Whatever it is, you can’t hide it from the uppity-ups. Whatever happened, it’s only going to make things harder.”

  Damn it. He hated when she was right.

  Plat wasn’t going to find Kent if Tony hadn’t been able to, not without resources his team could provide. They usually worked in groups of four, each member reporting to Chrome or Steele, depending on who was heading that particular mission. He couldn’t ask anyone else to be involved. Any danger he took on would be his own.

  None of those facts meant he couldn’t ask permission to go, so he didn’t end up with his teammates chasing him down assuming he’d gone off the reservation.

  Steele would talk to Poppy and Poppy would manage Warbucks.

  “I’ll call Steele.”

  Copper patted him on the back. “Good.”

  “Could you do something for me?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe.”

  “Good answer.” Never make a promise until you knew what it entailed. Not unless it was in the field. Then he knew she’d do what he asked as he would. Team relationships were the only friendships Plat ever understood.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s an asshat in the bar named Tony. I think he’s about to drop dead. I don’t want him to do it here, too many questions.” He really didn’t want to have caused problems for Bone Daddy’s. Tony Di’Fallipi dying at the table minutes after Plat walked away seemed a headache he didn’t need. Plus, needless death irked him. Why let someone die when you could save them?

  Some deaths had to happen, others didn’t.

  “I’ll take him out, and maybe I’ll drop him at an ER.”

  “Thanks.” He unlocked the car. First Steele then Kent.

  “Platinum,” Copper called his attention. “Sometime you’re going to have to tell me how you ended up with a kid.”

  “Copper, if you don’t understand how it works, then Gabriel is doing something really wrong.”

  His teammate hooked up with her guy months ago, and as much as Plat didn’t understand how any of their group could manage to have a real social life, Copper seemed happy, which meant she needed to be ragged about it every chance he got.

  “Fuck you, Platinum.”

  “I’m pretty fucked. Trust me.”

  The Sniper waited for him. She held the gun in her hand and sat with her back to the tree. Waiting. Waiting for him. The woman surprised her. She hadn’t expected there to be a fourth person involved in the little game. It should have been two snipers and the child. The woman didn’t belong in the mix, and yet, here she was.

  Dragging the child away from home before he could be gotten to. Taking him to the remote cabin with the shades drawn. The woman was changing the plan, and The Sniper hadn’t expected it.

  Plans changed, and she changed with them. Just as her husband taught her, before he was murdered. An unprovoked bullet through the head fired by the man who called himself Platinum.

  All she needed to do was wait. Patience was the sniper’s greatest tool. Platinum would die. Soon.

  And his kid would watch.

  2

  Rose paced the room for maybe the hundredth time. In the way only children could do, Kent Matthews slept fitfully on the coach. He was safe. For now. Only, he almost hadn’t been. Her head spun. Why did today happen? What if she hadn’t run into Kent on the street? Would he have died, too?

  She took a steadying breath and knelt on the floor. Instinct made her keep the shades closed, and although she’d never been tested the same way before, she trusted her gut when it told her not to phone the police. At least not yet.

  Kent’s grandmother was dead. Murdered in her bed, and if Kent’s story was true, then whoever did it wore a uniform—a cop’s uniform—and had pursued him.

  Rose hadn’t believed him at first, and she still wasn’t certain he’d gotten the cop part right. Until someone took a shot at Rose. While talking to Kent, a bullet whizzed right by her head. The sound of it—a violent humming—before the devastating thwack as it cut into the man passing her. Heads made a sound when they exploded—and pink mist. So much pink mist. It sprayed everywhere. It splattered her shirt. The world narrowed and grew darker in those seconds. She’d grabbed Kent and run to her parents’ cabin in upstate New York. Located on the outskirts of New Paltz on a dirt road never used, the cabin offered them a sanctuary. A place she could keep him safe, at least for the present.

  Her folks left her the place and she’d been holding off selling it for the sentimental value. Once a week, she checked on Kent, her favorite student from her class two years earlier. She’d never admit to playing favorites and doubted the kids in her class noticed it, but Kent touched her heart.

  No mother or father left in the world to care for him. They shared their orphan status. A scholarship child who attended Coleto on grants, he had only his elderly grandmother to love him, and she did the best she could. It could have been Rose’s story, only her trip through guardians and semi poverty hadn’t started until a week after her fifteenth birthday.

  The truth was, Rose was always drawn toward teaching and helping the difficult children, the ones the other teachers clenched their jaws to talk about. As if no one who went to a swanky private school in New York should ever have any behavior problems.

  She’d never seen the testing results from his IEP. It hadn’t been done until first grade, but she’d lay money on the fact he possessed a gifted IQ to go with his attention problem. His grandmother trusted Rose, and though the administration might have frowned on it if they’d known, she’d continued to see Kent outside of school at least once a
week for tutoring.

  Thank the stars she did.

  “Kent’s not a liar,” she spoke aloud to the quiet room. “If he says it’s the police who killed his Maw Maw, then it’s the police. End of story. And apparently, the police are shooting at me.”

  She rarely focused on how alone she was or how precarious the isolation left her. She had an aunt in Arizona who hated her. Oh, the other woman would never use the actual word ‘hate’ to describe their relationship, except when it came down to it, Aunt Pressley thought Rose too strange to deal with. Apparently, attending comic book conventions made her beyond crazy in her straight-laced auntie’s book.

  Other than the disappearing aunt, her family was gone. Her grandmother passed away on Rose’s twentieth birthday, finally letting go after years of horrific pain from cancer. Tears slipped out at the memory. Damn it. She needed to stop being so maudlin.

  The shooting happened. She needed to face facts. None of her friends would be able to help, nor would she really want them to. God forbid someone got hurt. Kent needed her, and she was going to keep him safe.

  All of the police force couldn’t be involved. She’d driven hours from New York City. The New Paltz police must be trustworthy. Rose walked to the phone. Her cell phone barely seemed to have a single bar. Not enough to actually complete a call. However, her parents’ cabin still held a landline. She paid the eight-dollar monthly bill to keep it for emergencies. Teaching paid her very little, and she would have liked those eight dollars for extra small niceties.

  With their current predicament, she was glad she’d bothered. Hand shaking, she picked up the receiver from the table next to the couch where Kent slept. It took her a full second to realize she didn’t hear a dial tone.

  “Oh, what the hell?” she whispered, and then checked to see if she’d bothered Kent. He didn’t stir, his head pressed on the small pillow, his mouth hung open slightly in sleep. One piece of his white blond hair fell over his forehead, and she smoothed it away.

  The color was so unique. It always reminded her of…

  No. She cut off the direction her thoughts took. She would not, could not allow herself to think of him. Elijah Jones had blown into her life, then detonated it when he vanished a year later.

  Her ex couldn’t be in her mind during her current situation. She needed help, and he wouldn’t have been any.

  Of course, he might have been a shoulder to cry on, and his big strong arms would have held her close. Assuming he’d actually shown. She was musing about the guy who vanished. She’d arrived to see him, only to find he’d moved out of his apartment, all of his stuff gone, and any trace of him having existed, disappeared.

  She’d thought he was a medical student. Who knew who he really was in the end? Did it matter?

  Rose pulled the phone plug out of the wall and crawled around until she found the second outlet in the kitchen. It had been such a long time since she’d been to her parents’ cabin. Selling it would be on the horizon for the next year. Sentimentality was fine until she needed to pay bills.

  The second outlet didn’t work either, so either the phone company hadn’t been keeping up with the line, despite her monthly check, or…

  Was it possible? She stood, a layer of dust coming with her, and tried not to think about where her mind wanted to go. Could someone have cut the line? The person after Kent…

  She bit down on her lip and put her hands in her pockets to stop from screaming. Had she made things worse by bringing them here? Were they rats in a cage?

  “Oh God, Kent. I don’t have the faintest clue what to do. I really don’t.”

  They didn’t have food, and it was going to become cold very fast unless she could make a fire. How was she to manage when she couldn’t open the door?

  Unless Eli left some the last time they were here. She rushed to the hall closet and opened it up, only to find herself frozen in her spot, staring at a black coat she’d never thought to see again.

  He’d left his soft cotton blazer, the item he said he hated and wore everywhere when it got cold, despite his disdain for the garment. Rose pressed her nose against it and inhaled. The material still smelled of him.

  The floodgate of her memories opened, and she knew she’d not be closing it any time soon.

  Two years earlier

  Mister Hottie waited at their bench again. Five weeks in a row. It couldn’t be coincidence anymore. He knew she’d be there—she always was.

  She smiled and clutched the bagel she’d bought him tighter in her hand. He never ate anything, except a boring turkey sandwich with nothing else. When she’d questioned him about it, he’d shrugged, which was the way he answered a lot of inquiries she made.

  Eli was either completely unused to talking about himself, or he was hiding from the mob. She suspected it was the first option, because mob informants were probably not enrolled in Columbia Medical School.

  Today was the day. She’d have to find out if he wanted to see her somewhere other than their bench. Her Monday classes would be ending, and she wouldn’t be leaving her classroom anymore during the day. Today would either be goodbye or a very different kind of hello.

  He’d made that single sexual innuendo the first week and never again. Had he changed his mind or somehow gotten scared off?

  Maybe all her talking finally wore him down to being completely uninterested in pursuing it any further. Either way, she would put on her big girl panties and find out. She’d left off her science fiction clothing for the occasion, choosing to dress herself as a woman who didn’t spend all day getting pawed at by adorable five and six year-olds. Black pants and a white fitted blouse, which—she hoped—tugged at her in the right places and didn’t make her look fat.

  He looked up when she approached and didn’t smile. Then again, he never did. Elijah was serious, almost all of the time they were together. Since she’d always been a sucker for the tough cases, she couldn’t help but see the sadness behind his blue eyes. Who put it there, and could she find a way to ease some of it?

  “Hi.” She smiled and sat down. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” He nodded at her. “You look different.”

  He’d noticed? “I changed. I mean, not today, I’ve been wearing the same clothes since I got dressed. I mean, I decided to dress differently today. The kids love my t-shirts and the principal likes to foster a community of creativity, so they dig the science fiction. Except, you know, I’m a grown woman. And you really don’t want to hear all about it. Here,” she handed him the bagel she’d bought, “I got food for you.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You did?”

  “It’s nothing exciting. Just an everything bagel with cream cheese. I might have picked a different schmear, only they’re very personal choices, and I didn’t want to guess yours. So, plain cream cheese it was.”

  “No one has ever brought me a bagel before.” He stared at it, still not having taken it from its paper wrapping.

  “Too many carbs?” He was so fit. Maybe he never, ever ate white sugar or starch. He’d always remember her as the weird girl who tried to feed him poison.

  “No. I don’t…”

  “Well, you don’t have to eat it. You can throw it out.”

  He shook his head and set down his book on the bench. “I’m not going to toss it. Are you crazy?”

  Elijah actually looked disgruntled. His face kind of scrunched up, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. Was he really upset she’d suggested he could throw out the bagel if he didn’t want it?

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never been told I am. I passed a psychological evaluation to work with kids. Kind of a big deal in the private school sector in New York.”

  He leaned back on the bench and shook his head, a small smile playing on his face. “You’re funny.”

  “You didn’t laugh.”

  Eli nodded, the smile disappearing. “I almost never laugh.”

  She gasped. Wow. There was a proclamation she’d never heard before. “Why on e
arth not?”

  “I guess I haven’t had a lot of amusement in my life. When I think about you, Rose, I envision you laughing.”

  “You think about me?” Here was the chance. She’d ask him. Before she could chicken out. “I understand you’re busy. Med students have hellish hours. Today is my last day of class outside of school.”

  “Oh.” He rubbed at his forehead.

  That was it? She’d hoped for more of a startled, I can’t do without you Rose sort of reaction. Well, she wasn’t going to dwell. Time to push on through. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that. “I’ve liked seeing you. I mean, I kind of inserted myself into your life. Sitting down and talking the way I did. The thing is, I saw you sitting here, and you looked as if you needed company. So I said to myself, Rose, really, what’s the worst thing? He’ll tell you to go away.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Right.” For Eli, he was being downright talkative. “And I guess what I’m saying is I think you’ve been okay with us meeting week after week because if you weren’t, you’d not be here. You’d sit in some other park, on some other bench.”

  He didn’t respond, which she decided to take as a signal to keep talking. Eli must know where she was going.

  “I’d like to see you again after today. If you don’t want to, then today is goodbye.” She put her hands in her lap and waited. Cabs honked, people shouted, several dogs barked somewhere in the distance. Still, New York seemed silent. Rose had never asked a guy out before, always content to wait for the guy to do it or not go out at all. Confidence in her looks didn’t prove easy for her.

  Redheads were a type, and it seemed most of the single men in New York preferred another brand.

  “You’re asking me on a date?” He cleared his throat.

  “Oh, God.” She’d never asked him two essential questions before she jumped right in with both feet. “You’re taken or gay. Which one is it?”