Risky Obsession (Wolf Security #3)

11. Lacey/Tory

CHAPTER 11

Lacey/Tory

A s I bit into my cherry strudel, I tried to formulate what to ask Kane next. “Did you enjoy your Navy career?”

“It had its moments.” Kane flashed a cryptic smile and leaned back in his chair, licking his fingers. “That was delicious. So, what about you? When you’re not treasure hunting, what are you doing?” Kane offered me an easy smile that seemed to reach into me and tease my insides.

Damnit. I needed to control this conversation. “This and that.”

“You know, that’s the third time I’ve asked you a variation of that question, and if you keep dodging it, I’m only going to get more inquisitive.”

I grumbled at him, and scrambling for a suitable answer, I reached for my cherry strudel again. “Okay, if you must know, I’m just an admin assistant. Not like you, Mister Fancy Pants in his fancy yacht. I have to go to my boring office job where I shuffle boring paperwork around all day.”

He paused with his second strudel in his hand. “I think that’s the most you’ve said to me in one go since we met.”

Oh jeez. My lies are going to be the death of me.

Undercover was so much easier when I didn’t give shit what the person I was deceiving thought about me. I had no idea why Kane’s opinion of me was so important now. I barely knew him. And he knew absolutely nothing about me.

“Just to clarify,” he said, all serious. “I don’t have fancy pants.”

I burst out laughing .

His laughter joined mine and seemed to echo off the quaint café walls which were adorned with vintage-looking posters. He bit into the pasty, staring at me from across the table, and I forgot the weight of my secrets and guilty past. It felt good to share a genuine laugh with someone, to let my guard down, even if just for a moment.

When we finished our pastries and turned our attention to our coffees, a silence settled between us that wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. It gave me the crazy notion that Kane and I had known each other for years.

The bell tinkled as a family of four entered the café, bringing in a blast of frigid air and breaking the trance I wanted to stay in.

That was damn dangerous.

I pushed my empty coffee cup away. “You excited for this antique fair?”

“Not as much as I bet you are. Nothing like ancient relics to take your mind off boring paperwork.”

“I’ll drink to that. Actually, I really will drink to that. You want another coffee?”

“Sure. Let’s grab them to go. I’m keen to scout out the area,” he said.

We stood together, and I just about collided with his chest.

“Great. Me too.” Fighting the swirl of delight wafting through me, I marched to the front counter.

With my coffee warming my hands, I relied on Kane to lead the way. Mostly following a crowd, we arrived at a section of the old town which had been blocked off to traffic. Sidewalks and tables were covered with everything from dusty books to glistening dinnerware, to life-sized marble statues. The tables lined up along the sidewalk were just the beginning. Every store along the street had an open door that hinted at a world inside that needed to be explored.

This fair was already overwhelming, and this was just the first street. The poster I’d read in the café while we’d waited for our second coffee order detailed the antique fair as extending to several streets and four buildings with names that I couldn’t possibly pronounce.

“Where do we start?” I asked, scanning the table next to me, which was loaded with antique phones that looked like they covered every decade dating back to Alexander Graham Bell.

“Let’s try that place.” Kane pointed to a shop three doors down with an impressive collection of cloth-bound books displayed on the outside table and in the window .

I followed him into the dimly lit shop and the walls were covered in dusty books and crammed shelves that made my claustrophobia stand to attention.

There has to be at least five thousand books in this tiny shop.

I paused to study a row of book spines. Not one of them was in English.

Great.

Crossing the creaking floorboards, I found Kane at a stack of parchment, searching through the yellowing pages with a look of confusion on his face.

“Anything promising?” I tried to keep the skepticism from my tone.

He eyeballed me, clearly not impressed with my impatience.

“Everything I looked at was in another language.” The overburdened walls seemed to wobble, closing in on me.

“Yes, that’s going to be our biggest problem. We’ll need to ask for help.”

“That could be an option, but I haven’t seen anyone else in here but us.” I clutched the table, hoping my legs didn’t tremble like my brain seemed to be.

“The storekeeper is probably making coffee out the back.”

“Or they’re dead in the basement, and nobody has seen them in years,” I joked.

“Okay . . .” He frowned at me. “That’s another option.”

“I’ll wait outside.” I searched for the exit, and my damn legs couldn’t take me fast enough.

I burst out of the doorway. The wind whipped through my hair as I dodged the crammed book tables and stumbled onto the cobblestone street. I sucked in the cool air, which carried scents of cinnamon and old stones, and something else; tobacco, maybe.

Kane charged out the doorway with concern riddling his features. His gaze swooped left then right, and when he found me, relief crossed his expression.

He strode to me and gripped my arm in a way that was somehow both tender and firm. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Sorry. That place was just a tad too . . . cramped for me.”

“Oh. I thought you must’ve seen a dead body.”

I chuckled. That would be something I could handle. “I’m fine. No luck in there?” I nodded at the doorway he’d emerged from.

“Nothing is ever that simple. Let’s try that one.” His brows thumped together. “As long as you’re okay?”

“I’m good. Lead the way.”

I followed Kane as he strolled toward a shop with a faded sign hanging above the door by a rusty chain. The windows were covered in grime, obscuring the treasures within. Maybe that was what had appealed to him, the mystery.

The store was crammed with dusty items. Some were contained in glass cabinets, but most rested on shelves that I doubted had ever seen a feather duster.

“Sometimes the best finds are hidden in places like these.” His eyes sparkled with excitement.

I swallowed hard, forcing my mind off the dust and darkness and onto my fake identity as a treasure hunter. I picked up a picture frame and studied the faded photo inside of a family. The people were staged with a woman seated at the front with her baby in her arms and seven other children around her, and the man standing behind them, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge. Nobody was smiling.

Who buys this stuff?

I put the picture down and wiped the dust on my hands onto my jeans.

Kane exited that shop, and I followed him into the next one. We stepped inside, and the musty odor was so intense that I fought back a cough. The shop was dimly lit and the few rays of sunlight that angled in through the door struggled to illuminate the shelves packed full of oddities.

How the hell were we going to find clues to gold bars that were stolen eighty years ago?

Maybe those bars had already been melted down?

Had Aria even considered that?

Kane and I moved from store to store. Some searches took longer than others, but we didn’t find anything to enhance our clues.

Not all the shops were dusty and looked like nobody had stepped into them for decades. Some offered wares that glistened from a loving polish, or estate jewelry in keyed cabinets with assortments of colorful stones that sparkled.

Some of the shops had lively music and one even had a three-piece band. Another offered a shot of J?germeister,a traditional German liquor that the store owner proudly announced was made from 56 ingredients. Kane and I shot the potent, yet delicious liquid with our eyes locked together. As I’d studied his smiling eyes, I had to remind myself that Aria had warned me about him . . . because I was struggling to find a reason to be cautious.

We also sampled street food along the way, trying savory and sweet treats with names that were tongue twisters.

The fair was much more fun than I expected, and it was all because of him . Kane seemed to be on a mission to make sure my day was not boring, like the make-believe day job I’d told him I had.

Occasionally, his frustration over not finding anything mirrored my own. Then we would turn a corner and find another maze of antique shops, and his eyes would light up again.

The sun was beginning to dip in the sky, casting long shadows over the cobblestone streets. The weight of failure wanted to settle on my shoulders, but I reminded myself that this was just day two of our one-month mission in Europe.

Day two with Kane, and nearly every moment was an exploration in sensory overload. Sights, smells, sounds, taste, and every fricking time Kane touched me, my damn libido spiked. My body was getting more of a workout than it had when Grant Hughes had tried to kill me.

That already seemed like months ago.

I made a mental note to remind Aria that I needed all the news on that bastard, good and bad.

As we exited yet another shop, Kane squinted at the darkening sky. “Damn, we’re running out of time.” He ran his hand through his sandy-blond hair, and his thick waves swooped right back into position.

“Lucky we have our hotel sorted for tonight,” I said.

“That’s true. Come on, let’s try up there.”

I followed Kane through a narrow alley that connected two streets. Beneath my sneakers, the old cobblestones were so worn, they were slippery. “How old do you reckon this road is?” I asked as we merged onto a small square surrounded by more shops selling their wares under colorful awnings.

“Five hundred years old at least,” he said without pause.

I puffed out a breath. “It’s hard to fathom when our oldest buildings are about two hundred years old.”

“Yeah. Even though the Indigenous cultures of Australia have a history reaching back thousands of years, long before the first European settlements were established, our oldest building is just two hundred and thirty years old. Many of the items we’ve looked at today are much older than that.”

I shook my head, trying to fit all that into perspective. “Maybe that’s our problem. Everything here is too old.”

“We’re not giving up yet. There’s still a heap of shops to explore.”

“That’s the other problem. Too many shops, not enough time.”

He met my gaze, and I had a rotten feeling I’d revealed something that blew my cover. “Are you suggesting we split up?”

No way. I would probably miss a clue to the treasure. “No, we have all day tomorrow too. Come on. Let’s ask that lady if she knows who would have maps.”

Marching ahead of him, I strode toward a young woman in a red dress with more layers than a wedding cake. She stood behind a stall overflowing with colorful fabrics and handcrafted trinkets.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I called out as I approached, hoping she spoke English. “Do you happen to know if any stores around here sell old maps of this local area?”

Her round face crinkled into a friendly smile.

“Maps? Yes. Your best bet is Müller’s Antiquit?ten.” Her English was excellent with barely any accent. “Gunter has been collecting them for decades.”

“Fantastic.” I grinned at her. “Can you point us in that direction?”

“Just follow this street two blocks to an alley, and you’ll see his shop on the right.” She spoke to me, but her eyes were on Kane.

“Thank you so much.” He flashed his impossible grin.

“Let me know if you need help with anything else. I’m glued to this table all day.” She giggled so hard it was a wonder she didn’t topple over.

When Kane turned to me, he obviously had no idea how much that woman was drooling over him.

Strolling side by side, we walked in the direction she’d indicated.

“There it is.” I pointed to a sign for Müller’s Antiquit?ten dangling over a doorway.

The shop stood out from the rest with frosted glass windows that concealed what was inside, and unlike every other shop, this one didn’t have tables stacked with wares out the front and the door was closed .

The owner was either too lazy or too arrogant to join everyone else in the fair. Then again, the entrance was framed by ivy and blooming flowers that hinted at a secret garden beyond the door, so maybe the owner was confident that people would want to venture inside.

Kane pushed open the heavy wooden door, and dust particles danced in sunlight that streamed in from a row of windows high along the back wall.

Inside the shop, ornate chandeliers dangled from the high ceiling, casting a golden glow over the eclectic collection of antiques. The air was tainted with scents of aged wood, leather, and a hint of lavender, creating an impression of timeless elegance. I had a feeling that a woman played an integral role in the shop’s enticing atmosphere.

The walls were lined with shelves that reached the ceiling, each one overflowing with relics from various eras. Gilded mirrors, intricately carved wooden furniture, and porcelain figurines were arranged in artful disarray.

In one corner, an antique gramophone played soft, yet grainy, classical music, adding to the enchanting ambiance.

The shopkeeper was a stout man with a bushy mustache, a bald head, and spectacles that sat low on his nose.

He nodded at us. “Guten tag. Lassen Sie es mich wissen, wenn Sie Hilfe brauchen.”

“Okay,” Kane replied.

“What did he say?” I whispered.

Kane’s hot breath brushed my ear as he dipped closer to me. “I have no idea.”

Giggling, I playfully slapped his chest.

Drifting along the aisles, we reached a dusty display case at the back of the shop. Inside was an assortment of random items: an old leather-bound journal, a tarnished brass compass, a magnifying glass, and an ornate pocket watch.

A framed map of the region hung on the wall behind the cabinet.

“Hey, check out the date.” Kane pointed to the bottom, left corner.

“Nineteenth of March, 1945,” I said.

Seven days after his pops map. Very interesting.

We stepped closer to the framed map. Being taller than me, Kane studied the top portion, while I concentrated on the bottom. Despite the amount of dust covering the glass protecting the map, the detail was incredible. The map was intricately hand-drawn with steepled churches and windmills and winding rivers with arched bridges crossing them.

Near the bottom right-hand corner was a shaded forest with trees sketched in fine detail. I ran my finger across the glass to make a clear spot in the dust so I could read the label.

Der Schwarzwald.

“Do you know Der Schwarzwald?” I asked Kane, pointing at the trees.

He didn’t lift his gaze from the map. “The Black Forest.”

“Is that near here?”

“No.” He shot a frown at me. “It’s closer to Austria than here.”

Damn. A treasure hunter should probably know that. A couple of inches from the edge of the Black Forest on the map was a hand-drawn castle with four flag-bearing turrets. Leading from the castle was a red line. I looked for the map legend but couldn’t find one.

I followed the red line to another castle. My breath hitched. Next to a small arched bridge that crossed a moat around the castle was a tiny, hand-drawn lion head. It wasn’t the same lion that was embossed on the gold bars we were searching for, but it was a coincidence I couldn’t ignore.

“Kane,” I whispered, pointing at the lion drawing.

He lowered his head, so our cheeks were nearly touching, and his breath caught. He glanced over his shoulder, maybe searching for the storekeeper, then he pulled out his phone.

He flicked the camera on, then eased back.

“ Kein fotos ,” the shopkeeper said, his voice booming.

I jumped and searched behind me, expecting the man to be right there. He wasn’t. Glancing up, I found a camera mounted high on the wall.

“Busted,” I whispered.

The storekeeper’s heavy footsteps preceded him, and he appeared with steely eyes as he approached us with a deliberate stride.

“No photo,” he repeated, his tone firm.

Kane quickly pocketed his phone and raised his hands. “Sorry. Do you speak English?”

The man nodded but didn’t elaborate.

Kane flashed that grin of his that seemed to crack through barriers. It didn’t look like it worked with this man though.

I pointed at the map, offering the storekeeper what I hoped was a beautiful smile. “We were just admiring the craftsmanship in this map. It’s exquisite.”

The man scrutinized us with a wary expression, then nodded.

“We were just using our phone to translate this.” My ability to lie continued to surprise me. I pointed at the words beneath the castle. “Do you know what this means?”

The shopkeeper seemed to struggle with removing his gaze from me. I stepped back so he could move closer to the map.

He adjusted his glasses on his nose and leaned into the map. “Das Versteck des L?wen,” he said, frowning. “The Lion’s Hideaway.”

I gasped.

The man’s lips twitched. “Are you Australian?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Yes. My brother and I are trying to trace the footsteps of our ancestors.”

The man’s gaze seemed to penetrate my brain. Or maybe that was my shock at my endless lies.

Kane’s eyes drilled into me before he turned to the man. “Are you from around here? Maybe you can help us?”

The storekeeper tilted his head back to look up at Kane. “I live near here. Been in the same home all my life.”

“Oh wow, that’s wonderful,” I said, pumping excitement into my tone. “My great-grandfather used to work on a railway line around here, but the map we found in his things doesn’t seem to be right.”

The man’s lips tightened into a thin line. “The landscape changed a lot around here during the war.”

His bushy mustache seemed to dance with every word he spoke.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. It would have been horrific. I’m Lacey, by the way.”

My real name slipped out before I could catch it.

Dread sank in my chest. Kane’s jaw dropped.

Oh, fuck. I’m in deep shit now.