she said, though her voice was a bit unsteady.
He wiggled the gun when she started to argue. “Not only am I holding encouragement for you to do just that, but even if I wasn’t, I have the weapon of knowledge. I don’t know who you are or where you came by that key, but I imagine hotel security would be quite interested to know of its whereabouts and usage in the past hour.”
She sat a bit more rigidly in her seat, but didn’t answer.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. I know what I did wasn’t ethical, but it was for a good cause and no one was harmed in any way. Still, I should have been more direct. Just knocked on the door and disturbed a guest at the crack of dawn … or—or something. But I won’t compound my bad judgment by doing something even more wrong.”
“Unfortunately, it’s the only thing you have that I want.”
Her gaze dipped down again, and he would have sworn a brief flash of insult crossed her face. He hadn’t intended the slight, but perhaps it was just as well she believed he had.
He drew her attention upward. “How do you know I don’t want to use it for some benevolent reason? Such as the one you purportedly had?”
“Because you carry a gun. I only carry a key.”
“Both pretty powerful weapons,” he pointed out. “Both capable of creating leverage where none might otherwise exist. And of getting the user into unplanned trouble when mismanaged.” He lowered the gun. “In my case, my weapon has a safety, to keep bad things from inadvertently happening. I’m assuming your key didn’t come with a similar safeguard.” He smiled. “More’s the pity for you.” He tucked the hotel stationery under his arm, then stuck out his free hand. “I promise I’ll turn it back in to you. Unless, of course, anything should happen. Say, you run and tell someone I’m a bad guy with a gun and a passkey. Then all bets are off.”
“Are you?” she asked. “A bad guy, I mean? Isn’t this where you tell me you work for Interpol, or some hush-hush government agency, and by giving you my passkey, I’ll be helping to maintain national security?”
“No, nothing so exciting as all that.” His smile spread to a grin. “Although, as cover stories go, that one is quite good. I’ll have to remember it.”
“So … who are you, then? And why do you need a master passkey?”
“Those are probably questions it’s best you don’t have the answers to. You’ll have to trust me.”
“Like you trust me?”
“Look at it this way. We’ll both have something on the other that is likely to keep us in line. What better measure of trust is there?”
“That’s blackmail, not trust.”
He just shrugged.
“Whose room do you want to get into?”
“More information you don’t need to know.”
“I will if I’m going to help you get into it.”
He cocked a brow. “So you agree to help me, then?”
She nodded at the gun. “I hardly see where I have a choice.”
He didn’t believe her innocent face, not for a second. More likely she was hoping to learn as much as possible so she could find a way to get out, and report him. He wiggled the fingers of his still outstretched hand. “I’ll return the key when I’m done.”
“My trust doesn’t extend that far. For my own future protection, I need to know where it was used. The key and I stay together.”
“Except that wouldn’t protect you. Quite the opposite. If something goes awry with my … mission, you can honestly disavow any knowledge of how it was used, as you truly won’t know. It’s to your advantage to hand it over. And if it’s not actually yours, then you can step out of the chain of ownership completely. I won’t point the finger at you and I can leave it wherever it would best suit your needs for someone to find it when I’m done. I think that’s a very fair trade.”
“Just show me where you want to go and I’ll let you in, then keep the key on me. We part ways and no one is the wiser. On either side.”
“Then you’d be a willing accomplice. Not a good thing. You’re really not that good on this whole criminal acts thing, are you?”
“I told you. This is an aberration. I’m the Goody Two-shoes of my group, trust me. It was a wild act of rebellion for me just to stage the damn stealth bachelorette party in the first place.”
He half-laughed. “The goodie-what?”
“Never mind.”
“Sounds like you’re rather making a new sport out of rebellious behavior. Although what a stealth bachelorette party is, I couldn’t hope to fathom.” He held up his hand. “And don’t wish to.”
“You can mock me all you want, but I’m not giving you the key. If something goes awry, as you said, and I’m implicated in any way, then I’ll tell them you forced me, threatened me. Given the gun, I think I’ll be perfectly believable. So, give me the room number and let’s go.”
Under other circumstances he might have found her adorably stubborn, but at the moment, he wasn’t so amused. “I won’t be using it immediately. So I will take the key now … or you can prepare to be my guest for a while.”
Her gaze narrowed. “How long is ‘a while’?”
He shrugged. “A day or two, probably, at the most.”
“You can’t keep me here that long,” she exclaimed.
“I don’t see why not. The hotel offers very nice room service. You’ll live in relative comfort, lend me the key when it’s needed, then we’ll part ways.”
“I have a job, friends, a wedding. I’ll be missed.”
Now his eyes widened. “So, was it your own party you were arranging, then?” He couldn’t say why the news disappointed him so. Considering he wasn’t planning on doing anything with her other than obtaining her helpful little key card, it didn’t matter if she was already otherwise involved. And yet the thought didn’t make him happy.
“My best friend is getting married this weekend. Sunday. Here. In the hotel. It was her phone I was trying to retrieve.”
“Ah.” He smiled as the puzzle pieces began to align themselves. “Well, perhaps you won’t have to concern yourself with that if that unanswered call was as important as you say. And, think of it, you’ll be out of the line of fire, which might be to your advantage given the role you say you played in your friend’s downfall.”
“Her fiancé is Adam Wingate.”
Bloody hell. Simon tried not to visibly react. Of course he couldn’t just luck into an easy solution to the job at hand. He had to get a whole handful of new obstacles. “Of the Wingate Hotel Wingates,
