Kong emitted a gruff sound. “I’m sorry we’ve all been kind of shitty to you.”
“I get it. It takes time to warm up to the new girl in town.” Dryly she added, “Especially when she makes such an awesome first impression.”
“I’ll walk you up.”
Katherine startled a bit and looked up at the administrative building. Home not-so-sweet home. She hadn’t realized they’d arrived.
“How’s your room?” Kong asked as he opened the door for her and ushered her inside.
“It’s okay. I kind of wish I had a kitchen though.” Katherine was a stress baker. Well, a stress cleaner, then a baker, then cleaning again because she always made a huge mess when she baked. She hadn’t been able to do that here. She hadn’t had much of an outlet at all.
“Isn’t there a kitchen in the break room?”
Before she could answer, Kong asked, “You up for the stairs or would you rather take the elevator?”
Normally, she would take the stairs for the exercise, but she was too tired tonight. “Elevator.”
As he pushed the call button and the elevator doors slid open for them to enter, she answered his original question. “There’s a kitchenette with a refrigerator and microwave, but no oven. I like to bake.”
The elevator moved upward and Kong turned to face her, an almost boyishly eager look on his face. “What do you like to bake?”
Katherine let out a little self-deprecating laugh. “Nothing healthy, that’s for sure.”
She almost – almost – grabbed her middle to show him her jelly roll as proof, but her mind wasn’t quite that befuddled. Kong looked like he followed a strict health regimen and she didn’t want him judging her for her choices.
“Brownies?” His face held a look of longing that surprised her. But now that she thought about it, he’d eaten almost three-quarters of that apple pie, so maybe she needed to rethink her assumptions of him being a hardcore health nut.
“From scratch,” she declared proudly. “Best brownies you’ll ever taste.”
He looked at her shrewdly for a moment. The elevator doors opened with a ding, but he didn’t make a move to exit. Finally, hesaid, “Challenge accepted. Give me a list of the ingredients you need. You can use my kitchen.”
Wait. What?
He towed her out of the elevator. “Tomorrow night? After you get off work? I’ll pick you up.”
“Er… okay?”
Stopping at her door, he waited for her to clumsily fish out her keys and unlock things before he opened the way for her. “Do you need help?” he asked.
Help? With what? He didn’t really think she needed to be tucked in, did he? Katherine was tempted to say yes, just to see what he’d do, but she managed to pull back on the reins before she blurted it out. “I’ve got it from here. Thank you for walking me over.”
He nodded and then shot her that wide friendly grin of his. “Not a problem. Especially since you’re paying me back with the best brownies I’ve ever tasted.”
With that, he headed down the hallway toward the stair access. Raising his arm over his head, he waved. “Sleep well. See you tomorrow night, Katherine.”
Chapter Seven
Someone at Black Baymust be leaking classified information. Katherine wasn’t usually so slow on the uptake but that little tidbit hadn’t truly penetrated until she was in the shower this morning thinking about the questions she’d been asked and what they implied.“Who did you tell about the Venezuela op?”Kong had asked her. She hadn’t even known he’d gone to Venezuela, yet someone must have said something. Who? And what had gone wrong that led Kong to believe they had a spy in their midst?
He'd also asked about someone named Terrence Godwin. Had Kong been on a mission to apprehend some dangerous criminal and the person had gotten away? Because someone here warned them? That was a scary thought. Whoever the spy was, they needed to be stopped.
“ORION?”
“Yes, Miss Knox?”
“Hypothetically speaking, if you thought there was a spy at Black Bay, where would you begin looking?”
“I would begin looking into any new additions to the base first. As you were the last to arrive, I would start with you.”
