Blindsided Read Online Free PDF Page A

things to keep track of and position them so an intruder can’t get by.”
    Carthridge nodded agreement. Teigan ignored John’s pout.  
    “I’ll just go help Morris then.” Carthridge moved out of the room.
    “Man.” John shuddered. “Dude’s cold.”
    “Carthridge?” Teigan hadn’t gotten that impression, neither here nor at the office when Whitesman had briefly introduced them earlier. Reserved, yes, but cold? No.
    “No. He seems cool.” John jerked his head to where Carthridge had just left. “I meant Garret. Keep your eye on him, Teigan, that bro of yours could stick a knife in your back without a second thought if it served his purposes.”
    Teigan straightened, giving John a hard look that irrevocably stated his opinion on that sort of speculation.
    John shrugged. “Just saying.”
    A throat cleared behind them; John jumped halfway to the ceiling. Teigan turned a bit more slowly to find his half-brother standing in the door frame. He did look cold. Immobile features, blank eyes, not a fucking muscle twitched in response to what he’d just overheard. Teigan was surprised the air wasn’t forming ice crystals around him.
    “Whitesman mentioned you’d want to go through my routine with me?” Garret prompted.
    “After I get these placed.” Teigan held up the clear container with a dozen or so transmitters. Virtually see-through and thin enough to be overlooked by a searching hand, they were the best bugs on the market.  
    “Yeah.” John folded his arms, snapping his gum. “So remember, we’ll be monitoring everything that you do.”
    “John,” Teigan warned. As if Garret hadn’t known what they were, and could speculate on why they were being placed.
    “Message received loud and clear,” Garret said, then looked back at Teigan. “Feel free to help yourself to whatever you need. I’m going to go help Cartwright and Morris set up the perimeter.”
    John pushed off the desk he’d been leaning on. “I’ll go with you. Supervise, you know?”
    Garret shrugged indifferently and started down the hall toward the back door, leaving John scrambling to keep pace.
    ***
    Teigan slapped cold water over his face and peered into the mirror as he worked his features through a range of expressions. If applied improperly, the putty—or whatever the hell the gimmicky name for the stuff was called—would part from his natural skin. A great yawn and a hard rub across his eyes convinced him the gunk would hold. He now possessed a wider jaw, a scar across his chin and…no more crow’s feet. The miracle of make-up magic combined with the shortly cropped hair, connived to produce the reflection of his younger half-brother staring eerily back at Teigan. Even his blue eyes looked different—icy cold, emotionless.  
    Heaving a sigh, Teigan made his way out of the bathroom and down the short hall.
    A sweep of the inside earlier, while placing the bugs, yielded as much information about the house’s owner as the outside had. Beyond a pretty snazzy home gym, there weren’t any real personal effects. No pictures, no art. There was the expected furniture and the standard wall screen, which right now displayed a football game, the sound turned off so the men crashed silently into one another and the crowds’ enthusiastic cheers and jeers appeared surreal. Teigan didn’t even see a book or magazine to clue him in to Garret’s personal tastes.
    Teigan moved into the kitchen, popped open the cold storage unit to take stock of his options. Milk, OV-8—damn synthetic OJ tasted like crushed vitamins masked in fake sugar—eggs, the standard condiments, cheese, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, thawing meat, some sort of leftover pasta dish—shrimp primavera from last Thursday, according to the label. Sickening. He dug deeper. Wait, there…redemption: beer, six bottles, in a neat row across the second bin for easy access.
    He grabbed two— make yourself at home there, Teigan —and straightened. He’d be living here