Lies(9)

“Thom?” I say, my voice weak and useless. I take a step back, followed by another. Not panicking, because panicking won’t help. “Thom!”

Footsteps, more than one pair, race down the hallway. Then firm hands are grabbing my shoulders, pushing me gently out of the way.

Thom takes in the contents of the closet and sighs. “It’s Spider.”

Someone swears behind me.

“Should you, ah, check if he’s alive?” I ask.

“No one loses that much blood and gets up again.” He looks back, taking in those assembled. More people have apparently joined the party while I was sleeping. Fox and Badger are still here. But there’s also a tall blond Thor-like individual and a woman with cool red hair.

“Wasn’t me,” says Fox. “He was alive and well, if somewhat unconscious, when I dumped him in the last bedroom down the hall yesterday. Wasn’t there when I went to check on him later, so I figured he’d slunk off somewhere to get away from Wolf.”

“Wolf and Spider got into it?” asks the redhead.

“I gave him a warning, that’s all.” Thom’s jaw tightens. “This is not good.”

“Roger that,” says the big blond man.

Badger’s eyes are red, his fingers constantly tapping against his side. God knows how long he’s been going hard at it with his search engines and energy drinks. He’s younger than the others, wiry and wired. “So I’m just going to come right out and say what we’re all thinking. It’s one of us.”

“Possibly,” says Thom. “Probably, even. If someone breached our perimeter, then they wouldn’t have just taken out one of us. They would’ve kept going. At least, that’s what I would have done. It feels like someone’s picking us off for fun. Plus the security system on the house hasn’t shown any sign of other entries.”

The Thor dude turns to me, holding out a hand. “Hey. You must be the fiancée. I’m Bear.”

“Betty.”

His grasp is gentle, his gaze serious.

“I’m Hawk,” says the redhead, wiggling her fingers at me with only vague interest. She’s wearing a little green dress with a large knife strapped to her thigh. “With two down that still leaves six of us alive as possible suspects. Seven if we count Betty.”

Thom takes up position standing in front of me, hiding me from view. Guess his protective instincts are real. Or at least they seem to be.

“This is real bad. Nothing against y’all, but I’m relocating until further notice.” Badger shakes his head and wastes no time squeezing past Fox and Crow to get out the door.

“Try one more time to get that message through to HQ before you leave,” orders Thom. “If they’re cutting coms until this is sorted, we all need to know now.”

Hawk frowns. “Those fuckers.”

“Nothing like a little loyalty to let you know where you stand,” says Bear.

No one seems to disagree with the sentiment.

“Complete deniability. It’s safe to assume there’ll be no help from on high.” Thom gives me a quick glance over his shoulder. He doesn’t seem worried exactly, but he’s not happy either. “Let’s not forget the job. We need to figure out whoever this is and stop them before we all wind up dead.”

Fox rolls her eyes. “A rousing, spirit-raising speech as always, Wolf.”

Instead of answering, he grabs my hand and leads us back to the room we’d been using. He points to the packed duffel sitting on the bed. “This everything?”

“Yes.”

The duffel bag goes over his shoulder and he takes off in long strides down the hallway, leading me into an attached garage. Two vehicles sit waiting. A sleek Lamborghini and a bulky SUV. He, of course, bundles us into the SUV. No sexy sports car for me. A pity. I’d like to ride in something like that before I die.

Because it’s feeling like that may not be so far off.

“I can put on my own seat belt.” I smack his hands out of the way. “Jesus, Thom.”

He deposits my bag in the back, withdrawing a jacket, pistol, and an extra magazine from some hidey-hole back there before closing the door. Every move he makes is swift, economical. Graceful in a way. The gun goes into the waistband of his jeans, the mag in a pocket, and the garage door starts rising. While doing something on his cell, he slips into the driver’s seat and turns on the engine. Old Thom was shit at it, but this Thom can clearly multitask and then some. I bet he could juggle knives if I asked him.

“Are we going to die?” I ask, just making conversation.

Gaze on the rearview mirror, he backs out the vehicle. “You’re not going to die.”

“But you might?”

“Do you care?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” I laugh.

Nothing from Thom.

“I need to call Jen and let her know I’m okay.”

“Betty, it’s not safe for you to be contacting anyone. Not right now. Not Jen. Not family. Not anyone.”

“Everyone at work will be wondering where I am.” I frown. Mom would tell me it causes way more wrinkles than smiling, but it seems to me that being forced to abandon your life and possibly face an early death is worth a line or two. “Surely we can at least get a message to them that I’m alive.”