The Man Who Kept Secrets

Shee McQueen Thrillers
Book Eight

Amy Vansant

©2024 by Amy Vansant. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without the permission of the author. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Vansant Creations, LLC / Amy Vansant
Jupiter, FL
http://www.AmyVansant.com

Editing/Proofreading by Effrosyni Moschoudi & Meg Barnhart

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Chapter One

One Week Ago

She couldn’t shake the darkness.

In Miami, Raquel Roque came alive at night. Unless she had a photoshoot, a recording session, or a fan meet-and-greet, she always slept during the day and hit the clubs at night.

She’d seen the night.

She loved the night.

But this.

This was something different.

Miami nights were midnight blue. Neon lights obliterated the darkness, casting reverse shadows, turning inky black to midnight blue.

Midnight blue was a happy black.

Raquel lived in happy black, but as she drove west, away from the lights of Miami, this new darkness swallowed her. Even the edges, the spots near street lights and shopping centers, felt gray.

Not blue.

Not happy.

This darkness played tricks on her eyes. The road, the gnarled trees, and the overgrowth hanging low overhead felt like a horror movie—her headlights were the projector. All she needed was a big tub of popcorn like she and her cousins used to share.

She chuckled at the memory but found it hard to keep her smile from slipping.

She did not like this dark.

She didn’t need popcorn.

She needed a big-ass gun.

It wasn’t just the dark, either. Her reason for being so far west of Miami kept her nerves jangling. She was kidding herself if she thought the darkness was her biggest problem.

Pretending it was wasn’t working.

She adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. Squeezed it to feel the muscles tighten in her arms.

I just want this night to be over.

She was being blackmailed.

Someone found out about her plastic surgery and threatened to spread it all over the Internet.

They said they had pictures.

How is that possible?

She didn’t know how it could be possible, but if it was true, someone at Skinner Institute, where she’d had her work done, was the blackmailer.

She gritted her teeth.

I am going to sue them into next year when I get back.

Destroy them.

She had enough money to hire a good lawyer. She had money for things she didn’t even know were things a year ago.

She needed the surgery to stay a secret. Her whole singing career was on the cusp of exploding, and something like this would ruin her. She thought she’d be safe at Skinner Institute. Old man Skinner’s whole thing was confidentiality. He’d worked on big stars—though he couldn’t tell her which ones because it was confidential.

Confidential, my ass.

She giggled.

Literally.

If it got out that her million-dollar ass had cost more like fifteen thousand—

She sighed.

It’ll be fine.

The blackmailer had sounded reasonable on the phone. Maybe even nervous. Clearly, this wasn’t something he did all the time. He’d seen an opportunity and went for it. On some level, she respected his ambition.

It reminded her of herself.

She just wished he hadn’t found his balls during her operation.

Oh well. Así es la vida.

She felt confident she could talk him down from the ten thousand he’d requested.

Still, she wished she’d brought someone with her. She’d feel better—but he’d been very specific she come alone. One sign of someone else and he’d release all his photos online and to the press—blah, blah, blah.

She needed more money to hire people to deal with things like this. A few more gigs—

“Turn right in five hundred feet...”

The navigation’s usually soothing voice made her jump. Raquel slowed and squinted into the darkness. All she saw were trees.

Am I supposed to pull into a forest?

The treeline of tall pines ended, and she rolled past a driveway leading into a field filled with more trees. These were different, though. Someone planted these trees.

An orange grove, maybe? The guy could have mentioned they were meeting in an orange grove.

The navigation let her know she’d failed to make her turn.

Dammit.

Raquel made a U-turn and approached from the other direction. The navigation again insisted she turn into the orange grove.

Fine. Whatever.

She’d pay the guy ten thousand but maybe get some free fruit from the deal.

She made the turn and rolled down a dirt road. She didn’t see a house ahead.

Just more trees.

She was starting to hate trees.

She supposed trees were a good way to avoid random cameras. Made sense. Even out here in the middle of nowhere with the hicks and swamp people, there were probably cameras on every house.

She crept farther down the dirt road into the orange grove until her headlights fell on a man as he walked from the trees onto the road. She slowed and peered into the dark in the direction from which he’d come, thinking she saw a car tucked back there. It was too dark to tell a color, make, or model.

The man walked to the middle of the road as she slowed to a stop.

He waved.

No mask. No weapon.

He didn’t look so scary. Youngish. Average height and weight. Brown hair. Light-skinned, probably white, maybe Hispanic. She didn’t recognize him.

She put her SUV into park and took a deep breath.

Here we go.

She’d started to imagine a long winding road ending in a crumbling farmhouse, men with leather masks and chainsaws—

This was better.

Now, she didn’t have to worry about that.

She glanced behind her to find she hadn’t gone far down the road. The main highway wasn’t more than ten car lengths behind her.

All of this made her feel better. Her shoulders unbunched a notch. The death grip she had on the steering wheel eased.

What do I do now?

Before she could decide, the man walked toward her.

Okay. That works.

She turned down her music.

Cool.

This will go quickly.

She had two zip bags full of money in the car—one holding ten thousand and one with five.

She’d play it by ear. Maybe, see if she could talk him into taking the five.

She lowered her window as he approached, hands in his jeans pockets, walking with an easy rolling stride. She heard his sneakers on the gravel. He seemed younger the closer he came.

Just as she suspected, she was being blackmailed by some opportunistic nerd.

Raquel put her hand on the pepper spray she’d brought as the crunch of the gravel grew louder, and her stomach danced.

Sitting in the dark in an orchard with some stranger—it wasn’t not scary—even as the scent of citrus filled the air.

She smiled to put him at ease and make him more willing to deal. Or, maybe, to make herself feel normal.

She wasn’t sure which.

He didn’t deserve a smile, though. Jerk deserved a punch in the face.

She made a mental note to remember what he looked like or, maybe, to lurk on the street afterward and see if she could glimpse his car. If she had enough information, she could hire someone to find out who he was.

Then she’d hire some other guys to beat the crap out of him.

“Hey,” she said as he reached the car.

She felt her anger growing and wanted to get to the negotiations before she couldn’t fake being friendly anymore.

She forced another smile.

“Look, I was thinking—”

Raquel felt the tug on her hair before she saw his hand move. The car had obscured her view of his hands. She’d been looking at his face.

And, at the dark, of course. The terrible middle of Florida dark.

Now, he had her.

Panic flooded her veins.

She pulled back and felt her hair ripping from her scalp.

He jerked her head down and slammed her forehead against the top of her lowered window. Her scream cut short. Pain radiated through her head. She pressed a hand on the door to steady herself and clawed at him with the other. She felt an enamel nail pop off against his skull.

He jerked her to the left to slam her head against the window frame. Her world dimmed.

If she blacked out, she was done. This wasn’t ending. She thought she’d break free in an instant, but this wasn’t ending.

A sharp pain bit her neck. Her teeth clamped on her tongue.

She tasted blood as a single word went through her head.

Taser.

And then everything went black.

The Next Morning

Standing on the side of the road, Detective Ochoa stared down at the sheet-covered body. Only the bottoms of the victim’s feet stared back at her. They were clean. This woman hadn’t walked here and dropped dead from a heart attack, another victim of the Miami heat.

Not even close.

Judging from the large stains growing from the underside of the sheet, heat stroke wasn’t a viable theory.

“They found her here?” she asked, scanning her surroundings. She stood in the middle of an upscale neighborhood—not where bodies usually gathered.

Toby, the forensic tech, peered up at her from where he squatted beside the body. He had long lashes. The boyish name and long lashes didn’t jibe with his ghoulish job. She’d always thought that was funny about him. He felt more like a barista.

“Yes, but this isn’t where she died,” he said.

Ochoa nodded. She already knew.

“She was dumped,” she said.

“Yep. There’s not much blood, and we’re missing some things.”

“Missing?”

Toby glanced over his shoulder as an officer waved a car by and then lifted the bottom of the sheet for Ochoa to see the body’s lower half.

She sucked in a breath. It embarrassed her to react that way, but she hadn’t been prepared to see that much raw flesh. Not at seven o’clock in the morning.

Not any time, really.

The woman’s ass was missing—carved away like a pork butt.

“What the—why?” she asked.

It was a strange question—why did anyone kill anyone?—but her mind couldn’t find a way to wrap around this particular choice.

Toby dropped the sheet.

“It might have something to do with who she is,” he said.

Ochoa perked.

“You identified her?”

Identification could be a lengthy process—especially when a body was naked like this one. Naked people rarely carried wallets or phones.

Toby nodded.

“I recognized her from the white stripe in her hair.”

He lifted the top of the sheet, and Ochoa saw what he’d seen. A bright white stripe split the woman’s hair like a skunk’s tail.

“That’s Raquel Roque,” she said.

He nodded. “Or a damn good imitation.”

“She’s famous for that stripe—”

He motioned to the lower half of the sheet.

“And that ass.”

Ochoa grimaced.

What is the world coming to?

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone wanted to keep her assets to himself. Or herself…

She shook her head.

Let’s be real. This is the work of a himself.

Ochoa lifted her sunglasses and scanned the area. He’d dumped Raquel on the corner of a high-end neighborhood. There had to be cameras somewhere—

Or not.

The area’s mansions had walls around them. Courtyards. She didn’t see any cameras pointed at the street.

She looked up.

No traffic cameras.

She put her hands on her hips.

Did this guy find the one spot in Miami with no cameras?

They’d maybe be able to see cars coming into the area, but—

She huffed.

“Any witnesses?”

Toby shook his head.

“Just that lady over there that your partner’s talking to. She’s the one who found her, but this one’s been dead a while. Maybe six hours.”

“Do you know if she lives around here?”

“The lady? I guess—”

“Not the lady. Raquel,” she said, lowering her voice to say the name. The looky-loos had already started to gather.

Toby arched an eyebrow.

“I dunno. I said I recognized her. I’m not a fanboy.”

Ochoa chuckled and then sobered.

She had a lot of work ahead of her.

Raquel Roque had a high profile, and her body had been dumped in public.

Someone was either very good or very stupid.

She crossed her fingers for the latter.

Chapter Two

Shee McQueen stepped off the elevator to find the lobby of The Loggerhead Inn the way it should be.

Calm. Quiet.

The way it never was.

It made her nervous.

Strange, but her vacation hotel slash mercenary den was always in one state of chaos or another.

Shocker.

She spotted the hotel’s manager, Angelina, sitting at her lobby concierge desk, reading.

“Quiet, huh?” said Shee. “The last time it was this quiet, assassins shot the place to shreds.”

A sunburnt man she hadn’t noticed standing at the threshold of the reading room off the lobby turned to look at her. He wore swim trunks and a faded tee shirt. A small girl held his hand. Shee wasn’t sure how old she was. Two? Ten? She never knew.

The girl looked up at her father.

“Daddy, what’s an aah-sass-sin?” she asked.

The man’s eyes squinted into pinholes, his gaze locked on Shee.

She raised a hand and smiled.

“Kidding. Sorry,” she said.

The tourist bent to lift the girl in his arms and headed for the front door.

Shee waved to the girl, who waved back until her father stopped her.

“You stay away from that woman,” Shee heard him say.

Croix, their young desk clerk, snorted a laugh from her station.

Angelina swiveled in her chair to cock an eyebrow at her.

“Nice job,” she said.

Shee shrugged.

“Sorry. I didn’t see him.”

Angelina’s miniature Yorkie, Harley, raised her head to peek at Shee and then dropped it back to her bed as if it weighed a thousand pounds.

“He was talking about extending his stay,” said Angelina, turning to Croix. “I think we can assume the Holdens will be checking out, after all.”

Croix gave Angelina the thumbs-up without taking her eyes off her phone.

Shee took a deep breath.

Let’s start over.

“Good morning,” she said.

Croix grunted.

Angelina smiled. “Good morning, Siofra.”

Shee winced. If Angelina was using the ridiculously Irish name her dad gave her—Shee-fra—she had to be pissed.

Change subject.

Shee checked her watch.

“Do we still have that meeting at nine?”

Angelina nodded as Mason walked through the front door, the sun glinting off his titanium right leg below the knee, thanks to his last mission as an active Navy SEAL. The retired commander stood a moment, enormous and sweaty, his proportionately gigantic white and gray poodle mutt, Archie, at his side, tongue lolling.

“It’s hot,” he said.

“It’s Florida,” said Shee. “You’re late. We have a meeting at nine.”

He nodded. “Right. I’ll go get a shower.”

“You do that, sexy,” murmured Shee, slapping his butt as he passed on his way to the elevator.

“Ew,” said Croix, eyes never leaving her phone.

Somehow, the girl could see everything without ever looking up. Shee imagined it was a skill all people twenty-five and younger had. As someone in their forties, she feared her chances of developing that skill were slim.

Mason’s Archie trotted to the water bowl Angelina kept by her desk, turning the lobby into a small lake as he lapped. On Angelina’s desk, Harley rose to her paws and did a happy dance on her impossibly tiny paws, excited to see her giant beau.

Angelina picked up the Yorkie and set her on the ground, where she jigged and dodged water.

“Does he have to drink like a waterspout? He’s going to drown poor Harley. Everything’s wet,” grumbled Angelina.

Shee looked at her hand.

Speaking of wet...

Slapping the sweaty boyfriend had been a bad call.

She wiped it on her skort as the front door opened.

A thin man, probably in his seventies, entered the hotel wearing a summer suit and expensive sunglasses. He had no tan but enough sun spots on his balding pate that they almost passed for one.

She grunted.

Not a tourist.

“Dr. Skinner,” said Angelina, smiling as she stood.

“Angelina?” asked the man, removing his sunglasses.

Angelina nodded and walked around her desk, careful not to slide her Louboutin heels through Archie’s flood.

She shook his hand.

“We’re going to meet in the conference room. Will you follow me?”

She led him into what the hotel’s permanent residents called the breakfast room because that’s where the hotel kept the continental breakfast muffins, donuts, and croissants.

Angelina passed Shee like she was a post.

Shee scowled.

Hey. I’m in charge, aren’t I?

She’d worn her best skort. She looked professional. She’d inherited the hotel and the mercenaries living there when her father died.

She was the boss, technically.

Angelina got the proverbial memo. Then, she balled it up and tossed it in the trash.

Shee looked at Croix, who did take her eyes off her phone when she heard Skinner’s name to watch the new client enter. The only thing Croix liked better than her phone was a new mission.

Shee motioned to the breakfast room.

“What am I? Chopped liver?” she asked.

Angelina hadn’t asked Croix to join either. Shee thought she had a comrade.

She was wrong.

Croix squinted back at her with that look of utter disdain only young people could make.

“Why would you be chopped liver?” she asked.

Shee huffed.

Young people were really annoying.

Angelina stuck her head out of the meeting room.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

Shee stuck her tongue out at her but followed.

Angelina motioned Dr. Skinner to a chair.

“Take a seat, Doctor. Coffee? Croissant?”

“No, thank you,” he said, waving her off.

He sat.

“I’m Shee McQueen,” said Shee, shaking his hand.

His expression flickered with recognition.

“It’s nice to meet you. I knew your father a little. Knew of him, I should say. Sorry to hear of his passing.”

Shee nodded. She was used to people knowing her father. He was famous in some circles. The I’m rich enough to hire a fixer circles. He’d left his business to her—a business that, sadly, was the only thing she knew how to do well.

She should have learned how to make donuts or something. Much less stress. Though she’d probably weigh a thousand pounds—

“Are you, uh, running the organization now?” he asked.

Shee broke from her wandering thoughts to focus on Dr. Skinner. She sensed the man’s unease. As he was an older gentleman, she suspected the idea of a woman in charge of Loggerhead’s firepower didn’t compute. Her father had been a retired Navy SEAL and instructor. The shift from her larger-than-life father to her probably broke Skinner’s brain.

“My father left it to me to carry on. I grew up working for him. I’ve been a tracker, bounty hunter, and all-around fixer for as long as I can remember,” she said, straightening to her full five-ten height.

She was embarrassed to feel the need, but she did it anyway.

He grunted in a way that said, it is what it is, but I don’t have to like it.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Mason, entering.

Shee saw Skinner’s eyes light up.

Perfect timing.

“This is Mason Connelly,” said Angelina quickly. “Retired Navy SEAL Commander Mason Connelly.”

The man scaled Mason’s height with his eyes.

“Yes,” he said.

Shee watched the tension—and any chance she had of making it clear she was in charge—melt from the man as Mason shook his hand and sat.

“How can we help you?” she asked to remind him she was there.

The doctor grimaced.

“I think someone is trying to send me a message,” he said, holding Mason’s gaze.

“How so?” asked Shee.

Hello? Over here?

Skinner took a deep breath.

“About a month ago, one of my patients was found dead. Apparent suicide.”

He paused long enough that Shee felt compelled to comment.

“But you don’t believe it was suicide?”

He bit his lip as if he needed a moment to think.

“We were treating him for…an issue. He was fairly high up in the military and worried if word got out about this issue, he’d be passed over for promotions or pushed out altogether.”

“So he came to you for privacy?”

Skinner nodded. “That’s what we do. The Institute’s primary mission is providing the highest level of medical care with total confidentiality.” He chuckled. “I imagine you operate much the same way.”

She nodded, and the doctor continued.

“Anyway, to answer your question, I have my doubts because he overdosed on Prozac, which is very rare, and the amount—he had over eight grams in his body.”

“That’s a lot?” asked Shee.

“That’s about four hundred pills at the twenty-milligram dose I’d prescribed him.”

Her eyes widened. “Four hundred? I guess we can rule out an accident.”

“Yes, but suicide is unlikely as well. I mean, he washed them down with alcohol—the combination is more deadly—but still...”

“How did he get his hands on four hundred pills?” asked Mason.

Skinner shook his head. “He shouldn’t have been able to, but he could have found a connection or saved up that many over time. We’d been treating him for years.”

Shee scowled. “You think someone forced him to take them? That seems like a leap.”

Skinner ran his finger back and forth over the tabletop. “I agree. At least, I did agree until a week ago when they found the body of another of my patients at the end of my street—and a third might be missing.”

“Someone dumped a body at the end of your street?” asked Mason.

“Raquel Roque,” said a voice at the door.

Shee turned to find Croix hovering in the doorway. She’d been eavesdropping, as usual.

“Would you like to join us, Croix?” asked Shee.

Croix flashed the group a sheepish smile and took a seat.

“They found Raquel Roque’s body dumped in a neighborhood a week ago,” she said.

“Doctor Skinner, this is Croix, head of our cyber division.”

Croix looked at her, surprised to hear she had a title.

They didn’t officially have a cyber division, but after Skinner’s skittish reaction to her position at the top of Loggerhead, Shee didn’t want to lose the account due to the presence of an eavesdropping young woman. She figured a young person in charge of technology wouldn’t strike the doc as a liability.

Croix turned to the doctor.

“CTO of cybercrimes,” she said.

Shee turned her head so she could roll her eyes in private.

Skinner frowned. “I’m uncomfortable sharing patient information. I’m legally prevented.”

“Even when they’re dead?” asked Croix.

Shee winced, but Skinner nodded.

“Even after death.”

“Do your best,” said Shee. “Raquel Roque—why is that name familiar?”

“She’s the It Girl right now around Miami. Had a club hit.” Skinner made air quotes around the word club. “I forget the details now, but long story short, she was popular in the Miami club scene.”

Croix motioned to the top of her head.

“She had a sort of skunk stripe—”

That image triggered Shee’s memory. She’d seen the woman on television.

“Oh, I saw her somewhere,” she said.

He nodded. “She was everywhere for a bit. She—” He grimaced again and Shee knew he was about to spill a detail he didn’t want to share. “She was known for her posterior.”

He put an odd emphasis on the word. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to tell them something or simply found the idea distasteful.

“She came to you for depression drugs, too?” asked Mason.

“No—”

The doctor swallowed as he realized he’d made it easy for them to guess the first victim’s problem.

He sighed. “You should probably know the injuries on that body seemed very specific. Hence my concern.”

“They didn’t say what happened to her in the news,” said Croix. “I thought they were being dodgy about that, but I assumed it was a drug overdose or something.”

Skinner leaned in and lowered his voice. “I don’t know all the details, but someone removed her gluteus maximus.”

Croix straightened. “They cut off her butt?”

Skinner winced. “That would be another way to say it, yes.”

Shee sat back.

That’s a new one.

“So you—” Croix covered her open mouth with her hand. “It was fake?”

“You do plastic surgery too?” asked Shee.

“Duh. Did you not look him up?” asked Croix.

Shee scowled at her. She hadn’t. She was going to have to talk to smartass Croix about embarrassing her in front of clients.

Skinner continued, which kept Shee from choking the girl.

“We do everything. We’re a one-stop shop for the best doctors for whatever you need—not that I’m confirming or denying that’s what Miss Roque had done.”

“I could see her not wanting people to know she’d enhanced her asset,” said Angelina.

Skinner squirmed in his seat.

“Let’s move on,” said Shee, turning to Skinner. “You said a third patient is missing? What can you tell us about them?”

“You’re sure they’re connected?” added Angelina.

He bobbed one shoulder. “It’s starting to feel that way. Plus, I received an anonymous tip. They suggested they were connected—and suggested I come to you.”

This caught the group’s attention as concerned expressions rippled around the table.

“An anonymous tip? How did you get it?” asked Shee.

“Email.”

“We can maybe track that,” murmured Croix.

Shee nodded.

“Have you gone to the police?” asked Angelina.

The doctor’s attention shot to her.

“No. That’s just it. Patients come to us to protect their privacy. If word got out—”

Shee frowned. “Here’s the problem with that. If you’re all about privacy, there’s no reason someone should know these three people are your patients.”

“No.”

“But you got an anonymous tip from someone who must have known. How did this source know?”

Skinner hemmed.

“I don’t know. We go to great lengths to hide that information. Guests have a special entry to the building. Unless someone sat and watched every car that went in and out—even then, it would be hard to piece things together. You’d have to really try.”

“Of course, someone planning on killing your patients would really try,” said Mason.

“I suppose they would—” Skinner straightened. “Are you saying the person who sent me the tip and the murderer are the same?”

“No—” said Shee quickly, realizing that would give the doctor every reason to mistrust them.

She shouldn’t have mentioned her confusion at all but couldn’t help it. Skinner was all about privacy, and yet someone knew enough to kill his patients, and someone knew enough to see the connection between the deaths and suggest Loggerhead.

That meant at least two people knew plenty about Skinner’s patients—or the killer and the person who suggested Loggerhead to find the killer were the same person?

Nothing made sense.

Mason crossed his beefy arms against his chest.

“This Raquel Roque death sounds more like a sick, obsessed fan taking a souvenir.”

“For a killer to make one victim OD and then to remove parts of the next—that’s quite an escalation.”

Skinner bobbed his head. “I’m sure obsessed fan is the direction the police investigation will go—but to have her dropped at the end of my street—”

Shee nodded. “There is a correlation to the deaths. Your depression patient died from depression drugs, and your tush patient lost her enhanced tush.”

Skinner started to nod and then stopped in a vain attempt to pretend he hadn’t shared medical information with them.

Shee found it less and less odd that information about the patients leaked from the Institute. Skinner was terrible at keeping secrets.

“Who’s the third victim?” asked Angelina.

Skinner paused.

“A judge,” he said after a minute of soul-searching. “Blondo is his last name. He’s missing, not dead, but...”

“I’m assuming he has a secret, too?”

Skinner pulled his hand down his face.

“This is difficult—”

Angelina placed a hand on Skinner’s arm and said, “He could be alive and in danger. Surely, you can share medical information if it saves a person’s life? Doesn’t the Hippocratic Oath start with First, do no harm?”

Skinner stared at her hand, looking pained. Angelina gave Shee a knowing glance and leaned toward him.

“He’s a judge, you said?”

He nodded.

“So, his secret would make people question his judgment, right?”

Skinner grimaced. “I can’t say.”

“Some sort of mental thing, though?”

“I—”

“Depression?”

Angelina searched his expression. Shee could tell she wasn’t seeing what she was looking for.

“Maybe some sort of dementia?”

His gaze moved to her.

Angelina sat back.

Dementia.

Angelina had been a fixture on the underground poker circuit for years. She read people like books. The doctor could cry about betraying his thoughts to her later—a thousand poker players were out there, ready to commiserate with him.

“How do you know this judge is missing?” asked Mason.

The doctor looked at him. He seemed eager to move on.

“I called his wife when he missed an appointment. She doesn’t know where he is. I don’t know if she’s reported it to the police yet. I started to worry with everything going on, so I checked, and he didn’t show up to court either.”

“Why wouldn’t his wife have reported it?” asked Shee.

The doctor sighed. “They have a difficult relationship.”

“Could he have wandered?” asked Angelina.

“He’s not that far along,” answered the doctor.

“He’s our priority. First thing, we try to find him,” said Mason.

Shee agreed.

“We’re going to want to get our IT people—”

“My cybersecurity team—” said Croix.

Shee side-eyed her.

“Right—our cybersecurity team—in your office. If you try to protect your clients’ privacy the way you say, then everything points to internal leaks.”

Skinner, who’d been deflating into his chair during the interview, snapped to attention.

“That’s impossible. My staff—”

Shee held up a hand. “Save it. I’m not saying you did anything wrong. If people want to do you harm, they do. You can’t always stop it.”

He sighed and looked at Angelina as if he wanted her to hug him.

Shee rose from her seat.

“Finalize the payment details with Angelina. The rest of us will pack for Miami.”

Croix stood.

“Whoo hoo!”

Shee shot her a look and noticed a shadow move at the bottom of the closed door behind the girl. She walked to it and rested her hand on the knob, smelling the scent of expensive cologne.

Got you.

She jerked open the door.

Her ex-army conman, Ollie, stumbled back.

“Oh, hi there,” he said, turning on his thousand watt who me? smile.

She scowled.

Angelina stayed with Skinner while Shee, Mason, and Croix exited into the hall, and she closed the door behind them to glare at Ollie.

Ollie preferred the title acquisition expert to conman, but he was basically a younger male version of Angelina. His shoes were almost as expensive as hers, too. Ollie was suave, handsome, charming, and terrible at eavesdropping.

“What is wrong with you people?” Shee hissed at him.

“¿Quién, yo?” he asked, with his palm on his chest. “What did I do?”

“We’re going to Miami,” said Croix, jogging down the hall.

“Me too?” asked Ollie.

“The usual gang, I think,” said Shee.

Ollie grinned and did a little fist pump.

“Miami. Yes.”

He strode off, and Shee looked at Mason.

“What are we going to do with these people?” she asked.

Mason shrugged.

“That’s the good thing about what we do. We can always kill them.”

Chapter Three

“This place is a dump,” said Croix.

The Loggerhead crew arrived at their modest Miami rental home ready to start on the Skinner Institute case. The one-story stucco home had Spanish tiles missing from the roof and chips in the once cheery yellow paint, but it was a decent size, located near the Skinner Institute, and cheap.

They were here to work. They weren’t on vacation.

Shee braced herself for complaints.

“I thought we were staying in a hotel,” moaned Croix as she threw her bag over her shoulder.

Shee scoffed as she stretched her back.

“You think I’m going to pay nightly at some South Beach hotel for you people?”

“I hoped so.”

“Yeah, no.”

Shee punched in the door code and claimed the biggest bedroom for herself and Mason. She had to box Croix from running down the hallway.

“Mine,” she said.

“Aw, come on,” said Croix. “Throw me a bone. You’ve already destroyed my dreams with this haunted house.”

Shee growled and pointed to another room as Ethan, their new young tech wiz, joined Croix in the hall. As the two youngest in their group,  he and Croix generally worked as a team. Croix had been using him as a freelance hacker for months before he appeared on the Loggerhead’s doorstep. They’d taken him in like a stray.

He was a handy stray, though.

“You two will be in there,” she said.

Croix and Ethan stared into the room with all the enthusiasm of new inmates. Shee supposed the small spare bedroom did resemble a prison cell—if the prison bought its sheet sets in the kids’ section.  The dogs-in-sailboats motif didn’t scream Alcatraz.

“Throw your stuff in there. Let’s go. Meeting in the living room,” she said.

“Why do we get this room?” asked Croix.

Shee arched an eyebrow. “Do you want some cheese with that whine?”

Croix stuck her tongue out at her.

“There are bunk beds,” groaned Ethan.

“I’m sorry, but there are four bedrooms and six people. You do the math,” said Shee.

“Yeah, but why do Shiva and Ollie get the two other bedrooms? Shouldn’t we draw straws or something?” asked Croix.

“They get them because they’re two adult single people.”

“But we’re two adult single people,” said Croix.

Shee held up her thumb.

“First off, adult is a stretch.”

“Oh, you’re hilarious,” spat Croix.

Shee continued with her next finger.

“Second, you’re the youngest of the group, so those are the breaks.”

“This is ageism.”

Shee popped out a third finger.

“Third, don’t act like you’re scandalized to have to stay in the same room. You two are always canoodling in your rooms.”

“Canoodling?” echoed Croix.

Croix and Ethan’s faces flashed crimson like synchronized lightning bugs.

Shee smirked.

“We know you’ve woken up in the same room together at least once. I don’t know why you think we’re all stupid—anything you’ve done, we’ve done ten times. You think you know everything, but us old folks actually do know everything.”

Croix rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. Mick told me you thought you knew everything, but he actually knew everything.”

Shee shrugged. “I’m sure he meant when I was your age.”

She took a moment to freeze her expression and gather herself. Mention of her late father still hit her like a shot to the solar plexus. She imagined someday she’d hear his name without suffering that pang of loss, but that day hadn’t arrived yet.

She sighed.

“Would you rather bunk with Shiva?” she asked.

All three turned to look at Shiva, who’d claimed her room and now stood against the wall cleaning her nails with a small throwing knife. Shiva was an enigma. They knew she’d been one of the first women inducted into the Indian Garud commando special forces and then spent some time somehow indentured to a criminal as a contract killer—that part was fuzzy.

“I’m not sure if she’s the sort who wakes up in the middle of the night thinking she’s under attack...” said Shee.

Croix and Ethan exchanged a look.

“No. We’ll make it work,” muttered Croix.

Shee smiled and headed into the living area as Ollie left his room ahead of her and flopped onto the large sectional sofa. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together like he was trying to start a small fire in his palms.

“Okay, what’s next?” he asked.

The others gathered, and Shee took a deep breath.

“Okay. New mission. We’re working for Dr. Skinner of the Skinner Institute. He’s basically a plastic surgeon to the stars, though he has a staff and offers other services.”

“Operation Tummy Tuck,” said Ollie.

Shee ignored him.

“First priority is finding one of his missing patients—a Judge Blondo. Mason and I will talk to his wife. Croix and Ethan, Skinner is expecting you. Go to the hospital and get set up with IT. See what you can find on his system, check out the cameras, set some traps, do whatever you nerds do.”

She marveled as they rolled their eyes in unison. At this rate, they’d be the same person in about six months.

She turned to Ollie and Shiva.

“Ollie, you go with the kids. Use your gift of gab to feel out the staff. Gather info. Shiva, I guess you can shadow him. Play his assistant.”

Ollie snickered.

Shiva seemed nonplussed but didn’t complain.

“That’s it. That’ll get us started.”

Mason grabbed his keys.

“You know where we’re going?” he asked.

“I have the wife’s address.” She turned to the group as they headed for the door. “We’ll meet back here for dinner.”

“What are you making?” asked Croix.

Shee snorted. “Now who’s hilarious?”

Shee followed Mason to his truck, and they headed for the missing judge’s home.

She was upbeat. It felt good doling out the team’s responsibilities.

“Feels like a real team. Like we have all our bases covered,” said Shee.

Mason nodded. “It does. Though things usually feel pretty promising before the shit storm starts.”

She scowled.

“Party pooper.”

They drove ten minutes to the judge’s house and parked on the street. A gate blocked them from making it to the courtyard that led to the front door. Shee sized up a speaker box standing to the left of the gate and pushed the red button.

A moment later, a voice crackled over the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Hi. We were wondering if we could ask you some questions about your husband’s disappearance?”

The air hissing on the line went quiet. Shee pressed the intercom again.

“Hello?”

They heard a door slam and turned to see a woman in a turquoise caftan walking toward them with a glass of what looked like iced tea in her hand.

Shee smiled. “Hello, Mrs. Blondo—”

“Are you police?” the woman asked through the gate’s bars.

“No, we—”

Shee stalled, realizing she should have thought ahead about their identities. In her head, she’d fast-forwarded to talking with the woman and hadn’t considered the possibility Mrs. Judge wouldn’t be anxious to find her husband.

She couldn’t say she worked for the Skinner Institute and reveal the connection between the suspicious suicide and Raquel’s messy murder. If she didn’t mention the possible connection, Mrs. Blondo would wonder why her husband’s doctor was having a meltdown over a missed appointment.

An idea popped to mind, and Shee perked.

“We work for the court. We’re concerned he hasn’t shown up to work,” she said.

The woman frowned.

“Did you call the police?” asked Mason.

She looked at him like he’d asked if she knew how to spell cat.

“No, I didn’t call the police. I know where he is.”

Shee’s eyes widened. “Oh, you do?”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It probably meant good things for the judge, but she might be out of a job.

“He’s with his whore,” spat the woman. “Do you know where she lives?”

“Um, no...” said Shee.

The woman’s lips twisted into a leering grin.

“No problem. I have her address because I hired private detectives to follow him six months ago.”

Shee nodded slowly. “I see. Um, good, I guess.”

“Let me get it for you.”

Mrs. Blondo turned and walked back into the house.

“She seems like a nice lady,” said Mason.

Shee chuckled. “In all fairness, it seems she has a right to be a little pissed.”

He nodded.

The woman reappeared, crossing the courtyard with a piece of paper folded in her hand.

“Here you go,” she said, slipping it through the bars.

Shee took it and opened it to view a copy of a private detective’s report. It had four small photos at the top—one a close-up of a dark-haired woman’s face and three of that same woman and an older man in various states of undress and canoodling. Two of them were taken through a bedroom window.

The man resembled the photos she’d seen of Judge Blondo.

Oh boy.

The wife’s detective had left little to the wife’s imagination. The judge could never find a reasonable way to explain away these shots.

Below the photos was the name and address of the woman. Written across all of it, in big red marker letters, was the word WHORE! triple-underlined.

Shee assumed the wife had added that bit. It would be pretty unprofessional of the detective to deliver it that way.

“Nice pictures, huh?” asked the wife. “That’s my Richard. All class. She barely looks older than our daughter. It’s disgusting.”

The woman huffed and took a sip from her iced tea in a slow measured way usually reserved for alcoholic beverages. Shee suspected the tea was more than tea.

“And you think he’s with her? At her place?” asked Shee.

She waved a fuschia-tipped finger at them.

“I don’t care. What don’t you people understand? Stop bothering me. I hope he stays there. I’ve already got the divorce rolling, and I’m keeping the house.”

“You’re not at all worried something happened to him?”

Mrs. Blondo exploded with laughter.

“Ha. I should be so lucky.”

She took another sip, keeping one eye on Shee, and then lowered her glass, frowning.

“Like what?” she asked. “Is there a reason to think something happened to him?”

Shee realized they’d come dangerously close to revealing their true interest in the judge’s disappearance.

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t know. It was just a thought. You haven’t had anything odd happen, have you? No threats? Break-ins here at the house? No sign of violence?”

The woman gaped at her.

“Signs of violence? What does that mean?”

“I mean, you didn’t find evidence that your husband was taken against his will, for example? An unexplained broken glass on the ground—”

The woman poked a finger at the ground.

“Here?”

Shee shrugged. “Here. Or anywhere.”

Mrs. Blondo rolled this idea around her head as she took another sip.

“No...” She frowned. “Should I be worried? Is someone coming here for me? To hurt me?”

“That’s not what we’re saying—”

“He presides over cases with some pretty dangerous characters. I guess you know that.”

“Sure.”

She barked a bitter laugh. “Wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake? He cheats on me and then gets me killed?”

Mason held up a hand. “We don’t have any reason to believe you’re in danger.”

She looked away as if her mind had drifted.

“Of course, if he did get himself killed, it would save me a fortune in divorce lawyers.”

Shee and Mason exchanged a look.

This was an angry woman.

It was clear she didn’t have any more useful information.

“We won’t take up any more of your time,” said Shee. “You don’t know where he is, you don’t care, and there’s a good chance he’s with this woman. Is that about everything?”

She held up the paper, and Mrs. Blondo nodded.

“That’s it. That, and I’m taking him to the cleaners. That’s the punchline to that joke.”

“Got it. Okay. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” purred Mrs. Blondo before storming back to her house and slamming the door behind her.

“Wow,” said Mason.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” said Shee.

Mason chuckled.

“If he shows up dead, she’ll be at the top of the suspect list.”

“Maybe. Rightfully so,” said Shee as they started back to the truck. “Maybe she did kill him. Could be he’s got nothing to do with the other murders.”

“Mm. Who’s the mistress?”

Shee handed him the paper.

“Chrissy Park.”

He looked at the sheet and winced.

“Yikes. We only needed the address. She didn’t have to give us photos and commentary.”

She shrugged. “No, but I think she enjoyed it.”

Shee and Mason drove to the mistress’s apartment located conveniently close to the courthouse.

“Do you think they met because she lives near the courthouse, or do you think he bought her an apartment?” Shee asked as they got out of the truck.

Mason smirked. “I think Mrs. Blondo’s divorce accountants could probably tell you.”

Shee chuckled as they approached the retro four-story apartment building. White stucco and glass alternated, punctuated by flashes of flamingo pink trim to remind passersby they were in Miami. Porches wrapped around the entire building, giving the residents a spot to enjoy the sunset or sunrise—depending on what side of the building they lived. The mistress had one of the side apartments with both views, if only half of each.

Shee knocked on the door and realized she still had the WHORE! flyer in her hand. She gave it an extra fold and held it behind her as the door opened.

“Can I help you?” asked the woman.

Shee guessed Crissy Park to be in her mid to late thirties. Judge Blondo was sixty-eight.

“Hi, Miss Park. We were wondering if you’ve seen Judge Blondo lately?”

The woman stalled, her expression growing rigid.

“Who?” she asked.

Shee sighed.

We’re playing that game.

“We know you’re in a relationship with Judge Blondo—”

Chrissy sucked in a breath to deny the accusation. Shee held up a hand to stop her.

“—and we’re not here about that. We have reason to believe he’s gone missing—unless you can tell us otherwise?”

The woman paled.

“Did his wife send you?” she asked.

“Not exactly. We don’t work for her, but she doesn’t know where he is either. She thinks he’s here.”

Chrissy pointed to the ground and went another shade whiter.

“She sent you here?” She bit her lip. “That’s not good.”

“Again, we’re not here about any relationship complications. We just want to confirm that the judge is alive and well. Is he here?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Last week—” She put a hand on the door frame to steady herself. “I feel dizzy.”

A green plastic chair sat outside her door, and she stepped out to drop into it.

“Whew. It is hot,” she said, fanning herself.

Shee noticed the mistress had come outside into the heat rather than invite them inside.

Maybe the judge was in there.

“Do you know anything that could help us find him?” asked Mason.

Chrissy looked up at him. “No. He has been acting a little strange ever since—”

Her focus bounced between Shee and Mason a few times before she continued.

“Do you really think something happened to him? This isn’t his wife playing some trick? This is important?”

Shee nodded. “Very important.”

Chrissy sighed. “Hold on.”

She went inside and returned with an envelope a minute later.

“He got this,” she said, handing it to Shee.

The envelope had Blondo’s name across the front, with no stamp or address. The top had been ripped open, and from it, Shee pulled a single sheet of paper with a typed message on it.

“Bring me a hundred thousand dollars, or I’ll tell the press about your broken brain. Four o’clock. Today.”

Below that was a pair of numbers Shee recognized as GPS coordinates.

“And he went to this meeting?” asked Shee.

Chrissy shrugged. “I don’t know. He opened it and I saw it upset him. He put it in the drawer he keeps here. I asked him what it was, but he told me not to worry about it. He was acting weird, though. When I couldn’t get ahold of him, I looked at it. I thought it was something from his wife, but you’re saying—?”

Shee’s phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket.

“It’s Angelina,” she said, handing Mason the phone. “Can you take it?”

He stepped away, and she returned her focus to Chrissy.

“I’m going to take this,” she said, holding up the paper.

The woman bit her lip. “I don’t know...”

“If something happened to him, do you want the police coming here looking for this?”

She shook her head. “No. Okay, but—what about when he comes back and sees it’s gone?”

“I’ll give you my phone number. You let me know when he comes back, and I’ll be sure you get this back.”

Chrissy nodded and ducked inside to get her phone. Shee rattled off her number.

“Is there anything else in his drawer you think might be useful?” she asked.

Chrissy shook her head. “Just socks and underwear—” she paused and added, “—and a money clip.”

She looked at Shee.

“If he doesn’t come back—?”

“You can keep the money,” said Shee.

Chrissy nodded.

Shee said goodbye and jogged downstairs to find Mason waiting for her.

She chuckled as she approached him. “She wanted to know if she could keep the money the judge left at her house if he doesn’t come back.”

“He’s not coming back,” said Mason.

“You don’t think so?”

Mason frowned.

“I know so. That’s why Angelina called. They found his body.”

Chapter Four

Croix frowned as Dr. Skinner focused on Ollie. As instructed, the four had driven to the Skinner Institute—Ollie, Shiva, Ethan, and her.

She’d walked in the room first.

She’d introduced herself and the others.

And then the doctor immediately focused on Ollie as the one in charge—because he was the oldest male.

Croix ground her teeth.

I swear. Old white guys.

Florida had them like a case of the shingles.

“We need to get these two set up on a computer where they can check the security of your system,” said Ollie, motioning to Croix and Ethan.

“Of course. I’ll set you up with Tamara, our IT person,” said Dr. Skinner. He leaned to press a button on his phone system.

“Kal, could you get Tamara for me?”

“Sure,” said the assistant’s voice through the speaker and from the waiting room outside Skinner’s door.

Ollie crossed his arms against his chest.

“Great. Are the medical records of all your patients in the system?”

Skinner shook his head. “No. A specialized third-party medical security company stores our medical information. We outsource with them.”

“Are they local?”

He grimaced. “Not exactly. They have an office here, but I think they’re out of the Netherlands. We work with their server farm in California.”

There was a knock on the door, and a young woman walked in. She looked about Croix’s age and had similar tight dark curls hanging to shoulder length. She was shorter, paler, and more curvy—she looked a little like someone had taken Croix and compacted her.

Skinner motioned to her. “This is Tamara. Tamara, these two need access to the system. Could you do that for them?”

Tamara frowned. “How much access?”

“All of it.”

Her eyes widened. “All of it?”

Skinner scowled. “All of it.”

“Okay.” Tamara shrugged, looking uneasy.

Ollie turned to Croix and Ethan. “You two go with her and see if you can find any connections or —”

“Yeah, we know what to do,” said Croix.

Ollie’s eyebrows raised. “Excuse me. Of course, you do.”

He bowed, and Croix smirked. She couldn’t stay mad at that guy.

She looked to Tamara, who motioned for them to follow her. She led them through the outer office and down the hall to a locked room. She opened it with a key card to reveal four computing stations and several servers.

“You can pick a station,” she said. “Except that one; that’s mine.”

Croix had guessed that spot belonged to Tamara. It was the only desk with photos on it. A cat and a group of girls at what looked like some college event. No boyfriend or family.

“How many people have that card?” asked Croix.

Tamara looked at the key card in her hand. “I don’t know. They gave it to me when I started. I imagine Dr. Skinner, Dalla, security—”

“Dalla?”

“She’s the hospital admin.”

Croix nodded.

Ethan picked a station, and Tamara leaned over to type in a password. Her shirt fell open as she dipped, and Ethan looked away.

The screen popped to life.

Ethan smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice soft.

Croix felt a wave of jealousy and scowled, embarrassed.

Ridiculous.

“Do you want a station, too?” asked Tamara.

It took Croix a second to realize the girl was talking to her.

“Me? Oh. No. That’s okay. I’ll pull up a chair next to him.”

Tamara’s head bobbed. “Okay. Do you need me to show you around? I have a meeting, but—”

“I’m good,” said Ethan, holding up a hand without turning. He was already navigating through the system.

“Okay. I’ll check back in a bit.”

“Thanks,” said Croix, reaching into her phone case to slide out a business card. “Here’s our information. If you think of anything you think we should know, let us know. Feel free to call me.”

Tamara took the card and stared at it for a moment.

“Know about what?” she asked.

Croix realized Skinner hadn’t told the staff why they were there.

“Um, about security.”

“So you’re doing, like, an audit of our cybersecurity?” she asked.

Croix nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Okay. I’m around if you need anything.”

Tamara flashed a tight smile and tucked Croix’s card into her phone case before leaving.

Croix turned to Ethan after the door shut.

“I guess it was handy Shee made us business cards. I had my doubts. Who uses business cards?”

“Sometimes, they come in handy,” mumbled Ethan, his typing and clicking never slowing.

“I guess.”

Croix glanced at the closed door.

“Tamara seemed nice,” she said.

Ethan grunted.

“She didn’t seem to love the idea of us poking around though. Maybe she’s insulted he’d get someone to check on her work?”

“I wouldn’t call what she set up here work,” muttered Ethan.

“Not good? You’re in?”

“I’m in. Not good. I probably could have gotten in from Loggerhead.”

“Does it look like someone has been hacking the system?”

“I haven’t had a chance to really look, but no.”

“So we are talking about an inside job?”

He paused his typing. “Can you give me a second?”

“Sorry.” She found a rubber eraser and tried to bounce it against the wall, but it shot to the left and landed on Ethan’s keyboard.

He shot her a look.

“Sorry. My bad,” she said before he could comment. “I’m bored. Can I help?”

He returned to typing, and she saw his shoulders bounce.

“You know how to hack around. Get on another computer. I’ll set you up a login,” he said.

“Nah. I’ll only mess you up. I don’t want to get in your way, Wraith,” she teased, using his hacker handle.

He shook his head without responding and handed her back the eraser without looking.

“Do you want top bunk or bottom?” she asked, using the eraser to create a bridge between a box of tissues and a cup of pens.

“Top.”

“Nope.”

“Then bottom.”

“Deal.”

Ethan’s head lowered as he squinted at the screen. He did that whenever he found something interesting.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Someone was researching patient files, but it looks like it was Skinner’s login.”

“You think he’s killing his own patients?”

“More likely, someone is using his login to hide their identity.”

Croix nodded. “Right. Ooh. Note the times. Maybe we can match the login times with the security cameras or work logs.”

“Way ahead of you.”

“Did they look up the two dead ones and the judge?”

“Yes, but there are, like, a dozen more that follow the same pattern—” 

Ethan stopped typing.

“Hold on.”

“What is it? Did you find who was in there?”

“No. Not who did it, but I found something.”

“What?”

He typed a little more.

“The apparent target list...”

Croix straightened. “A victim list?”

“Yes, probably, but that’s not the most interesting part.”

“What is?”

“Ollie’s on it.”

Croix gaped. “Ollie Ollie? Our Ollie?”

She pushed her wheeled chair across the room to peer over Ethan’s shoulder.

“I don’t see his name.”

Ethan pointed to the screen. “See Loggerhead’s street address next to Latino, Male? Do we have any other Latino males living with us?”

Croix scowled. “No—there’s no name?”

“They give the patients code names to help hide their anonymity. I need to find the key, but this has to be Ollie. The age, weight, and height all match.”

“What’s his code name?”

“RicoSuave.”

She nodded. “That’s him. So, Ollie was a patient here?”

“By the looks of it.”

“What did he have done? Plastic surgery? I knew he was too pretty.”

“The medical records are in that third-party system Skinner mentioned. I’d need to get that password and match it with the code names. I suppose we could just ask him, but it’s weird he didn’t say anything, isn’t it?”

“I wonder if it had something to do with his injury.”

Ethan’s brow knitted. “What injury?”

“He’s got a bunch of scars on his chest and down here,” she motioned just above her pubic bone.

Ethan scowled. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen him with his shirt off.”

“And his pants down?”

She chuffed.

“No. Not naked. He was in a towel.”

“A towel? At the beach?”

“No, in the hotel room the last time we were in Miami.”

“You two slept in the same hotel room?”

Croix pushed back in her chair to glare at him.

“What the hell, dude? Not like that. Jeez. They were connected suites. Good thing, too, because someone roofied my drink, and he took care of me.”

“I bet,” muttered Ethan.

Croix’s mood darkened.

“Who do you think you are?” she asked. “Why are you acting all jealous?”

Ethan gaped. “I’m not. Why would I be jealous?”

Croix scoffed. “I can’t imagine.”

“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not.”

Croix seethed.

“We should get back to work.”

Ethan turned back to his screen.

“I never stopped working,” he said.

Croix rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. The important thing is you found a potential conflict of interest.”

He nodded. “How well do you know him?”

She felt her anger flash again.

“I thought we were dropping—”

Ethan huffed. “No, not like that. I mean, could he be part of what we’re investigating?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. How well do any of us know any of us?”

Feeling her agitation building, Croix stood.

“I’m going to go find Ollie,” she announced.

He shrugged.

“Okay. I’ll keep working on this.”

“Fine,” she said, throwing open the door.

“Fine,” she heard him say as she headed down the hall.

Chapter Five

In the elevator, on their way to the next floor of the Skinner Institute, Ollie found himself staring at Shiva’s upscale sarong-style skirt and simple white blouse.

He’d never seen her so dressed up before.

She wore jewelry, too—dangling gold earrings with blue stones, several gold bracelets of various widths, and a thick but flat chain with a flower dangling from the center. Her hair hung in her trademark ponytail, and her shoes were flats—

She hadn’t gone completely crazy.

Usually, she wore utilitarian clothing—drab shorts paired with drab tees. Tans, grays, dusky blues—once, she’d worn a sky blue tank top, and he’d asked her if she was drunk.

She looked fantastic in all of it. She smelled good, too. The elevator smelled like jasmine.

“You did a good job with the getup,” he mumbled, motioning to her skirt with a flick of his finger.

She glanced at him.

“Get up?”

“Your, uh, outfit. You look nice. Like a proper assistant.”

“You told me I’d be posing as your assistant. I thought this was appropriate.”

“Yes, I know. I just mean, you look nice.”

The corner of her mouth curled. “Thank you. I do own things other than desert camo.”

“No, I know. I’ve seen you wear—”

He stalled. Saying I’ve seen you wear a light blue tank top seemed insultingly specific.

“—things,” he said instead.

She nodded with one curt bob of her head.

“Yes. I often wear things.”

He huffed. “I’m just saying you look the part. I might make a con woman out of you yet.”

“I prefer more direct interaction with people.”

“I don’t think throwing a knife into someone’s skull is direct interaction.”

She shrugged. “It’s pretty direct.”

He nodded.

“Okay. You got me there.”

The doors opened, and they walked to the nurses’ station. The place felt like a hospital, with staff walking the halls and nurses in familiar nurse gear.

“This is the surgery level. Upstairs is psychiatry,” he said.

“How do you know?”

He looked up as if the answer was written on the ceiling.

“I read it on their website, I think.”

She nodded.

He had to admit it felt a little like the walls were closing in on him. Croix and the kid were off with IT, picking through the records. Ethan was amazing. It was just a matter of time before they found him.

I should have thought through this.

He turned to Shiva.

“Listen, at some point, I’m going to say some things a little louder. Keep an eye on the people around us when I do. See if you catch any reactions.”

She nodded. She didn’t talk unless she had to. He hated that because it made him talk twice as much, and it had been mentioned to him before that he already talked too much.

Once or twice.

They approached the nurses’ station, and Ollie donned his smile. He knew the effect of his white teeth against the backdrop of his golden skin was almost irresistible. What people didn’t know was it wasn’t his perfect smile or his handsome face that drew them in. It was his eyes. It was all in the eyes. If you smiled a real smile and softened the eyes a notch—it was as effective as throwing a puppy at someone.

They caught it every time.

“Hello,” he said to a woman behind the floor’s admin desk. “We were told we could find the hospital administrator on this floor. Ms. Yarros?”

A well-padded, middle-aged woman with fluffy highlighted hair approached the desk. She had a pronounced limp on her left side. The receptionist’s gaze shifted to her.

“This man is looking for you,” she said.

The woman focused on Ollie.

“You’re Ms. Yarros?” he asked.

“Dalla,” said the woman, shaking his outstretched hand. “How can I help you?”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ollie, and this is my assistant, Shiva.”

He paused for smiles and nods all around. He was still weighing the pros and cons of admitting they were there to investigate connections between the hospital and the murders. Shee hadn’t told them to keep the nature of their investigation a secret.

He made his decision.

“Dalla, I was wondering if we could talk to you about recent murders in the area?” he said, a little on the loud side.

Dalla’s eyes popped wide. “Murders? What would I know about murders?”

As she asked her question, Ollie scanned the room. Eyes turned toward them. That was to be expected. The receptionist glanced up and then returned to her paperwork. A man mopping the hallway glanced over and quickly lost interest.

“We think there might be some connection between them and this hospital,” he said.

Dalla's eyes shifted. She smoothed the bow at the neck of her blouse and leaned in to talk low.

“Maybe we should take this somewhere private? Are you police?”

Ollie shook his head. “No, but we work closely with them.”

Half lie. They did work with the FBI and local police. Not this case—but they did.

The woman hemmed a moment, glancing at her watch.

“Tell you what. Do you mind walking with me to my car as we talk? I’m late for a conference down the street.”

“No problem at all.”

Perfect, actually.

“Let me just get my bag.”

She walked off and entered a room off the hall.

“Did we catch anyone’s attention?” he murmured to Shiva.

“Yes. It is helpful that she wants to walk.”

His thoughts exactly. If someone followed them to eavesdrop, they knew they had a fish on the line.

They strolled toward the office door where Dalla had disappeared, and a man in orderly scrubs walked their way, stopping at the reception counter to use the hand wash station.

“Your seven?” murmured Ollie, employing the classic clock position tactic for identifying the direction of a mark.

“Yes,” said Shiva.

Dalla left her office with her bag over her right shoulder and, with a quick smile, began her gimp down the hall.

“Did you hear about Raquel Roque’s death?” he asked as they followed.

Dalla frowned. “I did. Terrible. I’m guessing since you’re here, she was murdered? Was it drugs? I mean, not that I knew she was on drugs, but the lifestyle—”

“Details haven’t been shared. We know enough to say she was murdered. Did you know her from her time here?”

Dalla scowled. “She was here?”

Ollie stopped, and Dalla stopped with him. He turned sideways to get a glimpse of the way they’d come.

The orderly had followed them.

When they stopped, he’d stopped in front of a bulletin board and now stared at a poster for choking safety as if it were the latest summer blockbuster.

“You didn’t know she was a patient? I thought famous people were your thing.”

“It is, I guess, but she was here under an assigned name and wouldn’t be someone I’d recognize.”

Ollie crossed his arms against his chest.

“So, unless someone recognizes someone or hears what pseudonym goes with whom—”

“Then, we wouldn’t know.” Dalla started walking again. “I could have checked her in myself and wouldn’t know. Hers isn’t my kind of music.”

“If I wanted to identify patients, how would I do it?”

She shrugged. “You wouldn’t.”

Ollie walked a little faster to get ahead of Dalla and then turned, forcing her to stop.

He pointed his face toward her, but his eyes were on the orderly. The young man with the buzz-cut hair had continued to tail them. With no way to stop and look casual about it, he nodded at Ollie as he passed and continued into the parking garage.

Ollie looked at Shiva.

She nodded and headed outside, too.

Ollie remained behind with Dalla.

“I understand it’s all about anonymity here, but let’s say I’m up to no good,” he said. “There has to be some way of figuring out who’s who?”

Dalla grimaced hard enough that it shifted her lipstick out of place.

“You’re saying someone is killing our patients on purpose?” asked Dalla. “Someone is figuring out who they are and then killing them? Why?”

“I can’t share the details. But if someone wanted to do that, how would they do it?”

She huffed a sigh. “I can’t imagine.”

“I can,” said Ollie. “I hate to say it, but I think they’d have to know someone here at the hospital. Someone who could get information. Someone who could check records?”

Her hand fluttered to her bow again, wrapping and unwrapping it around her finger as she spoke.

“I guess. Maybe, if they could get to where we keep the connections between the aliases and real names—wherever that is.”

She paused. She didn’t seem to like that answer and shook her head as if she were trying to reset.

“Or—” she said, trying again. “A lot of our patients are pretty famous. Sometimes, people just recognize them. The staff all signed paperwork swearing them to secrecy under penalty of being sued, but—” She sighed. “I guess if they’re killing people, they’re not that worried about being taken to court.”

Ollie cocked his hip, thinking he should get comfortable for the duration of Dalla’s meandering thoughts.

She suddenly squinted at him.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

He shook his head and opened the parking lot door for her.

“I don’t think so.”

She walked into the parking garage, and Ollie looked for Shiva. He spotted her leaning against the wall with her phone to her ear. The orderly stood on the opposite side of the door, smoking.

“I apologize. I really have to go,” said Dalla. “Could we pick this up later?”

Ollie nodded. “Sure.”

She waved and hustled as fast as her bum leg would take her to her car.

Ollie watched her go and then turned to the smoking man.

“That’s not good for you,” he said, motioning to the cigarette.

Shiva lowered her phone and moved to his side.

The young man chuckled and shrugged.

“Neither is following us,” added Ollie.

The man’s eyes flashed. He tossed the cigarette at Ollie and took off running.

“Oh, come on, I love this shirt,” said Ollie, beating at the sparks striking his polo.

Shiva bolted after the orderly, nearly knocking Ollie over in her haste to get past him.

Ollie caught his balance and sighed.

He didn’t think the kid would run.

Ugh.

Running on cement would destroy his leather bottoms.

He jogged after Shiva.

The orderly ducked into a stairwell. Shiva zipped after him. Ollie turned the corner and started down the stairs in time to see Shiva below him, climbing over the railing.

She dropped to the stairs below.

He heard bodies hit the cement and saw them tumble down the stairs to the next landing.

Ollie winced.

Ow.

Rather than dropping like an alley cat to the next level, he chose to stay on the stairs and rounded the turn. Shiva and the orderly lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. She sat up with her back against the wall.

The kid was on his stomach, his legs still partially on the stairs. He wasn’t moving.

“Are you out of your mind?” he asked Shiva, trotting down the remaining stairs.

“Did you want to chase him all day?” she asked.

“No, but it hurt my knees just watching you drop over the edge. Are you okay?”

She held up her elbow, and Ollie saw rivulets of blood dripping from it. She’d scraped her forearm.

“Just this,” she said.

“Ick,” he said. “What about him? Is he dead?”

She kicked him, and he groaned, his eyes fluttering open.

Shiva pulled one of her knives from—well, Ollie didn’t know from where. The weapon appeared in her hand like it always did—like it was one of her fingers.

She helped the groggy man to his feet. He had a growing bump on his head that already looked like he’d stuck half of a tennis ball to his forehead.

He looked at them through squinted eyes.

“I’m dizzy,” he muttered.

Ollie noticed his nametag.

Glenn.

“Come with us, Glenn. We’ll help you,” he said.

Glenn’s eyes opened wider as Ollie bent to grab his arm. He jerked it away.

“No—”

He tried to get up but fell against the wall, still dizzy from his blow to the head.

Shiva showed him her knife and moved to place the blade against his throat.

“Come with us,” she said more firmly.

They helped him steady his feet and walked him down the next flight of stairs.

Ollie looked at Shiva as they marched their prisoner out of the parking garage.

“You know what I like about you?” he asked.

She glanced his way.

“It’s your subtlety.”

Chapter Six

Shee hopped out of the truck and headed for the door of Magnolia Memory Care, the private facility where Angelina told her someone had found Judge Blondo’s body. The wily old broad had set an alert on her phone for any information about Blondo that popped up on search engines or social media.

It was brilliant, and it pissed Shee off that she hadn’t thought of it herself.

She and Mason walked around an empty police cruiser and another American-made car she suspected belonged to homicide detectives. Behind them, an empty ambulance sat, waiting for a delivery.

“They found him here?” asked Mason, following her to the door.

Shee nodded.

“The depressed man was taken out by depression drugs, Raquel went from new-butt to no-butt, and now a judge with early onset dementia shows up dead at a memory care facility. Our killer has a sick sense of humor.”

Mason frowned.

“No, I get that—but why would he check himself in here if he was trying to hide his dementia? Did he get the blackmail letter and come right here to blow the blackmailer’s hold on him?”

Shee considered.

“That’s not a bad theory, though the move wasn’t the checkmate the judge hoped it would be.”

Mason motioned to the police cars.

“Too bad the police beat us here. That won’t make things easier for us.”

She smiled and patted him on the chest as he opened the door for her.

“You leave that to me,” she murmured.

They walked inside the small but upscale foyer of the facility. The room stretched from the front of the building to the back, where a row of windows offered a breathtaking view of a man-made lake, a landscaped garden, and a cluster of police hovering around a dead guy.

Shee recognized the familiar smell of cleaning fluid mixed with floral scents.

“Can I help you?” asked an older woman with copper curls from behind a tall marble counter. It appeared she’d been left alone to handle the check-in desk. Shee suspected the rest of the staff were among the crowd outside—the ones murmuring amongst themselves as they watched the police do their thing.

Shee kept her eyes on the commotion in the back a little longer than the woman at the desk obviously wanted to wait for an acknowledgment.

“He’s not one of our patients,” she assured them.

This caught Shee’s attention.

The woman’s comment was more interesting than the dead judge himself.

“No?” she asked, approaching the desk.

She noted the woman’s nametag.

Tippy.

Tippy smiled and leaned in.

Shee loved that. People leaned when they wanted to tell you something but didn’t want anyone else to know what a blabbermouth they were.

She loved blabbermouths.

The best.

The woman’s smile faltered as she looked past Shee to Mason.

Uh oh.

It seemed Tippy’s need to gossip required an audience of one.

Time to get rid of the witness.

Shee turned to Mason.

“Hey, sweetheart, did you say you wanted to check out the grounds?” she asked.

Mason’s gaze bounced from Shee to the woman. He lifted his chiseled chin, signifying that he understood her subtext as clearly as if he’d said Ah, I get it out loud.

“Yes,” he said, pointing at her. “Yep. I’ll be back in a sec.”

Shee watched him stride toward the back of the building and then stepped closer to Tippy.

“Tell me everything,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

This was the perfect situation to use her high-school gossip-girl voice.

The woman sucked in a breath.

Her eyes lit.

“Someone left him here, isn’t that awful?” she said.

Shee smiled.

And away we go.

People loved feeling like they were part of a mystery—especially if they thought they held the key to solving it.

If it was a murder?

Even better.

Shee gasped with dramatic horror and pointed toward the back of the building.

“That person out there? You’re saying someone left a dead stranger in your garden?”

Tippy craned her neck toward Shee, shivering with excitement.

Oh yes, said her expression. Fantastically dead, and this is the most exciting day of my life.

“Yes,” said breathless Tippy. “They pushed him out there, parked him by the lake, and left.” Tippy paused and added, “I suppose it was a peaceful place to leave him. Nice view.”

Shee cleared her throat to mask the snort of laughter she couldn’t stop.

“Why would someone do that? Because they couldn’t pay for his care?” she asked once she’d gathered herself.

The woman offered a judgemental grunt.

“I don’t think it was about his care. After all, they delivered him dead.”

“That’s true. You have a good point, Tippy.”

Tippy nodded, bolstered by the compliment. There’d be no stopping her now.

“The maintenance man found him sitting in that wheelchair. The staff was losing their minds until they realized he wasn’t one of ours.”

“I bet. And no one saw anything? You must have cameras?”

“Oh sure, we have cameras everywhere. One of the police officers already took a peek and copied the footage onto one of those little stick things. He asked for the password to the account, too.”

It seemed like an odd thing to say until she grimaced and added, “I gave it to him. Do you think that was wrong?”

Shee shook her head emphatically.

“No. Not at all. He’s a police officer. You’re helping him solve the case.”

Tippy closed her eyes and nodded.

Music to her ears.

She puffed her chest.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at the computer. We have wanderers around here, you know. Sometimes, the boss needs me to hop on and see if I can find where someone went.”

She stopped and bit her lip. Shee suspected she’d realized her comments made it sound like the facility let their patients escape on a regular basis.

“It doesn’t happen very often, and they don’t get far,” she added quickly. “It isn’t a problem. Don’t tell anyone  I told you that.”

“No, of course not,” said Shee. “Can I see how it works?”

Tippy scowled. “How what works?”

Shee looked both ways and leaned across the marble. She flicked her head in the direction of the lake and lowered her voice to a whisper.

“I mean, do you still have the footage? Could I take a peek?”

Tippy smirked.

“Oh, you’re bad,” she said.

Shee nodded. “I am.”

“You want to see?”

“I do. This is amazing, Tippy.”

The woman clapped her hands together and motioned to Shee.

“Sneak around here for a second. It’s on the cloud, whatever that is. Does anyone know what a cloud is?”

Shee shook her head. “I don’t think so. But you know how to get to it, huh? You’re really good at this.”

Tippy dismissed the compliment with a wave.

“Oh, it’s not that hard. You just log into the website.”

She jerked a thumb at a monitor behind her as Shee jogged around the desk to join her.

“That sounds really neat. I should get security like that. Do you like this company? The one who runs your videos?”

“The IT guy suggested it, and it seems to work. I don’t do much with it—” She bumped Shee with her shoulder and winked at her as they hovered around the keyboard. “But I did today.”

What a day Tippy was having. Not only did she know about the dead guy in the garden, but now she was a technology wizard.

She brought up the login, and Shee noted the username. She watched the woman’s fingers as she slowly typed in the password, one finger at a time.

She hardly needed to watch—Tippy talked herself through the whole process.

“Mem, or, ree, nineteen eight nine exclamation point,” she mumbled as she typed.

“Nineteen-eight-nine is a weird number. I usually use things like 123,” said Shee, confirming what she’d heard.

“We were founded in eighty-nine,” explained Tippy.

“Oh, that makes sense then. I always make the first letter capital.”

Tippy chuckled.

“Us too. I guess everyone does. Here we go.”

She walked Shee through how to look up video clips by date and scroll through the recordings.

Shee chose the camera’s best lake view and navigated to the previous night. She watched a hunched, shuffling person push a wheelchair to the lake’s edge. They turned and lumbered out of frame.

“You found that fast. You’re good at this,” noted Tippy.

Shee heard a note of suspicion in the woman’s voice.

“I had a good teacher,” said Shee.

Tippy grinned.

Shee moved to the camera covering the parking lot.

“What are you doing?” asked Tippy.

“This horrible man must have driven the fellow in the wheelchair here, right? His car must be parked in the lot around that time?”

“Ooh, right—”

Shee heard a voice behind them.

“Tippy?”

They turned at the sound of the voice to find a sharp-nosed woman glaring back at them.

Shee froze, a smile on her face.

Shit. Party’s over, Tippy.

“Are you an officer?” the woman asked Shee.

Shee stalled, wondering if the woman would ask to see a badge if she said yes. She looked like the kind of person who would.

“Tippy was showing me how your security system works. I was saying I need to get myself one.”

“And you are?”

“Oh, hi, I’m sorry, I’m Daisy,” said Shee, walking around the desk with her arm outstretched. “My husband and I are shopping for a place for his mother.”

The woman shook her hand and lost the edge of hostility lacing her previous comments. Meeting potential customers with a dead person in the garden could throw a person off their game.

“We’re having an odd day here,” said the woman, flustered. “I could show you around—”

“Oh, it’s fine,” said Shee. “Tippy explained to me this horrible thing that’s happened to you. It isn’t your fault. We’ll come back.”

The woman’s focus shifted to Tippy. She obviously wondered if she should be angry at the receptionist for telling Shee about the judge or appreciative that she’d handled it in a way that left Shee happy to return.

She gave up and returned her attention to Shee.

“I appreciate your understanding,” she said.

Shee smiled and headed for the back door before the woman could object.

“I’ll just go grab my husband,” she called over her shoulder.

Mason looked behind him through the facility’s windows to see Shee talking intently with the desk lady.

He chuckled.

Nothing to worry about there.

Shee would make short work of that mark.

Now, it was his turn.

He paused at the group of people gathered just outside the facility.

“What’s going on?” he asked a woman in nurse’s scrubs at the edge of the group.

She turned and adjusted her gaze to look up at him.

“There’s a man down there. I think he’s dead,” she said.

“Oh no. One of the patients?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s just it. He isn’t one of our patients. No one knows where he came from or how he got here. Apparently, he’s some judge, though.”

“Really? Wow.”

“Are you here to visit a patient?” she asked.

“Hm? Oh. No. Thank you.”

He flashed her another smile and started toward the police. He could tell she’d run out of things to share about the judge and had moved on to asking him questions, which wasn’t ideal.

He made it to a second small cluster of looky-loos who’d positioned themselves just outside the perimeter of the crime scene. An officer spotted him approaching.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stay on this side of me,” she said.

“No problem,” he said, holding up a hand.

He moved to the right and craned his neck for a better view.

Nearby, he noticed a nurse and a wheelchair-bound old man in a Navy sweatshirt watching the investigation unfold.

He heard a phone ringing with a tune he didn’t recognize, and the nurse walked away from the old man to answer a call.

Mason moved a little closer.

“Thank you for your service, sir,” he said.

The old man looked over at him.

“Thank you. Name’s Lincoln,” he said.

He reached out, his large hand dangling at the end of his skinny arm like a puppy who hadn’t grown into his feet.

Mason took a stride closer to shake.

“Mason.”

“People don’t say thank you as often as you’d think,” grumbled Lincoln.

“I understand. I’m Navy as well.”

Lincoln squinted up at him.

“Yeah? You look like a Navy man.”

Mason nodded. “Retired commander. SEALs.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “No kidding. Thank you for your service, Commander. Me, I’m Seabees, myself. Turned it into a nice little construction business when I came home.”

“That’s great.” Mason motioned to the police. “Mind if I ask what’s happening here?”

The man tapped the side of his bald head with a bony finger. “Ask away. I’ve got all my marbles. I live here with my wife. She’s got the Alzheimer’s.”

Mason waited, but the man didn’t circle back to answer his question.

He tried again.

“Any idea what’s happening here?”

The man shook his head. “Not really. It’s pretty strange if you ask me.”

“How so?”

“Well, they found that man in the chair, where he is, by the lake. He isn’t from here, though. Someone left him.”

“Really? He’s in a patient gown.”

The man nodded. “I know. They musta brought him from another place like this, huh?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe looking for an upgrade and didn’t survive the trip,” he added, chuckling. He motioned to the dead man. “Did you see the thing?”

“The thing?”

“Behind his head.”

Mason shifted and squatted beside the man in the wheelchair to get a view from his angle. He noticed something dark and square-ish at the nape of the dead man’s neck.

“That thing on the back of his neck?” he asked. He assumed it was some sort of medical device.

Lincoln nodded. “Yeah. Guess what it is.”

“What?”

“A gavel. Can you believe it?”

Mason scowled. “A gavel?”

The old man nodded. “That’s what the cop told me. Someone stuck it through his spine—killed him sure as a knife. What do you think that’s about?”

Mason straightened. “I don’t know.”

It was a lie.

He knew.

The man in the wheelchair was definitely the judge.

“This whole world is going to hell in a handbasket,” said Lincoln.

Mason nodded.

He couldn’t argue with that.

Chapter Seven

The orderly locked in Ollie’s trunk area kicked at the side of the Jeep, screaming in the muffled way people with balled-up socks in their mouths screamed.

Ollie looked at his watch.

They’d maybe turned off the Jeep’s air conditioning a little too soon. Mason and Shee were taking their sweet time getting to the arranged meeting place.

As he had this thought, Mason’s black truck rounded the corner and headed for them.

“About time,” he muttered.

Shiva nodded. Even the most patient woman in the world had gotten tired of waiting.

The pair had found a quiet spot in the back parking lot of a shuttered warehouse before calling Shee and Mason to join them. Judging by the jungle growing between the asphalt cracks around them, they didn’t need to worry about anyone else showing up. The only evidence of human activity was a pile of broken beer bottles someone had chucked against a broken parking curb.

The bottle chucker wouldn’t show up during the day. That wild man probably only swung by at night to drink Daddy’s beers under the cover of darkness.

Mason parked, and Shee dropped out of the truck. She pulled down her sunglasses from where they’d been perched on her head to fight off the glare of the low, setting sun.

Mason had his Aviators on. The man woke up looking like an action hero. It made Ollie a little jealous, but he knew with his frame, there wasn’t much point wishing he had the SEAL’s muscles. If someone slapped Mason’s musculature onto his body, he’d collapse into a pile of bone dust.

“Why are we here? What’s up?” asked Shee, walking toward them. “Sorry we took so long. We were in the middle of something, and this place wasn’t easy to find.”

Ollie smiled. “That’s okay. I just didn’t think you wanted me to tell you about this on the phone or take our friend to home base.”

Shee’s brow knitted. “Our friend?”

Ollie popped the back of the Jeep, revealing a sweaty, bound man in blue hospital scrubs sitting in the back. They’d left him lying on his side with his wrists and ankles zip-tied. During the drive from the hospital to their clandestine location, Glenn had worked his way from his side to a sitting position.

Luckily for Ollie, the Loggerhead vehicles all had a healthy supply of zip-ties in them. He couldn’t open a drawer in the hotel without bumping into zip-ties. It was like Angelina had ordered a cargo ship full of them directly from China.

“Meet Glenn Bachman,” he said.

As the door opened, Glenn’s eyes popped wide, and he leaned his head out of the Jeep, sucking deep breaths of slightly cooler air through his nose. Ollie had taped his mouth shut because duct tape was the second most ubiquitous thing around Loggerhead.

Glenn released what sounded like a string of curses—hard to tell with the sock in his mouth behind the tape.

They didn’t keep socks in the car. Ollie had gotten even luckier on that one.

Shee and Mason’s jaws both went slack. Shaded by the lifted back hatch of the Jeep, Shee lifted her glasses to her head again to get a better look at Glenn.

“Why is there a bound man in your trunk?” she asked.

“He ran,” said Ollie.

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s an answer.”

Ollie caught a whiff of body odor and put a little more space between himself and Glenn. Fear had overworked the kid’s deodorant.

“I’m going to explain,” he said to Shee.

“Please. And please tell me why he’s got two heads.”

Glenn’s eyes widened.

“Hm?” he asked.

Ollie grimaced at the bulge on the young man’s forehead. It did look like he was growing a second head.

“While we were talking to Skinner’s administrator, we noticed this guy shadowing us, eavesdropping. The more I talked about the murders, the more obvious he was. He was a terrible tail.”

“The worst,” agreed Shiva.

Ollie chuckled. Shiva always spoke so formally, and that comment sounded almost like slang.

Could it be she was starting to relax a little?

Or, it could be that pouncing on someone from a height had made her giddy. She might have hit her head.

Whatever. It still made him happy.

“Hello? Can we get back to why he’s in your trunk?” asked Shee.

Ollie snapped from his thoughts. “Hm? Oh, sorry. Mind wandered a second.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, when we approached him, he ran. This made him look guilty, of course. We couldn’t just let him go.”

He snapped in the air to catch Glenn’s attention.

“If you’re going to do illegal things, you need to work on your lying. If you said you were going for a smoke and didn’t want to push past us, we might have believed you.”

Glenn scowled as best he could and said something none of them could understand.

“Is there something in his mouth?” asked Shee.

Ollie nodded. “A sock.”

“Where did you get a sock?”

He shrugged. “It was behind the seat. Probably one of Croix’s running socks.”

Glenn moaned.

Mason rubbed at his forehead. Ollie imagined his own lack of military precision caused the commander physical pain.

“Did the administrator you were talking to see you grab him?” asked Mason.

Ollie shook his head. “She’d left at that point.”

“That’s a plus.”

Ollie nodded. “Gold stars all around.”

Mason scowled.

“And his head? When did that happen?” asked Shee.

Glenn struggled against his bindings.

Ollie put a hand on his leg to calm him.

“Shiva dropped on him in the staircase like some kind of demented cat.”

Shiva looked at him.

“I mean that in the nicest way. Very effective,” he told her.

She frowned.

Ollie continued. “They fell. She skinned her elbow. Show them your elbow.”

Shiva side-eyed him and did not hold up her elbow.

“It’s a nasty bump,” said Mason, scowling at Glenn’s head.

Ollie nodded. “He was pretty loopy for a bit. He’s fine now, though.”

Glenn roared into his sock.

“As fine as a guy with a softball on his head tied up in the back of a Jeep can be, I guess.” Shee sighed. “Why would you bring him here?”

Ollie shrugged. “Because he knows something. Obviously.”

“I mean, if he was conscious, why didn’t you interrogate him there?”

“We were in a stairwell. Too public for torture.”

Glenn’s eyes darted to Ollie and then shifted to Shee. He whimpered. Clearly, he thought Shee was his best chance for compassion.

He wasn’t wrong, but it was like running up against a pack of monsters and choosing the slightly smaller monster.

“Nobody said you had to torture him. You could have talked to him,” said Shee.

Glenn made a positive grunting noise.

Ollie shrugged. “Maybe, but like I said, he was pretty out of it, and you know how Shiva likes torturing people.”

He patted Shiva on the shoulder as he spoke, and she jerked away from his touch.

“I don’t torture people,” she said. She paused and added, “Unless I have to.”

Ollie turned back to Shee. “See? See how her eyes lit up?”

Shiva snorted a laugh.

Adorable.

Ollie grinned. He couldn’t help himself. He’d only heard her laugh once or twice before. He should have guessed she preferred dark humor.

“Do you think there’s any chance this is our guy?” asked Mason. “He doesn’t look much like a murderer.”

Glenn shook his head, rambling incoherently about something.

“Why not?” Ollie put his finger in the young man’s face. “Look how close together his eyes are. I think there’s some real menace there.”

Glenn protested again, his eyes beginning to tear. He’d reached the end of his ability to cope with the situation.

Ollie patted him on the leg and gave him a wink. He figured the wink would either make him feel better or scare the crap out of him. Either worked.

He turned away to find Shee crooking a finger at him.

“Come here a second,” she said.

They walked ten feet away from the others, Shee’s back turned to Glenn.

“Mason and I found the missing judge. Someone dumped him at a memory care facility.”

Ollie scowled. “So, he’s okay? Someone checked him in and forgot to tell his wife?”

Shee shook her head. “No. He’s dead. They literally dumped him there. The staff found him sitting in a wheelchair in the back garden with a sharpened gavel shoved into the back of his neck.”

Ollie blinked at her.

“Really?”

She nodded. “I mean, I assume the gavel was sharpened. I didn’t get that part confirmed, but—”

Ollie was still processing the gavel to the neck image.

“Uf,” he said. “This guy’s a little on the nose with his symbolism, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but here’s my point. No one knows about that yet.”

“Except Glenn, if he’s our guy.”

She pointed at him. “Right. You see where I’m going. You and I read people. I’ll tell Mason to tell Glenn about the judge, and we’ll watch his reaction.”

Ollie put his hands on his hips and looked over Shee’s shoulder at his prisoner. Glenn had rested his head against the side of the cargo area. He’d closed his eyes and started slow, deep breathing exercises, no doubt to keep from having a complete panic attack.

No, poor Glenn didn’t seem like a killer. Certainly not the sort who staged elaborate murders or chopped the butt cheeks off budding Latina popstars. 

He felt bad for the kid. He was having a shitty day.

“We should probably take the gag off too, see if he says something,” he said.

Shee nodded. “Agreed. Send Mason over.”

Ollie returned to the Jeep and sent Mason to Shee. After a quick conversation, the pair returned.

“Okay. Take the gag off him,” said Shee.

Ollie ripped the tape off the man’s face and plucked the sock from his mouth.

“Ow, you didn’t have to rip half my face off,” muttered Glenn.

Ollie shrugged. “You never know which is better—slow or rip off the Band-Aid. It’s always a gamble.”

Glenn licked his lips and panted through his mouth as if he needed to catch up on the oxygen he’d been missing.

Ollie helped him sit up with his tied legs hanging off the back of the Jeep.

“I don’t know who you people are, but let me go,” he said.

“Tell us why you were so interested in our conversation,” said Ollie.

Glenn swallowed.

“I wasn’t listening to you. I was on my way out for a smoke. You were having a conversation, and I didn’t want to—”

Ollie poked the egg on Glenn’s head, and he howled.

“Why would you do that?” he spat, his eyes tearing.

“Because you’re repeating the lie I said you should have used earlier. You can’t use it now, bobo.”

Glenn grimaced and looked away.

“I can’t tell you anything else,” he muttered.

“Why?”

He looked at each of them in turn before answering.

“Because he’ll kill me. You’ve seen what he’s done.”

The crew exchanged glances of their own.

“What have we seen?” asked Shee.

Glenn didn’t answer. Ollie raised his finger as if preparing to poke his egg again, and Glenn jerked away.

“No! Wait. You had to have heard what happened to Raquel Roque.”

“What happened to her?”

“Someone dumped her near Skinner’s house.”

Ollie scowled. Did Glenn not know about the butt removal? The police hadn’t released that part in the press—if he wasn’t involved, he wouldn’t know.

Skinner had known, though.

He told Shee.

Which raised the question—How did Skinner know?

Ollie made a mental note to come back to that.

“Who else has this person killed?” asked Shee.

Glenn hung his head. “Come on.”

“You’ve got to help us out. Otherwise, how do we know you didn’t kill Raquel Roque?”

Glenn looked up.

“Me? Why would I—? I’d never—”

“What you did to the judge was pretty clever,” said Mason.

Glenn looked at him, his expression slack.

“What judge?”

Mason scoffed. “You know what judge.”

Glenn scowled. “No, there’s a couple of judges—”

“A couple?”

Glenn glowered at the ground and then looked up again.

“Was it Blondo?” he asked.

Mason nodded. “Why did you hang him from the rafters like that?”

Glenn dropped his chin to his chest.

“No, no. It wasn’t me, I swear. He asked me to get him the list. I didn’t know he was going to kill people.” He looked back up. “A judge? He hung a judge?”

Ollie and Shee looked at each other.

The kid wasn’t faking.

He didn’t know Judge Blondo was dead, and he didn’t know he’d been found in a wheelchair.

“Maybe you didn’t do the killing, but you got the killer the patient list. You fed him the information he needed to target people,” said Shee.

Glenn’s shoulders slumped as far as they could with his arms bound behind him.

“He’s going to kill me,” he muttered.

“You’re missing an important point,” said Ollie. “We’re going to kill you.”

Glenn’s attention snapped to him.

“But—”

Ollie held up a palm to stop him.

“Give us a reason not to,” he said.

“Okay. Okay.”

Glenn tilted his head back for a minute and then refocused on them.

“I was robbing the patients,” he began. “These people who go to Skinner, they have so much money, you know? I’d copy their house keys while they were in surgery or rehab and break in when I knew they weren’t home. Just the ones who didn’t have family at home.”

“Oh, good. Then, that’s fine,” drawled Mason.

Glenn sighed. “Someone found out. They told me I had to get them information about the patients, or they’d turn me in.”

“What kind of information?” asked Mason.

“Confidential information. Everything. Who they were, their addresses, what they were at Skinner Institute for—”

“So you got him the list,” said Shee.

He nodded.

“A comprehensive list? Everyone? Ever?” asked Ollie.

Glenn nodded. “Pretty much.”

Ollie frowned.

“He blackmailed you so he could blackmail others.”

“I guess. I mean, I figured that’s what he was doing. Not killing people.”

“Do you know who he is? Can you get ahold of him?” asked Shee.

Glenn cocked his head.

“The guy? No—and I can’t get to him anymore. He called me, but the number’s dead now. I know because I tried to call him after Raquel Roque died. I wanted to—I don’t know—ask him if he did it. When I heard the number was disconnected I realized how stupid it was to try and talk to him again. I was relieved.”

“I’ve got his phone in the front,” said Ollie, pointing to the vehicle.

Shee nodded.

“How did you get him the information?” she asked Glenn.

Glenn frowned. “Are you going to keep my phone?”

“Answer her,” said Ollie, nodding to Shee.

The boy huffed.

“He told me to put it all on a thumb drive and leave it taped to a tree.”

“Where? In the city?”

“No—out in the middle of nowhere. He tied a ribbon around it so I could find it. I taped the drive to it and left.”

“No cameras,” murmured Shee. “How did he find you? How did he know you were robbing the patients?”

“I don’t know. He left a note under the windshield wiper of my car the first time with a number to call.”

“Do you still have that note?”

“No. I put the number in my phone and then threw it out.”

“Where’s your car now?”

“In the lot, at the hospital.”

Shee pulled out her phone.

“Right now – Give me make, model, color, license plate, where it’s parked, and your phone number and address.”

Glenn grunted. “I don’t know the license plate. Starts with a B, I think.”

“Give me what you can.”

Shee hit the record button on her phone and held it up. Glenn rattled off his information.

“Give him back his phone,” said Shee.

“Really?” asked Ollie.

She nodded. “This guy isn’t going to be stupid enough to use a registered phone to call him. Not when he’s being so careful with everything else. He called from a burner.”

Ollie went to the front of the Jeep and grabbed Glenn’s phone. He handed it back to him.

“Thanks,” said Glenn with a little smirk.

Ollie scowled.

“Do you park in the same place every day?” Shee asked Glenn.

“Yes.”

Shee turned to Ollie. “Garage cameras might have caught the guy leaving the note.”

Ollie nodded. “On it.”

“Why do you need my address?” asked Glenn.

“So if we need anything else, we can get hold of you.”

“And so we can kill you if you lied,” said Ollie.

Glenn looked at him and spoke through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t lie.”

Ollie looked at Shee, who motioned to Mason.

“Cut him loose.”

Mason pulled out a pocket knife and cut the ties around Glenn’s legs and arms. With the hulking SEAL leaning over him, Glenn chose not to try and run.

He rubbed his wrists and remained sitting on the back of the Jeep even after Mason stepped back.

Shee jerked a thumb toward the road.

“Beat it,” she said.

Glenn slid to his feet but stalled there, looking from the road to Shee and back again.

“Wait, how am I going to get home?” he asked.

Ollie cocked an eyebrow. “We’ve threatened to kill you a few times. Is that really what you should be worrying about right now?”

Glenn shook his head.

“No. I should go.”

“Yes. Now you’ve got it.”

The kid stepped around Ollie and started jogging for the road.

“Not the brightest star in the galaxy,” said Ollie. “What do you think? Did we do good, Mom?”

Shee laughed. “Ha. Yeah, you did good. He’s part of the puzzle. We should dust his car for prints and check the parking lot cameras. There should be a little dusting kit in the Jeep. Can you do that now before he moves the car? Do you know how to dust?”

Ollie winced. “Is it like on TV?”

“I can do it,” said Shiva.

“You can?” Ollie turned to her. “Tackle a man from ten feet, dust for prints—you’re a Renaissance woman.”

Shiva smiled.

“You have no idea.”

Chapter Eight

The Loggerhead crew gathered around the rental’s dining room table, eating from a myriad of items they’d had delivered to the house. Everyone wanted something different, so Shee told them to get whatever they wanted.

That was a mistake.

They had enough food to feed the seventh fleet splayed across the table.

“So, what did we all learn at school today?” asked Shee as she poured insufficient salad dressing on her lettuce from a small plastic cup.

She scowled at it.

Three drops. You’d think it was liquified diamonds.

“I learned you should always keep a sock in the car in case of emergency,” said Ollie.

Shee side-eyed him and then raised her head to scan the people at the table.

No one said anything, which struck her as odd. Mason and Shiva weren’t big gigglers, but Croix usually ribbed Ollie over anything he said. She wouldn’t let something as strange as his sock statement go by without asking him what he meant.

Croix and Ethan exchanged a look before burying their attention back to their food.

Hm.

Shee set her empty plastic shot glass of dressing on the table.

“Did you get any prints off the guy’s car? Any security footage from the parking garage? ” she asked Ollie.

He shook his head. “No. I’m afraid our trip back to the hospital was a total flop. There are no prints on Glenn’s car or access to the security cameras until the security guy gets back tomorrow. It’s on a different system from the main network. That’s what the IT girl told us.”

“Tamara,” muttered Croix.

Ollie looked at her. “Hm?”

“The Network Administrator’s name is Tamara. She has a name.”

“Oh. Excuse me. I didn’t realize you two were dating.”

Croix grunted.

Shee sat her fork down to eyeball Croix. All she wanted to do was eat, but first, she needed to fix whatever these two had brewing. Release the pressure before something exploded.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

Croix looked up from her pizza.

“Me? Nothing. We just don’t have anything to share yet. Right?”

She looked to Ethan, who nodded in agreement, a linguini noodle dangling from his lips.

Shee spotted the weak link.

“Nothing?” she asked, focusing on Ethan.

Ethan shook his head but avoided eye contact.

Shee frowned, more sure than ever that something was up.

Croix noticed her growing suspicion. The girl wasn’t Angelina at reading people, but she was no dummy and learned fast.

She rushed to fill Ethan’s suspicious silence.

“We know someone was looking at the records, but we don’t know who yet,” she said.

She elbowed Ethan, and he bounced to life.

“I left a back door in the system. I can log in from here. I’ll find more tonight,” he said.

Shee sat back in her chair, confident she wouldn’t get more with a full frontal attack. She’d back off for a minute.

“We found the judge,” she said, stabbing a lettuce leaf.

Croix seemed happy to move to a new topic.

“The missing guy?” she asked.

“Yes. Someone left him in a wheelchair at a memory care unit with a gavel in the back of his head.”

“With a gavel in the back of his head?” repeated Ethan. “What does that mean?”

Shee curled her fingers to mimic holding the head of a gavel and kept her fingers slightly separated to imply the handle stuck from her fist.

“They sharpened the handle and stabbed it into his spine.” She thrust forward to demonstrate. “The fat part was sticking from the back of his neck like it had been glued to him.”

“Picture stabbing someone in the spine with a corkscrew,” said Mason, ever-helpful.

Ethan recoiled, his olive-oil-coated lips parting.

“Right. Because I see that all the time,” he said.

Shee stabbed a piece of chicken, and Ethan shook his head.

“You people,” he muttered.

Shee chuckled.

“The judge has to be related to the other murders. Blondo had early-onset dementia, so the whole symbolism thing tracks.”

Croix stared at Ollie until he couldn’t help but stare back.

“I know I’m handsome, but you should eat your food,” he said.

She squinted at him. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

Ollie’s eyebrows raised. He gasped dramatically.

“Like this?”

Croix’s expression tightened. She bobbed her head in Shee’s direction, sending her tight curls swinging.

“Why aren’t you surprised about the judge? You look like you already knew they’d find him like that.”

Ollie poked his fork in her direction.

“Because I did know. They told us earlier when they came to see our prisoner.”

Croix deflated. She cast her eyes to her food.

“Oh.”

She slid her fingers under her pizza slice but didn’t raise it. Instead, she stared at it. Hard focus—like she was trying to memorize the pattern of pepperoni.

“What prisoner?” asked Ethan.

Shee turned to him.

There it is.

The obvious question Croix would normally ask.

“Someone tried to run from them at the hospital, so they grabbed him,” said Mason before Ollie could swallow his mouthful of turkey club.

Mason bit into his hamburger, oblivious to the drama unfolding before him. The man could spot a twitchy trigger finger at twenty paces, but emotional intrigue didn’t register.

“You mean Shiva grabbed him,” said Croix.

Shee spotted a glimmer of hope.

There she is.

That was more like Croix. Teasing Ollie—

Nope.

Shee changed her mind.

False alarm.

Croix didn’t look like she was teasing. Her tone was off. The room’s air of hostility remained hanging like a low fog.

Ollie felt it, too.

“Is there something I should know?” he asked the girl.

Croix turned to him.

“Is there something I should know?” she asked.

Shee lowered her fork. She’d been joking, treating the team like kids at Sunday dinner, but now she felt very much like a mom with quarreling teenagers.

“What’s going on between you two?” she asked.

“I wish I knew,” said Ollie.

Croix pulled her napkin from her lap and put it on the table with a little more force than a square of paper towel required.

She pointed at Ollie.

“Can I talk to you for a second? In private?” she asked.

Ollie spiked his paper towel on the table, mimicking her gauntlet toss. The paper towel fluttered to the floor.

“Ooh. Serious stuff. Bring it.”

He stood, and the two of them marched out the back door.

Mason looked at Shee.

“Is it me, or did that seem a little dramatic?” he asked.

“It wasn’t you.” Shee pointed at Ethan. “You. What’s going on?”

Ethan winced like she’d slapped him.

“I should maybe go with her,” he said, pushing from the table.

Before Shee could object, he hustled out the back door after the others.

Running out of options, Shee turned her gaze to Shiva.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Shiva shook her head. “No.”

“They’re getting into it,” said Mason, motioning to the back windows.

Shee saw Croix and Ollie snapping at each other. Ethan stood nearby, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere but there.

Shee sighed.

It’s always something.

Ollie opened the door and walked onto the back porch of the rental home. He held the door open for Croix to join.

“What has you todo loco?” he asked.

The girl looked flustered. She crossed her arms against her chest and eyed him as she formulated her attack.

She didn’t have to spend so much time on her approach. He knew what had her rattled.

Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do…

The girl glanced inside, and Ollie followed her gaze to see Ethan approaching the door.

He groaned.

Great.

Now he’d have to have this conversation with both of them.

Ethan pushed through onto the porch.

“What are you doing?” asked Croix.

Ethan huffed. “They were asking questions in there. I don’t know what you want me to tell them.”

Croix hugged her arms a little tighter to her body.

“Fine.”

Ollie moved to the side as Ethan took a spot behind Croix. He supposed it didn’t matter if the boy heard their conversation. Ol’ Codename: Wraith would be all over the hospital’s records. Nothing would stay hidden for long.

Croix’s expression looked constipated. He decided to let her off the hook and start the proceedings.

“Is this about Skinner’s records?” he asked. “Maybe you spotted the name of a certain incredibly handsome Latino?”

Croix’s brow wrinkled like the hood of a smashed car.

“You admit it?”

Ollie shrugged. “I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

He glanced inside to judge Shee and Mason’s interest in Croix’s spectacle. It hovered somewhere around a nine out of ten. Shee stared at them. When she saw him looking, she glanced away, but he knew she wouldn’t let it go. Everyone would know everything by the end of the night.

Well, maybe not everything.

Skinner kept the Institute’s medical record archive offsite. He maybe didn’t have to share every gritty detail.

Shiva had her back to them, eating as if nothing had happened. She didn’t worry about things until she had to. Ollie liked that about her. It was a lovely way to go through life if you could pull it off.

Croix stalled, so he motioned toward the house.

“Let’s go inside. I’ll tell everyone all at once so we don’t have to repeat ourselves.”

Her scowl deepened.

“Don’t you want to know what we know first?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll assume you know everything.”

Croix opened her mouth to respond, but he didn’t wait. He reentered the house before she could finish gathering her thoughts.

She and Ethan followed him inside, whispering to each other.

“Take a seat,” he said, motioning to their chairs.

They sat, and he cleared his throat.

“We need to talk,” he said, addressing the table, the only one standing.

“Are you breaking up with us?” asked Shee.

“Ha. No. But there’s something you need to know. Yes, I should have told you earlier, but I was afraid you wouldn’t let me come to Miami. I thought I had another day before these two nerds found something. I should have known Wraith there would hack through the digital jungle faster than I expected.”

Ethan’s head cocked.

“Hacked through the digital jungle,” he repeated. “I like that.”

Croix rolled her eyes. “You’re such a dork.”

Ethan sneered. “Shut up.”

“You shut up—”

“Go on,” said Shee to Ollie, loud enough to make it clear she was also saying shut up to the other two.

The kids quieted.

Ollie clasped his hands together.

Here goes nothing.

“Before I came to Loggerhead, shortly after I left the Army, I went to the Skinner Institute.”

“You did? For medical treatment?” asked Shee.

Her tone implied she wasn’t sure how a Regular Joe like himself could qualify.

“Yes. The place isn’t just for famous people. Someone arranged a rate for me, and I had enough to cover the rest. Opportunities for side hustles often fell into my lap during my time in the Army, and I had some extra cash.”

Ollie glanced at Mason’s disapproving mug and refocused on Shee. He suspected Captain America didn’t like the idea of military personnel making money from their position and contacts, but what was more American than running covert favors for generals?

“Are you saying we don’t need to pay you?” asked Shee.

She sounded as if she were kidding—but also hopeful.

He shook his head. “No. I will have to retire someday.”

Shee swung her hand across her body and snapped her fingers.

“Shoot—thought I was on to something there. Go ahead. The big secret is that you’re a former Skinner patient?”

He put his palm out flat and rocked it like the waggling wings of a plane.

“Yes and no. I’m also Skinner’s anonymous tipster. I’m the one who told him to come to you.”

Shee frowned and stayed that way.

“Questions?” prompted Ollie.

Shee sighed.

“I think I’m happy you’re the tipster. I’d been worrying the tip came from the murderer himself or that someone was setting us up for ruin.”

“No. It was me. Skinner knows I’m a handy guy, and he contacted me after noticing the link between his patients. I told him to call Loggerhead but not to tell you it was on my recommendation.”

“Because you thought we’d think there was a conflict of interest,” said Mason.

“And there was the chance your name wouldn’t come up in our searches, and you’d never have to tell us,” added Croix.

Ollie nodded. “Right. Both of those things.”

“What did you have done? Plastic surgery?” asked Croix.

Ollie gasped dramatically, holding his hand beneath his chin.

“Blasphemy. I’ll have you know this beauty is one hundred percent natural.”

He’d tried to deflect her comment with humor, but he wished she hadn’t asked at all. He’d been hoping to escape his confession without addressing specifics.

He held Croix’s gaze and tried to speak to her with his eyes.

Give me a break, Chica.

He loved the girl’s tenacity but less so when her ferocious focus turned on him.

“Is it something we need to worry about?” asked Shee.

Ollie shook his head and realized his out.

Half lie.

“I was there about the heart thing. You know, the weak heart you’ve already threatened to fire me for.”

Shee’s head tilted. “But we already knew about that. No reason to hide it.”

He closed his eyes.

Okay. That didn’t work.

He sighed and opened them again.

“Fine. I also went to a psychiatrist to work through some things related to my injuries.”

“Are you psycho?” asked Croix.

His lip curled. “No, I’m not psycho. And considering this group’s body count, even suggesting that I’m psycho is a bit of a glass houses situation.”

“I don’t have a body count,” said Ethan. “I mean, a little one, but that wasn’t my fault.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we compare scorecards,” said Ollie.

Shee sighed loudly to catch the attention of the group.

“Ollie, you have a right to privacy,” she announced.

Croix gaped at her. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does. Do I have to remind you he’s not the only one here with secrets?”

Croix squirmed. “Fine.”

Ollie offered Shee a tiny bow.

“Thank you. I suppose you might come across my entire medical file. Until then, I’ll keep the details to myself if you don’t mind.”

“I do kinda mind,” muttered Croix.

“I promise, nothing that happened at Skinner’s affects my work with Loggerhead.”

“Good,” said Mason. “We’ll take you at your word—”

“Thank—”

“—even if you are a dirty lying con man.”

Ollie froze until Mason smirked, and he realized the SEAL was kidding.

At least a little.

He’d had no idea the giant had a sense of humor.

“I’m an acquisition expert,” he corrected.

Mason chuckled, and Ollie sniffed, satisfied with himself.

It’s always good to keep the biggest thing in the room amused.

Ollie sat, hoping that would be it.

“Can I ask you a question?” asked Shee before he could drop his napkin on his lap.

He forced a smile.

This is never going to end.

“Sure,” he said.

“If you knew our involvement might expose your medical file, why would you suggest us?”

“Because you finding everything is one thing. At least I can contain it to the people in this room.”

“And Angelina,” said Croix.

“And Snookie and Trimmer,” agreed Shee, invoking the name of Angelina’s sister and Trimmer, their resident sniper-landscaper.

Ollie rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I mean Team Loggerhead. On the other hand, if Skinner hired another group, not only would my information be in the hands of strangers, but the odds of failure increased. I might be the next person killed.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” said Mason. “As a former patient, you’re a potential target.”

“Don’t worry, I’m thinking about it enough for both of us,” Ollie assured him.

Shee motioned to Croix. “You good now?”

“I guess. You should have told us, though.”

“You are correct. Lo siento, chica.”

Croix smirked as she looked away.

He’d won her back.

Ollie took a deep breath. It felt good to come clean with the team.

Sorta. Mostly.

Now, he could put all his focus into worrying someone might kill him.

“Can we get back to figuring out this case?” asked Shee.

A murmur of agreement rose from the group, and she continued.

“We have a lead for tomorrow. Today, Ollie and Shiva grabbed an orderly named Glenn Bachman. He admitted to giving patient information to an anonymous male blackmailer, who threatened to expose him as a thief. He left a thumb drive at a drop spot—that was the last he heard from the guy. He didn’t know the plan was to start killing people.”

“According to him,” said Ollie.

“Right.”

Shee noticed Ethan shaking his head. He grabbed his laptop and pulled it to him.

“What’s up?” asked Shee.

“You said he’s an orderly?” asked Ethan.

Shee looked at Ollie. “Did I hear that right? You said he was an orderly, didn’t you?”

He grimaced.

“I think so—something along those lines. I didn’t ask him his job title. I inferred from his outfit.”

“If he’s not part of the IT staff, how did he get the patient information?” asked Ethan, clicking and typing. “No orderly should have been able to get into the system. Is he a hacker part-time?”

“I seriously doubt it. He didn’t strike me as a genius.”

Ethan’s attention snapped up.

“Are you saying I’m a genius?”

Ollie chuckled. “When it comes to this stuff, I’d say so, yes.”

Ethan smiled and turned his laptop around to show the screen to the table.

“This is Glenn Bachman’s socials. Recognize this girl?” he asked, pointing.

“No?” said Ollie. He looked at Shiva, and she shook her head.

Shee and Mason leaned in to squint at the screen.

“That’s Tamara—Skinner’s IT person,” said Mason.

Ethan nodded.

“He got someone to help him. His girlfriend.”

He scrolled the screen, and another shot of Tamara and Glenn locked in a kiss appeared.

Shee picked up three french fries from a pile near Mason and broke one in half. She tossed one half of the broken fry and held the others in her fist like a bouquet of stems.

“Short fry talks to Tamara tonight.”

She thrust the greasy bouquet at Mason, and he pulled out a long fry.

Shee gave a little fist pump with her free hand.

“Yes. Your turn.”

Next, she offered them to Croix, and the girl pulled the small fry.

“Dammit,” said Croix, looking at Ethan. “I guess it’s us. Let’s get this over with.”

“Not him,” said Shee. “He needs to stay here and hack away at those records.”

Ethan grinned. “That’s right, I do.”

“Then who?” asked Croix.

Shee shrugged. “Loser gets to pick.”

Croix scanned the table. By the time her gaze reached Ollie, he’d already ducked behind Shiva.

“Ollie,” she said.

He sighed.

I knew it.

Chapter Nine

Ollie had secrets, and Croix wanted them.

She was formulating the best way to fish around in his brain when she felt Ollie’s eyes on her. He should have focused on the road as they drove to Tamara’s house. Instead, he kept looking at her.

It was unsettling.

“What?” she snapped.

Ollie turned his eyes back to the road.

“Just get it over with,” he said.

“Get what over with?” she asked, though she knew it was stupid. She knew what he meant.

“You want to know about my medical records.”

She nodded. The thing was, even she was starting to think it was none of her business. That was probably why it was taking her so long to ask.

She huffed a sigh.

“No. Forget it,” she said.

He glanced at her.

“Forget it? You? Who are you, and what have you done with Croix?”

She tittered. “You’re stupid.”

“You’re stupid.”

She rubbed her face.

“No, seriously. Forget it. It’s okay. I thought I wanted to know, but I changed my mind. It’s why I picked you to come with me—”

“Duh.”

“—but it doesn’t feel right. I’m going to let it go.”

He sniffed and wiped at his eye, pretending to cry.

“Well, look at you. My little girl is all grown up.”

“Cut it out.”

He pursed his lips and held them that way. He looked strange.

“What’s that face?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “It’s weird, but the thing is, I kind of want you to know.”

“You do? Why?”

He bobbed his head from side to side like his skull was an Etch-a-Sketch that needed priming.

“Because I want to gossip with you like a schoolgirl—but it’s complicated,” he said finally.

She scoffed. “It’s complicated because you’re like forty-something.”

His lip curled as he turned to look at her.

“You said that like I have a disease.”

“Old age is a disease.”

He bobbed one shoulder.

“No argument there.”

Ollie’s words replayed in Croix’s head. Something struck her as suspicious.

“Wait.” She twisted to look at him. “Why do you want to gossip? You like someone?”

He smirked. “Maybe.”

She straightened.

“Who? Let me guess. Shiva?”

He nodded. “Give the little lady a prize.”

She bounced in her seat.

“I knew it. You like like her?”

He took a deep breath and allowed it to leak out of him.

“Yes. If I were ten years old, I’d say I like like her.”

Croix pounded the side of her fist against her leg.

“I knew it. You two are adorbs together.”

“Oh, good. I was worried we weren’t adorbs.”

“No, seriously, ask Ethan. I told him.”

Ollie cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Speaking of people like liking—”

She held up her palm like a stop sign.

“No. No changing subjects. We’re not talking about Ethan. We’re talking about you and Shiva.”

“Fine. I guess I started this.”

“Something in your medical file has something to do with her?”

Ollie hemmed.

She could tell he regretted starting the conversation. He forgot how good she was at following clues.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I—”

“Is it something that would make her not like you? Don’t you think that’s something she should know?”

He scoffed.

“Not from my point of view. The exact opposite, actually.”

“That’s not fair to her.”

“I know. I’m kidding. I get what you’re saying. Yes. Of course. But it isn’t something that would make her not like me—I mean, probably...”

Croix squinted at him.

Oh, he is really regretting this now.

This was something good.

“Can you give me a hint?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You know my scars? The ones you saw in Miami?”

“On your body?”

He threw her a withering stare.

“No. My emotional scars you saw in Miami.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. The scars. That’s what you’re hiding?”

“Sure. They’re ugly.”

She clucked her tongue.

“Oh, jeez. Shiva’s a soldier. She’s probably covered in scars, too. She wouldn’t hate you for—”

She paused.

He tensed.

She saw it.

Oh my God. I’m getting so good at reading people.

“It’s not the scars,” she shot.

He jumped. “What? Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t. Too easy. You know she wouldn’t hate you for having scars. Heck, women think scars are sexy.”

He grunted without meaning to.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What?”

“That noise you just made.”

He shrugged. “I was punched in the face by irony. Ignore me.”

Croix tapped her finger against her lips.

What does that mean?

She let the silence hang. She could tell he hated that she was thinking so hard.

He said irony. It was ironic that scars made him sexy? For that to be ironic, it meant they made him sexy but also unsexy somehow?

He said he’d been to a psychiatrist.

Mental issues. Trust issues.

That has to be it.

“The scars messed you up in the head?” she asked.

He grimaced and nodded.

“Ah, there you go. You got me. You remembered the bit about the psychiatrist visits.”

She grinned, pleased with her reasoning.

“But you’re better now.”

“True. So, it won’t be a problem. You’re right.”

They drove in silence for another minute before she started feeling unsatisfied.

He’d agreed too fast. He didn’t look uncomfortable—he looked relieved.

What besides mental issues would keep him from—

She sucked in a breath and looked at him.

“Those scars on your stomach,” she said. “They disappeared.”

He looked at her. “What?”

“They disappeared into your towel.”

He returned his attention to the road.

“You’re not making any sense.”

She was on to something. She could tell.

“Did it blow your dick off?” she whispered.

He whipped his focus to her.

“What? No.”

She watched as his already tan face darkened.

He gripped the wheel tighter.

“My man parts are all there, thank you, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about them.”

He seemed very uncomfortable. Either she was on the right track, or he just didn’t like talking about sex stuff with her, which was completely understandable. She didn’t love broaching the subject either, but—

“Just admit it,” she said.

“Admit what?”

“You’ve got downstairs issues.”

“Downstairs...” His jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth.

He turned to her.

“Fine,” he spat. “You’re probably going to find out anyway. Yes. It’s a bunch of complicated medical stuff, but yes. Things don’t work like they used to.”

“At all?”

“No.” He sighed. “The upside is I don’t care.”

She gaped. “You don’t care?”

“I mean, I don’t have the urges, either.”

“Oh. Oh.” She nodded. “So, when I told you you look like a Hispanic Ken doll, I was more right than I knew.”

“I told you it’s there,” he snapped, flustered. “Look, can we drop this?”

She felt bad. The joke had been in bad taste, but she’d hoped to lighten the mood.

“I’m sorry. I was just kidding. That was insensitive.”

“I’d say so.” He rubbed his hand over his flushed face. “Look, I don’t want to talk about my troubles with you. And I don’t want Shiva to know about it yet, okay?”

“Sure—”

But...

“—one more quick thing. You said you like Shiva.”

“I do.”

“But you said you don’t get urges.”

He huffed.

“I’m still a human being. I wouldn’t mind some affection—someone to, you know—”

“Love?”

He nodded. “Yes. Love. Whatever. I could still—” He huffed. “There are ways around things.”

“I got you. I won’t tell her. I won’t tell anyone. Ethan won’t either.”

He looked at her, eyes wide.

“Why do you have to tell Ethan?” he asked.

“I mean, if he comes across it while he’s hacking around, I’ll make sure he keeps his mouth shut.”

Ollie’s expression relaxed. “Oh. Right. Thank you.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Ken.”

“I’m seriously going to kill you.”

She giggled as Ollie pulled to the curb.

“I think this is it,” he said. “Thank God. One more second of this conversation, and I’m going to kill myself.”

Croix looked at the renovated shotgun shack-style home and checked the address against the one Ethan had dug up for them.

“This is it,” she confirmed.

They exited the SUV and walked toward the house.

“It’s cute,” she said.

The place was small but had a fresh coat of light blue paint and well-cared-for plants lining the steps. The neighbors’ homes had a similar vibe.

Ollie agreed. “You can tell the neighborhood is older, but it looks regentrified. It’s adorbs.”

Croix giggled as she knocked on the door.

It wobbled and swung open a crack.

Uh oh.

She looked at Ollie.

“Guns are in the car,” he said.

Something banged inside.

“No time,” said Croix, throwing her back against the wall.

Ollie did the same on the opposite side of the door.

“Tamara?” he called.

They waited a beat.

Someone moaned.

Croix pushed the door open, and they waited.

“Tamara? Are you in there?” she called.

No one answered, and Ollie stepped in front of her.

“Going in. Stay behind me.”

She frowned. She hated it when he tried to protect her, but she fell back to avoid tripping into the house as they jockeyed for position. It was one thing to be annoyed—it was another to have their heads blown off.

Ollie crept forward into the first room.

“Tamara?”

The front living room was empty, but it was clear there’d been a struggle. A wicker end table lay on its side, and a fallen plant had coughed dirt across the room in a circular pattern as if someone had kicked it and it spun.

The room wasn’t large. The furniture configuration left no place for someone to hide from them.

Croix glanced into the next room. Seeing no one, she slid her back against kitchen cabinets to the right of the doorway. Stealing a peek around the corner, she saw nothing but a small island.

She heard the moan again, softer this time, and Croix looked down. Hair splayed across the tile floor, attached to a head obscured by the island.

She rushed in to find Tamara on the ground behind the island. Alone. She wore a loose tee shirt soaked with blood.

“She’s bleeding,” she called to Ollie as he returned from a sweep of the back bedroom.

“No one here,” he reported, squatting beside Tamara.

Blood, wet and shining in the overhead lights, pooled on the young woman’s stomach. Ollie applied pressure on the wound above her left hip.  Tamara moaned in pain.

“Call nine-one-one,” he said. “Stay with us, Tamara. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Tamara’s lips moved but no sound came.

Croix walked away to call the nine-one-one operator. As she did, she noticed a door to the side of the refrigerator hanging open on broken hinges.

Someone had pushed their way through it. Hard. As if they were running away.

The banging.

The bang they’d heard on their way in must have been the attacker making his escape. He couldn’t have gone far.

She stuck her head outside and told the nine-one-one operator the necessary information. She didn’t expect to see anyone.

She was about to duck back in when she spotted something moving in the corner of the yard, partially obscured by a large tree.

What is—

Croix jogged down the handful of back stairs to get a better view. She saw sneakers—legs flailing. A man had climbed over the brick wall at the back of the yard, about to drop to the other side.

She gasped.

“Freeze,” she screamed.

She wasn’t sure why. She didn’t have a gun and wasn’t a police officer, but it seemed like the thing to say.

The man glanced behind him, his face obscured by his shoulder, and kept going. He disappeared to the other side of the six-foot cinderblock wall. She saw him retreating through the holes in the breeze blocks.

Croix glanced back at the house and then back at the wall.

I won’t be any help to Ollie.

Her choice was clear.

She bolted for the fence—phone still in her hand, emergency operator asking her to stay on the line.

She’d given the woman the address, but did they use the phone signal to find the location?

Shit.

She tossed the phone behind her to leave it in the yard.

She was never going to get it back into her pocket while she was running anyway.

Croix reached the wall and started to climb. Every third brick was a breeze block with a punched-through decorative pattern that made handy toe-holes for climbing.

She scaled the wall and dropped to the other side to find herself in another home’s back yard. She ran through the open gate and onto the sidewalk. Looking left and right, she spotted the man to her left, maybe fifteen yards ahead of her.

I got you now.

She sprinted in that direction. The residential area blended into a mixed-use area, and the attacker made a right into an alley before passing a corner store. She slowed as she approached, expecting him to lurk around the corner.

Not going back for her gun when they found the door ajar felt like a bad decision now.

She swung wide and spotted him sprinting toward the street they’d started on. She’d wasted time avoiding an ambush that wasn’t coming. He’d regained his initial lead on her. 

The worst part was she couldn’t tell anything about him. He moved like a man—but other than that, she couldn’t tell much. His size was average. He wore sweatpants and a long-sleeved top with an attached hood he’d pulled up. She could see his hands. She felt confident he was white.

All that narrowed it down to a few million people.

Sprinting down the alley, she easily jumped over a trashcan she suspected he’d knocked into her path. She slowed again at the end and peeked around the corner, leaning against the opposite wall.

Again, no ambush.

He ran down the street, away from Tamara’s house. A van drove by, and he cut behind it. She stopped short to avoid being hit by it. By the time it had passed, she’d lost sight of him.

She swore, unsure of his direction. He had to have continued to the right.

She bolted down that street.

Then it hit her.

Something struck her chest, and her feet rose like she’d run up an invisible wall. It was surreal, looking at her feet in front of her. The rest of her shot in the opposite direction.

She stabbed her elbows behind her to catch herself and prevent her skull from cracking open like an egg on the sidewalk. She felt the sting of the skin tearing from both arms before her butt hit the ground. Her head snapped back and bounced on cement, but not as hard as what might have been.

“Ooooooh!” she heard someone hoot.

She remained on her back, stunned, partially propped on one bloody elbow. She turned toward the sound of voices to see two young boys, each with one hand over their mouth and another pointing at her.

“You got clotheslined!” said one.

He wasn’t wrong. That was exactly what happened. After being so careful at every turn, she’d missed this alley. Tamara’s attacker had hidden around the corner and threw an arm out as she passed. He’d misjudged her height and caught her in the upper chest instead of her throat.

What was that thing Angelina said?

Thank God for little favors.

She leaned forward to glance down the alley, worried the bastard remained there, preparing to finish the job.

He’d gone. The alley was empty.

She collapsed on her back again, catching her breath.

“Are you okay, lady?” asked one of the boys. He sounded sweet enough, except he couldn’t stop laughing.

She gave him a thumbs-up from her supine position and clambered to her feet. As she worked her way up the corner of the building, she spotted something shiny on the ground in the alley. It wasn’t small.

Probably glass or something, but still...

Brushing off her butt and picking pebbles from her mangled elbows, she walked toward it.

A kitchen knife. Blood darkened the tip.

It had to be what he’d used to stab Tamara.

Had he tried to use it on her and missed?

Yikes.

That encounter could have been a lot worse than a couple of scraped elbows.

She picked the knife up as gingerly as possible between two fingers and started back toward the house. The boys cheered her as she walked away. She raised her hand in thanks.

Sirens howled in the distance. An ambulance passed her and parked in front of Tamara’s. As she walked up the street, she saw the EMTs run inside.

She spotted Ollie at the door as she approached, and he jogged down the stairs to meet her.

He moved to put a hand on her shoulder and reconsidered. Blood covered his hands.

“Where did you go? What happened?” he asked, his tone somewhere between worried and angry.

“I ran after the guy. How’s she doing?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I did my best, but she wasn’t conscious when they got here. Tell me what happened.”

“I saw the guy in the back yard climbing over the wall. I ran after him. He dropped this.”

She held up the knife.

He motioned to a small brick wall around the front garden.

“Put that down.”

She did and then squinted at him. Beads of sweat hung from his brow.

“Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

He nodded. “Got my heart going. I need to take one of my pills.”

“Where are they?”

“In my pocket.” He held out his hands, showing her they were covered in blood—like she hadn’t noticed. “Can you get them?”

She reached into his pocket for him and pulled out a small pill case. She plucked one out as neighbors started to gather at the curb near them.

A police car pulled up, and an officer hopped out to eye Ollie’s bloody hands.

“Sir—”

“We found her,” explained Ollie, holding up his hands.

Someone in the crowd gasped.

The officer nodded. “Okay. Can you two step over here?”

Ollie nodded. “This is going to take a while,” he mumbled to Croix.

He looked terrible.

“Open your mouth,” she said.

He did, and she popped one of his heart pills inside.

“Thanks.”

“Did she say anything?” she asked as they followed the officer to the cruiser.

“No. She’s weak. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t make it.”

“That sucks. If we’d showed up a little earlier—”

He shook his head. “You can’t think like that. It’s a miracle we came at all. She’d be dead for sure if we hadn’t.”

He leaned against the car as the officer’s partner joined him.

“Watch these two and set up tape for these people. I’ll be right back,” said the first officer, heading to the house.

The second officer nodded. He looked young. Maybe a trainee.

He glanced at the pair.

“We’re not going anywhere. Go ahead and do your tape,” said Ollie.

He nodded and opened the trunk.

Ollie turned back to Croix.

“So, what happened? Did you see his face? Did he get into a car?”

She shook her head. “I only saw him from behind. Medium build. He was wearing a thin hoodie. I couldn’t really tell much about him. Didn’t see his face. Pretty sure he was white. I could see his hands.”

“What happened there?” he asked, pointing to her arm.

She lifted her elbow and noticed blood had dripped down her forearm.

“He ran across the street. I had to stop to avoid getting clipped by a van and lost him. He’d ducked into an alley I didn’t notice and clotheslined me when I went by.”

Ollie winced. “Ouch. Are you okay?”

She nodded. “The worst part was a couple of smart-ass little boys who saw the whole thing happen.”

Ollie chuckled. “You found the knife, though?”

“He dropped it in the alley.”

After itemizing her failings, finding the murder weapon didn’t seem as impressive.

“I guess I should let Shee know what happened.” She felt her pocket and huffed. “I left my phone in the back yard.”

“Use mine,” he said, turning so she could pull it from his back pocket. She held it up to his face to unlock it and dialed Shee.

She gasped.

Ollie’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Hello?” answered Shee in her ear.

“We walked in on someone trying to kill Tamara. I’ll tell you the rest later, but it just hit me—

“Glenn,” said Ollie and Shee at the same time.

Croix nodded. “If they went after Tamara, they’ll go after him, too.”

Chapter Ten

Shee called nine-one-one while Mason retrieved Glenn’s address from Ethan. They were in his truck racing to Glenn’s apartment minutes after receiving Croix’s urgent call.

She hated getting the local police involved, but she couldn’t put the kid’s life in danger.

“Did the police say how long it would take them to respond?” asked Mason as he weaved through traffic.

“No. I told them it was beyond urgent, but we still might beat them there.” She lowered the phone from her ear. “I’ve been trying to call Glenn—tell him to get out of the house—but he isn’t answering.”

“Guns or no guns when we get there?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t we go in with guns?”

“Cops—?”

“Oh. Right. Rather not have to explain ourselves...” She shrugged. “Let’s take them. Keep them hidden. Better safe than dead.”

He nodded. “That’s how I feel about it.”

The pair reached Glenn’s apartment building and headed for his floor, tucking their guns into their waistbands as they moved.

The drab high rise had no doorman. Shee pointed out a camera in the lobby but saw no evidence that it worked. The lens looked yellowed, and no light glowed.

“That looks like it’s from the eighteen hundreds,” she said.

He nodded. “I don’t think we’ll get any help there.”

“On the upside, we won’t be on it either.”

They took the small, shabby elevator to the twelfth floor and entered an empty hallway.  They reached Glenn’s door and knocked.

No answer.

“What now?” asked Mason.

Shee grimaced. “I don’t know. Should we kick in the door?”

As they considered their options, the elevator dinged, and they turned.

“Nope,” said Mason as Glenn walked out of the elevator with a bag of groceries tucked in his arm.

“Look at him, walking along like he doesn’t have a care in the world,” murmured Shee.

Glenn was looking at his phone. He looked up and froze when he saw them. His eyes widened.

“No—”

He walked backward, headed to the elevator.

Shee threw up a hand. “It’s okay. We’re here to help.”

He gaped at them and barked a laugh.

“Help? You kidnapped me.”

Shee winced. She’d forgotten how big that egg on his head was. The hallway lights were bouncing off of it.

“In all fairness, that wasn’t us,” she said.

“You put a sock in my mouth.”

“Again, not us.”

“It’s about Tamara,” said Mason.

Glenn ceased his retreat.

“Who?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Tamara from work?”

“You can drop the game. We know you left her out of your confession today. We know she’s involved,” said Shee.

“And we’re not actually going to kill you for lying,” added Mason.

Shee nodded. “Right. That’s probably important for you to know.”

“What about the crazy guy?” asked Glenn.

Shee assumed he meant Ollie.

“He will never darken your door again.”

A drop of the tension in Glenn’s shoulders melted away as he took a deep breath and released it.

“What about Tamara?” he asked.

“Someone attacked her.”

He bobbled the groceries in his arm.

“What? Is she okay?”

Shee hemmed. She didn’t know if Tamara was okay but couldn’t think of a reason not to be as honest as possible. It would be good to make the boy realize just how in danger he was.

“We don’t know. She’s at the hospital. Our guy—the one with the sock—he saved her. He and the girl did.”

Glenn scowled. “The girl that jumped me?”

“Oh. No. A different girl.” She paused and added, “Who also would have tackled you if given the chance.”

Glenn shook his head. “What’s wrong with you people?”

She shrugged. “We get that a lot.”

He put his free hand over his mouth and looked away, processing the news.

“Is this my fault?” He looked at them. “It is, isn’t it? Is it because I got her involved?”

“Look, come down here. Let’s talk for a second. The police are on their way.”

His eyes widened. “The police? Why?”

“We called them. We didn’t know who would get to you faster. The person who tried to kill Tamara could be on their way here.”

“Here? Why?”

“We’re assuming whoever attacked her is the person doing the killings. He’s trying to tie up loose ends.”

He poked his chest. “And I’m a loose end?”

She nodded. “The loosest.”

“Do you have somewhere you can go?” asked Mason.

Glenn started walking toward them like a man in a dream.

“You mean somewhere to hide? To lay low?”

“Right. Anywhere?”

“I—Yes. I can go stay with my parents?”

Shee winced. “Anywhere less obvious? This person won’t have any problem finding your parents.”

“Right. Right. I don’t want to put them in danger. Um, yeah, I can stay with a friend.”

“Okay. You do that—for a few days, at least, while we work out what’s going on and who’s doing this. I have your phone number. I can call you when we know more.”

“How do you have my phone number?”

“You gave it to me. Under duress, but you did.”

“Oh. Right.” He frowned. “Should I go to work?”

“I wouldn’t. Lay low until you hear from us, like I said.” She grimaced. “Also, you should probably start looking for another job. We didn’t tell the police what you’ve been up to, but eventually, we’ll have to tell Skinner. It’s up to him what he does with that knowledge, and it might help your cause if you’re not around.”

His shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I get it. That’s fair. More than fair.”

Shee smiled. “Consider it payback for the sock.”

Glenn pulled his keys from his pocket and moved to the door. He paused before inserting the key and glanced over his shoulder at them.

“Are you going to stay until I leave?” he asked, sounding both hopeful and annoyed.

He seemed nervous to open the door with them hovering nearby. Shee couldn’t blame him. They had kidnapped him once already, after all. As far as he knew, all this was a ploy to grab him again.

“The police will be here soon. You’ll have to tell them you’re okay,” she said.

He frowned. “What should I say?”

“I didn’t identify myself when I called it in. Tell them your sister heard about Tamara and was worried about you.”

He nodded. “Or my mom.”

She realized he was implying she sounded more like a mother than a sister.

She scowled.

“Whatever.”

Mason snorted a laugh, and she smacked him on the stomach with the back of her hand.

“Okay, we’ll hang out downstairs until you leave to make sure you’re safe,” she said.

He let himself inside and shut the door behind him.

“We can wait in the lobby, so we’re not so obvious when the police get here,” said Shee, heading for the elevator.

“His sister,” chuckled Mason. “He said, you mean my mom.”

“I have a gun,” said Shee through gritted teeth.

It only made him laugh harder.

They rode down in the stuffy elevator. It smelled like the same air had been in it since the seventies.

“We should turn that little shit in to the police. Giving the killer that list got three people killed—possibly a fourth if Tamara doesn’t make it,” said Shee.

“We can’t without getting the police in our business. Plus, if our client wanted the police involved, he would have called the police instead of us.”

She sighed. “I guess Glenn’s technically a victim. Sort of. The guy couldn’t have blackmailed him if he hadn’t been a thief in the first place.”

The doors slid open, and Shee hustled into the lobby where the air had only been circulating since maybe the nineties.

She let her musing on Glenn go. Maybe they’d wrap him up in the end. Maybe Skinner would turn him in.

Two police officers entered the lobby, and they stepped aside to let them pass, nodding their hellos.

“I guess he’s safe now,” said Mason as the elevator whisked the cops away.

Shee nodded. “Let’s watch Glenn’s car until he leaves. I assume he’s picked it up from the garage by now. It’s a blue Hyundai.”

They hopped into the truck and tooled around the parking lot until they found Glenn’s car. They found a spot with good visibility and sat.

Shee tapped the window with the back of her knuckle, thinking. Something nagged at her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence the killer knew we were zeroing in on Tamara as an accomplice?” asked Mason.

She looked at him.

“Of course... Something was bothering me, and that’s it. How did they know to panic about Tamara?” She scowled. “You know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“I know. Me neither.”

She nodded. “He knew. Somehow, he knew we were coming to interview her. But how? Who knew except the people at our dinner table?”

Mason looked at her. “Ollie? Maybe he’s already being blackmailed.”

She shook her head. “I know you think he’s a goofball, but he wouldn’t get a girl killed. Heck, he’s the one who saved her.”

“Out of guilt?”

“Nah. It was totally random that he was even the one who went with Croix. French-fry random.”

Mason sighed.

“Could it be someone saw us talking to her at Skinner’s?”

She nodded. “That’s more likely. This still feels like an inside job. He suspected Skinner put the pieces together and knew he needed to clean house.”

Mason nodded. “Who saw us today? Glenn, who’s on the run himself—”

Shee squinted at him. “Glenn’s been blackmailed once already. Maybe he’s still feeding the guy information? Is that why he’s alive, and Tamara might not be for long?”

Mason pointed. “Cops are leaving,” he said as the cruiser pulled away from the front of the building.

“There’s Glenn,” said Shee.

Glenn walked toward his car, dragging a suitcase behind him.

“Should we stop him? Grill him a little more?” she asked.

Mason sighed. “I don’t know. We put that guy through the ringer already. Let’s work on some other leads. We can always find him again.”

Shee grunted as Glenn pulled out of the lot.

Mason looked at her.

“I know Tamara’s currently clinging to life, so this may be in bad taste, but maybe she’s more involved than we know. It’s already likely she’s who Glenn leaned on to get the list.”

She put her hands on either side of her head.

“So many options, and none of them good. We need to get ahead of this guy. We should get Ethan to figure out who a likely next target would be.”

“If he’s tying up all the loose ends at Skinner’s, it could be he’s moving on to a totally new group of victims.”

Shee sighed.

“And then, we’ll never find him.”

Chapter Eleven

“Wake up!”

Croix gasped and sat up, disoriented, hands balled into fists, ready to fight.

Where am I?

The ceiling was too low. Pain shot through her elbows as she pushed up. A face hovered at her side, low, as if someone were lying on the floor beside her, looking at her like a curious caterpillar.

None of it made sense, so she did the only logical thing.

She punched the face.

The face saw it coming and ducked from view, but not before she partially connected with the bony forehead.

Ouch.

“Ow, what the hell?” said a voice she recognized. Croix noticed bedding with little sailboats wrapped around her body’s lower half.

The fog of sleep lifted.

Oh, right.

Bunk beds.

She was in the top bunk at their rental property in Miami.

She peered over the edge of the bed. Below her, Ethan sat on his bunk, rubbing his forehead.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “You can’t wake me up in a panic like that.”

“It wasn’t in a panic,” he grumbled. “You were whimpering and cursing in your sleep. I thought you might want to wake up from whatever nightmare you were in.”

Croix sat up, recalling a piece of the dream she’d been in. She’d been running down a road, pursuing someone.

“I think I was back chasing that guy from Tamara’s place,” she said.

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome.” He snorted a laugh. “You better never babysit for someone. If the kids hear you talking in your sleep, they’ll be cursing like little sailors by the time the parents come home.”

Croix arched an eyebrow.

“I don’t know much about babysitting, but I’m thinking I shouldn’t be asleep while they’re awake.”

He chuckled. “Probably not.”

She swung her legs over the bed and climbed the ladder down. Ethan’s laptop glowed in the cave of his lower bunk.

“Did you sleep?” she asked.

He nodded. “Until your nightmare woke me up.”

She decided she couldn’t apologize again for things she did while unconscious. She motioned to the laptop.

“How’s it going? Are we making any progress?”

He rubbed the back of his neck as if it helped him remember.

“I’ve found a few things. For one, I’m not seeing any evidence they’ve been hacked remotely.”

“So it’s an inside job for sure?”

He nodded. “I think so. I think it’s pretty likely the information about the patients came from Glenn and Tamara.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

He shrugged. “There’s no way to know for sure who’s using the computers. So far, everything suspicious looks like it happened with Skinner’s account, so whoever it is has his login.”

“Tamara probably set it up for him.” Croix stretched. “Could you turn on the video cameras? You know, so we could see who’s sitting at the computer? Spy on them?”

“In theory, sure, but whoever took the information the first time hasn’t been poking at the client files since. They logged in as Skinner, got the information they needed, and that was it. All the other activity has been normal stuff.”

Croix kicked at the foot of the bunk bed, thinking through other possibilities.

“What about who might be next?” she asked. “Any ideas?”

He shook his head. “It would be close to impossible to guess. First off, not much of the medical information is here. Most of their patients are high profile, and I bet a lot of them have things to hide. That’s why they’re at Skinner’s in the first place.”

Croix perked. “You saw stuff people are trying to hide? Like what?”

“Sometimes, you can put the pieces together. The names are coded, but the alias list was easy to find.”

“For you.”

“For me.”

He paused to grin, and she rolled her hand, prompting him to continue.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re amazing. Go on. Give me some dirt.”

He shrugged. “Oh. It’s not that exciting. There was a basketball player whose name I recognized—recent draft pick. In his notes, I noticed he had a bunch of heart tests done. I don’t know how they turned out, but he doesn’t want the team to find out if there’s something wrong with his heart. That would be the end of his big paychecks.”

“Ooh, I see what you mean. And everyone is like that?”

“Probably a lot of them.”

“And we can’t watch over everyone.”

“No. I was thinking in terms of best jokes, but anything would be pretty easy.”

Croix’s sleepy brain processed this sentence and then tried again. She didn’t get it.

“Best jokes?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You know, like stab the athlete in the heart because he has a weak heart. That kind of thing.”

She nodded. “Oh. Like the Raquel Roque butt thing. Got it. This guy does have a sick sense of humor.”

“I’ll say. Hey, what do you think he did with the butt?”

“Raquel’s? I assumed it was there at the scene.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

Her lip curled. “I don’t know—you’re a sicko for even wondering.”

Ethan giggled, and his high-pitched hooting made her laugh too.

“Maybe he wanted to reuse the implants,” she said.

“Gross.” His nose wrinkled with disgust, but he didn’t stop snickering.

Croix cocked her head, thinking about the logins.

“Could it be Skinner himself?” she asked.

Ethan scoffed.

“I doubt it. He’s super old, and why would he sabotage his own hospital? And even if he had some bizarre reason for burning it to the ground, why would he hire us?”

“To make it look like it isn’t him?”

“Getting the police involved would have served the same purpose—and probably ruined the hospital’s reputation a lot faster.”

She sighed. “True. Plus, like you said, he’s an old dude. He doesn’t look like the butt-sawing type.”

She pantomimed, sweating and panting as she sawed at a victim, and they dissolved into peals of laughter again.

There was a knock on the door, and the two of them sobered.

Ollie stood in the doorway.

“What are you two giggling about?” he asked.

“You don’t want to know,” said Croix.

Ollie frowned and then poked his chin toward Ethan’s laptop.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

Ethan quickly shared the same information he’d covered with Croix. He left out the butt jokes. Croix was a little disappointed.

Ollie mused over the new information.

“Could you do me a favor? Could you look a little closer at Skinner?” he asked after a minute.

Croix gasped. “That’s so weird. We were just talking about him as a potential suspect. But we couldn’t figure out why he’d want to ruin his own hospital.”

Ollie leaned against the door jamb.

“I can’t imagine why either, but it hit me yesterday that he told Shee and Mason about Raquel Roque’s missing butt cheeks. The problem is the police haven’t released that detail to the public. How did he know?”

“Did you check his drawers for the butt cheeks?” asked Croix.

Ollie winced. “What?”

Ethan and Croix giggled, and Ollie shook his head.

“I swear, you two have a combined age of six.”

Ethan sniffed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m on it.”

Ollie pushed off the door to leave and paused.

“Any chance you could check the garage security footage for me? Shee wanted to know if there’s any video of the killer leaving a note on Glenn’s car.”

Ethan pulled over his laptop and typed.

“What date?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Probably between—”

“The twenty-fifth,” said Ethan.

Ollie nodded. “Sometime around then—”

“No, I mean it was the twenty-fifth. Had to be. The file’s been deleted for that date.”

“And not the dates around it?”

Ethan shook his head. “Nope. Just that one. Looks like someone ditched it yesterday. Well, they ditched the access to it. It looks like the actual video files are on a separate network. This is more like a catalog.”

“It’s still suspicious it’s missing, isn’t it? Can you get it back?”

Ethan shrugged. “I can try, but I would probably need access to that other network.”

“Was it deleted before or after Tamara was attacked?” asked Croix.

“Before.”

“So, we can assume she did it?” asked Croix.

Ollie grimaced. “Probably. But the question is, who told her to do it?”

“It had to be Glenn, right?” said Croix.

Ollie scowled. “The problem is, that would mean Glenn was still working for the killer, helping him cover his tracks, as recently as yesterday. After he swore he hadn’t had contact since getting the list.”

“That’s not the problem,” said Croix. “The problem is Shee and Mason just let him go.”

Ollie sighed and wandered off.

Croix looked at Ethan. “I’m going to get some food. You want something? Piece of pizza?”

His eyes lit. “Ooh, yeah. That would be great. Thanks.”

Croix strode out to the kitchen. Shee and Mason were already gone, running whatever errand they had planned for the day. Ollie and Shiva left while she toasted the leftover pizza. She straightened up a little to keep everyone on their toes. It would be predictable for her not to clean up.

She wandered back into the bedroom to find Ethan still on his computer.

“You want to do something?” she asked.

“I am doing something,” he said, his eyes never leaving his laptop.

“But—”

“I think the security guard is in on things,” he said.

“What?”

“The security system is separate from the main network. Whoever can access the parking garage videos isn’t the same person. It isn’t Tamara.”

“We should go check that out.”

He shook his head. “I’m still running down a thread here.”

“You’re saying I should go by myself?”

He looked at her. “To interview the security guard? Sure.”

She frowned.

“Fine, but if someone kills me and cuts off my butt—”

“They’d need a chainsaw—”

Ethan looked up, laughing. Croix gasped and pointed at him.

“Ooh, you’re going to die for that one.”

“I know,” he said, still laughing as she left. “I knew it the second I said it.”

Chapter Twelve

Shee lowered her phone from her ear to her lap, furious. She and Mason were driving back to Glenn’s apartment the morning after they’d sent him away. Ethan had just called to let them know they’d screwed up.

“We should have left him in the trunk,” she growled.

Mason shook his head. “Who?”

“Glenn. Ethan says there’s evidence on the system he’s probably been covering up for the blackmailer as recently as yesterday. After he told us that he hadn’t been in touch with the guy for weeks.”

Mason grunted.

“Hm. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think holding him hostage forever was ever an option.”

She crossed her arms against her chest.

“Are you sure? We could have tied him up in the living room and pulled the sock out of his mouth whenever we had a question.”

Mason shook his head. “No, but we probably should have kept better tabs on him. He could be anywhere by now.”

Shee didn’t disagree. She’d been worried for his safety, and the whole time, the little jerk had been lying to them about his ongoing communication with the killer.

“I get he’s probably lying to us out of fear, but we should have tried a little harder to make him fear us,” she said.

Mason shrugged. “It’s hard to be scarier than a guy who cuts people’s butts off.”

She looked at him. She hadn’t thought of it that way. Even Shiva wasn’t that scary compared to that.

“Anyway,” continued Mason. “I’m not a fan of the guy, but he’s having a bad couple of weeks. He’s been blackmailed, jumped on the stairs, kidnapped—”

Shee scoffed. “Not as bad a week as Raquel Roque or even Tamara are—”

She thunked herself on the forehead with the heel of her palm.

“The hospital,” she said.

“Hm?”

“It just hit me. Glenn never asked where he could find Tamara—what hospital she was in. He asked if he should avoid work but didn’t ask if it was okay to visit her.”

“You would have told him not to visit her,” said Mason, parking in the lot of Glenn’s highrise.

“Well, sure, but he didn’t even ask. Isn’t that weird? Ethan thought they were dating. There was that kissing picture.”

“Maybe they broke up,” he said, turning off the truck.

Shee hopped out. “Yeah, I’d break up with a guy who made me steal records that got people killed, too, but still...”

“You wouldn’t steal records for me if I told you a blackmailer was going to kill me if you didn’t?”

She sighed.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But it wouldn’t be smart.”

Mason barked a laugh as he opened the door to the building.

“Since when is love smart?”

They entered the dreary lobby. The drab paint and dirty floor were enough to kill their chuckles.

“Ugh. This place makes me want to shower,” she said, hitting the elevator button.

She looked at Mason while they waited.

“Could be he didn’t ask where she was because he has the good sense to stay away from her. After all, he’s already gotten her almost killed.”

Mason nodded. “See, there you go. That’s giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

Shee grunted as the elevator doors opened. An old man with an iguana on a leash walked out, eyeballing them like they were the ones walking around with a giant lizard on a leash.

Florida.

Shee shook her head and stepped inside.

They watched the man stroll outside, the iguana swaggering beside him.

“I guess you’re right,” said Shee as they entered the elevator. “I guess he did seem kind of upset about her. But, going forward, let’s remember he’s in this mess for stealing from people. He isn’t someone to be trusted.”

“Aye, aye,” said Mason.

They took the sticky elevator to Glenn’s floor and walked the hall to his door. They knocked but got no answer. Glenn had stayed away as promised.

Shee picked the lock using the tools she’d brought specifically for the job and let them in.

She scanned the apartment.

Ugh.

Glenn’s place was a one-bedroom with a cramped, shabby efficiency kitchen straight from the nineties.

No art hung on the scuffed neutral walls. A torn and taped beanbag chair served as the only furniture. The tile floor had no rugs to hide its gloriously dingy grout lines.

“And I thought the lobby was depressing,” she muttered, shutting the door behind them. “This place makes me want to throw myself off the balcony.”

Mason cocked an eyebrow at her.

“You’re kidding yourself if you think this dump has a balcony.”

Someone in the apartment next door coughed.

“At least it has soundproofing,” deadpanned Shee.

She walked into the bedroom and searched it while trying not to breathe. The room smelled like English cheese. She could almost count the items in the room on one hand. A mattress lay on the floor. Beside it stood a side table made out of an upside-down egg crate with a blue clock, a white lamp shaped like a candlestick, and a dragon figurine. The three items lined up in that order—red dragon, white lamp, blue clock—

She took another look.

Ah. No.

The dragon was black.

Shee chuckled to herself. She had a form of synesthesia, where her brain combined senses. It was a condition best known for people who saw music as color. Sadly, that wasn’t how her version worked.

Too bad. That sounded amazing.

Her brain and color had an interesting relationship—mostly in utterly useless ways. For instance, the days of the week were colors to her. Monday was red, Tuesday was yellow, etc. If she knew she had a meeting on a Monday, she remembered the meeting as red.

She mostly used her wonky brain as a mnemonic device. In this case, she saw a black dragon, a white lamp, and a blue clock—her brain had seen red dragons and decided to have her remember the scene as red, white, and blue.

Would she remember the scene more clearly than most? Probably. Would it be slightly wrong?

Yes.

The dragon wasn’t red.

It was black.

It wasn’t a great mnemonic device. If she had to pick that dragon out of a lineup for purse snatching, she would have gotten it wrong, and an innocent dragon would have gone to jail.

She checked the closet, where she found the bare minimum amount of clothes hanging—none of it red, for the record—and returned to the main room.

“If you thought the elevator smelled bad, you should get a whiff of his bedroom. Why don’t young men think you’re supposed to wash sheets?”

Mason chuckled. “Because their mothers did it for them.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “You sound bitter.”

“Yeah, nobody did my sheets. Remind me to sign up for one of Skinner’s therapy sessions.”

She scoffed. “Like you could afford it.”

She put her hands on her hips and scanned the main room again. There wasn’t much to search. The man lived like a hermit.

A dirty, stinky hermit.

“No computer. I’m sure he took it with him,” she noted.

Mason nodded. “I’m not sure what we thought we would find, but we didn’t find much.”

“No. Worth a shot, though...” Her voice trailed as she reluctantly glanced into the bathroom.

“Hold on,” she murmured.

She walked inside.

“If his sheets are as bad as you say, are you sure you want to go in there?” called Mason.

She returned with a small crumbled ball of white paper, gingerly opening it as she moved. She read it and looked up at Mason.

“I think I might know our next victim.”

“How?”

She turned the paper to him.

“This says Cassius Scott—weak heart, but that’s not even the most interesting part.”

She pointed to the bottom of the small square sheet, and Mason leaned in for a better look.

“Is that written on Skinner’s prescription pad?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll get Ollie and Shiva over to Cassius Scott’s place, whoever he is. We need to go talk to the good doctor.”

Chapter Thirteen

Shee and Mason entered Skinner’s office to find another man sitting in one of the chairs they’d occupied during their last visit. The man turned as they entered, smiling with large, capped teeth.

Skinner stood from behind his desk.

“Shee, Mason—this is my lawyer, J.A. Whitmore.”

J.A. stood, looking very much like a lawyer in his pale blue suit. His graying brown hair and walrus-like mustache had the gray parts dyed blond.

The man stuck out his hand, and Shee and Mason shook it. Shee had called ahead to say they were coming to talk to Skinner. He hadn’t rushed the lawyer out of the room for them. In fact, he looked as though he intended to stick around. After shaking hands, he retook his seat.

“Is he here about the case?” she asked Skinner.

Skinner nodded as he sat down. “Someone attacked a member of my staff, and yet another former patient of mine has been murdered in a fantastical way. Forgive me if I’m feeling a little uneasy. I wanted J.A. here to help me navigate things.”

Shee paused, puzzling over her feelings on the word fantastical. She didn’t love it. It didn’t seem appropriate.

“As long as we’re not one of the things you’re navigating,” said Mason, filling her silence.

His tone said he wasn’t happy about the lawyer situation either.

Was anyone ever happy about lawyers?

Skinner shook his head.

“No. Of course not. He’s not here for you, specifically. It’s just—”

J.A. cut in. “We appreciate everything you’re doing for Mr. Skinner. You have a lot of knowledge. The problem is, if this all goes south, the authorities might compel you to testify against the doctor.”

“I think things have already gone pretty far south,” said Shee. “Long before we showed up.”

J. A. smiled. “Of course. We’re trying to right the ship. You and me. Together.”

He offered her a tight-lipped smile. It reminded her of an albino alligator she saw once.

She broke eye contact with him and produced the paper she’d found in Glenn’s trash. She held it up for the doctor to see it.

“Does this look familiar?” she asked.

Skinner pulled down his glasses. His eyes widened.

“It’s my prescription pad—”

He reached for the note, and Shee pulled it back.

“We’re trying not to get our fingerprints all over this,” said Shee.

He nodded and peered again at the note. His eyes showed a second flash of white.

“Cassius is a—”

“Ernie,” said his lawyer, stopping the doctor from confirming the name on the paper was a patient.

Skinner frowned at him and then turned his attention back to Shee.

“Are you saying this person is being targeted?” he asked.

“It’s possible. Is that your handwriting?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so, but do you have an example of your handwriting handy?”

“Ernie, you don’t have to—”

Skinner held up his hand. “It’s fine, J.A. They’re here to help.”

“I’m here to help,” muttered the lawyer. “It’s why you pay me.”

“It’s why he pays us, too,” said Shee.

She didn’t like lawyers, and she didn’t like being blindsided by this one. All J.A.’s presence did was make her feel like they should have a lawyer with them, and once things got to that point, it was time to leave. Only concern for the doctor’s patients kept her from standing up and walking out the door.

Skinner opened his drawer and pulled out a large legal notepad.

“Here’s a handwritten speech I was working on for an awards ceremony,” he said, handing it over to her.

Shee compared it to the note in her hand. The two handwriting samples weren’t similar. Skinner wrote in a sort of hybrid print-script. This note looked like a child wrote it.

“Do you have any examples of Glenn’s handwriting, by any chance?”

“Glenn, who?”

“Bachman. We believe he’s an orderly of some kind?”

Skinner pressed a button on his phone system and called his assistant from the adjoining room.

The young man opened the door and awaited his orders.

“Kal, do we have a Glenn—”

He looked at Shee.

“Bachman.”

“—Bachman on staff?”

Kal grimaced. “Name sounds familiar.”

“Can you see if we have anything on file he might have written? His application, maybe?”

Kal nodded and withdrew.

“You think this Glenn fellow is involved?” Skinner asked them.

Shee nodded. “I’m not saying he’s responsible, but we think he’s involved, yes.”

“Is he here now? At work?”

“No. We’ve asked him to take some time off.”

“You asked him to take time off?” asked J.A.

“For his safety and the safety of the staff,” said Mason.

J.A. objected to the idea, though he didn’t seem to know why and grew flustered by Mason’s attention.

Granted, Mason was giving him the look. Not everyone who saw that expression on Mason’s face lived to tell the tale.

J.A. responded by turning to the doctor.

“You let them run your staff?”

Skinner chuffed to have his authority questioned.

“I’m starting to feel like I’m out of the loop on this investigation,” he snapped.

Shee rolled her eyes.

“Again, we’re here for you. We handled Glenn the way we had to protect you, your staff, and your patients.”

“It’s still my hospital,” muttered Skinner.

Shee held up the note.

“We’re finding evidence from your desk. Things like that make it hard to know who we can trust.”

“Are you implying Dr. Skinner is killing his own patients?” asked J.A.

“No, but someone close to him might be. Someone with access to his office. Can you think why Glenn Bachman would have access to your prescription pad?”

Skinner hemmed. “No—”

“Where do you keep it?”

“It stays in my drawer here. Or in the pocket of my jacket.”

Shee nodded.

“The problem is, you don’t pickpocket someone’s prescription pad just to write yourself—or someone else—a note. This feels more like they needed to write a note, and the pad happened to be handy.”

Skinner shook his head. “I don’t know. That doesn’t make any sense.”

J.A. grunted with approval. Skinner had basically pleaded the fifth, and that was good with him.

Skinner ran a hand over his hair. He seemed frustrated.

“He could have been rooting around my desk, looking for who knows what?” he suggested. “Took the pad hoping to get drugs?”

Shee sat back. “We haven’t seen any ties to drugs. It’s possible someone was in here. Do you keep the office doors locked?”

“Yes—” Skinner scowled. “Most of the time. I don’t always.”

Shee nodded. “Our computer tech says access to the files has been from your account.”

“Wouldn’t that be normal?” asked J.A. “It’s his hospital. His patients. Of course, he looks at the files.”

“We’re talking about access specific to the deaths,” said Mason.

Skinner pointed down at his desk.

“So, you think someone was using my computer with my username right here?”

She nodded. “It would explain a lot. I’d suggest you change your password.”

Skinner pulled his laptop to him. “I will right now.”

Kal knocked and reentered with a folder in hand. Skinner looked up from his computer.

“Give it to her,” he said.

The assistant handed the file to Shee. Inside, she found an application with Glenn’s name on it. Holding the note against it, she compared the handwriting on the application as Mason leaned in. The writing was very scripty.

“Not the same,” said Mason.

She shook her head and studied the lean on the loopy letters. “I’d say Glenn is right-handed. A lefty wrote the note.”

She folded the note, careful not to touch anywhere but the edges, and put it back into her pocket.

She returned the file to Kal but held on when he tried to take it.

“What’s your last name, Kal?” she asked.

Kal glanced at the doctor, and Skinner nodded.

“Tell her,” he said.

Shee released the folder.

“Anand,” he said.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Kal glanced at the doctor and then let himself out.

Shee found Skinner staring at her from behind his laptop.

“You think Kal is involved now?” he asked, his voice soft.

She shook her head. “He has access to your office. Just thought it would be good to know a little more about him. How long has he worked for you?”

“Five years. Something like that.”

J.A. huffed. “You keep acting like whoever’s doing this is related to the Institute. Have you looked at possibilities outside the hospital?”

“We’re looking at every possibility, but all roads lead back here.”

Skinner glared at her. He shut the lid of his computer and pulled off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“I just realized I have no idea how to change my password. I’d usually call in Tamara—”

He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.

“I need this nightmare to end.”

Shee didn’t want to hit the doctor when he was down, but she had another question.

“Doctor, how did you know about Raquel Roque’s, uh… injuries?”

He looked up.

“It was on the news.”

“News of her death was, but not the details about her specific injuries. The injuries to her gluteus maximus, as you said.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Bill. The coroner. He’s a friend of mine. When I saw another patient of mine had died, I called to ask him if she’d OD’d as well. He let it slip that her death had been very different.”

“You should probably be a little more cognizant of the information you share,” said J.A.

“It’s good you did tell us,” said Shee, side-eying at the lawyer. “It helps make the connection between the deaths more clear.”

“How so?” asked Skinner.

“The patient treated for depression died of depression drug overdose. The woman with the butt implant lost them, and the judge, slowly losing his mind, died with a gavel through his brain stem.”

Skinner’s eyes popped wide behind his glasses.

“What? They didn’t say that on the news.”

“No. I guess you haven’t called Bill yet on that one.”

“No.  It didn’t occur to me. I did find it odd—the place they found him. I was surprised to hear his condition had advanced that far—” He shook his head. “Honestly, I think I was feeling overwhelmed when I heard. I didn’t dig for more information. I figured if it was related, you’d tell me.”

“Consider yourself told,” said Shee.

The doctor’s answer made sense and he’d answered quickly. It didn’t seem like he’d needed time to manufacture a lie.

J.A., on the other hand, looked like he’d been sucking on lemons.

“Ernie, you need to go to the police.”

Skinner shot his attention to him.

“I can’t. It would be a disaster.”

“Three bodies? You can’t pretend you didn’t notice the connection.”

Skinner pounded the arm of his chair with the side of his fist.

“Yes. I can,” he said.

J.A. opened his mouth to argue and then sat back, silent.

The doctor glared at him a moment longer and then turned to Shee.

“Do you have any other questions?” he asked.

“Do you have anyone you suspect? Someone on the inside? Maybe a former patient?”

“No. I never dreamed—” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been much help.”

“I get the impression you didn’t know Glenn.”

“No. I assume I’ve seen him around. Do you have a photo?”

Shee found one of Glenn’s social media accounts on her phone and held up a picture of Glenn and Tamara together, grinning at the camera.

Skinner pointed at the image.

“That’s Tamara with him.”

Shee nodded. “We hear they were dating. Do you recognize him?”

He bobbed a shoulder. “Maybe? I mean, as one of the staff—in passing. I don’t know if I’ve ever said a word to him.”

“Who would have hired him?” asked Mason.

Shee looked at him.

That was a good question, and she hadn’t thought of it. The corner of her mouth twitched with a tiny smile.

You’re getting good at this detective stuff, big guy.

“That would be Dalla Yarros,” answered Skinner.

Shee noticed the lawyer fidgeting.

“Can you tell us where you are with all this? Give us a complete update?” J.A. asked, his tone sharp. “I feel like you know a lot more than you’re sharing about this Glenn person.”

Shee frowned.

“We’d rather keep things close to the vest a little longer.”

“Because you think it’s him,” said Skinner. “Or someone here.”

Shee nodded. “We’re hoping Tamara will wake up and help us fill in some details.”

“Are you sure the attack on her is related?” asked Skinner. “She’s not a patient.”

Shee grimaced. “Pretty sure.”

Skinner sighed. “What about a timeline? What are we looking at?”

“I’ll tell you the timeline,” said J.A., poking a finger at the doctor. “One more patient dies, and you’re going to the police—bad press be damned. Every day you keep quiet, you open yourself up to more liability.”

Shee stood, and Mason followed suit.

“We’re close,” said Shee. “We’ll let you know more very soon.”

They said their goodbyes and left the office to find Dalla Yarros.

“Are we close?” asked Mason when they were clear of the offices.

She chuckled.

“Hopefully. It sounded good, though, right?”

Chapter Fourteen

Ollie and Shiva pulled up outside the Coconut Grove home of Cassius Scott. The tree-lined streets leading there had felt like a time-travel wormhole, sending them back to old Florida. Some houses they passed fought the vibe the ancient trees tried so hard to cultivate—white modern boxes with all the amenities. Others seemed more comfortable with the neighborhood’s historic feel—including Cassius’s Spanish-style home.

Ollie tucked the vehicle off the road as far as he could without falling into a drainage ditch.

“Nice neighborhood,” said Shiva.

Ollie turned off the SUV and nodded.

“Yep. Who knew? I should have been a professional basketball player.”

She snorted a laugh, and he grinned.

He was en fuego today, making her laugh. The key, he’d realized, was making fun of himself—she always got a kick out of that.

He wasn’t sure if he should be insulted by that or not.

Cassius’s place had an iron gate flanked by equally tall orange stucco walls surrounding the property. Ollie and Shiva approached the entrance to find the gate closed and locked. Through the bars, Ollie eyed a large parking area. A fountain in the center featured Poseidon holding his trident in the air, triumphant over something—the fact he never had to wear a shirt, maybe. Perhaps he’d finally found the perfect oil for his fantastic beard.

The Spanish villa-style home on the other side of Poseidon was large but not enormous. Not that it mattered. Ollie knew it had to have cost every bit of ten million dollars. Not far away, achingly modern mansions sat on the waterfront, selling for over twenty million. Cassius hadn’t gotten far enough in his career for one of those yet. No reason to shed tears for the young man—the hundred-thousand-dollar Porsche parked next to the fountain said he was doing fine.

Ollie leaned toward the callbox mounted on a stand beside the gate and pressed the speaker button.

“Hello? Knock-knock?”

The speaker crackled.

“Can I help you?” asked a voice.

“Hi. We’re here to speak to Cassius?”

“What about?” said a low, male, vaguely angry voice.

Ollie knew he wouldn’t get inside the gates pretending to be a delivery man, so he came clean.

“We have reason to believe Mr. Scott’s life is in danger. We’d like to talk to him about this threat.”

Ollie overheard people talking before the speaker went silent.

A buzzer that made him jump sounded, and the gate slowly opened.

Ollie looked at Shiva.

“That was easier than I thought it would be.”

She nodded, but she didn’t look happy.

He knew why.

It had been too easy.

They walked up the short driveway to the circular parking area and waited for someone to appear as the gate cranked shut. From this angle, Ollie saw Poseidon was riding a fish. Maybe that’s what he was so excited about.

Shiva’s chin raised, her head slightly cocked. She looked like a dog catching the scent of rabbit in the air.

“Why do you look like that?” he asked, nerves jangling.

She didn’t answer.

Worse still.

He’d been in the military like Mason but didn’t possess the same predator instincts as the big guy or Shee, for that matter. To be fair, those two probably couldn’t identify wine varietals by taste like he could.

We all have our talents...

Shiva remained on high alert.

“Don’t look like that. You make me nervous when you look like that.”

Her hand moved near her waist. It looked like she’d brushed the front of her shirt, but he knew better. He’d seen that motion before.

She’d pulled two of those deadly flat throwing knives from the collection she wore concealed beneath her loose shirt.

Ollie felt the blood drain from his face.

Crap.

It was a trap.

That’s why it had been so easy to get into the compound.

Shiva turned away from him to face the corner of the house. At the same moment, Ollie spotted two shadows stretching across the ground, directly in their line of sight. Two beefy men in tight black tee shirts—their toes attached to those shadows—rounded the house, pistols drawn.

From the weapons to the sunglasses—they might as well have had bodyguard stamped on their foreheads.

Shiva’s throwing knives shot from her fingers as if they were rocket-propelled. She threw them like someone might flick away a spent cigarette—without a care in the world where it went because there was only one option. For the smoker, that one option was the ground. For Shiva, it was wherever she aimed.

Simultaneously, each knife struck a man. The guard on the left, bald head glistening in the sun, caught a blade in his mountainous pectoral muscle. It made him jerk his arm out to the side in surprise and pain.

The guard on the right, heavier and shorter, looking very much like a human bowling ball, took the knife in the bicep. His arm went rigid, and his weapon pointed to the pavers.

Though struck in different spots, the result was the same.

They ceased to aim.

Having bought herself a few seconds, Shiva ran forward to karate-chop Baldy’s splayed arm at the wrist. His weapon released from his fingers and spun off into the bushes by the house.

Bowling Ball started to raise his gun, but it didn’t look easy. He grimaced, the movement of his arm exacerbating his wound. Shiva spun around and kicked the gun from his hand. It flew off and landed in Poseidon’s fountain.

Instead of looking at her or the arc of the retreating gun, Bowling Ball’s eyes went wide and white as he gaped at the knife embedded in his bicep.

Ollie stood, lips ajar, happy to be on this side of Shiva and her many pointy things.

He frowned.

Should I be helping?

“Get her!” roared Baldy, the first of the two to recover his senses.

Still holding his freshly punctured arm, Bowling Ball took a wild swing at Shiva’s head. He missed as Shiva dropped into a split and punched him so hard in the testicles that Ollie grabbed his own.

Ooooh noooo.

Bowling Ball doubled over, basically begging Shiva to mash his nose against her knee as she rose. What else could a girl do? She rose, almost as if pulled by wires, back to her feet, smashed his snout, and pushed him back onto his butt. He groaned and rolled, one hand on his manhood and the other over his face.

Enraged, Baldy ran at Shiva like a Pamplona bull. She dropped to her hip, kicking out his knee as she fell.

Ollie sucked in a breath, unsure what hurt more—the kick to the knee or dropping to a hip on pavers.

Baldy howled and collapsed, cradling his leg and sobbing.

The knee. Definitely the knee.

Shiva stood and walked the few steps back to Ollie. Her hip seemed fine.

“We should go?” she suggested.

He blinked at her.

“Now you say that?”

“Hold it, hold it,” said a voice from above.

Ollie pointed up without looking.

“See? Even God thinks you were too hard on them.”

Shiva scoffed. “I did not even kill them.”

Ollie shaded his eyes with his hand and peered up at a man in workout shorts, looking over a balcony ledge at them.

“Who are you? What do you want?” asked the man. He pointed at the two men on the ground. “I have a lot more where they came from.”

Ollie decided the man on the balcony was too tall to be anyone but the basketball player they’d come to talk to.

“We’re not here to hurt you, Mr. Scott. We’re here to let you know there could be an attempt on your life.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, I can see that. You’re here.”

“Not from us. We’d like to talk to you about it, though.”

Cassius put his hands on his hips and glared down at them, considering his options.

“Okay. I’m coming down.”

Bowling Ball clambered to his knees and started toward the fountain to find his gun.

Shiva tensed.

“No. Stop. Everyone stop,” said Cassius. He pointed at the guards. “You two are fired. Leave the guns. Just go.”

Shiva walked to the bald man and plucked her knife from his chest with a deft movement, too fast for him to process what was happening. He yipped and swatted at her.

“Get away from me!”

She moved toward Bowling Ball, who’d propped himself against the fountain.  Seeing her approach, he jerked the knife out of his own arm and flipped it around to hand it to her, handle first.

“Thank you,” she said.

He kept his eyes on her as Shiva returned to Ollie’s side. She pulled a tissue from her pocket and used it to clean the blood from the blades before returning them to the belt beneath her shirt.

Ollie rested his head on her shoulder and looked up at her, blinking coquettishly.

“You make me feel so safe,” he said.

She snorted a laugh. “Cut it out. Someone has to protect you. You are all mouth.”

He smirked. “Thank you for noticing.”

Cassius opened his front door and poked his head out as Bowling Ball helped Baldy to his feet, and the pair hobbled away.

“You stay there,” he said to them. “Especially you,” he added, motioning to Shiva. “You’re crazy.”

“Hello, Cassius—can I call you Cassius?” said Ollie.

Cassius chuckled. “You can call me whatever you want as long as you keep that girl next to you.”

Ollie put his hand on his chest.

“My name is Ollie, and this is Shiva. We’re part of a group hired to investigate a string of murders. We have reason to believe you might be the next victim. Have you received any threatening messages? Blackmail notices?”

Cassius scowled and stepped a little farther through the door toward them.

“Yeah. I did. That’s why I have the bodyguards.”

Ollie nodded. “Okay. Can I assume you didn’t pay?”

“Naw. I just got the note yesterday.”

“Good. Whatever you do, don’t pay. Everyone who did ended up dead.”

Cassius laughed. “Oh, you got nothin’ to worry about there. Wasn’t a chance in hell they were gettin’ my money.”

“Can I ask how you got the blackmail note?”

He motioned to the Porsche. “It was under the windshield wiper when I came out of the restaurant the other night.”

“Do you think there were cameras where you were parked?”

“No. I asked the parking lot dude that. The cameras didn’t cover where they’d parked it.”

“Did you give the note to the police?”

“No. I didn’t know whether to believe it or not. I thought I’d just muscle up.”

“Do you mind showing us the note?”

Cassius shook his head and disappeared into the house. A minute later, he reemerged with a small white square of paper. He leaned out to hand it to them.

Shiva stepped forward to grab it, and he retracted his long arm.

“Not you. Him.”

Shiva stepped back. Ollie took the paper.

“This is on Dr. Skinner’s prescription pad,” he said, glancing at Shiva.

Cassius nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know who that is.”

He rubbed his hand over his head.

Ollie smiled at how uncomfortable he looked.

“We know you were a patient there.”

Cassius grew sullen.

“You know why?” he asked in a low voice.

Ollie nodded.

Cassius grimaced.

“You ain’t gonna tell no one, are you?”

“Never. But you should leave town for a bit.” Ollie held up the note. “Can I keep this?”

“Sure.” He looked to where the bodyguards had made their last stand and chewed at his lip before returning his attention to Ollie.

“How far ya think I have to go?” he asked.

“Not far. Out of the state to be safe? Take a plane somewhere.”

Cassius nodded. “Cool. Thanks. You’re all right.” He put out his hand, and Ollie shook it.  Cassius’s attention moved to Shiva.

“You think I could keep her? You for hire?”

Ollie shook his head. “I’m afraid we need her.”

He shook his head.

“That’s too bad.”

“You should give your guards another chance,” said Shiva. “I am sure they would be more than capable in most cases.”

Cassius grinned. “Oh, they know they ain’t fired. They’re my cousins.”

He disappeared inside, still chuckling.

Ollie and Shiva started for the gate.

“I swear. I can’t take you anywhere,” said Ollie.

She rolled her eyes at him.

The gate opened as they approached, and they walked to the car. Rounding the front to reach the driver’s side, Ollie spotted a slip of paper under his windshield wiper.

He plucked it out and scanned the road. There wasn’t any place for a car to hide. He didn’t see anyone. He exchanged a look with Shiva, and they got into the Jeep.

“Another note?” asked Shiva.

“On prescription pad paper. It’s our boy.”

He opened the folded note and read it aloud.

“Stop the investigation, or you’re all dead.”

Chapter Fifteen

Ollie stared at the threatening note in his hand. Shiva’s eyes were up, scanning their surroundings, watching for potential threats.

“We need to stay until Cassius leaves,” she said. “The killer could still be here, waiting for us to leave.”

Ollie nodded.

“I wonder if he followed us or was already here, ready to kill Cassius when we showed up,” he mused.

“I think the latter. I did not see anyone following us.”

He nodded. She was probably right. She didn’t miss much. She was so good at what she did that he wondered if he’d lose all his survival instincts hanging out with her. It was easy to sit back and assume she’d protect them both.

She pressed her lips together and nodded, looking as if she’d come to some decision.

“I should walk the perimeter,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

Ollie touched her arm to stop her, and she flinched like he was an alligator.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “I just didn’t want you to go. Let’s stay in the car.”

“You surprised me,” she muttered.

She flashed him a sheepish look before growing serious again.

“He could be on his way to kill Cassius. We know he was here. He left the note.”

“That’s just it. He wouldn’t alert us to his presence with the note and then try and take a shot at Cassius.” He grinned. “Certainly not if he saw you with those bodyguards. Not after that low blow.”

He laughed, remembering how Bowling Ball had rolled backward, cradling his crotch and nose.

She frowned at him. “I did what I had to do. I assumed you did not want me to kill the man’s guards, but I needed to incapacitate them.”

He gave her a thumbs up. “Mission accomplished. You not only incapacitated the man, you made sure he’d never have annoying bodyguard children as well.”

She clucked her tongue.

“You are stupid.” She sighed. “But, you are probably right that the killer will not try something with us here. Still, I do not like sitting here like ducks.”

“Like sitting ducks,” he corrected.

She nodded. “That is what I said.”

He looked down at the paper in his hand. Maybe it was the way she’d blushed when he mentioned how she’d used a man’s testicles like a speedbag, or maybe it was the growing scent of jasmine in the cab.

Whatever it was, he felt guilty.

He’d lied to her.

He took a deep breath.

“I wasn’t totally honest about what’s written on this note,” he admitted.

She looked at him with those large brown eyes.

“No?”

He shook his head. “It says what I told you, but it also says I’ll tell them everything, Ollie.”

“He knows your name.”

“Apparently. I have to assume he knows I’m one of the patients. He thinks he can blackmail me.” He scowled. “Did we tell Glenn our names?”

“I do not think so, but we were talking with Shee. He might have heard something.”

He nodded.

“He cannot blackmail you. You have already told us all.”

He looked at her.

She held his gaze.

Hm.

As he’d suspected, her comment was a test. He’d admitted withholding the full contents of the note. She suspected it wasn’t the first time he’d withheld information.

“You’re wondering if I was less than forthcoming with my earlier confession,” he said.

One of her eyebrows raised slightly.

That would be a yes.

He sighed.

“I told the group everything. Mostly.”

Her other eyebrow raised with its mate.

“Everything mostly?” She shook her head. “English is not my first language, but I do not think you can use those two words at the same time.”

He smirked. “Oxymoron.”

She placed a hand on her chest. “Me?”

He laughed.

“No, I’m not calling you a moron. I said oxymoron. It’s when two words don’t go together, like deafening silence.”

“Ah. Yes. Everything mostly.”

He nodded, and she tilted her head to squint at him.

“But I am still waiting for the mostly? Does mostly mean you are still vulnerable to this man’s blackmail?”

He scoffed. “No. I’d never let someone blackmail me.”

“But there is more you need to share.”

He grimaced.

“That I need to share? I don’t know if I need to share it...”

Ollie cast his eyes down. This seemed like the perfect time to share a lot of thoughts with Shiva, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to or how to start.

Once he told her, there’d be no going back.

When he looked up, he found her still staring at him.

Waiting.

He sighed.

“What do you think of me?” he asked.

Her brow furrowed. “How do you mean?”

“Do you like me?”

She nodded. “I think you are a very nice man. Very capable in your way.”

He nodded.

Nice and capable.

Not his desired response.

She sounded like she was about to hire him for a retail job.

He’d come at it another way.

“Do you want to know what I think of you?”

She pressed her lips tight.

“I am not sure now. You are being very strange. Do I?”

“I like you,” he blurted.

She tucked her chin as if he’d spat at her.

“Good?” she asked.

He slowed down.

“I mean, I really like you.”

She looked at him and then cast her gaze downward.

“I like you, too. Very much.”

She almost whispered the words.

He squinted.

That seemed hopeful...

Except…

Why is she shaking her head?

He pointed. “The way your head is moving doesn’t match your words.”

She looked away.

“What is that phrase you Americans love to say?” She turned back to him. “It’s complicated.”

He nodded.

“You have no idea. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That is my mostly.”

She shook her head again.

“I do not understand.”

He ran his finger along the bottom of the steering wheel, glaring at it like he was trying to memorize the stitching.

He felt like he needed to start over again.

“Let me ask you this. You’re saying you like me, but not that way. You don’t like like me.”

She swallowed. “It is complicated.”

“You said that already.”

“Well, it is.”

He scowled. “Okay. Don’t get all pissy.”

“I am not getting pissy.”

He tapped his finger on his thigh.

“Are you gay?” he asked.

“No, I am not. If a woman does not want to jump into your bed, she is gay?”

“No. That’s not what I meant at all. And who said I wanted you to jump into my bed?”

She scoffed.

“It is good you do not because I will not be jumping into your bed.”

“Good. Fine.”

“Fine.”

They fell silent again.

Both crossed their arms against their chest and, realizing they’d done it simultaneously, uncrossed them at the same time at once. When Shiva recrossed them, Ollie hung his fingers on the steering wheel.

“What will you do about the note, Mr. Mostly?” she asked.

Her tone was a little snottier than usual.

“I don’t know. Nothing. I’ll take it to Shee. I’m not going to try and stop the investigation, obviously.”

“But what about the rest of your secret? You are not worried?”

“No. It doesn’t matter.” He looked at her. “I guess it really doesn’t matter now.”

She felt his gaze on her and turned to face him.

“Why do you say this?” she asked.

He took a beat and then sighed.

“Because you’re the only person I was afraid to tell.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I suppose I could tell you anyway. Even if it doesn’t matter.”

“If you want to.”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

She turned her palms up. “Cassius is taking his time packing. We have time.”

He nodded.

Here goes nothing.

She might as well know about the bullet she dodged.

“I’ve probably mentioned before I was an acquisitions officer in the Army—”

“Once or twice,” she said, a smirk curling on her lips.

He scowled. “This is hard enough. You don’t have to be a jerk.”

She put her fingers over her lips, tittering.

“Sorry. Please proceed.”

He grunted.

“Anyway, I had my regular duties, but I pawned most of those off on my staff. I had other priorities—off the books.”

“You did favors for generals,” said Shiva.

He nodded. “Right. All sorts of people. There was this one colonel, though—he was a real bastard. I did things for him and then decided he wasn’t someone I wanted to help anymore.”

“Because he was a bastard?”

“Because he lied to me. I don’t begrudge a man the chance to make a little pocket change working the system, but he was going to get someone killed. He was greedy and heartless.”

“He had no honor,” said Shiva.

“None.”

Shiva grunted. “That happens to men in power.”

Ollie rolled his eyes at her.

“Women too, sister. Take it from me.”

She nodded without further comment, and he continued.

“This colonel didn’t appreciate my sudden attack of conscience. He sent me into a trap. He told the enemy my team was coming and set us up for ambush.”

Shiva gaped. “He was willing to take out your whole team?”

“The best way to kill one person is to kill a few. Makes it look random.”

He cracked his neck and braced for the next part of the story.

This was the hard part.

“Anyway, I had this kid next to me, Billy, barely three months in the service. I liked him—he was a little sneaky but fundamentally honest.”

“Like you,” interjected Shiva.

He smiled. “Exactly. I was grooming him to be my assistant, and we were walking through this village when I saw a grenade headed our way. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it, to be honest. Blue skies, and then it was just there, flying through the air at us. Billy was going to take the full brunt of it. I didn’t really think about it. I pushed him out of the way.”

“And you took the blast.”

“Yeah. Pretty stupid, in retrospect.”

He chuckled and tried to swallow. His mouth had gone dry. He paused and took a swig from the bottle of water sitting in the cup holder. It had been sitting there since the drive from Miami.

So warm.

Blech.

She put her hand near his arm.

“You do not have to tell me,” she said.

He tightened the cap and put it back.

No stopping now.

He took a deep breath and continued.

“I remember laying there. I knew I was a mess. I saw this, like sausage—I couldn’t wrap my head around what it was. I’m thinking, did they throw a sausage at us? Rubber snakes? Is that all it was? A joke?”

He flashed a quick smile. He always told this part of the story the same way. It took some of the tension out—for the listener and himself.

“The punchline is—it was my guts. They were hanging out of me. I looked over at the kid to make sure he was okay and—”

He looked away. He didn’t like this part. He wouldn’t mention it except people always asked. No point in trying to avoid it.

“You didn’t save him,” said Shiva.

He shook his head. “No. He took shrapnel in the head, and I blasted myself to smithereens for nothing. The worst part was there wasn’t another mark on him. I found this out later, but he avoided everything except the one piece that killed him.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said Shiva.

He nodded.

“And, long story short, the guys I was with were top-notch. Somehow, they got me to a hospital before I bled out. I don’t know how.”

“You are very lucky.”

He smiled. “It didn’t feel like it at the time. I was in a lot of pain. My heart was messed up and—”

He looked at his lap, but the words didn’t come. He moved on.

“I was in and out for days. One time, I woke up, and the colonel was there. He promised me an honorable discharge with full benefits—said he even arranged a special discounted price at a high-end hospital to help me with my injuries—”

“Skinner?”

He nodded.

“All I had to do was keep my mouth shut.”

“And if you did not?”

“He’d have me arrested.”

“For what? You were injured. How—”

He shrugged. “People with power. You know how it goes. He’d have found a way to ruin me. Dishonorable discharge. Pin Billy’s death on me. Who knows? I don’t even know if I thought it out at the time. I just agreed. I was out of my head. Didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t prove he’d set me up. I was so hopped up on pain meds I could barely do more than nod, but nod I did.”

“And then you came home and went to work for Loggerhead?”

He chuckled. “Most of me came home. I didn’t find Loggerhead right away. I didn’t do so well for a while. It was easy to wallow, but maybe a year into my pity party, a buddy told me about Mick and Loggerhead, and it felt like some light at the end of the tunnel. I started to get myself together until I was fit enough to interview.”

He swallowed.

“If they hadn’t taken me—”

He dropped his head for a second and then looked back up at Shiva and forced a smile.

“Point is, it felt right. Felt like the sense of purpose I needed. And, working for Loggerhead, I figured I might take down a few colonel-types.”

Shiva smiled, her eyes soft.

“Bonus,” she said.

He nodded. “Bonus. Right.”

Shiva scanned the street and then turned back to him. Her expression said she had questions.

“Shee already knows about your heart.”

“Yes. They know. I should have told them straight out, but I tried to hide it. I almost blew the whole thing on the first mission.”

“So...what is the mostly? Do you worry she will fire you for helping this evil colonel?”

He shook his head. “No. Not a chance. They’d be chucking a thousand rocks through a thousand glass houses to hold a little moral failing against me.”

“Then what?”

He ran his tongue over his teeth. “That blast. It did more than mess up my heart.”

“The sausages.”

He laughed. “Right. The sausages. Actually, my guts weren’t nearly as wrecked as I feared. But, um...”

He hovered his hand over his lap.

“I took some damage down low, too.”

Shiva looked at his lap. Her cheeks colored.

“Oh—”

“I didn’t lose my frank and beans,” he said quickly.

She scowled.

“You call it Frank?”

“No, frank and beans—my meat and potatoes. The old twig and berries. They’re still where they’ve always been.”

She nodded. “Oh.”

“I’m intact, but they don’t work like they used to.”

“Oh,” she repeated.

She didn’t look disappointed.

Hm.

She really has no interest in me. No reason not to finish the story.

“It’s okay. I don’t really have any drive for, you know, that anymore either.”

Shiva blinked at him. Her expression had gone entirely blank. He couldn’t read her.

It was the damnedest thing.

“Do you get what I’m saying?” he asked.

“You’re saying you like me, but you cannot be my lover,” she said.

Now, he felt his cheeks coloring. He hadn’t expected her to circle back to the earlier conversation that way. Not so fast and direct. Definitely not using the word lover.

Dios mio.

“Uh, yes. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Not the traditional way,” he said.

He looked through the front window, wondering if he could crawl through—

Something brushed his hand, and he looked.

Shiva had rested her hand on his.

He stared at it, realizing he’d never seen her touch anyone unless she was busy breaking their bones.

“I am not motivated either,” she said.

Oh. It’s a pity touch.

“No, I get it,” he said, pulling his hand out from under hers. “You don’t feel that way about me.”

“No. That is not what I mean,” she said.

Something about her expression drew him in. He’d misread her. He knew that much.

“I have no interest in being with any man,” she explained.

He cocked his head.

“So you are gay? You could have just said—”

She shook her head.

“No. I am not.” She took a deep breath. “I grew up on the streets. I met many bad men.”

“Oh.” The gravity of what she was telling him sank in. “Oh.”

“This past has left me—without interest.”

“That’s understandable.” He chewed on his lip for a moment. “So, you’re saying we’re both—”

“Celibate.”

He winced. “Do you always have to use the real word for things?”

Her brow knitted. “Am I using the word wrong?”

He waved in the air dismissively.

“No—it’s just so...blunt. Americans prefer dancing around tough topics with a hundred other words that almost say the right thing but never really get there.”

She snorted a laugh. “I have noticed this. It is very confusing.”

He nodded.

“That being said, it’s not a terrible thing, right? Our situation? Kind of takes the pressure off?”

She nodded.

“I would very much like you to be my friend.”

“Your—?”

“My most special friend,” she corrected.

He chuckled. “And to think I used to hate being put in the friend zone.”

He put out his hand.

“So, maybe we can hold hands sometimes?”

She placed her hand in his.

“Yes.”

He felt his eyes misting and saw the same glossiness in hers.

“And you’ll protect me from bad guys?”

She laughed.

“I will try.”

Chapter Sixteen

As Shee and Mason walked to Dalla Yarros’s office in Skinner’s hospital, Mason thought about how much he wanted to punch Skinner in the face. Just a quick rabbit punch. He didn’t know why. He didn’t like the guy. He didn’t like anyone involved in this case. The lawyer needed a good smack, too. Skinner was arrogant. Something was off with Glenn. Even the young woman clinging to life at the hospital handed over patients’ private records.  Granted, she did it to save her boyfriend’s life, but she should have known her boyfriend was a terrible person, and stuff like this happens to terrible people.

“What are you mumbling about?” asked Shee, looking at him.

Mason scowled. “Was I? I dunno. I don’t like this place.”

“The hospital?”

Mason looked at her. He hadn’t considered that. After losing his left leg below the knee, he’d spent a long time in the hospital.

He didn’t like hospitals.

He grunted and let the conversation die.

“This was a good idea, asking Dalla Yarros about Glenn,” Shee said as they walked down the corridor toward Dalla’s office. “What made you think to ask for her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Glenn’s shady. He’s been here—how long? And he’s already robbed half the patients and bullied his IT girlfriend into covering up murders?”

“Not a great track record.”

“That’s what I’m saying. A person like that wasn’t an angel when he applied. Either the person who hired him didn’t vet him, or they knew and hired him anyway. I want to find out which is the case with Yarros.”

Shee nodded. “To be fair, Glenn didn’t know the guy who blackmailed him was going to murder people.”

Mason scoffed. “He knew whatever the guy was up to, it couldn’t be good. Obviously, the guy planned to use the information Glenn gave him to blackmail more people, and you don’t blackmail people into helping an old lady across the street.”

Shee giggled. “That’s the nicest thing you could come up with? Helping old ladies across the street?”

“It’s a classic.” He smirked.

She smiled back and shrugged.

“I can’t argue any of this. I’m not a Glenn fan, either. I felt bad for him after Shiva put that nasty egg on his head, and I’m sure it sucked being in the back of Ollie’s Jeep—but I agree. He’s not a good guy.”

They passed the nurse’s station, and Shee noticed a woman staring at Mason. She glanced over her shoulder, and the wide-eyed woman quickly looked away.

Chuckling, she slapped Mason’s stomach with the back of her hand.

“Ow. What was that for?” he asked.

“I think you have a fan. That lady at the desk eyeballed your butt so hard I’m surprised you didn’t feel the pinch.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re out of your mind.”

They reached Dalla Yarros’s office door. Shee knocked, but no one answered.

“Why don’t you go up the hall and ask that lady if they know where Dalla is?” asked Shee.

Mason pouted. Usually, Shee did all the talking.

“Why me?”

“Come on. Give the woman a thrill.”

He scowled. “Cut it out.”

“Bet you ten bucks she flirts.”

He pointed at her. “You’re on.”

Mason headed back down the hall with Shee snickering behind him. He approached the desk, and the woman sat ramrod straight at the sight of him. She was curvy and dressed in street clothes—not a nurse, some sort of admin.

“Oh, hello,” she purred. “I’m Jan. Can I help you?”

She smiled a saucy little grin, implying she didn’t necessarily mean directions to a patient room.

Mason cleared his throat.

Looks like I lost ten bucks.

“Hi, I’m Mason—uh, we’re looking for Ms. Yarros. Is she around?” he asked.

Jan looked down the hall at Shee.

“You and your...sister?”

“Me and my, uh, boss.”

The woman paused like she needed a second to memorize his face. Mason felt his cheeks heating. It had been a while since he bumped into someone this forward.

He might owe Shee twenty dollars.

“Well, no, Mr. Mason, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen Dalla today.” She tilted her head toward another woman without looking at her. “Trace, have you seen Dalla?” she asked, raising her volume a notch.

The other woman behind the counter, a nurse reading through a binder, glanced up.

“Hm? Dalla? No. Not today.”

Her focus returned to her reading.

Mason grimaced. He needed to find Dalla one way or the other.

He smiled at Jan. “I don’t mean to trouble you—”

He paused, realizing his South Carolina accent had become more apparent than usual. It reminded him of Shee when she shifted into flirt mode to get information. He’d heard her with a drawl, a passable British accent, and even some Slavic mishmash that would fool the average listener.

Now, he was doing it.

Shameless.

“—but is there a way you can call for her over the intercom?” he asked.

The woman pursed her lips. “I think I can do that for you.”

She pushed a button on a box near her computer and leaned to the speaker.

“Ms. Yarros? You’re wanted at your office. Ms. Yarros—at your office, please.”

She leaned back and looked at him like a dog waiting for its treat.

“Thank you,” he said.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Her suggestive lilt caused the nurse behind her to glance up and snort a laugh.

“I, uh, better get back to work,” he said, flashing her a sheepish smile.

“Don’t get yourself fired,” she said as he walked away. “Bye.”

Mason returned to Shee, and she held out her upturned palm.

He pulled a ten-dollar bill from his phone case billfold and put it in her hand.

“Thank you,” she said in the same coquettish manner as Jan.

He side-eyed her and checked his watch.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now we wait, I guess. For a little bit.”

He turned to look down the hall, hoping to see Dalla approaching. Instead, he spotted a tall young woman with a clump of curly brown hair pulled back into a puffball of a ponytail.

A very familiar ponytail.

“Is that Croix?” he asked.

Shee turned. Croix had stopped at the desk to talk to Jan.

“Croix?” called Shee.

The girl spotted them and pivoted on her toe to head their way, bouncing with boundless young-person energy.

“Hey,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” asked Mason.

“Ethan thinks Tamara isn’t the one who deleted the garage security video. He says it’s probably on a separate network and thought I should talk to security.” She hooked a thumb behind her. “The desk lady said the security office is down on the bottom level in the parking garage.”

The motion of Croix’s thumb drew Mason to glance down the hall, where he spotted Jan peering back at him. She waved.

Too late to pretend he hadn’t seen her, he held up a hand and wiggled his fingers.

Croix glanced over her shoulder and looked at Mason.

“You know her?”

“She’s his new girlfriend,” teased Shee.

“I swear to...” Mason looked at Croix. “How about I go with you to security?”

Croix nodded. “Sure.”

“I guess I’ll stay here by myself a little longer and see if Dalla shows,” grumbled Shee. “Thanks for abandoning me.”

“You reap what you sow,” said Mason.

He and Croix walked out to the parking garage and took the stairs three flights down to the bottom level.

“Did Ethan find anything else?” asked Mason as they walked.

“Not yet. He was up to his elbows in data-scraping when I left.”

They found the door to the security office not far from the garage exit. Through the glass, they saw a man with a shock of white hair sitting in a rolling office chair. He sat before a computer screen filled with live video feeds. His eyes were closed, and his chin pressed against his chest.

“Great security. No wonder this place is a mess,” drawled Croix.

Mason knocked on the door twice before the man’s eyes opened. He squinted through the glass at them and motioned for them to enter. Mason opened the door.

"Hey there," said the guard.

Mason nodded. “Hey, my name is Mason. This is Croix—”

“Nice to meet you, Mason.” He shook hands with him and then turned to Croix. “And, uh, you,” he said, giving her hand a pump. “I’m Brian. What can I do you for?”

“We’re working with Doctor Skinner and need some footage from the garage security cameras. How would we go about getting that?” asked Mason.

“Getting it?” Brian took a moment to scratch at his white scruff. “Got me. You’re welcome to look through it. If you know how to take it with you—be my guest.”

He stood and motioned to his chair, offering it to them.

Croix and Mason exchanged the same look.

It said, That was waaaay too easy.

“You don’t mind?” asked Croix, sitting before Brian could answer. “Do I need a password?”

The old guy shook his head. “Nah, I stay logged in. Makes things easier.”

Croix clicked and typed. Mason smiled at the man to pull his attention away from Croix in case she did something to raise an objection. At this point, he couldn’t imagine what would make the man suspicious—he seemed happy to hand them the whole system with his compliments—but better safe than sorry.

“How long have you been working here?” he asked.

“Four months or so,” said Brian, hanging his meaty thumbs in his belt.

“Have you always been a security guard?”

He chuckled. “No. I was an auto mechanic for forty years. I retired, but I wanted to do something, you know? Gotta keep the brain sharp.”

He tapped the side of his skull with a stubby finger.

“What happened to the person who had this job before you?” asked Mason.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they retired. Or quit. Or got fired.”

Mason nodded.

That covers all the options.

He looked at Croix.

“Anything?”

She nodded. “The file’s here.”

Mason perked. “Yeah? I thought Ethan said it was deleted?”

“He said someone deleted the connection. The link between this system and upstairs. Turns out the file is still here.”

Mason watched as she brought up the video, locked in on the area where Glenn parked his car, and fast-forwarded through the footage. Almost nothing happened. A few people speed-walked by. A few cars parking or leaving. No one got anywhere near Glenn’s car.

Croix shook her head. “There’s nothing on it. Glenn’s car is there, but no one gets near it until he leaves. Nobody left a note.”

She rewound and played the video of Glenn getting into the car and driving off at a normal pace. Glenn never reached toward his windshield, and there wasn’t anything hanging there.

Mason crossed his arms against his chest.

“Maybe he had the date wrong?”

Croix shrugged a shoulder. “I guess so. I guess he told Tamara to delete the wrong date?”

“Can you grab the video around that time? Couple days before, couple days after?”

She clicked around for a moment and then sat back. “I did us one better. I sent Ethan the network information. If we think of something else we want to check, he’ll have everything he needs.” She looked at the guard. “Does this have cloud backup?”

His brow furrowed. “Hm?”

“Never mind.” She turned away from Brian to roll her eyes at Mason. “I can’t find any evidence that they have an offsite backup.”

Mason grunted. “For a place that prides itself on security, they’re not trying very hard in the garage.”

Croix cocked her head as if an idea had popped into mind. She held up a finger.

“Ah, but it isn’t security—it’s privacy they promise,” she noted. “Maybe that’s why they don’t want copies anywhere.”

Mason glanced at the guard and let the conversation die. He’d been about to point out the flaw in her theory—how easy it had been for them to see the whole system. He’d almost forgotten Brian was standing right there, leaning against the wall, already nodding off again.

Mason’s phone rang. Brian’s eyes opened, and he bounced himself off the wall. Mason looked at the caller ID and saw it was Shee. He held up a hand to ask for patience. Though he’d been motioning to Croix, Brian nodded and leaned against the wall to close his eyes.

“Hey. Did Dalla show up?” he answered.

“No. She never showed. Meet me at the truck,” said Shee.

It sounded as if she were jogging.

That can’t be good.

“Why? What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Ollie just called,” she said.

Mason heard the sound of her pushing through a door before she continued.

“Someone broke into the house and attacked Ethan.”

Chapter Seventeen

Ethan rolled his head around to crack his neck while the computer did its work. He’d been slogging through data dumps and searching for needles in virtual haystacks in Skinner’s mess of a network.

No excitement.

Ollie and Shiva were off talking to a professional basketball player. Shee and Mason were putting the screws to Skinner. Croix left to grill the security guard.

He trudged through data.

Whee.

He’d written a few programs to help speed up his search. The first directory was full of hospital work applications. He wanted to compare those against past and current employees. Maybe someone who didn’t get hired still held a grudge.

He compared the names of the staff members against the employment applications and marked potential grudge-holders.

Something caught his eye, and Ethan stared at the name glowing on his computer screen.

Dalla.

He thought he’d made a mistake, but no. The name came up twice—Dalla Yarros, the hospital administrator, and Dalla Bachman, an application from five years previous.

Two people named Dalla?

That didn’t seem likely.

He dug deeper through the documents, searching for more mentions of Dalla. He found another—some early paperwork filled out by potential patient Dalla.

Whoa. That’s weird.

That can’t be a coincidence.

Ollie looked for his phone. Shee was at the hospital. He needed to call her.

He looked around but couldn’t find his phone.

Oh right.

He remembered he’d had it in the living room the night before while watching television.

Popping to his feet, he headed that way, spotting the phone on the arm of the sofa as he entered the room.

As he picked it up, a shadow moved at his feet. He glanced up at the frosted glass front door. Something rattled outside.

Someone was there.

Shoot.

He’d probably missed Mason and Shee at the hospital. They were already back.

Ah well. Not the end of the world—

He reached for the front door to open it for them and then paused as a feeling—a cold drip—ran down his neck.

Why hadn’t they come in?

The knob rattled again, and he took a step back.

Something didn’t feel right.

The figure—male?—hunched over like he was looking at the knob.

Did Mason forget the keypad code?

Ethan was about to call Mason’s name, but that same feeling kept his mouth from opening. He took another step back, slowly, tucking himself out of view from the door.

The body outside didn’t fit. It looked male but too thin to be Mason and too tall to be Ollie.

But who else could it be? Maybe the door’s frosting made them look funny?

He was being stupid.

Right?

He took another cautious step toward the door. A loud bang stopped him.

The door shuddered.

Someone had slammed their shoulder against it.

They’re breaking in.

Ethan scrambled back. He looked around him without knowing what he was looking for. A weapon? Even if there was a gun on the table, he wouldn’t trust himself to use it.

Shit.

There was only one option left.

Hide.

Ethan dove into the coat closet across from the front door as the intruder rammed forward a second time.

The lock gave way.

He heard the door bounce against the wall behind it and the tinkling of metal on the tile floor. The hurricane glass stayed intact. It was good like that.

He wasn’t so good, though.

He wasn’t alone anymore.

Ethan peered through the closet’s louvers as the masked man entered the living room. He lifted his arms, fists curled, ready to burst out if the intruder stepped anywhere near the closet door.

It took him a moment to realize he was mirroring the stranger, who also stood with fists raised, waiting for someone to come barreling around the corner.

Which, in this nest of vipers, wasn’t out of the question. Luckily for this guy, everyone was gone—except the nerd cowering in the coat closet.

When no one came running, the man relaxed and shut the broken front door behind him as well as he could. It didn’t latch.

Ethan realized Croix had taken the last vehicle. It looked like the house was empty.

Oh, how lucky he’d stayed behind.

The figure turned toward him, and Ethan tensed, fear roiling in his stomach. The intruder was tall—six feet, maybe a little more—but thin. Ethan had no idea who he was and had little to go on. Only the man’s eyes were visible beneath his ballcap. He stood too far away to make out the color. A camo-print neck gaiter covered the lower half of his face. Ollie had seen the UV-protecting fabric neck tubes before—a lot since moving to Jupiter Beach. Fishermen, landscapers, and roofers used them to keep the sun off their faces and irritants from their lungs.

The man didn’t look like he was on his way to go fishing.

Not hunting for fish, anyway.

His clothing didn’t offer any clues. His ballcap and tee shirt sported common, international surf logos anyone might wear.

Ethan swallowed. He could see the man clearly through the louvers. It seemed impossible the intruder couldn’t see him.

Surely, there had to be neon signs all around the closet blinking He’s in here, idiot, but no—the man ignored the closet and headed toward the kitchen.

Ethan had some luck, after all.

He released the breath he’d been holding and grimaced when the smell of onions from his leftover Italian sub bounced against the closet door and back into his face.

Terrible.

The trespasser could probably smell him from the other room.

He heard cabinets banging. The guy was looking for something. Ethan couldn’t imagine what. Did they have weapons lying around? The crew was usually pretty responsible with their guns, but who knew?

All he needed was the intruder to upgrade himself to armed intruder.

Ethan heard the squeaky medicine cabinet in the hallway bath. The man was working his way around the house. He’d get to the bedrooms next. There, he’d find Ethan’s laptop and all the research.

Dammit.

Maybe he’d grab the laptop as his trophy and leave—or work his way back to the coat closet and take a peek.

Ethan put his hands on his head and gritted his teeth.

Think.

Should he try and stop the guy before he took the laptop? That’s what the others would do, but they were a lot better at defending themselves than he was. He was better at hiding and running—

Should I make a run for it?

Ethan felt his hand vibrate as his phone sprang to life.

Nooo!

It was Croix. The steel drum music he’d assigned to her screamed in his hand.

He tried to stop the ringing, but he fumbled. He didn’t want to answer it, and his thumb couldn’t find the button to turn it off.

Panicked, he opened the closet door and flung the phone across the room to the sofa before retreating into the shell of the closet like a frightened turtle.

No sooner had he closed the door than he heard footsteps coming down the hall.  The song’s repetitive loop died.

The man came into view through the louvers and froze in front of the closet, poised like he was playing red light-green light, waiting for the ringing to start again. When it did, he leaped to the sofa and found the phone. He looked at it, fiddled with it, and then walked toward the kitchen with it still in his hand as the ringing ended mid-song.

Ethan put his hand over his mouth to keep himself from whimpering.

Upside, he hadn’t been found.

Downside, the guy took his phone.

He’d gone from probably losing his computer to losing that and his phone.

This crappy day just kept getting better.

Things were quiet again until noises commenced somewhere in the back bedrooms. The intruder banged around like he was building an addition.

What the hell?

Ethan was back where he started.

A man without a plan.

He made a decision.

Time to move.

He eased open the closet and eyed the front door. It wasn’t closed securely and hung crooked on the hinges. He suspected the moment he touched it, the thing would collapse. Bad Guy would come running, and unable to get outside, he’d end up dead.

He didn’t want to die wrestling with a broken door.

He crept out of the closet and tiptoed toward the kitchen. Leaning, he peered around the corner to eyeball the room.

Empty.

Something banged in one of the back bedrooms.

He returned his attention to the kitchen. The back door called to him, promising escape and safety, but he fought the urge to run to it. He needed to go slowly and quietly open the back door. He’d be heard and caught if he rushed and fumbled with the locks. Probably tortured, killed—

He pressed his palm against his head to stop the doom loop playing in his brain.

Stop that. Not helpful.

He stepped into the kitchen and heard feet walking down the hall. Throwing himself back against the side of the refrigerator, he listened to steps in the living room.

Is Bad Guy leaving?

He heard the broken door groan.

Yes! He is leaving!

Ethan peered around the corner.

Bad Guy smiled, his gaze locked on Ethan’s.

Oh no.

All at once, Ethan knew what had happened. The phone had put Bad Guy on alert. He suspected someone was in the house. He sat quietly in the kitchen, listening, then he moved to the back to make a bunch of noise. Then, he pretended to leave to see if someone popped out of their hiding spot.

Ethan grimaced.

He’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

Bad Guy lunged forward, and Ethan snapped from his regrets to scramble into the kitchen. He smacked his hip on the counter and bounced off it, but not before jerking a large knife out of a wooden block. Clipping the counter spun him, and Ethan found himself facing his foe.

He raised the knife.

Bad Guy stopped.

Ethan wasn’t sure why. He was the least scary of the group.

Ah...

But Bad Guy doesn’t know that.

Maybe, this guy was familiar with his housemates, almost all of which would destroy him in a fight.

For all this loser knew, Ethan was a trained assassin.

Ethan sneered and squinted, trying to look hard.

“Who are you?” he barked in his scariest voice.

The man didn’t answer. He was still trying to decide if it was worth taking a run at him.

A flash of light ran across the wall behind the man. They both saw it. Ethan wasn’t sure what it meant until he heard a car door.

Someone was home.

“You’re in trouble now,” growled Ethan.

The man bolted for the back door. He fumbled with the locks while Ethan watched.

See, I knew those locks would be a problem.

The door popped open, and Bad Guy ran outside.

“Croix? Ethan?” called Ollie.

Ethan gasped.

Ollie. Not his first choice for a defender, but he probably had Shiva with him.

“In the kitchen, he’s getting away!” he called.

Ethan leaned across the sink to look out the back window. The intruder made short work of the fence and was already almost to the street on the opposite side of the block.

“Who?” asked Ollie as he and Shiva ran into the kitchen.

Ethan waved the knife in his hand like a conductor’s baton as he spoke.

“I don’t know. He came after me. He went that way.”

Shiva ran past Ollie into the yard, but the intruder was long gone. She ran to the fence, pulled herself up to look over it, and returned. She shook her head, letting Ollie know the guy escaped.

Ollie waved at Ethan.

“Why don’t you put that knife down?” he suggested.

Ethan looked at the weapon in his hand. He’d forgotten he had it. He put it on the counter.

“Sorry.”

“Did you stab him?” asked Shiva. “Is he bleeding?”

Ethan shook his head. “No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

He sniffed.

No.

“What did he look like?” asked Shiva.

“I couldn’t tell. He was wearing a mask.” He put his hand over his mouth to demonstrate. “One of those gaiter things.”

“What about build?”

“Tallish. Thin.”

“Hair?”

“He had a ballcap on.”

Ollie scoffed. “You’re full of information.”

Ethan scowled, his fear metastasizing into a sudden burst of anger.

“F-off. I could have been killed—”

Ollie’s phone buzzed, and he held up a finger for silence. He glanced at it and then looked at Ethan.

“It’s a text from you?” he said.

Ethan blinked as the truth occurred to him. Bad Guy hadn’t been just standing in the kitchen. He’d been messing with his phone—which wasn’t locked because he’d almost answered Croix’s call two seconds before throwing it on the sofa.

No wonder he knew someone was in the house.

“He took my phone,” he admitted.

His anger had melted into shame. It was one thing to be less deadly than the rest of the group, but he’d been stupid. That was the one thing he wasn’t supposed to be.

Ollie squinted at him.

“You have me in your phone as Ollie?”

Ethan looked up and answered before Ollie’s comment processed in his head.

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?” he asked.

He realized his mistake the second the sentence left his lips.

“Oh, I don’t know. Because we’re a covert agency?” said Ollie.

Ethan ran his hand over his hair.

“You have a code name for everyone?” he asked, genuinely curious. This idea had never occurred to him. No one had given him a Loggerhead manual full of handy tips like this.

“Yes,” said Ollie.

Ethan scowled. “What’s mine?”

Ollie shook his head as he navigated his phone.

“It doesn’t matter—”

Ethan gasped as he remembered his laptop. He turned to jog out of the room and down the hall.

He burst into the bedroom to find his laptop still sitting on the bottom bunk.

Whew.

At least he hadn’t lost all of his research.

He returned to the kitchen to find Ollie and Shiva looking at Ollie’s phone. They glanced at him as he entered.

“Isn’t that the administrator? Dalla?” Ollie asked Shiva.

She nodded.

“Dalla?” asked Ethan, walking over to take a peek.

On Ollie’s screen, a woman in a work suit lay on a bed, a thin rope around her ankles, her hands behind her back—presumably also tied. The smear of mascara across her cheeks implied she’d been crying.

Underneath the photo was an email address and no other message. He could tell by the domain that the email was a free account. Impossible to trace.

“That’s Dalla?” he asked.

Ollie nodded. “We talked to her yesterday.”

Ethan noticed the text was from Nerd.

The text from his phone.

He scowled.

“Nerd. That’s my codename?”

Ollie winked at him.

Ethan sighed, but strangely, the taunting wink made him feel better. He thought the pair was mad at him, but they were probably just frustrated, the same as him.

He stepped back. He’d planned to share his discovery with Shee first, but now it looked like Ollie would be the first to hear.

Ollie poked at his phone.

“I need to call Shee and Mason,” he said.

Ethan touched his arm to stop him.

“Wait—there’s something about Dalla you need to know,” he said.

Ollie paused.

“What?”

He sighed.

“I think she’s related to Glenn.”

Chapter Eighteen

Shee flew into the rental’s driveway and hit the brakes. Mason threw his hand against the glovebox to keep his bulk from crashing into the dash. Croix pulled in behind them, and Shee looked wide-eyed in her rearview mirror, wondering if the girl would stop in time.

She did.

The three spilled out of their vehicles and ran to the front door. It hung from its hinges like a haunted house’s, inviting them to their doom.

“That’s not good,” said Croix. “You said Ollie said Ethan is okay, right?”

Shee nodded.

Mason put his hand on the knob, and the whole door dropped, still upright but grounded.

He shoved it out of their way.

“There goes the security deposit,” muttered Shee.

They found the others gathered around the dining table. They looked over at them as they entered.

“What did you do to the door?” asked Ollie.

Shee scowled. “Funny. What happened?”

She locked in on Ethan, and he talked.

“A masked guy broke into the house. I hid in the closet while he tore the place apart. I sneaked out when I thought it was safe, but he saw me. We were in the middle of a standoff here in the kitchen when Ollie and Shiva came back.”

“Masked? So you didn’t see him?” asked Shee.

Ethan shook his head. “Only his eyes were showing.”

“Hair? Body type?”

“He was wearing a cap. I couldn’t see hair at all, so I’m guessing it was either really short or pulled up? Body-wise, he was tallish—maybe a little over six feet?—but thin, like scrawny thin. Like Mason and Ollie had a baby.”

“I suppose I’m the scrawny part of that equation.” Ollie sniffed. “I prefer wiry.”

Shiva looked at him. “I imagine you would carry the child, too.”

Ollie squinted at her. “Oh, suddenly, you’re hilarious.”

She tittered.

Shee looked at her.

Shiva never laughed like that.

What has gotten into her?

Mason snapped his fingers at Ethan to bring his attention back to the problem at hand.

“Tall and thin. Could it be Glenn?”

Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know Glenn.”

“The description fits,” admitted Shee. “What little there is of it. He ran away?”

Ethan nodded. “Yes. Out the back. He was, uh, really fast.”

“But wait, there’s more,” deadpanned Ollie, handing his phone to Shee. “He’s got Ethan’s phone and used it to send me this. It’s Dalla Yarros.”

Mason peered over Shee’s shoulder, and they studied the image of the woman tied up on a bed. Shee could see it was Dalla.

“That explains why we couldn’t find her,” said Mason.

He sounded frustrated—that they hadn’t been there to help Ethan and that the guy had gotten away. In short, things would have turned out differently if he’d been there.

He turned his scowl on Ethan.

“Why does he have your phone?”

Ethan shrugged. “He took it.”

“But why did you have this photo on your phone?”

“I didn’t. He must have pulled it from somewhere. I can look into it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. He probably used my phone to hide his own phone data. He probably put the photo somewhere he could grab it. You know—online somewhere.”

This struck Shee as odd.

“Like, he knew he’d be stealing your phone?” she asked.

Ethan shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe the blackmailer sent it to him, so he had it on his phone, and he sent it from his to mine.”

“How did he unlock your phone?” asked Croix.

“It was unlocked when he took it. I—” Ethan glanced at the entry and sighed. “I was hiding in the closet when you called. I tossed it out onto the sofa so he wouldn’t find me. He came running out and took it.”

Croix paused and then laughed. “You were in the closet?”

Ethan gritted his teeth. “Would you rather I was dead?”

“No, but you could have—”

Shee put her hand on Croix’s arm to silence her.

“Give him a break for not being full-throttle stupid like you.”

Croix’s expression darkened, but she stopped. Shee could tell she secretly took her comment as a compliment.

Ethan met Shee’s eyes and then looked away. She couldn’t tell if he was happy she’d stepped in or resentful she hadn’t let him fight his own battles. She suspected a little of both.

Shee turned to Ollie, who stood waiting to get his phone back.

Not yet.

There was something about that photo.

Shee refocused on the picture of Dalla in her hand and poked at the screen.

“I know this place. That’s a red dragon behind the lamp.”

Mason leaned to see where she was pointing.

“That bumpy little tail-thing sticking out from behind the lamp? That’s a dragon?”

“Yes. A little statue.”

He squinted. “Are you sure? You said red. It looks black.”

“Technically, it’s black, but you know how my brain works. When we were in Glenn’s miserable little apartment, I noticed the dragon because it was one of the few décor pieces he owned.”

She made air quotes around the word décor and looked at Ollie.

“The place looked like he was starting over after being in prison—”

She meant the comment as a joke, but it rang with more truth than she’d intended. She pointed to Ethan.

“Check and see if Glenn’s ever been in prison.”

Ethan nodded, and she returned to her story.

“Anyway, the dragon was on the left when I saw it, out from behind the white lamp and closer to the bed.” She pointed at the photo. “This blue thing, almost out of frame, is a plastic clock. At the time, I thought the dragon should be red—then he’d have a red, white, and blue theme going.”

Mason’s mood seemed to improve. He smirked in that adorable way he did that said I love you, but you’re crazy.

“You and colors. Your brain isn’t right,” he said.

She rested her hand on his pec. “Maybe, but that’s why I remembered it. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

He dropped his head a notch and looked up at her, still clearly amused.

“I’d need a brain injury to try it—”

Ollie cleared his throat.

“Do you guys want to get a room while we figure out our next steps?” he asked.

Shee shot him a look and continued.

“Point is, it’s obvious someone tried to keep the clock out of the photo, and they hid the dragon behind the lamp, but you can still see the tail. This is Glenn’s bedroom. I know it.”

“Glenn doesn’t know we broke into his apartment,” said Mason.

“He might. I’m starting to get the creeping feeling Glenn’s smarter than we’ve been giving him credit for.”

Mason frowned. “I told you I didn’t like that guy.”

“Are you saying he kidnapped Dalla? Why?” asked Croix.

Ethan raised his hand. “Ooh—”

“Or someone is telling us in their subtle way that they have Glenn, too?” said Shee. “Our killer does have a dark sense of humor.”

Ethan tried again. “I—”

“It could be to let us know they’re angry Glenn isn’t in his apartment—that we sent him to hide,” suggested Mason.

Ethan pushed his hand even higher. “Hello?”

The group turned to him.

“I think Ethan has a question,” said Ollie.

Ethan huffed and lowered his hand.

“Yes. Thank you. Not a question—information. About Dalla. She’s in Skinner’s system as Dalla Bachman on her application from years ago, and Dalla Yarros, now.”

“Bachman? Why does that name sound familiar?” asked Mason.

“Glenn’s last name is Bachman, remember?” said Ollie.

Mason crossed his arms against his chest.

“That’s quite a coincidence.”

Shee smirked. “What don’t we like, Mason?”

He sighed. “Coincidences.”

She nodded and turned back to Ethan, carefully avoiding Ollie’s gaze lest he mock her exchange with Mason.

They were adorable together, after all.

“So, Dalla’s maiden name is the same as Glenn’s? He’s her—what? Son? Brother? Ex-husband?” she asked.

Ollie nodded. “Something like that. The age gap—I doubt he’s an ex-husband. I’d put my money on son or brother.”

“Brother, unless she had him when she was twelve,” said Ethan.

Shee pointed to the bedrooms and focused on Ethan.

“Go. Get back to it. I want to know how they’re related and if he’s been to prison. If anyone’s been to prison.”

Ethan nodded and headed back to his laptop.

Shee sat at the table and put her head in her hands, overwhelmed by the number of loose threads available for pulling.

“We have to get our ducks in a row,” she muttered.

“No relation to the sitting ducks,” Ollie muttered to Shiva.

Shiva giggled, and Shee looked up.

She’d never heard Shiva giggle before.

She looked at Ollie, and he looked away, grinning.

Ah. Something’s going on between him and Shiva—

“So let’s run through everything,” said poor, oblivious Mason. “We can’t sit around. We’ve got to do something about Dalla.”

Shee nodded.

Fine. He had a point. She’d get back to Ollie’s love life later.

She put her hands together as if praying and took a deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s run through what we have. Let’s take it from the top.”

Ollie made a fist and poked out three fingers like a pitchfork.

“For body count, we have three patients killed in punny ways and Tamara, the IT girl, who was involved in the killings through Glenn and then was presumably nearly killed by our killer for her trouble.”

“And we’ve got Glenn, supposed blackmailee of the killer—and I’m going to say ex-boyfriend of Tamara’s. Currently in hiding,” said Shee.

“Why do you say she’s his ex?” asked Croix.

“Because if you were dating someone who pulled you into a blackmail scheme and you ended up stabbed in the gut with the kitchen knife, would you be shopping for anniversary cards?”

“No. I’d probably kill him.”

Shee nodded. “My point.”

“As far as we know, Glenn’s in hiding,” said Mason. “But do we really have any idea where he is?”

“Sounds like he was most recently sneaking around the house stealing Ethan’s phone,” said Ollie. “Now, whether that was his idea or the killer’s...?”

“That’s what’s driving me crazy. I don’t know how much Glenn is a puppet and how much he’s involved,” said Shee. “We’ve got Dalla, possibly tied up in his bedroom as we speak. Did the killer use his place because he knew it was empty? Or did Glenn go back there knowing we thought it was empty?”

“I think Dalla is more involved—one way or the other—than we thought,” said Mason. “Otherwise, why take her? Maybe she’s being blackmailed? Maybe, by Glenn—the way he used Tamara?”

Shee shrugged. “It’s possible. If he was using his girlfriend, why not use his mom/sister/cousin—whatever she is to him.”

“If it makes anyone feel better, I can report the most obvious next victim—Cassius Scott—is safe,” said Ollie. “We followed him when he left to make sure no one else followed him. But—”

He paused to pull a square of white paper out of his pocket. “While we were, uh, negotiating with him, someone left a note on our car.”

He handed the note to Shee, and she opened it to read it out loud.

“Stop the investigation, or you’re all dead. I’ll tell them everything, Ollie.”

She looked up at him.

“It’s on Skinner’s pad again, so this is our boy. This guy knows we’re on to him.”

Ollie nodded. “And he knows I was a patient, but he’s got nothing on me because I already confessed to you.”

“Ollie has told us everything,” said Shiva, suddenly perking. She exchanged a glance with Ollie.

Shee scowled.

Hm.

Something was definitely going on there.

She rubbed her hand across her face.

“I don’t know if we can figure out everything now. In the meantime, Dalla’s in trouble.”

“Or she’s working with Glenn,” said Mason.

She couldn’t disagree. Their disgust with Glenn felt more justified with each passing minute.

“Okay. You were right. We should have kept Glenn.” Shee shook her head and looked at Ollie. “You delivered him gift-wrapped, and we let him go.”

“It might be a trap, but I say we go to Glenn’s. Now,” said Mason. “We might still have surprise on our side. They don’t know your FUBAR brain remembered the dragon.”

Shee chuckled. “Can I see that picture again?”

Ollie handed her his phone, and she looked at the image of Dalla on the bed. Something bothered her, and it wasn’t just the dragon.

It wasn’t that he’d picked Glenn’s apartment to stash the woman, even though that remained disturbing and didn’t look good for Glenn’s innocence...

Shee zoomed in and gasped as the answer hit her.

“She isn’t gagged,” she said, holding up the phone for the others to see. “Dalla isn’t gagged. Why would you go through the trouble of tying her up and then not gag her? Especially in Glenn’s apartment?” She looked at Mason. “We were there. We know he has neighbors, and you can hear everything through those cheap walls. That old place probably doesn’t even have insulation.”

“He could be holding her at gunpoint?” suggested Ollie. “You know, make a noise, and I shoot you?”

Shee scoffed. “No way. People would hear the shot for miles in that paper-walled place, so it’s an empty threat. Plus, how long could they keep that up? It’s exhausting threatening people.”

Shiva nodded. “It is.”

“Could be he wanted to make sure we saw her face clearly and only ungagged her for a second,” said Mason.

Shee scowled. “Hm. Damn. That’s true.”

“Either way, we need to go there now and catch whoever has her,” said Mason.

Shee agreed.

“Okay. We try that first. If they’re gone—and I suspect they will be—we’ll try that email he sent and see what happens.”

Shee’s phone rang, and she stared at the screen for a moment. She didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway. With killers sending unsolicited photos of kidnap victims, she couldn’t assume this was some spammer promising a chance to get rich by working from home.

Though to be fair, that sounded fantastic right about now.

“Hello?” she answered.

“It’s Glenn,” said a voice on the other end of the line.

“Glenn?” Shee repeated loudly for the benefit of the other people in the room. The team turned their attention to her.

“The guy has my sister,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

“The man who blackmailed you?”

“Yes. He said he knew I’d been talking with you. He sent me a photo of my sister at my apartment. He’s got her tied up. He said he sent you the photo, too.”

Shee’s shoulders slumped. Glenn was telling them everything they thought they’d cleverly figured out.

“We did get something,” she admitted.

“Then you know who my sister is.”

“Dalla.”

He sighed. “Right.”

“You didn’t tell us that before.”

He paused. “No. There was no reason to get her involved. She hasn’t done anything.”

“But if we’d known, we might have been able to protect her.”

“I know. I screwed up. This is my fault.”

He sounded like he was about to cry.

“Why is he at your apartment? Does he have a key?”

“No. Dalla does, though. I don’t know why he went there. I guess to show me he can be anywhere, any time?”

Shee considered this. It wasn’t a bad idea. Little neat, though. Could be a desperate attempt to cover up the fact Glenn was the person who kidnapped her.

“Did he tell you how you can get her back?”

Glenn moaned. “That’s the problem. That’s why I’m calling. He wants me to bring him another victim.”

“Who?”

“Ollie Lopes. He said you would know who that is.”

Shee glanced at Ollie, who put his hand on his chest as if asking, Me? She didn’t know if he could hear Glenn’s side of the conversation, but he was good enough at reading people to see trouble on her face.

“Did he give you a deadline?” she asked Glenn.

“End of the day sometime.”

“Did he tell you how he wants it to go down?”

“Not yet. He wants him alive, though. The Ollie guy.”

Well, duh. We weren’t going to deliver him dead—

She straightened.

Hold on.

“You usually deliver people to him dead?” she asked.

“What? No. I usually don’t deliver them at all,” said Glenn. “I told you, I just gave him the list, and then he left me alone. Until you people showed up.”

She sighed.

“Okay. Give us some time to come up with a plan. Can I call you back in about an hour?”

Glenn whimpered again.

“Can you hurry? I’m worried about my sister.”

Shee ran her tongue over her teeth. Glenn sounded more and more scared and pathetic with every comment. He’d been a little tougher when Ollie had him in the back of the Jeep. Angry. Defiant.

He’d found it harder to pretend he was a good guy while being manhandled.

With no way to force the real Glenn onto the phone, she played along.

“I understand that. It’s okay. Stay near the phone. We’ll call you back soon,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, almost whispering.

Shee hung up to find the rest of the group staring at her.

“What did he say?” asked Mason.

“He said he thinks we’re all idiots,” she said.

Mason scowled. “He did? He called to taunt us?”

She shook her head.

“No. Not literally, but he may as well have. He’s lying through his teeth.”

Chapter Nineteen

Tamara’s eyes cracked open. They felt sticky, and she struggled to open them. It felt like someone had their finger on her lids, holding them closed.

When she was finally able to open them, she found the room was mostly dark. Things around her glowed, emitting enough light to see the shadow of art on the wall. Something beeped, steady. Something hissed. Something blinked near her head. White, red, green—

She saw she was in a bed, and her mind slipped the pieces together.

I’m in a hospital.

Why?

She tried to remember but found only a black hole where her memories should be.

What happened? How close had she come to dying?

The sharp smell of cleaning solution registered. That awful hospital smell.

I don’t want to be here.

She tried to swallow and realized her lips were open. She couldn’t close them. She bit down and felt something against the roof of her mouth.

A tube.

They had a tube down her throat.

Panic welled through her haze. She tried to sit up and felt a sharp pain near her left hip bone.

Something was very wrong there. She knew that much.

She needed someone—someone with answers who could tell her what happened.

Now.

She breathed in, hoping she could make some noise to call for help—

That’s when a shadow in the corner of the room moved.

She froze.

No.

This is a nightmare.

She fought back a wave of nausea caused by her jangling nerves and roamed the shape of the shadow with her gaze.

It was human-shaped. Tall.

Someone is standing there.

Her body buzzed. Her mouth went dry.

Someone was in the room with her.

In the dark.

She breathed and realized for the first time it wasn’t her breathing. That hiss—a machine was helping her breathe. She calmed herself as best she could to find a rhythm with the air pumping into her lungs.

She never took her eyes off the shadow.

It fell still again.

Think.

Who could it be?

Was it strange that someone was in the room? They had to monitor her, right? Be there when she woke up?

Could it be family? Had her mother flown in?

She felt a tear slide from the corner of her eye and roll down the side of her face.

She really wanted to see her mother.

The shape didn’t look like her mother. Too tall. Too thin.

She told herself her eyes weren’t working right.

Had she imagined it moving? Maybe it was a coat rack or something—

No.

It moved again—took a step toward her until the glow from the machinery illuminated the scrubs he wore.

A doctor?

Good.

She couldn’t be sure, but she felt confident it was a man. The height and the way he moved—

She shifted her hand and tapped her finger. At least, she thought she did. It felt like she could move her hand—her whole arm—she slid it a few inches across the bed toward the doctor to let him know she was awake.

I’m not paralyzed.

At least, not from the neck down—that’s good. A step in the right direction.

The man took another step forward, and his scrubs triggered a memory.

A word, really.

Orderly.

The word just popped into her head.

So? That’s okay. Maybe he wasn’t a doctor. That made sense. You wouldn’t have a doctor sitting in the dark waiting for an unconscious person to wake up. An orderly maybe—

The man leaned down, and she turned her face to him, whimpering.

Please take out this—

Her eyes widened as the light fell across the man’s face.

Glenn.

Her memories flooded back.

The argument.

The knife.

That angry look in his eyes.

The same look he had now.

She tried to scream. Pain shot through her side. He put his hand over her mouth as well as he could with the intubation tube there. It shifted the tube and pressed against the tender flesh in her mouth.

It hurt.

“Quiet,” he hissed in her ear.

She shook her head and tried to speak to him with her eyes.

I won’t make a sound. I won’t tell anyone anything. Just go away.

“You weren’t supposed to live,” he said.

She tried to scream again and saw for the first time the syringe in his hand. He glanced back at her IV, and she realized what he was going to do.

He’s going to poison me.

She heard the beeping of her machine speed up as her heart raced.

It gave her an idea.

She breathed. As fast as she could, panting like a dog on a summer’s day at the beach.

It wouldn’t be hard to increase her heartbeat. It already felt like her heart was about to crash through her chest.

As Glenn stalled, trying to figure out how to keep her from screaming and insert the needle into her IV, the door suddenly opened, flooding the room with light.

“Look who’s awake,” said the nurse, a short, slight man in glasses.

His eyes shifted from Tamara to Glenn.

Glenn pretended to be adjusting her tube and fixing her pillow.

“I think she was uncomfortable,” he said, smiling.

Tamara looked at the nurse with wide eyes.

Don’t fall for it. He’s here to kill me.

“Who are you?” asked the nurse.

The nurse didn’t look like a superhero, but he was as close as Tamara was going to get. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen right then.

“I’m an orderly,” said Glenn, motioning to his togs.

Tamara tried to signal the other nurse with her eyes.

Not from here. Those are Skinner colors. Not the right color for here, right? You have to know he doesn’t work here.

She moaned as loudly as she could.

The nurse looked at her and then scowled at Glenn.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

“She’s a friend, actually,” said Glenn, making no move to leave. “I thought I’d stop by and check on her during my break, and I saw she was awake—”

He motioned to her with the hand not hiding the needle behind his back.

“He’s trying to kill me,” said Tamara, but with the tube in her mouth, it didn’t sound anything like that. It didn’t sound like anything, really.

Another nurse entered as the first moved to her bedside.

“She’s awake? Need help?” she asked.

“I’m going to have to ask you to relax,” the first nurse told Tamara as he moved into the room. “We’ll get that tube out for you.”

He looked at Glenn.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Glenn eyed the two nurses and then glared at Tamara.

He nodded. “Right. Sure.”

He slid the needle down his pants, eyes never leaving Tamara. She didn’t need him to speak to know what he was saying.

Keep your mouth shut.

Glenn flashed the first nurse a sheepish smile and hustled out of the room.

“I’ll be near,” he said to Tamara as he left. “I’ll check in on you in a bit.”

“Okay, let’s get this tube out,” said the second nurse, moving in to aid the first.

Tamara did her best to hold still. She hoped her throat wasn’t swollen. She hoped she could talk.

She had a lot to say.

The first nurse pulled the tube from her throat, and she dry-heaved.

“It’s okay. Take it easy,” he said.

She shot him a look as her eyes teared.

You take it easy. You didn’t just get an elephant’s trunk pulled out of your throat.

She caught her breath—took a moment to ensure she could breathe without that machine’s help.

“My phone,” she croaked.

The second nurse gave her a condescending smile.

“All of your personal items are in a locker—”

“I need it. Someone is trying to kill me,” she said.

The nurse’s attitude shifted from boredom to concern.

“What? Should I call the police?”

She shook her head.

“Business card. In my phone. I need to call.”

“Okay... I can get your stuff. We’re waiting on the doctor—”

The first nurse moved to leave.

“No!” she barked as loudly as she could.

The nurse sensed she was talking to him and stopped.

“Me?”

She nodded. “Don’t leave me alone. Stay while she gets my phone. Don’t leave until I get help.”

She stopped short of telling him the man they’d seen was the man trying to kill her. She didn’t want him to panic and leave her alone.

The nurse frowned but didn’t move.

“Fine.”

The woman went to get her personal items. The male nurse remained.

Tamara noticed her toes moving under her blanket and smiled.

Not paralyzed.

That was something, anyway.

Chapter Twenty

Croix stewed.

Shee and Mason were making plans with Ollie about how they’d handle the killer’s request, and the more she listened in, the more she knew those plans didn’t include her.

Again.

She had a sinking feeling she was on Ethan-babysitting duty.

Again.

Apparently, if you left that guy alone for fifteen minutes, he almost got himself killed.

Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number but answered.

“Hello?”

“Croix?” said a voice. It sounded raspy but also feminine. Was this someone trying to disguise their voice? If so, they were doing a terrible job.

“It’s Tamara from Skinner’s,” croaked the voice.

Croix straightened.

“Tamara? You’re awake?”

She held up her phone for the others to see and found they’d already turned toward her. Their collective eyes widened.

She tried not to look smug.

That’s right. That’s me. I got the call this time.

She cleared her throat.

“Hello, Tamara. How can I help you?”

Tamara coughed and then whimpered.

Croix scowled. What was wrong with her voice? She didn’t hear that someone had choked her. Whoever stabbed her must have roughed her up pretty good first.

“Are you okay? Your voice—”

“Tube,” she whispered. “Down my throat.”

“Ooh.” Croix nodded. That made sense.

Before she could urge the girl on, she started talking again.

“Glenn was here. He tried to kill me,” she said.

Now, it was Croix’s turn to go wide-eyed.

“What? Did you call the police?”

Tamara didn’t answer, and Croix realized why.

“Right. Maybe not a great idea for you,” she said.

“Put it on speaker,” hissed Shee.

Croix waved her off. Tamara was hard to hear even with the phone pressed to her ear.

It could be she liked controlling the situation, too, but that was fodder for some later therapy session.

If she ever agreed to go to therapy.

“What’s going on?” Shee asked louder.

Croix tucked the phone closer to her throat to avoid yelling in Tamara’s ear.

“Glenn tried to kill her in the hospital.”

She paused, realizing she’d added that bit herself.

“You are still in the hospital, right? He came there?”

“Yes,” said Tamara.

“Is that who tried to kill her the first time?” asked Shee. “Come on. We need this information.”

Croix frowned.

Damn. That was a good question.

“Is Glenn the one who stabbed you?” she asked. She’d wanted to rephrase it, so it didn’t sound exactly how Shee said it.

“Yes. I think so. It’s fuzzy,” she rasped.

Croix held a thumbs up to inform Shee that her hunch was correct. Probably.

“What room is she in? Tell her we’re on our way,” said Shee.

“We’re on our way,” said Croix. “Oh, what room are you in?”

“I don’t know—” Croix heard her asking a question to someone in the room with her, and a moment later, her gravelly voice grew louder. “Six twelve.”

“Good. We’ll be there soon.”

Croix hung up and stood. “Let’s go.”

Mason scowled. “I thought we were on our way to Glenn’s?”

“He’s not there. Apparently, he was just trying to kill Tamara.” When Mason looked concerned, Shee continued. “Think about it. There’s no way the killer is sitting there with Dalla, waiting for us to show up.”

Mason grunted.

“Okay. Ollie, Shiva, you stay here with Ethan. Keep thinking about how we’re going to handle things with this prisoner swap.”

“I’m not a prisoner,” said Ollie.

Mason scoffed. “Not yet.”

Ollie ignored him. “Why don’t we go to the hospital, and you go to Glenn’s?”

Shee shook her head. “They want you for whatever reason. I’d rather not hand-deliver the goods. Shiva can watch over you here.”

Ollie looked at Shiva, visibly annoyed.

“Oh, come on—”

Croix realized how things were playing out. If Shiva was watching over Ollie and Ethan...

“Does that mean I’m coming with you?” she asked Shee.

Shee nodded. “Tamara trusted you enough to call you. She might need to see a face she trusts right now.”

Croix snorted a laugh. “Yeah, since her boyfriend keeps trying to kill her.”

Shee nodded. “Right. We’ll talk to Tamara and hopefully find out what we’re up against. Then you can stay there at the hospital and watch over her.”

Croix grinned. “Ooh, guard duty.”

“Bring your gun,” said Mason.

She put her hands over her head like she’d broken the tape at the NYC marathon.

“Yes. I’m back, baby.”

“You’re so weird,” muttered Shee.

They had Tamara’s room number, so Shee, Mason, and Croix walked in without permission. Shee had found that nine times out of ten, nobody asked questions if you looked like you knew where you were going.

Tamara looked happy to see Croix but not nearly as happy as the nurse sitting in the visitor’s chair.

“Thank God,” he muttered, closing the magazine on his lap.

Tamara had seemed tan the last time Shee saw her in Skinner’s office. Now, the young woman was almost as pale as her sheets. She had an IV drip, a finger monitor attached to a quietly beeping machine, and though she had pillows behind her head to raise her view, she wasn’t sitting up.

“Hey,” Tamara said as they entered.

“We’re her family,” she said to the nurse.

He offered her a curt nod as he headed out the door, making it clear he didn’t care who they were as long as he could leave.

“Did the hospital ask him to watch you?” asked Shee, worried someone had notified the police, and they were about to get roped into an investigation.

Tamara shook her head. “I begged him to stay until you got here. I think I ruined his lunch break. It was really nice of him.”

She sounded hoarse but had a fair amount of energy for a woman who’d been lying on a kitchen floor bleeding to death not long ago.

“How are you feeling?” asked Mason.

Tamara touched her throat. “I had a tube. My throat is sore, and when these pain meds wear off, my gut is going to be killing me, but I’m alive.”

“Tell us what happened with Glenn,” said Croix.

Tamara nodded and took a moment—as if she were getting her thoughts together or bracing for the pain that talking might cause her throat.

“I woke up. For the first time, I think—I still had the tube and didn’t know where I was. The shades were closed, and the room was dark. Before I could figure out where I was, I saw him in the room.”

“Your boyfriend?” asked Shee.

“Ex,” Tamara said quickly. She chewed at her lip. “You know about me and Glenn?”

“We know you got the list for Glenn to give to his blackmailer. Yes,” said Shee.

She’d decided not to dance around the girl. They had some leverage on her now. If she wanted their help keeping her alive, she would have to tell them everything she knew.

“Are you going to tell the police?” Tamara asked, her voice barely audible.

Shee offered a tight smile.

Then, there was that, too.

“I can tell you sending you to prison isn’t our goal. I can’t control everything that happens down the road, but we’re here to stop the murders. That’s it.”

Tamara winced. “So, those murders really are tied to Skinner? To that list?”

“Maybe tied to Glenn,” muttered Croix.

Tamara gasped, her wide eyes locking on Croix.

“You think Glenn killed those people?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Shee quickly, scowling at Croix.

“But it’s possible?” asked Tamara.

Croix ignored Shee’s look.

“He tried to kill you. Why would it be so weird to find out he killed someone else?”

Tamara’s jaw creaked open and hung there.

Shee sighed.

Great. Croix overloaded the girl’s brain.

“We can’t make any promises, but I do promise to do my best to keep you out of it,” said Shee.

Tamara nodded dumbly.

Shee needed to jumpstart her before they lost her.

“What did you do? When you saw Glenn?” she asked.

“How do you know he was here to hurt you?” added Mason.

Tamara’s empty gaze reengaged with them.

“He had a syringe. He was making like he was about to stick it in my IV. I noticed my heart monitor was racing and tried hyperventilating to set off the heart alarm. It worked, and the nurse came in before Glenn could get the needle in.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No. He had that look on his face, though. That faraway look like he did in the kitchen—”

Her voice faded, and she looked away.

Mason held out a hand. “I know this is difficult, but let’s back up a second. It was Glenn who stabbed you in the kitchen?”

Tamara nodded. “My memory is still kind of foggy, but we were arguing. About you guys—I think he didn’t like you being at the hospital. I assumed he was worried you’d find out what we did. I was worried, too. I told him I wanted out—to leave me alone.”

“And he didn’t take the break up well?” asked Shee.

“No.” Tamara grimaced as if she had to force the memory of that day back into her head. “He got this weird look on his face. Really calm. It’s like the Glenn I knew left his body, and what was left was—this other thing.”

She shivered. “I remember it because he had the same look when he was here.”

“And he stabbed you in the middle of arguing?” asked Croix.

Tamara winced. “I guess? I think I turned away, and when I turned back, he was there, and I felt this sharp pain—I think he grabbed one of my kitchen knives. I just remember him staring into my eyes. My knees started to give way, and the knife—”

She slapped her hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.

“It hurt so bad—”

Shee touched her arm. “It’s okay. Take a minute if you need it.”

She sobbed and looked at Shee.

“He’s going to kill me. Like I said, he looked—when he was here—” She stopped again and took a deep breath that made her grimace with pain. “I can’t believe he let me wake up. If that nurse hadn’t come in—”

“We’re going to leave Croix with you. You’ll be safe.”

Tamara’s glassy eyes widened. “You are?”

Croix lifted her shirt to flash Tamara her gun.

“I’m tougher than I look,” she said, grinning.

Tamara chuckled, a snot bubble growing and popping in her nose. She gingerly lifted the hand unhindered by her finger monitor and wiped it away.

Shee handed her a few tissues from a box on the bedside table, and she used them to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

“Oh, God, that hurt,” she said, gently blowing her nose again. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess.”

“You have every right to be a little rattled,” said Mason.

When she’d gathered herself, she continued.

“Okay, here it is from the top. Glenn started paying attention to me one day, real nice—crazy nice. I thought he was cute. Things were—good.”

She paused and pressed her lips together as if trying not to start crying again.

“Then, one day, he came into my office looking scared. He said some guy was blackmailing him, and he had to get a patient list. He asked if I could help—”

“So you did.”

She nodded. “He said the guy had a rival hospital and that this was all, like, corporate espionage. No biggie. He just wanted to poach clients.” She paused and bit her chapped lip. “I had no idea people were going to get killed. I swear. I didn’t even put two and two together until you guys showed up and it hit me the deaths might have something to do with that list.”

She looked like she was starting to cry again, and Shee handed her the glass of water on the bed stand. She drank, wincing with each swallow.

“Right before you showed up, Dr. Skinner asked me to get him some records,” she said, handing back the glass. “I have the list—where the aliases are connected to the real names. It hit me the names he gave me were names I’d seen in the news. Then you guys showed up, and I checked them against the list I’d given Glenn. It hit me it might all be related.”

“And that’s when you told Glenn you wanted out.”

She nodded. “Things had started getting weird between us anyhow.”

“Weird, how?”

She shrugged. “Once I got him that list, he started avoiding me. He went from super sweet and attentive to almost—I don’t know—like he hated me.”

“Did you know Glenn and Dalla were related?” asked Mason.

Tamara’s attention snapped to him. “They are?” She scowled. “That makes sense. I always saw them talking, like, deep talking. I thought she was mad at him for being a lousy worker.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She never looked happy. She looked mad or stressed or something. I figured he was getting in trouble. He wasn’t the best worker.” She shook her head. “Him being related to Dalla—that explains why he wasn’t worried about getting fired.”

Shee wondered how much she should tell the girl about Dalla’s apparent kidnapping.

“Do you think Glenn would hurt Dalla?” she asked.

Tamara squinted at her.

“I thought you said they were related?”

“We think they are, but there are reasons for us to believe he might hurt her.”

She scoffed. “Honestly, at this point, I believe he’d hurt anyone. There’s something wrong with him.”

It seemed Tamara had run out of useful information. She’d been Glenn’s pawn and almost paid for it with her life—twice.

Shee ran out of questions. She looked to Mason and Croix to see if they had anything else, and both shook their heads.

“Okay, like I said, Croix will stay here with you.”

Croix plopped down in the chair the nurse had occupied earlier.

“You’re safe with me,” she said.

Tamara smiled and turned to Shee.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you if you can keep me out of this, too. I just want to get out of here and get a new job somewhere far away.”

“We’ll have this wrapped up soon,” said Shee, patting her hand.

She looked at Croix.

“Give us a call if you need anything.”

“Duh,” said Croix.

Shee flashed Tamara a quick parting smile, and she and Mason walked into the hall.

“What do you think?” asked Mason as they headed to the truck.

“I think she’s being honest. Told us everything she thought would be helpful.”

Mason nodded. “Agreed. Head to Glenn’s?”

“Yep, and hope we catch him off guard.”

Ollie called as they got into the truck.

“Everything okay?” she answered.

“That depends on your point of view,” said Ollie. “Glenn wants me tonight. We got a new picture, too. I’ll send it through.”

Shee heard her phone ding and looked at the new photo. It featured Dalla sitting in a chair. The wall behind her was corrugated metal, and the floor was cement.

“That’s not Glenn’s apartment anymore,” said Shee.

“No. He said he’d let us know where to meet in an hour.”

“Okay. We’ll be back ASAP.”

Mason looked at her. “Are we still going to Glenn’s?”

She shook her head. “Head home. If she was there, she’s not there anymore.”

She sighed.

“We’ve got some planning to do.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Upon returning to the rental, Shee and the others quickly realized there was only so much planning they could do without knowing the location where Glenn’s blackmailer wanted them to deliver Ollie.

When they ran out of ideas to bounce around, they packed every ounce of firepower and technology they’d brought into two of the vehicles.

Then Shee spent a couple of hours staring at her phone, willing it to ring.

Ollie and Shiva stepped out back. There was an unusual amount of murmuring and glances between those two today. She had no idea why. Clearly, they were tired of waiting for Glenn to call and didn’t realize staring holes through the phone always worked.

At close to seven p.m., the phone rang.

See? It worked.

It was Glenn. Shee answered on speaker so Mason could listen in.

“Hello?” she answered.

Hello seemed cordial for someone hoping to kidnap her friend, but what else could she say?

“I’m going to send you the link he sent me,” said Glenn, diving right into the action. No pleasantries. “He wants Ollie there in forty minutes. Alone. If he sees the rest of you, he’ll kill my sister. Once he has Ollie, he’ll tell me where Dalla is.”

“Sure he will,” said Shee. “You can always trust the guy who cuts people’s butts off.”

“He will,” said Glenn. It sounded as if he were speaking through gritted teeth.

“I’m hearing a lot of he, he, he,” said Shee. “Does this he have a name yet? It sounds like you’re getting pretty chummy with him.”

Glenn scoffed. “No—why would he tell me his name?”

“He must have given you something to call him?”

“No. It’s not like I don’t know it’s him when he calls. Nobody else threatens me and asks me to do crazy shit.”

Shee frowned. She’d hoped to annoy him into giving up useful information, but so far, nothing.

“But he does contact you by phone now?” she asked. “That’s new, isn’t it? That’s a step up from leaving messages on your car.”

“He left me a burner phone. He called on it.”

Shee frowned. “You didn’t mention that.”

“I just found it a couple of hours ago. I didn’t think it was important to tell you. Him getting us the information we need to save Dalla—that’s the important part.”

“Dalla and Ollie. Don’t forget our guy.”

“Right. Both of them. I’m giving you a chance here, you know. He could have just grabbed Ollie.”

Shee thought about Ollie’s shadow, Shiva, and nodded.

“Yeah. Good luck with that.”

Glenn huffed. “At least, give me some credit for helping. This way, you can come up with a plan or something.” He paused and added, “Do you have a plan?”

It was Shee’s turn to scoff.

“Like I’d tell you,” she said.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

She thought about Glenn’s mention of a burner phone.

“We’d like to look into that phone he gave you. Can you give me the number?”

Glenn remained silent.

“Hello?” prodded Shee.

“No,” said Glenn. “He told me not to. Let’s see how things go down tonight. Maybe after I get Dalla.”

“You mean, let’s see if he’s still around to kill you after tonight? You’re hoping our plan works?”

“Yeah. Do you blame me? I assume you’ll try and get him one way or the other?”

“We’re not going to hand Ollie over to him and go about our business, no.”

“I didn’t think so.” He sighed. “Okay, well—”

Shee had been musing about whether to mention Tamara or not. She decided to go for it.

“Glenn, wait—you should know—we talked to Tamara.”

She waited to see how he would respond.

Silence.

“Glenn?”

“I heard you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m just so relieved. She’s okay?”

The emotion in his voice struck her as odd.

How long will he play this game?

“You know she’s awake. You tried to kill her in the hospital. She told us everything.”

“What?” he laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not. She said she woke up to find you ready to inject something into her IV drip.”

He laughed again.

“What? That’s nuts. Why would she say that? I’ve got too many things going on here with Dalla. I don’t have time to see Tamara—let alone try to kill her. I wish I did.” He paused. “I mean, I wish I could see her. Not kill her.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Shee looked at Mason and turned her palms to the air, asking for input.

He shook his head and shrugged.

Not helpful.

She returned to the call.

“So, you’re saying you weren’t in the hospital?”

“No. I’ve been here at my buddy’s house all day, waiting for whatever this guy has planned.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way you can prove that.”

“No. I mean, you could ask my friend, but I’m trying to keep him out of this. I don’t want to put him in any more danger than I already have.”

“What makes you think he’s in danger?”

“The guy left the burner phone on the porch here.”

“So, he’s been keeping tabs on you?” asked Shee.

“I guess so.”

“Are you going to be at the meeting place?”

“Yes. Once he has your guy, he’s going to give me Dalla.”

“Okay. I guess we’ll see you in a bit. Maybe we’ll talk then.”

Glenn grunted and hung up.

Shee looked at Mason. In the back of the house, she heard Ollie talking to Shiva. Someone rooted around in the refrigerator.

Probably Ollie.

“What do you think?” she asked Mason.

He shook his head. “Do you think Tamara lied about him being at the hospital?”

Shee huffed. She thought they had that part of the mystery buttoned up, but now she wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t feeling great about that point.

“Honestly, it never occurred to me she might be lying. Were we bamboozled by all the medical equipment?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.

“Maybe, but she didn’t stab herself.”

“No. She’s not faking the big hole in her gut. The problem is, we took her at her word and waltzed out of there without checking the security cameras or confirming her story. That’s our bad.”

Mason straightened. “And we left Croix there. There’s a difference between protecting an innocent and protecting a potential hostile. We have to warn her the second murder attempt might be some kind of trap.”

Nodding, Shee dialed Croix.

Mason stood. “I’ll see if Ethan can get into the hospital’s security system.”

He strode out of the room as she listened to Croix’s phone ring. The girl answered, her voice a whisper.

“Hey, we heard from Glenn,” said Shee. “We wanted to make you aware Tamara might be lying.”

“Just a second,” said Croix.

A moment later, she spoke again, louder.

“She’s asleep. I’m in the hall now. I was just thinking about that. That she could be lying.”

“Could you ask the nurses if they saw someone matching Glenn’s description?”

“There’s been a shift change.”

Shee chewed at her lip. “Shoot. Glenn says he wasn’t at the hospital.”

Croix scoffed. “Of course he did. Why would he admit it? He’s still hoping we believe there’s some mastermind blackmailing him when it’s been him all along.”

“You’re probably right, but how well do we know Tamara? She could be lying. They could be working together. Who knows? Just be on your toes—don’t trust her.”

“I won’t. I think I’m safe, though. She can barely move.”

“Keep her phone away from her so she can’t call in someone with more mobility and infinitely more weapons.”

Croix grunted. “Yeah, okay. She talked to her mom for a bit, but it was definitely a real mom call and not some code between her and Glenn or anyone. A lot of crying. Like I said, she’s weak—mostly okay, but I talked to her doctor. He says she’s not even out of the weeds yet.”

“But they don’t mind you staying there?”

She could almost hear Croix smile.

“I told them I’m an undercover cop, and we think her life might be in danger.”

Shee chuckled at the girl’s boasting.

“And they believed you?”

“Yeah. I suppose it helps that someone tried to melonball out her guts. Kinda backs up my story.”

“True. Good job. Nice touch with the undercover bit. Explains your lack of ID.”

“I learned from the best.”

Shee felt a flash of pride.

“Thank you,” she said before she could stop herself.

“I meant Angelina,” said Croix.

She closed her eyes.

Dammit, I knew it. Got me.

She moved on without additional comment. Acknowledging the zinger would only make Croix giddier.

“See if you can find a way to confirm her story,” she said flatly.

Croix was still snickering, but she sobered.

“How can I do that and watch her?”

Shee shrugged. “I don’t know. Just do what you can do. If she is lying, it could be she’s the one working with the killer, and Glenn is the patsy. That would be handy to know.”

“Okay. I’ll try. So, you talked to Glenn?”

“Yes. And we have to go. We’ll talk to you when we get back.”

Shee hung up before Croix could ask any more questions.

She didn’t have any answers.

Mason returned from his visit to Ethan.

“Kid’s not hopeful,” he reported. “Hacking hospital security is no joke, for obvious reasons. Doing it before we go with Ollie is next to impossible.”

Shee frowned. “Ah, well. I asked Croix to see if she can work it from there. Maybe she’ll come through.”

Ollie walked in from the kitchen with a sandwich on a plate. Shiva followed, no food in hand.

“Any news?” he asked.

“How can you eat with this looming over your head?” asked Shee.

Ollie shrugged and took a bite.

“I have confidence in you.”

Shee sighed. Before she could tell Ollie and Shiva about Glenn’s call, her phone dinged, and she saw she’d gotten a text.

“It’s Glenn,” she reported.

She rolled her eyes.

Naturally, they’d want him unarmed.

Below the comment was a link to the location. She clicked on it and looked at the map in dismay.

Things kept getting worse.

“It’s the middle of a cow field,” she told the group.

“A cow field?” echoed Mason. “How do you know it’s a cow field?”

“Because it looks like a big field with little white and black specks and a Denner’s Dairy Farm bubble on it.”

Mason nodded. “Oh. That sounds like a cow field.”

“Yep. And he wants us there in about thirty minutes now. It’s hardly enough time to drive there, let alone plan and execute an ambush.”

“So, he isn’t an idiot,” said Ollie.

“Apparently not.”

“Maybe it isn’t Glenn pulling the strings then,” muttered Mason.

Ollie looked at the sandwich in his hand.

“Do I want my last meal to be ham and cheese?”

Shee dropped her head into her hands.

“Do we have everything in the Jeep? We should get going. We’ve got some time to figure this out on the road.”

They made a last sweep of the house to ensure they hadn’t forgotten anything useful. Shee stopped at Ethan’s room.

“We’re going,” she announced.

He looked up. “Could you lock the front door?”

He smiled at the joke. They both knew the front door was jacked into place and technically locked, but it wouldn’t take more than a stiff breeze to knock it off its hinges. There was no real way to secure the house.

Shee could tell he was nervous.

“You’re leaving. Croix had to stay at the hospital, so I want you out of here.”

He scowled. “Out of here?”

“Yep. After we leave, there’s one Jeep left. Take it somewhere public. A coffee shop. A bar. I don’t care as long as there are a bunch of people. You can keep working from there.

Ethan pouted, but he closed his laptop.

“Fine. I guess it is better than being dead.”

She shrugged. “I can think of a few restaurants that might be worse than death, but mostly, yeah.”

She left him, and the remaining four got into two vehicles—Shee, Mason, and Shiva in Mason’s truck, Ollie in a Jeep.

They kept a phone line open between them as they drove.

“Think of anything yet?” asked Ollie before they’d pulled out of the driveway.

“Ha,” said Shee. “Operation Cow Field is a little slow out of the gate, I’m afraid.”

“No pun intended,” said Ollie.

She studied her phone, looking for any information about their destination. She discovered the field had a copse of pine trees on one side.

“How are you at climbing trees?” Shee asked Mason.

He side-eyed her. “Are you setting me up for another one-legged man joke?”

She tittered. “No. There’s a group of trees on the side of this cow field we’re going to. If you could get high enough with a sniper rifle—”

He glanced at her. “Are you serious?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? If you could get to a steady branch?”

“In theory—how far are the trees from the field? Within a thousand meters?”

“I don’t know exactly but a lot closer than that, I think. Maybe two hundred.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Ollie’s voice over the speaker. “My life is in the hands of a one-legged man in a tree with a sniper rifle?”

“This is not Plan A,” Mason assured him.

Ollie scoffed. “At least he’s not a one-armed man. All Glenn would have to do is wave—”

Everyone in both cars burst into giggles.

The tension was getting to them.

In the back seat, Shiva cleared her throat. “There is no one following us.”

“Good. Then they won’t know we’re coming until we get there. Ollie, when we get closer you pull off and let us drive by and check out the situation.”

“Deal. Can I turn around and go home?”

“No.”

“Dammit.”

They drove until they were close, and Ollie pulled off. Mason kept going, and they rolled past the cow field, careful not to slow so much as to draw attention.

It was getting dark, but across from the field was a large farm and a garden store with tall floodlights looming over their parking lot.

The gate to the pasture where they were supposed to meet Glenn was open. The floodlights were bright enough that Shee saw a car sitting about twenty yards from the road. Maybe blue? Hard to tell, but it looked like Glenn’s.

“He’s there,” she reported.

Mason slowed.

“No. Keep going,” said Shee, turning to take pictures of the market as they drove past. “If Glenn has a taskmaster, he’d set himself up in that parking lot to watch. I would.”

Mason hit the gas until they reached a clump of trees beside the field.

“Are these the trees you expected me to shimmy up with a rifle?” asked Mason.

Shee nodded, leaning down to better see the tops of the tall pines. She didn’t know anyone who could climb those trees—definitely not her gigantic one-legged beau hunk.

“It seemed like a good idea in my head,” she murmured.

Mason passed the trees and pulled into the empty driveway of a home there.

They sat quietly, waiting to see if anyone burst out of the house to shoo them away. No lights were on, the shades were down, and no one came.

“Nobody home,” announced Mason, turning off the truck.

Shee twisted to see if there was a line of sight from the farmer’s supply to the driveway where they sat. There wasn’t.

Good.

“What do you think?” she asked.

He sighed. “I’m definitely not climbing any trees, but I don’t need to. The view should be fine from inside the treeline.”

Shee strapped on her gun holster and grabbed a pair of binoculars. “Okay. Let’s leave the car here and walk through the woods. Quickly.”

They got out, and Mason gathered his sniper rifle from the back.

“It is a shame that you did not bring two rifles,” said Shiva as they started for the copse. “I am not a bad shot.”

He flashed her a smile. “I bet. I’ll remember to bring two next time. To be honest, I can’t believe I brought this one. I didn’t think this was the sort of job we’d need a sniper for, or I would have brought Trimmer.”

“What am I doing here, people?” asked Ollie through Shee’s phone. “I’m going to be late soon. I don’t know if there’s a penalty for tardiness.”

“We’re getting in position now. Hold a sec,” she said.

They entered the trees and sized up a spot for Mason to get comfortable.

“Think you can hit something from here?” Shee asked, positioned inside the tree line, staring at Glenn’s car.

He unfolded his tripod stand. “I can hit all kinds of things. The trick will be hitting the right thing.”

Shee peered through her binoculars.

“I only see one person. Driver’s seat,” she said, turning the glasses on the farmer’s supply. She couldn’t make out anyone there who looked suspicious. Only a handful of cars were in the parking lot, and it didn’t look like anyone was sitting in them. It was hard to be sure between the pockets of darkness and the glare from the floodlights.

She scanned the area around them.

“As far as I can tell, we’ve only got Glenn in that car to deal with,” she reported. “I don’t see anyone else suspicious.”

“I’m ready when you are,” said Mason.

He’d raised the tripod to chest height and leaned down to peer through the scope.

“I only see Glenn,” he confirmed.

Shee raised her phone.

“Okay, Ollie. You can go,” said Shee. “Glenn is parked in the middle of the field. The gate is open.”

“Won’t the cows get out?” asked Ollie.

Shee met eyes with Shiva and shook her head.

“Your buddy is an idiot,” she said.

Shiva returned with the tiniest smile on human record. She was never a giddy person, but Shee guessed the woman’s nerves over Operation Ollie had her even more grim than usual.

“I heard that,” said Ollie.

“Yeah, well, I guess there aren’t any cows here anymore,” said Shee.

Ollie huffed a dramatic sigh. “I can’t believe we drove all this way for no cows.”

“Ollie. Can you please take this seriously?”

“If I took this seriously, I would be headed home,” he said, his tone finally matching the situation.

Shee almost regretted telling him to curb the jokes. Now, everything felt more serious to her, too.

She sniffed and got back to business.

“We’re in the woods to the west of the field. Mason’s on sniper. Avoid blocking his line of sight or standing directly in line with the target.”

“Hm. Good advice. I wouldn’t want anything going through Glenn and into me.”

“Right. Keep your phone on if you can.” Shee rapped on her forehead with her knuckle, trying to think of every detail. “Other than that, I think I’m out of things to tell you. We don’t know what they have planned. Just know we’re here. If shit hits the fan, you hit the dirt, and we’ll do our best to take care of the rest.”

“Okay,” said Ollie. “Here goes nothing. Tell my wife I love her.”

Shiva’s attention swiveled to Shee. She seemed surprised.

Shee rolled her eyes.

“You don’t have a wife,” she said into the phone.

“No?” said Ollie. “Crap. I forgot to take a wife. I knew I forgot something.”

Shiva looked away, but Shee saw her smirk.

They had to keep Ollie alive. He was the only person who could make Shiva laugh.

Shee watched the road until Ollie’s black Jeep appeared. He slowed as he approached the field’s open gate and then pulled in to bounce slowly toward Glenn’s car.

Shee raised her binoculars to get a closer look. As Ollie neared, Glenn stepped out of the car’s driver seat and opened the back door. He pulled Dalla from the back. She had her hands tied behind her. She’d been lying down in the back seat.

Shee frowned.

That’s not right.

“He already has Dalla,” she said.

“I see that,” said Mason, his eye on his scope. “I thought she was the prize he got after Ollie showed up?”

“So did I.”

Ollie got out of the car. He held up his hands and walked toward Glenn. Glenn had a gun to his sister’s back.

Shee shook her head.

Glenn is playing us.

Glenn barked something she couldn’t make out, and Ollie stopped moving. Glenn moved up to stand beside his sister.

He tossed something to Ollie, who bobbled but secured it.

“What was that?” asked Mason. “Cuffs?”

“Looks like it,” said Shee as Ollie fiddled with them. He stalled and said something to Glenn.

Glenn raised his gun to his sister’s head. It looked as if he were warning Ollie that he would kill her if he didn’t put on the cuffs.

“I don’t like anything about this,” said Shee. “What do you want to do?”

Mason grunted. “I can’t take him out now, with his gun to Dalla’s head. It’s too risky.”

“I know, but—”

A gunshot rang out, cutting short Shee’s thought.

They held their breaths. Mason pressed his eye to the scope, finger on the trigger.

In the field, Dalla dropped to the ground.

Shee gasped.

“Did he shoot Dalla?”

“It looks like it,” said Mason.

Shee gritted her teeth.

“Take him out!”

Mason squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ollie drove slowly over the bumpy field, creeping toward Glenn’s car.

He didn’t feel like going any faster.

He didn’t particularly feel like dying or being kidnapped, either.

He saw the car door open as he approached. Glenn unfolded his thin body from the driver’s seat and moved to the back door to open it. He tugged on something—Ollie couldn’t see what at first—but it soon became clear it was a person.

Glenn pulled his sister Dalla from the back seat.

The woman looked as if she’d had a hard day. Her once fluffy hair had flopped to form a messy halo around her head. She wore a casual yellow business suit, as she had in the photo of her tied on Glenn’s bed.

She found her feet and stood with Glenn’s support, her arms pulled behind her, presumably tied at the wrists.

Ollie slowed to a stop.

What does that mean?

Why did Glenn have his sister with him already? And why did he have a gun?

He’d turned down the volume on his phone so Glenn wouldn’t hear anything Shee might say, but the phone was on, and he knew they were watching. He imagined Shee and the others were wondering the same thing about Dalla’s appearance. She wasn’t due until later—as an exchange for him.

If Glenn already had his sister in hand, why did he need him?

And why the hell would I get out of the car?

“Leave your car running,” called Glenn.

Ollie nodded and put the Jeep in park.

Glenn motioned with the gun.

“Get out of the car.”

Ollie stalled, and Glenn pointed his weapon at his sister’s back.

“Get out, or I’ll shoot her.”

Ollie took a deep breath. He didn’t think Glenn would shoot his sister, but he never thought someone would take a person’s butt cheeks as a trophy, either. Maybe she wasn’t his sister at all, and Ethan got it wrong. Or, maybe she was his sister, but he’d always hated her for taking the biggest piece of birthday cake when they were kids.

Who knew?

He only knew one thing. He had to get out of the car.

Dammit.

“Here I go,” he said to the phone in his pocket.

He stepped out of the Jeep.

“Put your hands up and walk this way,” said Glenn.

Ollie did as he was told.

“Are you armed?” asked Glenn.

Ollie shook his head. “No.”

As long as you don’t count the sniper in the woods.

He assumed Glenn would approach to search him for a weapon. That would be his chance. Glenn couldn’t keep a gun trained on his sister and him.

He’d try and grab the gun.

Glenn pulled something from his pocket and threw it at Ollie. He wasn’t ready for it and almost spiked the handcuffs to the ground. His pinky hooked through at the last second and he left them dangling there.

“Put them on,” said Glenn. “Let’s see how you like being stuffed in the back of a car.”

Ollie paused, considering his options. He cocked his head.

“Could you give me some idea of what’s going on?” asked Ollie. “Wasn’t she supposed to come later? Why do you need me if you have your sister back?”

Glenn raised the gun to his sister’s head.

He was left-handed. It didn’t mean anything, but that’s the thought that went through Ollie’s head.

“Just put the cuffs on,” Glenn demanded, his body language implying he’d shoot Dalla if he didn’t.

Dalla’s eyes widened.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

It didn’t look as if having her life threatened had been part of the plan.

It seemed Glenn had his own agenda.

Ollie scanned the field.

Is someone out there? Did Glenn have a boss? Or was he the killer, after all—no mysterious blackmailer?

If he could find a way to get Glenn to admit he’d been the bad guy all along, he could draw him away from Dalla, and Mason could take him down.

The proverbial buck would stop there.

“Are you the guy?” he asked.

Glenn scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re the guy, right? There is no blackmailer. It’s been you all along.”

“No. There is a blackmailer—”

“Then why do you have Dalla? Is she even your sister?”

He looked at Dalla’s face to see her reaction to his comment, but her eyes closed. Her lips moved as if she were praying.

Ollie continued.

“Think about it. There’s nothing that says you’ve been coerced into any of this. Why are you holding a gun to her head? Shouldn’t you be threatening me? You’re not going to shoot your own sis—”

Glenn’s gun exploded.

Ollie jerked away, raising his arm to protect himself from the bullet he assumed was heading his way.

Through squinted eyes, he saw something hit the ground.

Dalla.

He turned to Glenn who stood with his arms at his side, glaring at him.

Holy—

He looked again to Dalla, expecting her to get up. She’d dropped at the sound of the gun, right? Part of him wanted to believe Glenn pulled the trigger to put the fear of God into him. Or to shut him up.

It wouldn’t have been the first time someone shot a gun to shut him up.

But he hadn’t seen him move the muzzle away from his sister, and now Dalla lay as motionless on the ground as a clump of laundry.

Glenn raised the gun to point it at Ollie.

Ollie swallowed.

Uh oh.

Forget Dalla. He needed to worry about Ollie right now.

His legs flexed. It was too late to make a run for cover. Glenn had his full attention on him. If he had any skills at all with a gun, he wouldn’t miss.

So many options. None of them good.

Was Glenn going to shoot him, too? Why wouldn’t he after he shot his own sister? Should he try to run? Drop? Cover and hope Mason took him out before the second bullet came?

Without warning, Glenn’s shoulder jerked back as if he were spasming. The move was so odd that Ollie forgot he was about to die.

Why is he doing the Thriller dance?

The arm holding Glenn’s gun swung in front of him. The weapon tossed sideways and flew past Dalla to land ten yards away in the grass.

Ollie heard the gunshot a millisecond later.

Everything made sense.

Mason.

He took a split second to confirm he hadn’t been shot.

He felt okay...

Glenn spun toward his sister’s body, stepping on her arm as he tried to catch his balance.

“Ow,” she yipped, yanking her arm away.

Everything told Ollie to run the other way. Get in the Jeep. Run. But he knew that wasn’t what he was supposed to do.

Dammit.

Like an idiot, he slammed into spinning Glenn, forcing him back and over the Dalla-lump and onto his car. Dalla was awake and moving. She scrambled out of the way as her brother fell over her. Glenn’s feet flew into the air, and his head struck the hood of his Hyundai.

Hard.

Ollie winced as Glenn’s skull bounced on the metal, and he slid to the ground.

He lay there, all elbows and knees, like a scarecrow that had fallen off its post. Motionless.

Ollie realized he still had the cuffs in his hand. He grabbed Glenn’s wrist and jerked it behind his back. He felt no resistance. Glenn had gone as limp as an old piece of lettuce. He’d bashed his head pretty good.

Ollie looked behind him to see Shee, Shiva, and Mason headed his way, running across the fields like the specimens they were.

The vision made him smile, but something niggled at the back of his brain.

Dalla.

He turned to see her inchworming toward where the gun had disappeared into the grass. She paused to sit up and wriggle her hands from her bindings. She saw Ollie’s attention fall on her and crawled backward away from him on her hands and feet like a crab.

“Don’t hurt me. It was his idea. He’s nuts,” she said.

Ollie held up his hands.

“Easy. No one’s going to hurt you—”

He saw her eyes sneak a look to the side, which seemed like a calculating move for a woman so scared.

She knew something he didn’t.

Glenn had shot her point blank in the head. He’d seen it. But now she was fine, crabbing along at a clip, free from her bindings—?

“Are you hurt?” he asked, moving toward her.

The roar of a car engine caught his attention, which struck him as odd because he’d seen all three of his compadres running across the field toward him. That left no one to drive a car.

He glanced to the right to see an SUV flying across the field, bouncing over divots and dried cow patties.

He didn’t recognize the car, but it was coming straight for them.

Dalla rolled to her stomach and started crawling like a maniac away from him.

That’s when it hit him.

Glenn’s gun.

She was going after it.

Ollie set his jaw. He wasn’t going to sit there and wait for someone else to try and shoot him.

With Dalla about to grab the gun in front of him and some maniac in an SUV headed toward him from the right, Ollie did the only thing he could think to do. He hid behind Glenn’s car.

Maybe he should have tried to save Dalla?

The SUV was about to hit her.

But—

Nah.

He’d work on the hero stuff some other time. There was no scenario where he’d get to Dalla before she shot him or the SUV ran over them both.

He glanced over his shoulder. His group was closing in. Shee and Mason had their guns drawn. Shiva was five feet ahead of the pair.

The SUV tore up and slammed on its brakes, skidding across the dry grass. The driver’s door opened.

“Get in,” barked a man, leaning out to give Dalla a hand to her feet.

She picked up the gun and hauled herself up, dragging on the man’s arm. His head leaned wide of the door.

He glanced up, and his eyes met Ollie’s.

“I thought you wanted him,” said Dalla, poking the gun in Ollie’s direction.

“Just get in!” yelled the man.

Pointing the gun in her shaking hand at Ollie, she opened the back door of the SUV and lifted herself inside with her other hand.

The man hit the gas.

The door closed on Dalla’s leg, and she screamed, but the SUV kept moving.

Ollie stood, hands at his side, watching the truck as it roared away. The angle didn’t give him a good look at the plate.

It didn’t matter.

“Ollie, get down!” screamed Shee.

It occurred to him she’d screamed that twice. The first time, it hadn’t registered.

He turned to face them as they arrived, panting.

“Shoot the car,” said Ollie.

Mason raised his gun and then lowered it.

“I can’t. It’s too far away.”

“Shoot the car,” repeated Ollie.

Shiva stood close to him and forced him to look in her eyes. She didn’t say anything. Her brow furrowed.

“Are you okay?” asked Shee.

Ollie turned to her and nodded.

“I’m fine,” he said.

He was lying.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“What the hell just happened?” asked Shee.

Ollie offered a little shrug. He seemed off. She could tell he was trying to be his usual self, but it seemed like a chore.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again.

He nodded but didn’t say anything.

“We saw him shoot Dalla,” said Mason, looking at the ground at the side of Glenn’s car. “I don’t see any blood.”

“Blank,” said Ollie. “It had to be a blank. She—she didn’t fall right. No blood. I should have realized sooner.”

Mason sighed and jerked a thumb toward the woods. “I’m going to get my stuff. I’ll get the truck and bring it around. We have to get out of here.”

He nodded at the farmer’s supply across the street, and Shee saw a small crowd had gathered outside. They were still in the was that gunfire or fireworks? phase. Someone would call the police soon if they hadn’t already.

She nodded. “Hurry.”

Mason started in a fast jog toward the trees.

Shee put her hands on her hips.

“I don’t get any of this. Why would Glenn pretend to shoot his sister?”

Neither Ollie nor Shiva answered, and she huffed.

“I’m willing to let you work through whatever shock you’re in right now, Ollie, but I’m going to need you to start talking soon. We couldn’t hear anything over the phone once you put it in your pocket.”

He nodded.

She sighed. She felt bad for badgering him, but they had a lot to process. She looked down at Glenn, who was lying half on his face next to his front tire.

“Glenn’s alive, right?” she said.

“Glenn,” echoed Ollie at the sound of the voice, snapping out of his trance.

He strode to the prone body and flipped him over. Glenn remained unconscious, his jaw slack.

“Wake up,” said Ollie, dropping to one knee over him. He slapped him hard across the face.

“Wake up.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Shee. She reached to grab Ollie’s arm, and he jerked away from her to slap Glenn a second time.

“Ollie. Stop it,” said Shee. “What’s gotten into you? We don’t even want him awake now. We’ll take him with us. We don’t need him struggling and screaming for help.”

She’d never seen Ollie so agitated. He was usually all smirks and jokes. Something was going on, but she needed to get everyone into the truck and out of there before the police showed up.

Ollie had Glenn’s shirt balled in his fist. He’d pulled the upper part of the man’s body off the ground. He let him hang that way, his eyes locked with Shee’s, and then he threw the limp body down.

Glenn remained unconscious.

As Ollie stood and walked away, mumbling to himself, Shee moved in to feel Glenn’s neck for a pulse. He was alive. She thought she’d seen him crack his head on the car—he’d knocked himself out cold. It could be his body was in shock from the gunshot wound. He had blood staining his shirt below his shoulder. Shee pushed him to his side and checked the other side to find a similar stain and hole.

The wound wasn’t easy to see, but it appeared Mason’s bullet had passed through cleanly.

Shee stepped back and caught Shiva’s eye. She poked her chin in Ollie’s direction.

“What’s wrong with him?” she whispered.

In the dim light, Shiva shrugged one shoulder.

Ollie stopped pacing and stood with his hands on his hips, back to them, head hanging. Shee considered approaching him and decided against it. It might be better to leave him alone for a bit. Give him some space.

Now wasn’t the time to get into whatever was going on.

Mason’s truck blasted through the field’s open gate and arrived at the scene.

Unaware of Ollie’s distress, the SEAL dropped out of the cab and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Help me get him into the cab,” he said.

Ollie turned and nodded. He seemed calm now—like nothing had happened.

Shee wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a very bad thing.

Ollie took Glenn’s legs, and Mason took his upper body, careful to avoid the young man’s bleeding shoulder.

They put him in the back of the truck’s extended cab, sitting up against the door on the driver’s side.

Ollie and Shiva headed for the Jeep.

“You good to drive?” Shee asked.

Ollie nodded. “I’m fine.”

Shiva caught Shee’s eye and nodded slightly. She’d decided to ride with Ollie to make sure he was alright.

Probably a good idea.

“Okay. See you back at the house,” said Shee.

Ollie and Shiva got into the Jeep and drove off.

Shee glanced at Glenn and saw he’d started to slump forward from where they’d propped him. Blood had dripped down the door.

“Two seconds,” said Shee, reaching under the passenger seat where she knew she’d find a first aid kit.

“We’ve got to go,” said Mason.

“I know. I’ve got to wrap him up so he doesn’t bleed to death on the way back.”

She hopped in the back, and Mason drove off. The small crowd that gathered at the farmer supply after the gunshots had already lost interest and dispersed. Maybe no one had called the police. That would be good. Gunshots in Florida weren’t all that unusual. They’d probably chalked it up to hunters.

“How’s he looking?” asked Mason.

“Fine. I just wanted to plug this hole. You caught his shoulder clean through.”

“Of course I did. That’s what I was aiming for.”

Shee looked to find Mason grinning at her in his rearview mirror.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the badass SEAL,” she said, snickering. “What do you think about all that back there?”

Mason shook his head.

“I keep replaying the whole thing, and all I come up with is more questions. Who drove up and took Dalla? Did Ollie get a look at them?”

“Ollie wasn’t chatty. We’re going to have to talk to him when we get back.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Mason.

Shee wrapped a bandage around Glenn’s shoulder.

“Something. He attacked Glenn while you were getting the truck.”

“Attacked him?”

She nodded. “Pounced on him, shaking him, trying to wake him up.”

“But you don’t know why?”

“Nope. It was so weird I didn’t even ask him who was in that other car. I suppose we have to assume it was the actual killer? That a person really has been blackmailing Glenn?”

“Or he has a partner.”

“One who left him behind.”

Mason rubbed his face. “Dalla was clearly alive, though, right? It looked like Glenn shot her.”

“It did. She dropped like a stone. I thought he shot her in the head.”

“But why pretend to shoot his sister? He wanted us to think she was dead? Planned to haul Ollie and her in his car and drive off, so we couldn’t confirm?”

Shee scowled and put away the little bottle of antiseptic she’d used on Glenn’s wound.

“Why would it matter? I mean, maybe he thought we’d stop looking for her if we knew she was dead—but we’d still be looking for Ollie, so that doesn’t—”

Shee went silent as an odd thought occurred to her.

“Hello?” said Mason.

“Sorry.” She shut the first aid kit and propped Glenn in his place. “What if the person in the SUV was our killer, and he was giving Glenn all these weird orders? He told Glenn to pretend to shoot his sister. Gave him the gun, filled it with blanks—”

“Or just the first was a blank, and the rest weren’t,” noted Mason.

“Okay—but what if he wanted us to kill Glenn? What if that was the point of having him shoot Dalla—so we would shoot him?”

“You’re forgetting that would mean he knew we were there.”

“True, he’s been planning crazy murders. Why couldn’t he plan a way for us to execute his biggest loose end?”

Mason scowled into his rearview at her. “But if he’s a killer, why would he need us to kill Glenn?”

Shee considered this a moment.

“How about—we kill Glenn, save Dalla, dead Glenn gets the murders pinned on him, and Killer walks away scot-free?”

“We don’t think it’s odd Dalla doesn’t have a scratch on her?”

Shee shrugged. “Luck. He missed. And it’s not like anyone will try to find the missing bullet out in that field. I mean, they might try, but they won’t think it’s odd if they don’t find it. It could be anywhere.”

Mason glanced over his shoulder at her.

“I guess. It’s a terrible plan, though. He left a lot of paths to failure.”

She nodded.

“Lucky for us things did go wrong. I don’t think he wanted to make an appearance. Now we know there’s someone else involved, and he can’t frame Glenn for everything.”

“Which begs the question—why did he drive out to grab Dalla? If she and Glenn are just pawns—”

“Right. Why save her? Why fake-shoot her? He could have told Glenn it was a blank and used a real bullet. Killed two birds, so to speak. Dalla is really dead, and we take out Glenn.”

Mason nodded. “She must mean something to him, whoever he is.”

Shee frowned. “And did he ever really want Ollie? Or was he just a device for framing Glenn?”

Mason scowled as she climbed into the front seat.

“My head hurts,” he said.

She leaned to kiss him above the ear.

“Mine, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Croix stared at sleeping Tamara and glanced at her watch.

So. Bored.

If she sat a minute longer, she was going to hook herself to a poisoned IV.

She’d had a thought that made it even harder to sit still—she wanted to check the hospital’s security footage and see if Tamara was telling the truth about Glenn.

She wanted to believe Tamara, of course, but they didn’t really know her. She could be lying to cover up for someone else or to frame Glenn for some reason. They probably wouldn’t be able to prove Glenn stabbed her—not them and not the authorities any time soon—but they could find proof about the alleged second attempt on her life.

Croix felt her phone buzz in her pocket and answered.

“Hey, we heard from Glenn,” said Shee. “We wanted to make you aware Tamara might be lying.”

“Just a second,” said Croix in a whisper.

She walked into the hall.

“She’s asleep. I’m in the hall now. I was just thinking about that. That she might be lying.”

Shee told her how Glenn swore he hadn’t been to the hospital.

On her side of the line, Croix rolled her eyes.

Duh.

Why would Glenn admit anything?

When Shee finished telling her about her great idea to check the security videos (way ahead of you, Boss Lady), Croix mentioned her predicament. She couldn’t sit on Tamara and check the footage to see who entered her room.

Shee was no help on that front. She gave her what amounted to a figure-it-out and ended the call. She sounded busy. To be fair, she was. Something was brewing between the killer and Ollie—keeping Ollie alive was more important than checking videos.

Croix paced, thinking.

There has to be some way to do this.

She wandered the hall, stretching her legs and getting a lay of the land in case anything happened and she had to move fast. She spotted an empty wheelchair parked in the hall and wondered if she could get Tamara into it. Maybe she could take her on a field trip to the security office—

Nah.

Tamara’s wound was in her gut. She wasn’t even sitting up in the bed. Getting her to sit in a wheelchair would be impossible.

Maybe a gurney?

She huffed. Even if she could get her on a gurney without torturing her or flipping her onto the floor in the process, the nurses would pounce on them the second they rolled into the hall. They knew Tamara wasn’t supposed to move. They’d never believe any excuse she gave them.

Plus, killing the girl defeats the purpose of protecting her...

When the lady at the desk wasn’t looking, Croix poked her head into several rooms. Most had people in them—most people were sleeping. One old lady waved at her. She waved back.

She was about to retract her head from that room when the woman spoke.

“Do you want to come talk?” she asked. “I’m Jean.”

Croix flashed her a quick smile. The woman looked about a hundred and ten years old, but that didn’t mean much. With old people, she was like Shee was with kids—she’d seen her boss guess a nine-year-old girl was five. Jean might be sixty, and she might be two hundred. She had no idea.

She took a deep breath and noticed the room smelled nice. Not like cleaning fluid and not like old lady or old lady perfume. Something familiar and floral.

“Hi,” she said, waving again. “I’m Croix. I’m sorry. I’d love to stay and talk—you have no idea—but I have to keep an eye on someone down the hall.”

Jean smiled back at her.

“Croix? What a pretty name. Very unusual.”

“My mother was from St. Croix,” she said.

It was a lie, but it sounded good and kept questions to a minimum.

She attempted to slip away again politely, but Jean continued.

“Oh. Are you a nurse?” she asked.

Croix stepped into the room to clarify she wasn’t medical staff.

“No. I’m a, uh, detective.”

Jean’s eyes lit. “Really? I love detective shows. I watch all of them. I like the British ones best.”

Croix’s phone buzzed, and she glanced at a text from Shee.

She texted back.

Croix rolled her eyes. That’s helpful.

She realized she didn’t even know what Glenn looked like. She’d never seen him. She’d meant to ask Tamara, but the girl fell asleep almost immediately after Shee and Mason left, woke up for a call from her mother, and then fell asleep again.

She typed another text.

Croix smiled to herself. She was officially off guard duty.

“What case are you working on now?” asked Jean.

She’d forgotten there was someone else in the room and looked up. Jean stared back at her, big blue eyes twinkling, waiting for an answer.

Croix slipped her phone back into her pocket.

“Oh. There’s a—” She was going to say girl, but she decided it would be better to keep the information she shared with Jean to a minimum. Old ladies liked to gossip, and she didn’t want her telling the hospital she was about to try and steal their footage.

She started over.

“There’s a person down the hall I’m guarding. Someone tried to kill her—”

She winced.

Dammit. I said her.

Jean gasped. “Someone tried to kill her? How?”

Croix gave up on the subterfuge. She imagined ladies as old as Jean were always telling people someone was out to kill someone. No one would believe her.

“They tried to put something in her IV bag with a needle,” she explained.

Jean sat up. “Here? It was here?”

Croix winced.

Whoops.

She’d have to get out of Jean’s room before she started a panic.

“Yes, but you’re not in danger. Someone is after her. Specifically.”

Jean hovered her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, no. What are you going to do?”

Croix shrugged. “I’m going to go take a peek at the security footage. See if I can find out who it was.”

Jean nodded her approval. “Ooh, that’s a good idea.”

“Thank you.”

She was about to leave when she noticed the woman eyeballing her. Something about her expression—

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Jean frowned. “Have you talked with the hospital? Are you working with them?”

“What do you mean?”

Jean sighed. “I mean, I don’t think they’ll let you look at the footage.”

Croix shrugged again and made to leave. “I know. I’m going to have to come up with a plan. I’ll see you—”

“It’s not the plan,” said Jean. “You need more than a plan. You need clothes.”

The woman’s tone had changed. She suddenly sounded in charge—so much so that it stopped Croix from leaving.

She wasn’t sure how to respond.

“What?” she asked.

Jean chewed at her lip. “Well, look at you. You’re wearing shorts and a tee shirt. You don’t look professional.”

Croix felt her cheeks heat. Was she being dressed down by this old lady? Literally?

She glanced down at her clothes.

Jean wasn’t wrong. Her look would be a problem.

“I didn’t know I’d need to dress up when we came here,” she said in her defense.

Jean’s head cocked.

“We? So you have someone who can help?”

Croix frowned. “No. They’re on another part of the job right now. I’m on my own.”

Jean frowned and looked across the room.

“Open that closet,” she said, motioning to a tall, free-standing closet in the corner.

Croix realized she was walking past Jean’s bed to open the door before it occurred to her she didn’t have to listen to the woman.

Jean was sneaky bossy.

Inside the closet hung a bright pink pantsuit and a silk tank top.

“You’re about my size. Would that work?” asked Jean.

Croix turned to gape at her.

“You’re saying I can borrow your clothes?”

“Yes. Please.”

Croix pulled out the hanging suit and noticed the label.

“This is Chanel. I don’t know anything about fashion and I know that’s a thing.”

Jean chuckled. “It’s my go-to suit.”

Croix scowled at the jacket.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Hop in the bathroom there. Try it on.”

Croix took the suit into the bathroom and put it on. It was a little tight on her, but not a bad fit. Jean was tall, and though she was old and thin, she wasn’t bird-boned.

She walked out and held out her hands.

“What do you think? Would you give me your security video footage?”

Jean laughed. “I would, and I can do you one better. While you were in there, I thought of a plan. Hand me that walker.”

Croix grabbed the silver walker against the wall to her right and pushed it over to Jean.

With some effort, Jean sat up and hung her legs over the bed.

“What are you doing?” asked Croix.

Jean dropped to her bare feet and started the process of sliding into a pair of slippers. Croix couldn’t imagine it taking her so long to step into a shoe.

Old age looked terrible. She’d have to remember to avoid it.

“You’re going to take me with you,” said Jean, as if they’d decided years ago.

Croix tucked her chin.

“Take you with me? Seriously?”

She nodded.

“You’re a hospital administrator in a fancy suit. You tell them the room you’re interested in had a robbery, and you need to see the footage immediately. I’ll say I saw the person and can help you identify him.”

Croix blinked at the woman.

That’s a good plan.

She stalled while deciding whether to take Jean with her or not. She couldn’t think of a reason not to...

“You said him. How did you know I’m looking for a him?” she asked.

Jean rolled her eyes as she shuffled to a robe hanging on a hook on the wall and wrapped it around her.

“It’s always a him,” she said.

Croix nodded.

Yep. Mostly.

“That’s a good plan,” she admitted. “That might work.”

Jean clucked her tongue. “Of course, it will work. Let’s go.”

She shuffled toward the door with her walker, and Croix ran ahead to open it.

“Who are you?” she asked as Jean shuffled passed her. “Why are you so in charge all of a sudden? Are you a retired cop or something?”

Jean tittered. “I wish. That might have been more exciting. But no, I was VP of an International retail chain for years. You don’t get where I got—especially back when I got there—without being a little bit of a bitch.”

Croix giggled at the woman’s cursing.

“Good for you.”

They stepped into the hall, and Croix excused herself to peek in on Tamara. She remained sleeping peacefully.

She considered asking the lady at the desk where the security office was but didn’t want to push her luck. She also didn’t want her to notice Jean was on the run.

She met back with Jean, and they started down the hall. A woman who looked like some sort of admin approached them, and Croix flagged her down.

“Could you tell me where the security office is?” she asked.

“Ground floor. East side in the back,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Croix and Jean entered the elevator and rode it to the lobby.

“You’re pretty spry on that walker,” said Croix, noticing Jean’s had real rubber caps on the legs instead of tennis balls. Jean was all class.

Jean nodded grimly. “Practice makes perfect.”

On the first floor, they trod their steady pace to the security office, located right where the woman told them it would be.

Croix knocked and entered. A man not much older than her turned from his monitor as she held the door for Jean.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Croix cleared her throat and found her woman-in-charge voice by imitating the tone she’d heard from Jean.

“Yes, hello, I’m Patty with hospital administration, and this is Ms. Jean.”

She wasn’t sure why she picked Patty. She thought it sounded like a hospital administrator.

Jean nodded and smiled. Croix continued.

“We have a patient missing a phone on the sixth floor. She thinks it was stolen. Ms. Jean thinks she saw the person who took it. We’d like to look at the security footage so she can identify the person for us.”

The man shrugged. “Sure.”

He turned to type on his keyboard.

“Any particular room?” he asked.

“Six thirteen.”

He nodded. “Let me get to that camera. About what time?”

“Earlier today. Around Ten.”

“Okay.”

He called up the video and fast-forwarded as they watched for someone to approach Tamara’s door. A tall, thin, younger man with short hair appeared in-frame to enter Tamara’s room.

Croix thought she caught a glimpse of a discoloration on his forehead.

That’s him. It has to be.

“Is that who you saw?” asked the man, looking at Jean.

Croix jumped to answer for her.

“That’s how you described him. I think that’s him.”

Jean nodded.

“Yes. I think so, too…”

Croix pointed at the screen. “Can you run through his path through the hospital? Make me a supercut of his time here?”

He nodded. “Yes. Sure. Give me a second.”

The man worked on his project, visually following Glenn through the hospital from camera to camera. Croix exchanged a look with Jean, who grinned back at her, vibrating with excitement.

It took a good fifteen minutes, but the man put together a mash-up of camera angles showing Glenn’s procession through the hospital.

“I’ll put it on the secure server. You can view it there,” he said.

Croix, buoyant over her success, dropped her self-satisfied smile.

She couldn’t access the secure server.

She looked at Jean. Jean looked back at her, her eyes wide.

She saw the problem, too.

Croix looked down at her phone and started the camera. She motioned to Jean her intention to film the film.

“Could you run through it once for me?” she asked louder for the security guy to hear.

He bobbed one shoulder. “Sure.”

“Could you get me a glass of water?” asked Jean in a strange, high-pitched yip like Croix had accidentally stepped on her toe.

The man turned in his chair.

“Uh—”

He looked at Croix.

“I feel a little faint,” Jean added in a normal tone.

“I’d appreciate it,” said Croix. “I’ll watch this through in the meantime.”

He nodded and stood.

“Okay. Just click the mouse when you’re ready, and it’ll play. I’ll be right back.”

Croix nodded, and he left the room to fetch water.

Croix placed a hand on Jean’s shoulder.

“You’re not really faint, are you?”

She chuckled. “No. Quick, tape the video.”

Croix hit the mouse and filmed the screen on her phone as it ran through the Glenn Up To No Good supercut.

“Will this work? Do you need the real files?” asked Jean.

“This will be good enough proof for us. If we need it officially, we can get the hospital to turn it over later.”

“We’re doing very well,” said Jean, rubbing her hands together like a supervillain.

Croix nodded. “The water was genius. Thank you.”

Jean beamed. “I told you, I watch a lot of mysteries.”

There weren’t that many clips to run through. Glenn entered the hospital already wearing the scrubs, which Croix recognized as those from Skinner’s hospital. He spoke to Information—presumably to ask for Tamara’s room number—and then took the elevator to the sixth floor. He entered her room. A nurse entered not long after. He left quickly after that, retracing his steps and leaving the building at a slow jog.

“Got it,” said Croix.

The security guy entered a moment later with a small bottle of water, which he handed to Jean.

“Thank you so much,” she said.

She didn’t open it. She didn’t take a sip.

“You saw it? Will that work?” the man asked Croix.

“Yes, that’s all I need. Thank you. I’ll grab it from the server later.”

He nodded, and Croix ushered Jean out of the room with her.

They were only a few steps down from the door when Jean burst into giggles.

“That was so much fun.”

Croix nodded. “Thank you so much. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Jean beamed. “Thank you. This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

As they stepped into the elevator, Croix eyed Jean’s walker again.

“Can I ask what’s wrong?” she asked. “I mean, why are you in the hospital?”

“Highly contagious ebola,” said Jean.

Croix blinked at her, and Jean chuckled.

“I’m kidding. Small procedure on my gallbladder. Nothing too serious. I never get the big problems. For me, it’s death by a thousand cuts. I’ll be checked out by the end of the day.”

Croix laughed. “Oh, good.”

Jean smirked and cocked an eyebrow at her.

“But I’m going to need that suit back.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

From his seat on the rental’s sofa, Ollie glared at Glenn like the kid had murdered his family.

Shee found it a little unsettling.

The young man sat barechested on one of the dining room chairs, hands in his lap, ankles and wrists zip-tied. His chin lay against his chest. The wound to his shoulder, where Mason’s bullet had passed through cleanly, had been treated and bandaged. He still had a yellowing lump on his forehead from Shiva’s death from above attack on the parking garage stairs, and now had a second to the left of that, tucked partially in his buzzcut hairline.

There was no getting around it—Glenn’s forehead was having a lousy week.

“Could this be the guy who broke into the house?” Shee asked Ethan.

Ethan nodded. “Definitely. He’s still wearing the same pants. Oh, and I forgot to tell you when you got back—he was in jail.”

Shee turned. “Glenn was?”

“Yep. Hasn’t been out that long. Maybe a month before he started working at Skinner’s. Aggravated assault and robbery.”

“Why would they hire someone fresh out of jail?” asked Mason.

“Dalla’s in charge of hiring. A little nepotism goes a long way,” said Shee.

She turned her attention to focus solely on Ollie.

“Hey, Ollie—you’re starting to freak me out. Can you quit staring at him like you’re thinking of fifty different ways to kill him?”

In response, Ollie leaned over and smacked Glenn on the knee.

“Wake up, asshole.”

Glenn didn’t move.

“Should we be worried about him?” asked Ethan. “He’s shot. He hit his head—do you think maybe we should take him to the hospital?”

Ollie turned his focus on him, scowling.

“Since when are we worried about the health and well-being of criminals?”

“I’m not, I mean, he’s just—” He motioned to Glenn and then shrugged. “Forget I mentioned it.”

Mason snapped his tongue against his eyetooth and took a long stride to reach Glenn.

“Ollie’s got the right idea. We can’t wait any longer.”

He lifted the young man’s chin and slapped his cheek repeatedly. Not hard, but not soft either. Fast and constant.

Glenn’s eyes fluttered open. He jerked his head away several times like a horse fighting the bit.

“What? Whoa! Stop!” he protested.

Mason stopped slapping and stepped back.

“Oh, you’re awake,” he said.

Glenn winced and squeezed his eyes open and shut a few times.

“My head is killing me,” he muttered.

“I bet,” said Shee. “Wait until you feel your shoulder.”

Glenn peered down at the bandage on his shoulder.

“What happened there?” he asked.

“I shot you after you shot Dalla,” said Mason. “Or, I suppose I should say when we thought you shot Dalla.”

Glenn gaped at him. “You shot me? You—who are you?” His head cocked to the right. “Oh. Wait. You’re that big guy from the parking lot. But, I don’t remember you in the field—”

“Sniper rifle.”

Glenn recoiled. “Holy shit. You could have killed me.”

Mason crossed his arms against his chest.

“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“It’s going to hurt,” added Shee. “We hit you with a little local painkiller to help you concentrate, but you should probably tell us everything we need to know before it wears off.”

Glenn swallowed and scanned the room with bleary eyes.

He spotted Ollie and Shiva. What little energy he had seemed to bleed out of him.

“You again,” he muttered.

“Start talking,” said Shee.

Glenn tilted his head back, his lip curled. “Why?”

“Because we could make life really miserable for you if you don’t.”

He straightened again.

“Where’s Dalla?”

“Someone in a gray SUV drove out and grabbed her.”

Glenn gaped at her.

“And left me?”

Shee nodded. “Do you want to start there? Who was that in the SUV? Was it the person supposedly blackmailing you?”

Glenn didn’t answer.

Ollie’s fist clenched, and he tensed as if he were about to stand.

Shiva, sitting next to him, touched his arm.

He looked at her, and she pressed her lips together.

Wait, she was saying.

Shee watched the exchange. It seemed whatever was eating Ollie, he’d told Shiva.

He took a deep breath and settled back into his seat.

Glenn glared at the ground. His demeanor felt different than the other times they’d talked to him. He’d been playing the confused innocent. With his head ringing, shoulder wound seeping into his bandages, and pain meds wearing off, he was finding it harder to pretend.

Let’s clear up his confusion.

Shee moved in front of him to get his attention.

“Glenn. Look at me.”

His head lolled a little, but he stiffened his neck and met her gaze.

“I’m going to save you some time,” she said. “You look like you’re trying to decide whether to be yourself or keep pretending to be this poor blackmailed kid. I can tell you, we know too much for you to pretend you’re innocent anymore. Forget that. We’re not buying it. Not an option.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said unconvincingly.

She ticked off his offenses on her fingers.

“We know it wasn’t that long ago you were in prison for assault—”

“Aggravated assault,” interjected Ethan.

Shee side-eyed him and continued, “We know you’re the one who broke into the house here—”

“I want my phone back,” said Ethan.

She turned to him and widened her eyes.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Shee continued, “We know you tried to kill Tamara—twice, and we know you’re in on whatever went down tonight. So, let’s take it from the top. What was the plan out there in the field?”

Glenn looked away. He looked bored.

“Who said there was a plan?” he asked.

The corner of Shee’s mouth curled.

They had him. The fact he was even talking meant he was trying to find a way out. He might spill the whole story by the time they finished—maybe even before they had to start pressing their thumbs into his bullet hole.

“You shot your sister with a blank,” said Mason.

Glenn’s gaze slid to him. “So?”

“So, why would you do that?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“It wasn’t your idea.”

“No?”

“No. It was the other guy’s idea, but did he tell you why?”

Glenn looked away. He didn’t know why. Or maybe he’d started to piece it together.

She smiled.

Let me help you with that.

“I’ll tell you our theory,” she said. “We think he knew we’d be there watching. He knew we had a sniper on the team or, at least, that we’d be armed. He told you to pretend to kill Dalla and then put that gun on Ollie—”

She leaned down to put her face even with his.

“What do armed people do when a proven shooter is about to kill their friend?”

Glenn paled.

She nodded. “You get it. He wanted you dead, Glenn. With you dead by our hand, he could pin everything that happened on you and walk away.”

The muscle in Glenn’s jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth.

“You got punked.”

Shee turned to Ethan. “Is that still a thing? Getting punked?”

Ethan shook his head. “Not really. I think he gets it, though.”

“I get it,” muttered Glenn.

She straightened. “Let me guess how he sold this idea to you. You thought you were supposed to put a gun on Ollie, get him to cuff himself, get him in the car, and drive off. Your sister would be safe—we’d think you just missed her somehow. We’d assume she was a victim once you tried to shoot her, so she’d be safe and off the hook. She’d play the lucky victim. Your boss gets Ollie. Everyone is happy, right?”

Glenn swallowed.

“That isn’t what he wanted, though. He knew after your sister dropped, we’d drop you.”

Glenn remained silent, but his eyes shifted back to Shee. He seemed to be listening.

“Why would he want me dead?” he asked.

Shee shrugged. “You’re a loose end. And more importantly, you’re nobody. One hundred percent expendable.”

Glenn sniffed.

Ollie sat up.

“Did he tell you to keep me alive?” he asked.

Glenn looked at him. His expression hardened again.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said.

Shee turned to glare at Ollie.

Dammit. I had him talking—

Ollie ignored her and poked his chin at Glenn’s bare arm.

“The crossed rifle tattoo on your arm. Infantry. Army.”

“So?”

“Know any colonels?”

The expression on Glenn’s face changed.

“He wanted me alive, didn’t he?” asked Ollie. “Hawkins?”

All eyes turned to Ollie except Glenn’s. He looked away.

“What’s going on? Who’s Hawkins?” asked Shee.

Ollie stood and placed himself in front of Glenn.

“Hawkins is an Army colonel with a history of wasting soldiers,” he said. “Do you want to see what he did to me?”

Ollie lifted his shirt to display the network of scars on his torso.

Shee had never seen him without his shirt on. Thick scars crisscrossed most of his chest and stomach, growing more dense at his waistline.

No wonder the guy had a bad ticker. It looked like a pack of wild animals had dug through to gnaw on his heart.

“Hawkins did this,” said Ollie.

Glenn scowled.

“He did?” he asked.

Ollie dropped his shirt.

“Not personally. I got the double-cross, just like you. He let the enemy know I was coming. Not just me. Me and my men. One died. I didn’t.”

He squatted to look Glenn in the eye.

“I was a loose end. Just like you. Hawkins doesn’t like people who know too much.”

Glenn’s jaw worked as if he were chewing on his tongue.

“Are you thirsty?” asked Shee.

He nodded.

She went to the kitchen to get him a bottle of water and placed it in his tied hands.

He drank.

“Talk to us, and we can protect you,” said Shee.

“We let you go, and you’re dead within the week,” added Ollie.

“You’re not dead,” said Glenn.

Ollie offered him a mirthless smile. “Not for lack of trying.”

Glenn licked his lips and took a deep breath.

“He wants Skinner,” he said.

Shee perked.

Here we go.

“Why?” she asked.

“He’s been using him for stuff. I don’t know the details. But Skinner wanted out, and he wanted Skinner ruined. He couldn’t kill him for some reason. I don’t know about that.”

“That’s when you and Dalla got involved?” asked Shee.

He scoffed. “It wasn’t a big ask. We hate Skinner.”

“Why?”

“You saw Dalla’s limp, right? She got a divorce from her first husband and wanted to do some upgrades. You know—plastic surgery—whaddya call it? Where they suck the fat out?”

“Liposuction,” said Shee.

He nodded. “Right—on her thighs or whatever. But Skinner refused to do it for her. Couldn’t find the time. Wouldn’t drop his price. She wasn’t rich or famous enough for him to touch her, even though she worked for him.”

“She went somewhere else. Somewhere cheap?” guessed Shee.

Glenn nodded. “She’s in pain all the time now. All the time. Because of him.”

“But he came to you two to help him take down Skinner?”

He nodded. “He got Dalla to hire me. Told me to get the list, so I went after Tamara.” He grinned. “She likes bad boys. It was easy.”

“You got the list, but who did the killing?” asked Mason.

Glenn’s eyes opened wide.

“What killing?”

Shee scowled. “Come on.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know about any killings. I just got a list for him.”

“But you tried to kill Tamara.”

He tucked his chin. “Did I?”

It seemed there were limits to how much he was willing to admit.

Shee sat on the arm of the sofa.

“Why did he pick up your sister?”

“She’s my half-sister, and, honestly, I don’t give a shit. She’s like ten years older than me. We barely know each other. The only reason she got me a job was because Daddy told her to.”

“Daddy?”

“Hawkins.”

Shee gaped. “She’s Hawkins’s daughter?”

He nodded. “Mom married my dad years after getting knocked up by Hawkins. Then they had me.”

“Hawkins put his own daughter in that kind of danger?” asked Ethan.

Glenn shrugged. “Maybe he was willing to risk my mom’s half.”

He laughed at his own joke.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Two Months Ago

Colonel Hawkins sat across from Skinner in the doctor’s office. The smell of cleaning fluid permeated even to the doctor’s inner sanctum.

Terrible smell. He hated it.

He also didn’t like that he’d been summoned there. He didn’t like the sound of Skinner’s voice on the phone.

He didn’t like any of it.

“Thanks for stopping by, Dennis,” said Skinner as he sat.

“I was surprised to hear from you.”

Skinner nodded, looking uncomfortable.

“You’ve got that same look,” said Hawkins.

“Hm?”

“The look you had when you told me you wanted out of the medical trials.”

Skinner offered a tight smile, but Hawkins saw the fear flash in his eyes.

He’s going to do it again.

Skinner nodded for a bit until he found his words.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Dennis. I want out.”

Hawkins stretched his back.

I’m going to kill this bastard.

“Out of what?” he asked, though he knew.

Skinner sniffed. “Out of everything.”

“Out of everything,” echoed Hawkins.

He let it die there. He held Skinner’s gaze and watched as the man grew increasingly uncomfortable. He loved watching people squirm. It never got old. When he was a young officer, he watched grunts wither beneath his gaze. When he got a few more ribbons on his chest, he found he had this power over almost everyone.

As a full-bird colonel, the sky was the limit.

He didn’t care how many years this man had spent in medical school, how many journals published him, or how many millions he had.

I own you.

Skinner couldn’t take the silence any longer.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate—”

“There is no out,” said Hawkins.

It was as simple as that.

Skinner took a deep breath and let it out.

He glanced toward the outer office and lowered his voice.

“There has to be a way out. I can’t do it anymore, Dennis. I’ve been scaling down over the years, as you know. I’m not young anymore. I’ve got a very particular clientele. I mean, it makes sense for me to specialize.”

Hawkins leaned close to ape the doctor’s conspiratorial tone.

“It makes sense for you to not piss me off.”

Skinner sighed and leaned back to run his hand over his thinning hair. He shook his head, avoiding Hawkins’s eyes.

“No. It’s done. I’m sorry. I’m not doing it anymore. I wanted to tell you in person, but it is done.”

Hawkins gritted his teeth. When Skinner pulled out of the drug trials—claiming he’d lost the ability to control them—it cost Hawkins a lot. He’d been rising in the ranks.

He’d been useful to his superiors.

When his usefulness dwindled, so did the speed of his promotions. The only thing that kept him from killing Skinner then was the doctor’s peace offering. He’d agreed to continue laundering money through his medical suites. Skinner hoped his compliance on that front would soften the blow of losing the drug trials, and it worked.

It kept him alive.

For a while.

But now?

Now, Skinner had no purpose at all.

“Don’t get any ideas,” said the doctor.

Hawkins looked up from his murderous thoughts.

“Ideas?”

Skinner nodded. “I know what you’re thinking, but you need to go away and let me be.”

Hawkins laughed. “Go away and let you be? What are you, twelve? Is that how you think this works?”

Skinner set his jaw. “I’ve made arrangements.”

“Arrangements? What does that mean?”

“If anything happens to me, they’ll know where to look.”

Hawkins took this in. The doctor had been smart enough to pull the old a letter will be sent to the authorities if I show up dead trick. An oldy but a goody.

“You think they’ll believe a decorated colonel killed you?” he asked.

It was a bit of a bluff. If Skinner had been keeping notes, he had more than enough evidence to bury him.

Skinner sneered. The old prick thought he had him—he was getting smug.

“They’ll believe me. You forget how long we’ve been working together, Dennis. I know where all the bodies are buried, and I have proof. If something happens to me or mine, everyone will know everything.”

Hawkins nodded.

Looks like Skinner has been keeping notes.

He’d have to work on Plan B.

Hawkins forced a smile and dismissed the doctor with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, I’m kidding. You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m a big boy. I don’t need you. I have plenty of other connections.”

He stood.

“You enjoy your retirement.”

The doctor’s shoulders loosened. He stood, looking as giddy as an Oscar winner.

“Thank you for understanding. It’s just time, you know?” he said, thrusting out a hand to shake.

“Absolutely. I’m getting old, too. Time to button things up, right? Luck can’t hold out forever.”

He shook the doctor’s hand. Maybe he squeezed it a little harder than he had to.

Skinner pulled away, flustered again.

“It’s been nice working with you, Dennis,” said the doctor.

He sounded like a chump.

Hawkins nodded.

“Pleasure.”

Yours.

He turned to go and then pivoted on his heel to face Skinner again.

“You know, it’s funny...” he said.

“What’s that?” asked Skinner.

Hawkins tilted his head, wincing.

“I don’t remember saying you could call me Dennis.”

Skinner’s smile faded.

Hawkins winked.

“See ya soon, Doc.”

He left the room before Skinner could find his words. He closed the office door behind him and glared at the ground a moment, so angry he could barely breathe. He glanced up at the doctor’s assistant. The young man looked away when their eyes met.

Yeah, you should be afraid.

If it weren’t for that boy sitting there, he’d walk back into Skinner’s office and choke the life out of the good doctor.

He strode past the assistant into the hall and walked directly to Dalla’s office. Skinner’s administrator was his daughter by a woman he’d been with, what? Three? Five times? He didn’t even know about the girl until she was almost thirty.

She wasn't very bright and wasn’t much to look at, but she was loyal. She forgave him for not being around when he got her the job with Skinner. It was the beginning of his working relationship with the doctor, and he wanted someone on the inside he could trust.

Dalla’s office door was open. She sat at her desk, hovering over a laptop, rubbing her bad leg with one hand. She turned as he entered and shut the door behind him.

“Dad,” she said, straightening. “What are you doing here?”

“Remember that favor you asked me for? After your procedure?”

She’d come to him for help. Showed him scars he hadn’t asked to see. He’d seen wounded soldiers with less angry wounds than that foreign plastic surgeon left on her lumpy leg.

She’d begged him to make Skinner pay.

He’d refused at the time. He needed Skinner then. He made sure the doctor that hacked her up paid for his crimes, and that calmed her to some degree but had left her waiting for Skinner’s turn.

She glanced at the door.

“We shouldn’t talk about this here,” she said. “But, you said he was too important to your work.”

He nodded.

“He’s not anymore.”

He moved closer and lowered his voice to put her at ease.

“He’s decided not to help with the money anymore.”

Her eyes widened. She knew what he meant. She helped hide the laundering and also took a little piece for herself once in a while. She thought he didn’t know.

He knew.

“That’s the only reason I’m still here,” she said.

He nodded, though he knew it wasn’t entirely true. This was a much better job than the one she would have gotten without his help. Even without the extra, she stole off the top.

“I know,” he said. “I’m going to need you to stay a little longer, though.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “It seems the doc isn’t a total moron. He’s added failsafes to keep me from killing him.”

She swallowed. He could see how angry she still was about her surgery.

“So, you can’t kill him, there’s no more money, and I have to stay?”

He smirked as she all but admitted she’d been skimming off the top. Poor little idiot. She took after her mother.

Speaking of her mother...

“I need time. Where’s your brother?”

“Glenn? He’s around. He just got out.”

Hawkins nodded. Glenn. That was the name. That one wasn’t his. Glenn had been tossed out of the Army on a Section-8.

Glenn was a psychopath.

Hawkins knew a lot about using psychopaths. They could be useful.

From what he understood from Dalla, Glenn was talented at pretending he was a good kid, too.

Very handy.

“Get him a job here,” said Hawkins.

Dalla pointed to the ground. “Here? He’s not qualified for anything here.”

“Janitor?”

She winced. “I guess...Orderly, maybe? But his prison record—”

“No one will know if you handle it.”

She huffed. “No. I guess not.”

“Good. Get him the job. I have an idea, but it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take your brother.”

Dalla’s fist gripped and ungripped as her nerves danced.

“He’s not right,” she said. “You know he’s not right.”

“I know,” said Hawkins, smiling. “That’s what makes him perfect for what I have in mind.”

She chewed at her lip. “How soon do you need him?”

“Yesterday.”

He put a hand on her shoulder.

“I think I have a buyer for the Skinner Institute. We’ll be back in business in about six months.”

She lit up like he’d handed her a puppy.

“Yeah? A buyer? He’s selling?” she asked.

Hawkins nodded.

“Yep. He doesn’t know it, but he is.”

He paused to grin.

“Cheap, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

They continued to question Glenn but didn’t discover much more. He wouldn’t say who’d committed the gruesome murders, but he’d said enough that they could put the pieces together.

“Shiva, could you sit with him while we have a little talk?” asked Shee, motioning to Ollie and Mason.

Shiva nodded.

Shee noticed Glenn smirk. Maybe he thought he could get away with a woman in charge of him.

Shee leaned to look him in the eye.

“Oh, please. Please make a run for it. I dare you.”

She headed for the back porch. Behind her, she heard Ollie.

“I double dog dare you,” he said.

The three of them stepped out and shut the door behind them. Shee opened her mouth to speak and then paused when her phone rang.

“Croix,” she announced, answering.

“It was Glenn,” said Croix. “I sent you a video of the security footage.”

“Great timing. Perfect. We have Glenn here.”

“There? You mean, like, captured?”

“Yes.”

“Should I come back then?”

“No. There’s another player, and I don’t know if he wants Tamara dead as much as Glenn does. Stay there for now.”

Croix huffed a sigh.

“Try and wrap it up, will you? Watching a girl sleep is mad boring.”

Shee chuckled. “We’re doing our best.”

She hung up and looked at Mason, Ollie, and Ethan. She hadn’t asked Ethan to follow but he had. It made her chuckle. It was adorable how much he wanted to be part of the team.

“Croix got the security video. Glenn did come after Tamara in the hospital. It’s official,” she told the men.

“Which means she’s telling the truth that he’s the one who stabbed her,” said Mason.

“More than likely.” Shee turned to Ollie. “What do you think about the other murders? Is Hawkins the kind of psycho who stabs gavels into people’s heads?”

Ollie shook his head. “No. He’s killed more soldiers than foreign bullets but always as a puppet master. I don’t see him carving away at some poor woman’s hindquarters.”

Shee motioned at Ollie’s stomach. “Was that story you told Glenn true? Hawkins did that to you?”

Ollie nodded. “All true. I lost a man and had my insides rearranged.”

“But he let you live afterward? Wasn’t he afraid you’d talk?” asked Shee.

“He gave me a choice. Honorable discharge, or he’d pin something on me and get me court-martialed. I  was half out of my mind on morphine when he gave me the option and didn’t see I had much of a choice.”

Mason scowled. “What did you know?”

Ollie sighed.

“More than he even knows I knew. Hawkins has done nothing but use his military career to make money. He’s got millions hidden in offshore accounts. He skims anywhere he can—weapons deals, drugs, you name it. He heard I was good at getting things done. I helped him until I realized just how dirty the guy was. I told him I was done, and that’s when he sent me into the meat grinder.”

“Glenn said Hawkins has some deal with Skinner. Any idea what that might be?” asked Shee.

Ollie shook his head. “No. I’m sure it’s some money-making scheme that requires a doctor. Access to drugs, medical testing, whatever. With Skinner’s connections and Hawkins’s contacts, there’s money to be made.”

“He’s going to a lot of trouble to ruin Skinner. Why not just kill him if that’s what he does?” asked Mason.

“I might be able to answer that,” said Ethan. “I saw a directory called Hawkins on his system but didn’t know what it was or if it was important. Let me look into that.”

Shee nodded. “Go.”

Ethan jogged back inside.

“How do we take out Hawkins?” asked Mason to no one in particular.

He and Shee turned to Ollie.

He scowled.

“What are you looking at me for? It’s not like I’ve kept in touch with the man. We don’t exchange Christmas cards. I didn’t even know he was involved in this when Skinner called me for help.”

“Nothing that might be useful?”

Ollie sighed. “I can tell you he’s not on the run. He’s got a wife and a house—he shouldn’t be hard to find.”

Shee rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms.

“Okay. Things we have on our side—we have Glenn, whatever we can pull out of him, and we can feasibly get to Skinner, who must have something on Hawkins like Glenn suggested, or he’d already be dead.”

Mason scowled. “If he turns in Hawkins, wouldn’t he be implicating himself?”

Shee paced, considering this.

“Not if he was dead,” she said. “Maybe the info is only released to the authorities if something happens to him.”

Ollie grimaced. “The only problem with that is that Skinner doesn’t seem like the kind of ego who’d want his legacy tarnished.”

“Which is exactly why Hawkins is killing his patients in such spectacular ways,” said Shee. “And it’s why Hawkins hasn’t alerted the press to the connection. He’s not just trying to ruin him and walk away. He’s waiting for Skinner to make the connection and fold on whatever Hawkins wants.”

“We need to talk to Skinner,” said Ollie. “See what all this looks like from his side. If he has evidence against Hawkins, maybe we can get him to flip. Maybe we can help him figure out how to make that happen without implicating himself.”

“What about Glenn? What are we going to do with him?” asked Mason.

“Kill him,” said a voice.

They turned to find Shiva standing at the back door.

Shee snorted a laugh, assuming she was kidding.

“That is the easy answer, but sadly, we can’t just murder him—” Shee realized Shiva wasn’t supposed to be standing on the porch and scowled. “Wait—why aren’t you watching him? You didn’t—”

Shiva shook her head.

“He is safe. I did not kill him, but this man cannot leave.”

Ollie frowned. “What are you getting at? I was thinking maybe we could use him as bait—”

“No. He cannot leave,” she said, her expression hard. “While watching him, he told me what he would like to do to me. I know the difference between taunting and promises. I know the differences between fantasies and memories.” She tapped the side of her head. “The man is sick.”

“So he is our killer,” said Shee.

Shiva nodded. “Oh, yes.”

Shee walked to the doorway, and Shiva stepped back to allow her into the house. She walked into the living room to find Glenn hogtied and gagged.

“I see you found a way to shut him up.”

Shiva nodded. “Yes.”

Shee sighed. “Okay. So we have two problems. We need to make sure Glenn goes away for the murders, and Hawkins goes for—everything else.”

Ollie sat.

“We could put them in a room with some weapons and see which comes out—then we only have one to worry about.”

Shee nodded. “Nice idea, but no.”

“We can’t just take him to the police and tell them he’s the killer. They can’t keep him without cause, and our word isn’t good enough,” said Mason.

“Plus, they’ll get in the way for us to finish up with Hawkins,” said Shee.

She saw Shiva’s head tilt.

“What is it?” she asked.

Shiva squinted. “Something he said to me. He said he wants to keep my eyes.”

“Keep them?” said Ollie.

She nodded. “He said he was building a girl and would use my eyes. I think the part about building a girl is something he borrowed from the movies, but I believed he wanted to keep my eyes. He keeps trophies.”

Shee straightened. “And if he has trophies, he has to keep them somewhere.”

“We’ve been to his apartment. It doesn’t even look like he lives there,” said Mason.

“Then where does he live?” asked Shee. “Ethan!”

Ethan jogged into the room. “What? What’s happening?”

Shee held up a hand. “Everything’s fine, but do you have any other addresses for Glenn? Other than the apartment?”

Glenn’s eyes bounced in her direction. They were on to something.

Ethan held up a finger. “Hold on.”

He disappeared and came back a minute later.

“His sister’s. His address on his application was Dalla’s house.”

Shee squatted down and stared into Glenn’s eyes.

“Is that where you keep your trophies?”

Glenn looked away.

“What about that Hawkins directory?” Mason asked Ethan.

“It’s only got one doc in it, and it’s coded.”

“Show me.”

Ethan brought his computer to the table and set it down to show the others the doc.

Shee stared at the list of letters.

“Do you know what it means?” she asked.

Ethan nodded. “Yes and no. It’s both super simple and not. For instance, there’s ZCAAIIOwl and ZBBDZAOwl. You can see the patterns.  A lot start with Z, and the letters other than that never get higher than I, so it hit me pretty quick what we’re looking at.”

He stared at them as if he was waiting for them to tell him the answer. When they didn’t, he continued.

“The letters are numbers. 031199 and 022401, respectively here.”

“Dates,” said Shee, finally seeing the pattern.

He nodded. “It’s a code a kid might use. But I don’t know what the rest of it means. They’re all birds except one’s a bat and one’s a butterfly. Cardinal, owl, butterfly—stuff like that.”

“All flying things?” said Mason.

Ethan nodded. “Sure, but that doesn’t tell us much. That part means something to Skinner but not us. I was trying to crack it when you called me in.”

Shee nodded.

She made a decision.

“Okay. Mason and I are going to Skinner’s. Shiva and Ollie, you go to Dalla’s.”

“What about him?” asked Ethan.

“You’ll be keeping an eye on him.”

“But—”

“We’ll keep him tied up. You’ll be fine.”

Ethan frowned. “Yeah, but maybe Shiva could—”

Shee shook her head.

“We can’t leave Shiva with him. She’ll kill him.”

Shiva nodded.

“This is true.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hawkins drove away from the field, stewing. Things were not going the way he’d hoped. Why would Skinner hire this group? They seemed military-trained. That sniper took Glenn out without killing him. On purpose? Was he that good? Or was he trying to kill him and missed?

Either way, he hit him—still a great shot from six hundred yards, give or take. Whoever the shooter was, he wasn’t some retired cop.

How the hell did Skinner find them?

He smacked the steering wheel with his hand.

Ollie Lopes.  That’s how.

He’d doubted the man he saw in the field was Lopes—fought the idea that it could be—but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d sent Lopes to Skinner after he survived the ambush to throw the soldier a bone—score a few points so the guy didn’t come back at him. He figured that was all it would take. Lopes was a playboy. A goofball. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would come after him. He wasn’t a serious soldier. He was a soft-hearted con man who didn’t know how good he’d had it.

If he’d stuck with me, he’d be rich instead of hamburger.

Idiot.

Still, now, who was the idiot? He’d never dreamed Skinner would ask Ollie for help.

I have to stop letting people live.

Who were these people with Lopes? He had his own personal army? How?

Did he know I was involved and call in help? Is this his revenge?

He shook his head.

No.

There was no way Lopes knew he was the one setting Skinner up for a fall.

It doesn’t make sense—

“What about Glenn?” asked Dalla.

He looked at her, sitting beside him in the passenger seat, covered in scrapes and dirt. He’d forgotten she was there.

“You look like shit,” he said.

Her lip quivered. “You can’t talk to me like that. I’ve had a terrible day, and it’s all because of you—”

“Shut up.”

She plowed on. She was chatty—figures. Half the reason he didn’t spend more time with her mom was that woman’s mouth.

“What about Glenn?” she asked again.

Hawkins couldn’t hear himself think, and he had a lot of thinking to do.

“What about him?” he asked.

“You left him back there—”

He pulled to the side of the road and sat with both hands on the wheel, breathing.

“Forget Glenn,” he said. “He’s dead to us.”

“He’s my brother.”

He looked at her.

“Dalla, I know you’ve never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you have to forget about Glenn. The kid’s a psychopath. He’d kill you as easily as smile at you.”

She gaped at him. “No, he wouldn’t. Not me. He has his moments—”

“He has moments where he thinks you’re his useful idiot,” said Hawkins.

Everyone who knows you has those moments.

Dalla remained unconvinced. “No—”

Hawkins cut her short.

“You know that singer they found dead? Near Skinner’s house?”

She scowled. “Raquel Roque?”

He nodded. “He killed her. Your little brother.”

“What? No—”

“He did. You know how I know? Because I sent him after her.”

Dalla gaped like a landed fish again.

“Wha— why?”

“Because I’m going to ruin Skinner. I will tie his institute to so much bad press that he gives in or the board forces him to step down.”

“Why?”

“You know why. Because he isn’t playing ball anymore, and I need someone in charge who will.”

“Oh. Right. The money—”

“Yes. The money.”

He took a deep breath. “But that isn’t the point. My point is I told Glenn to rough her up. Hear that? If I told you to rough her up, what would you do?”

Dalla crossed her arms against her chest and lifted her chin.

“I wouldn’t do anything because—”

Skinner sighed.

“I mean, if you were the type who wouldn’t mind roughing up some stripper turned popstar.”

She frowned.

“I don’t know. I guess I’d hit her some.”

“Exactly. That’s what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to rough up a whole bunch of Skinner’s patients until it became clear he hadn’t protected his client’s information.”

“That would ruin Skinner.”

Hawkins grimaced.

Poor little moron.

“Yes. We covered that. That’s the point.”

Dalla blinked at him. “But, you’re saying he killed her?”

He twisted to look at her.

“The first one, I wrote off as a mistake. He made a guy OD at gunpoint. But the second one—” He shook his head at the memory. “Your sweet little brother—who’s been to jail three times in his short life—killed Raquel, and he didn’t just kill her. He mutilated her.”

Dalla’s eyes widened. “What? I didn’t hear that—”

Hawkins shook his head. “I know you didn’t. The cops kept it out of the news, but I know because he told me. I should add he was laughing when he told me—bragging about how what he did tied her to Skinner. He wanted me to know how clever he was.”

Dalla shook her head, pouting like a little girl.

“No. He’s always had a sick sense of humor. He was kidding.”

“I thought so, too, until he gave me the trash bag for a trophy.”

Dalla paled. “Trash bag?”

“Yes. The one with Raquel’s butt cheeks in it.”

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

Finally, she got it.

Hawkins turned back around and sighed.

“After that, I didn’t have to tell him to go after people. He did it on his own. He stabbed a judge in the back of the head, and there’s some lawyer I think they haven’t even found yet—”

He shook his head.

“My point is, you do not want to invest in Glenn. If that group of mercenaries didn’t already kill him, you can bet he’ll end up dead anyway. Probably in the electric chair.”

“But—”

“It’s you or him, Dalla.”

She fell quiet and stared into her lap.

Hawkins continued.

“We have a lot of loose ends to tie up. Skinner has evidence against me—”

Dalla’s focus snapped to him. “And me?”

“I don’t think he knows you’re involved, but if they start investigating, they’ll know soon enough. I’ll go out on a limb and guess you weren’t great at covering your tracks.

She scowled. “Yes, I am.”

“I bet.” He sniffed. “Look, I’ll drop you off. Get some stuff and get out of town for a while. Once I have things figured out, I’ll call you back, and you can pick up where you left off.”

She nodded slowly.

“What are you going to do?” she asked as he pulled away from the curb.

He shrugged.

“Oh, nothing. Just have a little talk with Skinner.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ollie gripped the wheel, scowling at the street ahead like it had done him wrong.

“I don’t want to talk to Dalla. I want to find Hawkins,” he said.

Shiva looked at him from her place in the passenger seat.

“You want to kill Hawkins,” she said.

He nodded. “That, too.”

She shook her head. “You cannot do that.”

He shrugged. “No, I know I’m not usually the murder in cold blood type, but I think I could do it for this guy.”

She shook her head again.

“No, I am saying you can’t do it because you will go to jail.”

He sighed. “There’s that. What if we kill each other’s person? You kill Hawkins, and I’ll kill Glenn. The cops will never figure it out.”

She chuckled. “That was a movie.”

He grinned. “Strangers on a Train. You got me. Doesn’t work for us, I’m afraid.”

As they neared Dalla’s home, they saw a woman getting out of a gray SUV. She limped down the path of a small home. The car that dropped her off pulled away from the curb and drove past them.

Ollie watched it pass.

He saw the man behind the wheel of the gray SUV.

Lightning shot through his body.

Son of a—

He jerked the wheel but had to stop to avoid hitting a car coming the other way.

“Ollie!” yelped Shiva.

He waved to the angry face in the other car and let her continue on her way. Then he completed his U-turn, nearly scraping along the side of a parked pickup truck.

“That was him,” he said.

“Yes, I saw, but could you not kill us?”

He nodded. “Sorry. He dropped off Dalla.” He gritted his teeth. “I’ve got you now—”

The car he’d nearly hit made a right, clearing the way to the retreating SUV. He hit the gas and tore after it.

“Slow down,” said Shiva.

“I don’t want to lose him.”

“You can not ram him off the road. We do not even need to follow him. Ethan said he knows where he lives.”

Ollie didn’t answer. He couldn’t see anything except the vehicle in front of him.

They followed it for nearly twenty minutes until Hawkins pulled into a high-end gated community.

“This is where he lives?” asked Ollie, pulling to the side of the road.

He peered through the gates at the large Florida homes. Calling them mansions wouldn’t be a stretch.

“Look at those houses. He lives like a king,” he said.

“You said he has been using his position to make money for decades.”

“Yes, but—”

He supposed he’d never thought about the rest of it.

Hawkins was rich. With that came all the things that came with being rich. A big house. Vacations. Nice cars.

It made his blood boil.

“I have to see his house,” he said.

Shiva scowled at him.

“You cannot go in there.”

“I can charm my way in—”

“And then what?”

“I’ll just drive by his house—”

Shiva’s gaze locked on his.

“Let it go.”

Ollie squeezed the wheel with both hands and roared at the roof, head back, eyes closed.

“Do you feel better?” asked Shiva when he was done.

“No.” He sighed. “The thing is, I thought I had let this go.”

“If you go in there now, you will put him on alert. You cannot do this now. We will get him.”

He looked at her. “Will we? What if we don’t? The guy is untouchable. We’ll never be able to bring him down.”

“We will. I promise.”

Ollie smacked the wheel with a rising sense of what felt like panic. He took deep breaths.

“I thought I was over this. I thought I’d let it go,” he repeated.

“It is not your fault,” said Shiva in a soft tone.

She spoke to him like he was a frightened animal. He hated that she felt compelled to baby him that way, but he did find her flat, airy tone soothing. 

“I know how you feel,” she said. “I know the worst scars do not come from bullets or knives.”

“Grenades are pretty good at them,” he muttered.

She smiled. “Remember, you are not what happened to you. You are what you choose to become.”

He looked at her.

“Did you just make that up?”

“No. That is Carl Jung.”

He frowned. “You read a lot of Carl Jung?”

“I’ve read many things.”

He shrugged. She was right. She’d only shared a small part of her story with him, but she’d gone through far worse than him for a longer time. He was being a baby.

“I’m sorry. You’re right.” He looked at her. “How did you do it? How did you live through everything you lived through?”

“There is only one other option, and it is not good,” she said.

The corner of her mouth curled, and he chuckled.

He took his hands off the wheel and put them in his lap.

“How do you keep the loop from playing over and over in your head?” he asked.

“You teach yourself to look elsewhere. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your response to it.”

He sniffed. “That sounds very wise. Carl Jung again?”

“No. I forget that one.”

She tittered.

Her laugh sounded like heaven.

“You should do that more often,” he said.

“What?”

“Laugh.”

She scoffed. “I am laughing all the time at you.”

“At me? Nice. Here I am trying to have a moment, and you take a shot at me.”

She laughed again.

He huffed.

“Okay. Let’s go back and talk to Dalla.”

She nodded. “Good.”

He rested his hand on the center console, and she put her hand near his. Their pinkies crossed.

“You know, I might have to hug you someday,” he said. “Start preparing yourself now.”

“I will start the process,” she said.

He glanced to make sure she was smiling.

She was. Kind of.

“If this all goes bad, you will kill Hawkins for me, right?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Absolutely. Right after Glenn.”

Chapter Thirty

Hawkins drove past his house, around his neighborhood, and then headed to the exit again. He parked where his vehicle couldn’t be seen from the street and walked to peer through the fence surrounding his housing development.

The car following him remained outside the community, parked on the curb.

He frowned.

He couldn’t see who was driving. He’d heard a car honk and looked up to see someone had tried to make a U-turn as if they were following him. It was a black Jeep, like the one that Ollie had driven into the field.

He kept an eye on it, knowing he couldn’t go to Skinner’s with a tail. He made a few oddball turns, and when it became clear the Jeep was following him, he headed home.

It had to be that group. Skinner’s hire. The people from the field.

Maybe Ollie himself.

On the upside, this new development—though not to plan—made his path forward clear. There was no doubt he couldn’t mess around anymore. No more playing with Skinner. No more trying to ruin him slowly.

He had to start tying up loose ends and fast.

There wasn’t much he could do about Glenn if Ollie’s people had him. The psycho might already be in the hands of the police. He didn’t think Glenn would talk—not at first, anyway. He’d be as unhelpful to the authorities as possible because that was his nature. He couldn’t count on Glenn’s silence forever, though. Self-preservation would come first.

Psychopaths made valuable tools, but they weren’t loyal soldiers. They had a shelf life, and Glenn had probably reached his expiration date.

No matter. No one would believe Glenn even if he did squeal. The boy would end up in jail, and he’d find a way to silence him there.

Dalla was a tougher problem. On one hand, she was his daughter. On the other, he barely knew her and she was an idiot. She’d blab everything she knew the first chance she got. He needed her a little longer, though. He might need access to something at Skinner’s that only she could get.

He’d play that one by ear.

Skinner was his biggest problem. Did the old guy really put a failsafe into place?

Hawkins sighed.

It was time to find out.

Movement caught his eye, and he watched as the Jeep pulled away and drove off.

They’d decided not to try and get through the gate.

Good.

He didn’t have time for that nonsense.

He got back into his vehicle and drove to Skinner’s house, keeping an eye on his rearview mirror.

No tail.

When he arrived at the doctor’s, he popped the trunk and found the old hooded sweatshirt he kept there for moments like this. He wasn’t a fan of skulking around. He left that to the people beneath him—but sometimes, if you wanted something done right...

He walked to Skinner’s door, keeping his head down and applying a limp. Dipping his shoulder would make it hard for others to tell how tall he was and give him an unusual gait. If Skinner’s security video ended up in the hands of the police, they’d try to identify him by this odd gait. A limp that didn’t exist.

As it was, he didn’t see any cameras.

A sign in the front garden warned the house was under constant security surveillance, but it felt fake. Skinner was one of the cheapest people he knew. He probably signed up for the security system to get the signs and then canceled.

He didn’t even have a doorbell camera.

Moron.

Hawkins knocked on the door and waited. A light came on inside, and Skinner peeked out the window to the right of the door. There was a long pause.

Finally, he answered.

Hawkins pushed inside the moment the door cracked open.

Skinner stumbled back, stepping out of one of his slippers. He wore an old full-length silk robe like he was some English duke who’d been disturbed by his butler.

“Hawkins? What do you want? Do you know what time it is?” he huffed, trying to pretend he wasn’t scared.

He was scared. Hawkins could tell.

Even in his fear, the doc remembered not to call him Dennis. That made him laugh inside—but he kept a stony face.

“I need to talk to you. We’re in trouble,” he said.

He shut the door behind him and pushed back his hood.

“We’re in trouble?” asked Skinner, struggling to get his foot back into his slipper.

Hawkins nodded.

Skinner frowned. “Come in. Come into the office.”

Hawkins followed him into a small room off the foyer with little more than a desk, a couple of chairs, and a bookshelf. Skinner sat behind his desk and motioned to the chair on the opposite side.

“Who has the evidence?” asked Hawkins as he sat.

Skinner’s brow knitted. “What?”

“The cops. Thanks to that group you hired, they caught wind of what we’ve been doing.”

Hawkins tried not to look as pleased with himself as he felt. It was genius to blame this on the group Skinner hired. He’d feel responsible and be more likely to play ball.

“What? Why would they do that?” Skinner shook his head. “They’re here about some other trouble. They’re not here for that.”

“I know, but they found discrepancies and followed threads. Dalla let me know they’re on to us.”

“Dalla? What does she know?”

Hawkins paused. Skinner was clueless. Hawkins was starting to wonder how he’d managed to work with the idiot for so many years.

“Dalla said they asked her about you. She asked me if you were dirty,” he said.

Skinner pressed his hand to his chest.

“They asked if I was dirty? Not you?”

Hawkins shrugged. “It’s your system they’re picking through. I would hope I’m not on it.”

Skinner grumbled.

“You’re not. Not in any way anyone could figure out.”

Hawkins cocked his head. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“What does that mean?”

“It means there’s nothing on that system except notes written in a code only I understand.”

Hawkins scowled. This was new information.

“What kind of code?” he asked.

“I told you. Something so personal to me no one can figure it out.”

“So, if the police got their forensic technology team to pick apart your whole system, they wouldn’t find anything about me?”

“No.” He shook his head. “They shouldn’t be able to find anything about me either— unless they were looking at the money…”

He ran a hand over his balding head.

Hawkins waited, allowing the man’s panic to build.

This was good. Now, he knew he wasn’t on Skinner’s system.

“What are we going to do?” asked Skinner, his shoulders slumping.

He was giving up, just like Hawkins hoped he would. He was ready to hand over control and let Hawkins clean up the mess.

He didn’t know he was the mess.

Hawkins clasped his hands together.

“I’ll take care of everything. We’ll make sure nothing links us to anything. I took care of Dalla—”

Skinner’s eyes widened.

“Took care of her?”

Hawkins nodded.

“I made sure she doesn’t know anything.” He frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that? Did you think I had my own daughter killed?”

Skinner half-shrugged.

Hawkins’s scowl deepened. He’d be mad the man believed he was capable of killing Dalla—except for the fact that he was capable of killing Dalla.

“There’s just you and me?” asked Skinner. “Everything else is safe?”

“Just you and me.”

Skinner’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. Good. When I go in tomorrow, I’ll double-check there’s nothing on the computers.”

Hawkins squinted. “You’re not sure we’re clear?”

The doctor shook his head and stared at his desk.

“No, I’m sure. I’m just saying. I’ll check.”

“Good. That just leaves your failsafe.”

Skinner looked up. “Hm? My what?”

“Your failsafe. You said there was a trigger if you died. Evidence released.”

Skinner chuckled. “Oh. I might have exaggerated that.”

“Exaggerated?”

“I made it up. You were looking pretty scary at the office.”

Hawkins smiled and shook his head.

“You are the dumbest smart person I know,” he said.

Skinner’s smile slowly melted.

“What?”

Hawkins whipped his pistol out from under his sweatshirt.

Skinner gasped and threw up a hand to cover his face. “Wait—”

It was too late. Nothing left to talk about.

Hawkins shot through the doctor’s hand, hitting him just above his left eyebrow.

Skinner slumped over on the desk, dead.

Done.

Hawkins took a deep breath and stood.

“I’d love to sit and talk, but I want to make it possible that Glenn got to you, too.”

This was the part he didn’t feel great about. He didn’t know where Glenn was, but it made sense to at least try to pin the doctor’s death on him. The problem was imitating Glenn’s flair. Glenn loved his little death jokes. Thought it made him seem clever.

Hawkins scoffed as he checked his watch. He needed to go.

Okay. Think.

What was the story behind Skinner? He wasn’t about to saw the man’s buttocks off.

WWGD?

Glenn would probably do something pretty nasty to the doctor. He was a plastic surgeon, after all. He’d probably alter his look...

Hawkins’s lip curled.

Not my thing.

He wouldn’t carve up the doc. It was disgusting, and the more he played with the body, the better chance they’d find his DNA on everything. He’d been to Skinner’s before. He could explain some DNA, but not stuff all over the crime scene.

He stared at Skinner’s desk, thinking.

As his gaze roamed the surface, he spotted a permanent ink marker half under an envelope.

Hm.

Skinner was smart, right? An idiot at self-preservation, obviously, but intelligent enough to become a surgeon.

Doctor smart.

Hawkins walked to the opposite side of the desk. Using tissue from the box on Skinner’s desk, he pulled the doctor’s body back by his wispy hair until his head tilted backward over his office chair, his mouth gaping. Taking the marker, he made a dashed line around the man’s forehead, like a surgeon’s markings for removing the top of his head.

That was weird enough. Stupid, but it wasn’t like Glenn was a genius. At the very least, it would keep the authorities guessing. They could suspect Glenn.

Hawkins put the marker and tissue in his pocket and smiled.

Loose end number one—snipped.

Chapter Thirty-One

Ollie pulled up to Dalla’s house and put the Jeep into park. He’d stewed over Hawkins during the drive back. To follow the colonel home and then do nothing. He didn’t know what he thought he’d do—he just couldn’t stop himself from following the bastard.

“Are you feeling better?” asked Shiva.

He nodded and lied a little.

“I am. Maybe one more inspirational quote?”

She pressed her lips together, thinking, and then took a breath.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

He nodded. “Ooh, good one. Who is that?”

“Rumi.”

“So, he’s a big guy?”

“What?”

Ollie grinned. “Nothing. I’m good. Thank you. Let’s go.”

She nodded once, and he nodded back.

Thank God she’s here. I might have done something really stupid.

They hopped out and walked a plastic flamingo-lined path to Dalla’s small, one-story bungalow. Ollie knocked on her flamingo-pink door. Through a large bay window to the right of the entrance, Ollie saw Dalla approaching. She stopped when she saw them.

She turned and ran.

Ollie sighed.

Here we go.

“She’s running,” he said. “Stay here in case she comes back this way. I’ll go around back.”

Without waiting for an answer, he sprinted around the back of the house, hopping over a hose and pushing through a small gate.

Dalla came spilling out the back door as he rounded the corner. She stumbled and fell, grabbing the stair railing to slow her tumble. He sprinted forward to keep her from sprawling across the small stone patio.

“Where are you going?” he asked, righting her on her feet.

Dalla sucked in a breath.

She was going to scream.

Dammit.

He spun her and put a hand over her mouth. She struggled, but he held tight.

“Dalla, please. We’re here to help—”

She elbowed him in the stomach, and he doubled over, losing his grip on her. She took off running in her wobbly way.

Sucking wind, he looked up in time to see her disappear around the corner of the house, only to see her bounce back into view as if she’d run full force into a wall.

A second later, she was on her back with a woman straddling her stomach.

Shiva had tackled her.

Dalla fought to break free. Shiva wrapped her legs around the woman like a python, locking her in a hold that made any attempt to escape hurt.

Eyes wide and wild, Dalla watched as Ollie walked over, still winded from the shot to his solar plexus.

“You didn’t trust I could handle her?” he asked Shiva.

Shiva shook her head.

“Exhibit one,” she said, nodding to Dalla beneath her.

“No respect,” he mumbled playfully.

He turned his attention to Dalla.

“Nice shot, Dalla.”

She said something, but it was impossible to understand her with Shiva’s hand over her mouth.

“I’m going to tell Shiva to let you go so we can talk, okay?”

Dalla nodded.

“You have to promise me you won’t scream.”

She shook her head.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’re going to scream anyway, but I’m going to tell you, Shiva here has knives hidden all over her body. Like, a stunning number of knives. It’s like a clown car—you know how clowns keep coming out of that little car? It’s like that, only with knives. So I’m really going to underscore my point here—if you scream, she will stop you from screaming the hard way. Got it?”

Dalla nodded.

“You talk too much,” muttered Shiva.

He smiled. “It’s a gift. Go ahead and let her go. Let’s see how much she values her throat.”

Shiva released her grip on Dalla.

Dalla didn’t scream.

“Great,” said Ollie. “Can we go in the house, or do you want to lay in the backyard for this whole thing? We just want to talk to you.”

“You’re not police,” she said.

“No. We’re not police. Is that why you ran?”

She nodded but didn’t seem relieved.

“Hawkins sent you?” she asked, her voice weaker.

“No. Not that, either. He’s your father, isn’t he?”

She scowled.

“How do you know?”

Ollie held out a hand. “Could we have this conversation inside?”

Shiva stepped back and Dalla let him help her to her feet. They followed her into the house, where Ollie motioned to the sofa in the living room, and Dalla took a seat.

“Do you want something to drink?” asked Dalla, bouncing to her feet the moment her butt hit the cushion.

“No. Please sit.”

She lowered herself again.

“You’re with that group Skinner hired, right? I remember.”

Ollie nodded.

She put her head in her hands. “I am so going to jail.”

“Not if you help us,” said Ollie.

Shiva looked at him. Sure, he’d made an empty promise, but he didn’t feel like running through all the options where Dalla did or didn’t go to jail.

“Let’s start at the top. Did you kill anyone?”

Dalla looked at him, alarmed.

“What? No.”

“Do you know someone who has killed someone?”

Her jaw hung slack.

“That’s a question most people can answer pretty quickly,” said Ollie.

She frowned.

“I’m sure Dad has killed a lot of people. He’s a soldier—”

Ollie tilted his head. “I think you know that’s not what I meant.”

She sighed. “You mean Glenn.”

He nodded. “Yes. We know Glenn killed Raquel Roque and the others.”

She rubbed her face with her hand, nodding.

“Dad told me. Just now, on the drive over. I had no idea. I swear.”

“You had no idea your brother was a serial killer?”

“No. Not exactly. I knew he had issues.” She tapped the side of her head with her finger.

“Is he living here?”

She nodded. “Sometimes. He got a place, but he was living here. I told him he had to leave. I was scared of him. I had the electricity turned off to get him out.”

“Here in the house?”

She shook her head. “There’s an apartment over the garage in the back. He was there. He still stays there sometimes. Even with the electricity off. I see him come and go.”

“Okay. Do you know what Hawkins was up to at the Skinner Institute?”

She ran her hand back and forth over the sofa cushions as if the texture provided her comfort.

“I might need a lawyer,” she mumbled.

Ollie shook his head. “Listen, you don’t want to get into that. You don’t want the authorities involved. Let us try to help get your story straight. Now is the time to separate yourself from Glenn and Hawkins.”

She scowled. “What do you mean? They’re family.”

“Glenn’s a psychopath, and Hawkins is a narcissistic monster.” He reconsidered. “Actually, I’d say your father is a psychopath, too, just not the classic slasher film type.”

Ollie paused. “Wait—you and Glenn have the same mother, not the same father, right? Hawkins is your father, but Glenn’s is someone else? Bachman?”

She nodded.

Ollie grunted.

“Your mother has terrible taste in men.”

Dalla snorted a laugh. “Tell me about it.”

Ollie waved his hands in front of him.

“Okay. Forget all that. Bottom line—is it worth going to jail for either of those losers?”

Dalla looked up. She seemed hopeful. Eyes on Ollie, she chewed on her nails.

“You know about the butt?” she asked, whispering the last word.

Ollie nodded, and her shoulders slumped.

“So, it is true,” she said sadly. “I wasn’t sure I believed it. I mean—I remember holding Glenn when he was this big—”

She cradled her arms to show them Glenn as a baby. Her eyes began to mist.

Ollie sat on the edge of a large armchair to lower himself closer to her eyeline.

“I know this is hard, Dalla, but you need to look after yourself now. You don’t want to go to prison for life because your family did horrible things. You didn’t pick them to be your family.” He rested his fingertips on her knee. “Let us be your friends.”

“My friends?”

He nodded. “You got stuck with the other two. You get to choose us.”

Dalla’s lip quivered. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt.”

“I know. We know. Everyone knows. Tell me—do you have any evidence we can use to make sure neither one of them ever hurts you again?”

“Evidence?” she asked. “No—”

“Think hard. These things will make it clear that you didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Dalla nodded slowly and glanced toward the back of the house.

“Maybe there’s something in Glenn’s place?” she said. “I haven’t been in there since he left, but it smells funny.”

“Okay. That’s good. What about Hawkins? You know he’s been stealing from Skinner?”

Her eyes widened. For some reason, this topic scared her more than the serial killer living over her garage.

“I know Skinner wanted to stop working with him. That’s why Dad was trying to ruin him.”

“Do you have any evidence of that?”

“He told me.”

“I mean evidence that isn’t just things he told you.”

“No.”

“Not even on your computer at work?”

“No,” she said, too fast.

Ollie sighed. While talking, he’d been noticing things around Dalla’s house. She had an eighty-inch television, a fancy sofa, and cutting-edge kitchen appliances—all too expensive for her modest bungalow. Just when he thought her tastes ran surprisingly high-end, his eye fell on a curio cabinet packed with flamingo statues of every sort, from stone to glass.

This was a woman who’d fallen into some spare cash.

He took her hand in his.

“Dalla, you didn’t steal that money.”

“What?”

“You didn’t steal it. It was Hawkins and your brother.”

“But—”

“He lived here, right? He bought all this stuff?”

She looked around the room.

“He did?”

He nodded. “And if it wasn’t you—could it be you might have evidence on your computer?”

She blinked at him.

“Maybe?”

“Okay. Good. Good, Dalla.” He looked at Shiva. “Stay here with our little hero. I’m going to check that apartment. She’s going to sit there and save lives.”

Dalla straightened. “I’m saving lives?”

He scoffed. “Of course you are.”

Dalla looked at Shiva and then back at Ollie.

“You’re going to leave me with her?”

Ollie held up a finger. “Just for a second. You’re safe. Just don’t feed her after midnight.”

Shiva scowled.

Ollie winked at Shiva as he passed her and jogged to the garage in the back yard. He took the stairs to the second floor.

The door, predictably, was locked.

He glanced toward the street, thinking about getting the lock picks from the Jeep, and decided against it.

Let’s do this the easy way.

He took a step back and kicked the door just above the knob. It took two good smacks, but it gave way. The door shot open and bounced against the wall behind it.

The stench hit him like a punch to the face. He winced.

“Madre de Dios.”

Covering his mouth and nose with his hand, he walked inside. The lights didn’t work. Dalla had cut off the juice, just like she said.

The place was less of an apartment and more of an attic. Someone had cleaned up the front half of the room and set up a bed, a small television, a threadbare chair, and a small bar refrigerator. He didn’t see a bathroom. Glenn slept here, but he used Dalla’s kitchen and bath.

He followed his nose to the refrigerator and stood there, hating his life.

This is going to be so bad.

Any warmed refrigerator was bad, but this one...

He counted to three and opened the door.

The smell nearly floored him.

The waist-high unit was nearly empty except for condiments on the door and a ziplock bag containing bloody meat. It looked like a rump roast—

Oh.

Ollie shut the door and hurried out of the apartment. He pulled out his phone as he walked out.

Shee answered.

“I think we’ve got all the evidence we need on Glenn,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

Ollie nodded as he fought the urge to heave in the garden.

“Pretty sure.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

When Ollie called, Shee and Mason were on the way to Skinner’s house. He let them know he’d found evidence that could hang Glenn.

He made a strange sound.

“Are you gagging?” she asked.

“Little bit,” he said.

“Why?”

“The evidence. I think it used to belong to Raquel Roque.”

He gagged again.

“Used to—” Shee felt the blood run from her cheeks. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” He sniffed. “He was staying in a room over Dalla’s garage. She turned the electricity off to get him to move, and he left his trophy in the refrigerator.”

“A warm refrigerator?” asked Shee, horrified. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“You might have to buy me some time with the resident therapist when we get back.”

“Consider it done. For now—I’ll have Ethan bring Glenn by and leave him there so we don’t get dinged for kidnapping.”

“Ethan? By himself?”

“No. I’ll call Croix and have her help. Can you guys figure it out when they get there?”

“Yeah. Will do.”

“Dalla’s there?”

“Yes. She’s telling us everything she knows. I have this idea for her coming out as the hero who stopped the serial killer brother and corrupt colonel dad.”

Shee nodded. “That’s not a bad story. I don’t mind her walking. She didn’t do anything.”

“She’s been stealing money from Skinner and investing it in a flamingo collection, but yes, she’s pretty clean. It’ll work.”

Shee scowled. “A flamingo—should I ask?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Okay. We’re on our way to Skinner’s. I’ll send Ethan and Croix.”

She hung up, gave Mason the updates, and called Croix. The girl was thrilled to be off hospital watch and promised to get Glenn to Dalla’s without issue. Shee felt confident she could handle him. Glenn was wily, but Shiva had him tied up pretty well. He was just a package that needed delivering.

“You got a lot done with two phone calls,” said Mason as he parked on the curb outside Skinner’s house.

She nodded. “We might be close to wrapping things up. One down, one to go.”

Mason peered at the man’s door.

“Is it me, or is his door open?”

Shee leaned forward to get a better look.

“Hm. Take the guns?”

He nodded.

They grabbed their weapons from the truck’s lockbox and walked to Skinner’s door.

“It’s open,” Mason confirmed as they approached, keeping his voice low.

They drew their guns.

Mason eased the door open and crept inside with Shee tight behind him.

The house was quiet. Mason checked behind the door, and Shee moved the other way. The hall leading to the back of the house was clear.

The first room wasn’t.

Through the open door to an office off the foyer, she saw Skinner at his desk with his head thrown back, mouth wide open.

“Hey,” she hissed, drawing Mason’s attention. She motioned to Skinner. “Either he’s dead, or he sleeps really funny.”

Mason nodded, held up a finger, and hustled off in the other direction to clear the rest of the lower level.

Shee made sure the office had nowhere for someone to hide and then moved to Skinner. Mason joined her, and she pointed out the black lines drawn across the dead man’s forehead.

“Glenn?” he suggested.

She touched Skinner’s neck to feel for a pulse and shook her head. “He’s still warm. Unless Ethan really screwed up, that’s not possible. Hawkins pretending to be Glenn?”

“Maybe. He’s most likely to want Skinner dead.”

Shee frowned. “We’ll need to tell Ollie whatever story he concocts for the police at Dalla’s to make it clear Glenn couldn’t have done this.”

Mason glanced at the door.

“I’m going to check upstairs. Tell Ollie the news. I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and called Ollie. When she hung up, she considered calling the police and decided against it. They’d avoided getting caught up in whatever Skinner and Hawkins had going so far—best to keep it that way.

Shee wandered to a pair of French doors overlooking the well-lit back yard. Skinner had a pool and an extensive garden filled with flowers. A large collection of colorful birdhouses hung on the trees—some hanging from limbs, some strapped to trunks.

“Man loved his nature,” she mumbled.

She was about to turn away when she heard an owl hoot outside. It made her smile.

That’s neat. Maybe we should get some owl boxes for the Loggerhead—

She stopped.

Owl boxes.

She turned to the glass again, letting her eyes roam Skinner’s extensive collection of oversized birdhouses.

No...

She covered the French door’s handle with her shirt and opened it to step outside. She walked down the short porch stairs to the yard and approached the nearest and lowest birdhouse hanging from a tree limb. The entrance hole was small, but the box was large, making it look like a three-story bird mansion.

She shined her flashlight into the hole.

Inside, a bird sat cowering.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m not here for you,” she said and then yipped as the bird made a break for it.

She stumbled back as it flew to the roofline behind her and put a hand on her racing heart.

Crazy bird.

She returned to the box and decided there was too much bottom to it. The bird had been just inside the hole. Obviously, there was a floor there. What was all the space underneath the entrance for?

She flipped the birdhouse, knocking on the sides and bottom. It felt heavier than she’d expected. Moving slowly to avoid disturbing the bird’s décor, she pushed, picked, and pulled until the bottom slid beneath her fingertips.

Ah ha.

She removed the bottom of the birdhouse. A plastic zip-top bag with a manila folder and thumb drive inside fell out.

“What are you doing out here?” asked Mason as he approached.

“Anyone in the house?” she asked. She already knew the answer—he’d tucked away his gun.

He shook his head. “Empty. It looks like he lives alone. Just his stuff in the closet.” He motioned to the bag in her hand. “What’s that?”

“Look at all the birdhouses,” she said, sweeping her arm at the yard.

He looked around.

“He likes birds.”

“Yep. And I bet every one of these boxes has documents hidden in it.”

“What?”

“That code. The dates of whatever transaction he had going on with Skinner and then the type of birdhouse he’d hid it in. I heard an owl hoot, and it hit me.”

“Owl. That’s the example Ethan gave us.” Mason’s gaze swept over the backyard. “There must be twenty different boxes back here.”

She nodded. “I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess this is all the evidence they’ll need to skewer Hawkins. This was Skinner’s insurance.”

“And it gives him motive for killing him.”

Mason turned to the house and put his hands on his hips.

“We probably should call the cops in? We’re going to have to explain all this.”

She grudgingly agreed.

“It probably means we’ll spend the next twenty-four hours being questioned.”

He nodded grimly. “Yep.”

“Do you think this falls under FBI jurisdiction? I should get Snookie here and let her figure out our best course of action.”

He perked at the mention of Angelina’s sister. Since semi-retiring from the FBI, Snookie had helped them out more times than they could count.

He nodded enthusiastically. “Great idea. Who knows what Hawkins was up to with his connections? This is probably too big for the local PD to deal with. Just these documents will take them days to go through.”

Shee eyed the birdhouses. “Or weeks.”

Mason sighed. “Either way, I think we did it.”

She nodded. “There is some bad news, though. Our client is dead.”

Mason frowned. “He didn’t hire us to protect him. He hired us to preserve his institute. We did that.”

She chuckled.

“Yeah, but who’ll write the check for our other half? Not to mention, part of the down payment needs to go to the owners of the rental house. We have to buy them a new door.”

Mason’s expression fell slack.

“Shit.”

She nodded.

“Shit.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Ollie hung up with Shee and walked back into Dalla’s house, tapping the phone on his leg as he walked. He found the ladies much where he’d left them—Dalla on the sofa looking nervous and Shiva standing nearby looking serious as usual.

Shiva glanced at him as he entered through the back door, and he motioned for her to join him in the kitchen.

“Did you find anything?” she asked, trying to keep an eye on Dalla and move closer to him.

“Oh, yeah. Glenn left some trophies behind.”

“Then we have our evidence?”

“Yes. But we can’t just deliver Glenn to the police tied to a chair. That’ll get us arrested for kidnapping. We need some plausible deniability. We only need a little. I don’t think they’ll care how Glenn ended up in their hands as long as he does. I’m sure the pressure to solve the famous Raquel Roque’s murder has been brutal.”

Shiva nodded. “What do you suggest?”

He looked past her to Dalla sitting on the sofa, knee bouncing.

“I’m thinking we’ll make Dalla a hero.”

Shiva frowned. “I am not sure she deserves that.”

“I’m not either, but she’s the least of evils in that family.” He lowered his voice another notch. “Plus, once they start unpeeling Hawkins’s dealings with Skinner, they’ll figure out her involvement. All the fancy flamingos will give her away.”

Shiva snickered.

They walked back into the living room.

Ollie clapped his hands together, and Dalla jumped.

“You scared me,” she said.

“Sorry. So, how’d you like to be a hero?” he asked.

Her knee stopped bouncing.

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “We checked out Glenn’s place, and—let’s just say there’s no doubt he killed Raquel Roque.”

Dalla’s eyes widened.

“That’s what smells?”

Ollie nodded.

She put her hand over her mouth as Ollie sat beside her.

“I’m going to need you to listen to me, okay?”

She nodded, and he continued.

“We have Glenn. We’re going to bring him here, and you’re going to call the cops on him.”

Her eyes popped even wider, though Ollie didn’t think it was possible.

“Me? You’re going to bring him here? Why?”

“Because you’re going to be the brave sister who turned him in.”

“The hero,” she said.

“Exactly. You get it now. Media buzz, book deals, all yours.”

“Book deals?”

“I’m sure. He killed someone famous. That means you’ll be famous for capturing him.”

She started to smile and then let it collapse like an umbrella.

“But he’s my brother,” she said.

Ollie shrugged. “Half-brother. And full monster.”

She pressed her lips tight.

“That’s true,” she mused.

“Would you prefer we let him go?” asked Ollie. “We could tell him how close you came to turning him in and then let him go?”

She gasped. “No.”

He patted her leg and stood.

“Then we’re on the same page.”

There was a knock at the door, and Dalla jumped.

“Is it him?”

Ollie shook his head.

“No—well, yes, but you’re safe.

Shiva moved to the window and peeked outside.

“Croix,” she confirmed.

She opened the door.

“Special delivery,” said Croix, grinning.

Ollie chuckled. The girl was adorable. She got excited about the strangest things.

He walked outside where Ethan awaited, and the four hustled Glenn into Dalla’s house, still tied to the rental’s dining room chair.

Glenn screamed at his sister, shaking in his chair, veins in his forehead popping, but he could only get so loud with the gag in his mouth.

“Are you sure I should do this?” asked Dalla.

Glenn screamed no—that much they could make out—and Ollie waited a second for him to wear himself out.

“Yes. I’ll walk you through the call to the police, and we’ll hang nearby until they show.”

Dalla nodded. She seemed to be growing stronger. That was a good sign. Finally, they reached the tipping point where self-preservation outweighed stupidity.

“Who should I say you are?” she asked.

“We’re nobody. We don’t exist. We were never here.”

She scowled. “But who tied him to the chair?”

“You did. He was drinking, passed out, and you tied him up.”

“I did?”

“You did. You’re amazing,” said Ollie, patting her shoulder.

“They’ll believe that?”

“They’ll believe whatever you tell them.”

Dalla nodded. “Because I’m the hero.”

Ollie smiled. “Exactly.”

“Are Shee and Mason joining us?” asked Croix.

Ollie shook his head. “They’re a little busy with Snookie.”

“But they’re coming?”

Ollie nodded. “So I’m told.”

Croix, Ethan, Shiva, and Ollie perched on a small hill at the edge of a golf course across from Hawkins’s house. Finding the perfect view had taken a while, but they’d found it.

Front row seats.

They’d brought breakfast sandwiches, and Ollie made them stop at a grocery store for a bottle of champagne.

The sun rose as the first FBI vehicle pulled outside Hawkins’s home.

“Ooh, it’s starting,” said Ollie, sitting up.

The agents exited their cars and knocked on the front door of Hawkins’s large home.

Hawkins answered, wearing an Army tee shirt and lounge shorts.

“He was asleep,” said Croix.

Ollie nodded. “Hope he really appreciated that bed. It might be the last time he ever sleeps there.”

Hawkins seemed surprised. Then angry.

Ollie grimaced. He could hear Hawkins yelling but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“Damn. I wish we could hear,” he said.

“Do you know who I am?” mocked Croix in a low voice, shaking her finger.

The others laughed.

After some back and forth, the agents pulled their guns and took Hawkins into custody. He struggled as they walked him to the car.

Ollie sighed.

“That might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

He placed his hand beside Shiva’s in the grass.

She crossed her pinkie over his.

~~~ THE END ~~~

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Chapter One

Three Weeks Ago, Nashua, New Hampshire.

Shee realized her mistake the moment her feet left the grass.

He’s enormous.

She’d watched him drop from the side window of the house. He landed four feet from where she stood—still, her brain refused to register the warning signs. The nose, big and lumpy as breadfruit, the forehead some beach town could use as a jetty if they buried him to his neck...

His knees bent to absorb his weight, and her brain thought got you.

Her brain couldn’t be bothered with simple math: Giant, plus Shee, equals Pain.

Instead, she jumped to tackle him, dangling airborne as his knees straightened and the pet the rabbit bastard stood to his full height.

Crap.

The math added up pretty quickly after that.

Hovering like Superman mid-flight, she couldn’t do much to change her disastrous trajectory. She’d felt like a superhero when she left the ground. Now, she felt more like a Canada goose staring into the propellers of Captain Sully’s Airbus A320.

She might take down the plane, but it was going to hurt.

Frankenjerk turned toward her at the exact moment she plowed into him. She clamped her arms around his waist like a little girl hugging a redwood. Lurch returned the embrace, twisting her to the ground. Her back hit the dirt, and air burst from her lungs like a double shotgun blast.

Ow.

Wheezing, she punched upward, striking Beardless Hagrid in the throat.

That didn’t go over well.

Grabbing her shoulder with one hand, Dickasaurus flipped her on her stomach like a sausage link, slipped his hand under her chin, and pressed his forearm against her windpipe.

The only air she’d gulped before he cut her supply stank of damp armpit. He’d tucked her skull in his arm crotch, much like the famous noggin-less horseman once held his severed head. Fireworks exploded in the dark behind her eyes.

That’s when a thought occurred to her.

I haven’t been home in fifteen years.

What if she died in Gigantor’s armpit? Would her father even know?

Has it been that long?

Flopping like a landed fish, she forced her assailant to adjust his hold and sucked a breath as she flipped on her back. Spittle glistened on his lips, and his brow furrowed as if she’d asked him to read a paragraph of big-boy words.

His nostrils flared like the Holland Tunnel.

There’s an idea.

Making a V with her fingers, Shee thrust upward, stabbing into his nose, straining to reach his tiny brain.

Goliath roared. Jerking back, he grabbed her arm to unplug her fingers from his nose socket. She whipped away her limb before he had a good grip, fearing he’d snap her bones with his Godzilla paws.

Kneeling before her, he clamped both hands over his face, cursing as blood seeped from behind his fingers.

Shee’s gaze didn’t linger on that mess. Her focus fell to his crotch, hovering a foot above her feet, protected by nothing but a thin pair of oversized sweatpants.

Scrambled eggs, sir?

She kicked.

He howled.

Shee scuttled back like a crab, found her feet, and snatched her gun from her side. The gun she should have pulled before trying to tackle the Empire State Building.

“Move a muscle, and I’ll aerate you,” she said. She always liked that line.

The golem growled but remained on the ground like a good dog, cradling his family jewels.

Shee’s partner in this manhunt, a local cop easier on the eyes than he was useful, rounded the corner and drew his weapon.

She smiled and holstered the gun he’d lent her...without knowing he’d lent it.

“Glad you could make it.”

Her portion of the operation accomplished, she headed toward the car as more officers swarmed the scene.

“Shee, where are you going?” called the cop.

She stopped and turned.

“Home, I think.”

His gaze dropped to her hip.

“Is that my gun?”

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Pineapple Lies

A Pineapple Port Mystery: Book One

Chapter One

“Whachy’all doin’?”

Charlotte jumped, her paintbrush flinging a flurry of black paint droplets across her face. She shuddered and placed her free hand over her heart.

“Darla, you scared me to death.”

“Sorry, Sweetpea, your door was open.”

“Sorry,” echoed Mariska, following close on Darla’s heels.

Charlotte added another stroke of black to her wall and balanced her brush on the edge of the paint can. Standing, her knees cracked a twenty-one-gun salute. She was only twenty-six years old but had always suffered from bad knees. She didn’t mind. Growing up in a fifty-five-plus retirement community, her creaky joints provided something to complain about when the locals swapped war stories about pacemakers and hip replacements. Nobody liked to miss out on that kind of fun.

Charlotte wiped the paint from her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Unlocked and open are not the same thing, ladies. What if I had a gentleman caller?”

Darla burst into laughter, the gold chain dangling from her hot-pink-rimmed glasses swinging. She sobered beneath the weight of Charlotte’s unamused glare. Another pair of plastic-rimmed glasses sat perched like a baby bird on her head, tucked into a nest of champagne-blonde curls.

“Did you lose your other glasses again?” asked Charlotte.

“I did. They’ll turn up.”

Charlotte nodded and tapped the top of her head. “I’m sure.”

Darla’s hand shot to her head.

“Oh, there you go. See? I told you they’d show up.”

Mariska moved closer, nudging Darla out of the way. She threw out her arms, her breezy cotton tunic draping like aqua butterfly wings.

“Morning hug,” she demanded.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and relented. Mariska wrapped her in a bear hug, and she sank into the woman’s snuggly, Polish grandmother’s body. It was like sitting on a favorite old sofa, rife with missing springs, and then being eaten by it.

“Okay. Can’t breathe,” said Charlotte.

“I’m wearing the top you bought me for Christmas,” Mariska mumbled in Charlotte’s ear as she rocked her back and forth.

“I saw that.”

“It’s very comfortable.”

“This isn’t. I can’t breathe. Did I mention that? We’re good. Okay there…”

Mariska released Charlotte and stepped back, her face awash with satisfaction. She turned and looked at the wall, scratching her cheek with flowered, enameled nails as she studied Charlotte’s painting project.

“What are you doing there? Painting your wall black? Are you depressed?”

Charlotte sighed. Darla and Mariska were inseparable; if one wasn’t offering an opinion, the other was picking up the slack.

“You’re not turning into one of those dopey Goth kids now, are you?” asked Darla.

“No, it has nothing to do with my mood. It’s chalkboard paint. I’m making this strip of wall into a giant chalkboard.”

“Why?” Darla asked, her thick, Kentucky accent adding syllables to places the word why had never considered having them. Her mouth twisted, and her brow lowered. Charlotte couldn’t tell if she disapproved, was confused, or suffering a sharp gas pain. Not one guess was more likely than any other.

“Because I think I figured out my problem,” she said.

Darla cackled. “Oh, this oughta be good. You have any coffee left?”

“In the kitchen.”

Darla and Mariska lined up and waddled toward the kitchen like a pair of baby ducks following their mama. Mariska inspected several mugs in the cabinet above the coffee machine and, finding one, put it aside. She handed Darla another. Mariska’s mug of choice was the one she’d given Charlotte after a trip to Colorado’s Pikes Peak. She’d bought the mug for herself, but after Charlotte laughed and explained the double entendre of the slogan emblazoned on the side, I Got High on Pikes Peak, she’d thrust it at her, horrified. Mariska remained proud of her fourteen thousand foot spiraling drive to the peak, however, so she clandestinely drank from the offending mug whenever she visited.

Charlotte watched as she read the side of the mug, expelled a deep sigh, and poured her coffee. That heartbreaking look was why she hadn’t broached the subject of Mariska’s I Got Baked in Florida t-shirt.

The open-plan home allowed the two older women to watch Charlotte as she returned to painting the wall between her pantry door and living area.

“So are you pregnant?” Darla asked. “And after this, you’re painting the nursery?”

“Ah, no. That’s not even funny.”

“You’re the youngest woman in Pineapple Port. You’re our only hope for a baby. How can you toss aside the hopes and dreams of three hundred enthusiastic, if rickety, babysitters?”

“I don’t think I’m the youngest woman here anymore. I think Charlie Collins is taking his wife to the prom next week.”

Darla laughed before punctuating her cackle with a grunt of disapproval.

“Stupid men,” she muttered.

Charlotte whisked away the last spot of neutral cream paint with her brush, completing her wall. She turned to find Mariska staring, her thin, over-plucked eyebrows sitting high on her forehead as she awaited the answer to the mystery of the chalkboard wall.

“So you’re going to keep your grocery list on the wall?” asked Mariska. “That’s very clever.”

“Not exactly. Lately, I’ve been asking myself, what’s missing from my life?”

Darla tilted her head. “A man. Duh.”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, last week, it hit me.”

Darla paused, mug nearly to her lips, waiting for Charlotte to continue.

“What hit you? A chalkboard wall?” asked Mariska.

Charlotte shook her head. “No, a purpose. I need to figure out what I want to be. My life is missing purpose.”

Darla rolled her eyes. “Oh, is that all? I think they had that on sale at Target last weekend. Probably still is.”

Charlotte chuckled and busied herself, resealing the paint can.

Mariska inspected Charlotte’s handiwork. “So you’re going to take up painting? I’ll take a chalkboard wall. I can write Bob messages and make lists…”

“I’ll paint your wall if you like, but starting a painting business isn’t my purpose. The wall is so I can make a to-do list.”

Darla sighed. “I have a to-do list, but it only has one thing on it: Keep breathing.”

Mariska giggled.

“I’m going to make goals and write them here,” said Charlotte, gesturing like a game show hostess to best display her wall. “When I accomplish something, I get to cross it off. See? I already completed one project; that’s how I know it works.”

There was a knock on the door, and Charlotte’s gaze swiveled to the front of the house. Her soft-coated wheaten terrier, Abby, burst out of the bedroom and stood behind the door, barking.

“You forgot to open your blinds this morning,” said Mariska.

“Death Squad,” mumbled Darla.

The Death Squad patrolled the Pineapple Port retirement community every morning. If the six-woman troop passed a home showing no activity by ten a.m., they knocked on the door and demanded proof of life. They pretended to visit about other business, asking if the homeowner would be attending this meeting or that bake sale, but everyone knew the Squad was there to check if someone died overnight. Odds were slim that Charlotte wouldn’t make it through an evening, but the Squad didn’t make exceptions.

Charlotte held Abby’s collar and opened the door.

“Oh, hi, Charlotte,” said a small woman in a purple t-shirt. “We were just—”

“I’m alive, Ginny. Have a good walk.”

Charlotte closed the door. She opened her blinds and peeked out. Several of the Death Squad ladies waved to her as they resumed their march. Abby stood on the sofa and thrust her head through the blinds, her nub of a tail waving back at them at high speed.

Mariska turned and dumped her remaining coffee into the sink, rinsed the purple mug, and with one last longing glance at the Pikes Peak logo, put it in the dishwasher. She placed her hands on her ample hips and faced Charlotte.

“Do you have chalk?”

“No.”

She’d been annoyed at herself all morning for forgetting chalk and resented having it brought to her attention. “I forgot it.”

Darla motioned to the black wall. “Well, there’s your first item. Buy chalk. Write that down.”

“With what?”

“Oh. Good point.”

“Anyhow, shopping lists don’t count,” said Charlotte.

Darla chuckled. “Oh, there are rules. The chalkboard has rules, Mariska.”

Mariska pursed her lips and nodded. “Very serious.”

“Well, I may not have a chalkboard, but I have a wonderful sense of purpose,” said Darla putting her mug in the dishwasher.

“Oh yes? What’s that?”

“I’ve got to pick up Frank’s special ED pills.”

She stepped over the plastic drop cloth beneath the painted wall and headed for the door.

“ED?” Charlotte blushed. “You mean for his—”

“Erectile Dysfunction. Pooped Peepee. Droopy D—”

“Got it,” said Charlotte, cutting her short.

“Fine. But these pills are special. Want to know why?”

“Not in the least.”

Mariska began to giggle, and Darla grinned.

“She’s horrible,” Mariska whispered as she walked by Charlotte.

Darla reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a small plastic bottle. She handed it to Charlotte.

“Read the label.”

Charlotte looked at the side of the pill bottle. The label held the usual array of medical information, but the date was two years past due.

“He only gets them once every two years?”

“Nope. He only got them once. Ever since then, I’ve been refilling the bottle with little blue sleeping pills. Any time he gets the urge, he takes one, and an hour later, he’s sound asleep. When he wakes up, I tell him everything was wonderful.”

Charlotte’s jaw dropped. “That’s terrible.”

Darla dismissed her with a wave and put the bottle back in her purse.

“Nah,” she said, opening the front door. “I don’t have time for that nonsense. If I’m in the mood, I give him one from the original prescription.”

Darla and Mariska patted Abby on the head, waved goodbye, and stepped into the Florida sun.

Charlotte shut the door behind them and balled her drop cloth of sliced trash bags. She rinsed her brush and carried the paint can to the workshed in her backyard. On her way back to the house, she surveyed her neglected yard. A large pile of broken concrete sat in the corner, awaiting pickup. As part of her new life with purpose policy, Charlotte had hired a company to jackhammer part of her concrete patio to provide room for a garden. The original paved yard left little room for plants. With the patio removed, Charlotte could add grow a garden to her chalkboard wall. Maybe she was supposed to be a gardener or work with the earth. She didn’t feel particularly earthy, but who knew?

She huffed, mentally kicking herself again for forgetting to buy chalk.

Her rocky new patch of sand didn’t inspire confidence. It in no way resembled the dark, healthy soil she saw in her neighbors’ more successful gardens. Charlotte returned to the shed to grab a spade and cushion for her knees before kneeling at the corner of her new strip of dirt. It was cool outside, the perfect time of day to pluck the stray bits of concrete from the ground before the Florida sun became unbearable. She knew she didn’t like sweating, so gardening was probably not her calling. Still, she was determined to give everything a chance. She’d clean her new garden, shower, and then run out to buy topsoil, plants, and chalk.

“Tomatoes, cucumbers…” Charlotte mumbled to herself, mentally making a list of plants she needed to buy. Or seeds? Should I buy seeds or plants? Plants. Less chance of failure starting with mature plants, though if they died, that would be even more embarrassing.

Charlotte’s spade struck a large stone, and she removed it, tossing it toward the pile of broken concrete. A scratching noise caught her attention, and she looked up to find her neighbor’s Cairn terrier, Katie, furiously digging beside her. Part of the fence had been broken or chewed, and stocky little Katie visited whenever life in her backyard became too tedious.

Charlotte watched the dirt fly: “Katie, you’re making a mess. If you want to help, pick up stones and move them out of the garden.”

Katie stopped digging long enough to stare with her large brown eyes. At least Charlotte thought the dog was staring at her. She had a lazy eye that made it difficult to tell.

“Move the rocks,” Charlotte repeated, demonstrating the process with her spade. “Stop making a mess, or I’ll let Abby out and then you’ll be in trouble.”

Katie ignored her and resumed digging, sand arcing behind her, piling against the fence.

“You better watch it, missy, or the next item on the list will be to fix the fence.”

Katie eyeballed her again, her crooked bottom teeth jutting from her mouth. She looked like a furry can opener.

“Fix your face.”

Katie snorted a spray of snot and returned to digging.

Charlotte removed several bits of concrete and then shifted her kneepad a few feet closer to Katie. She saw a flash of white and felt something settle against her hand. Katie sat beside her, tail wagging, tongue lolling from the left side of her mouth. Between the dog and her hand sat the prize Katie had been so determined to unearth.

Charlotte froze, one word repeating in her mind, picking up the pace until it was an unintelligible crescendo of nonsense.

Skull. Skull skull skullskullskullskuuuuulllll…

She blinked, certain that when she opened her eyes, the object would have taken its proper shape as a rock or pile of sand.

Nope.

The eye sockets stared back at her.

Hi. Nice to meet you. I’m human skull. What’s up, girl?

The lower jaw was missing. The cranium was nearly as large as Katie's and had similar off-white color, though the skull had better teeth.

Charlotte realized the forehead of this boney intruder rested against her pinky. She whipped her hand away. The skull rocked toward her as if in pursuit, and she scrambled back as it rolled in her direction, slow and relentless as a movie mummy. Katie ran after the skull and pounced on it, stopping its progress.

Charlotte put her hand on her chest, breathing heavily.

“Thank you.”

Her brain raced to process the meaning of a human head in her backyard.

It has to be a joke… maybe some weird dog toy…

Charlotte gently tapped the skull with her shovel. It didn’t feel like cloth or rawhide. It made a sharp-yet-thuddy noise, just the sort of sound she suspected a human skull might make. If she had to compare the tone to something, it would be the sound of a girl about to freak out, tapping a metal shovel on a human skull.

“Oh, Katie. What did you find?”

The question increased Katie’s rate of tail wag. She yipped and ran back to the hole she’d dug, retrieving the lower jaw.

“Oh no… Stop that. You sick little—”

Katie stood, human jawbone clenched in her teeth, tail wagging so furiously that Charlotte thought she might lift off like a chubby little helicopter. The terrier spun and skittered through the fence back to her yard, dragging her prize in tow. The jawbone stuck in the fence for a moment, but Katie wrestled it through and disappeared into her yard.

“Katie, no,” said Charlotte, reaching toward the retreating dog. “Katie—I’m pretty sure that has to stay with the head.”

She leaned forward and nearly touched the jawless skull before yanking away her hand.

Whose head is in my garden?

She felt her eyes grow wide like pancake batter poured into a pan.

Hold the phone.

Heads usually come attached to bodies.

Were there more bones?

What was worse? Finding a whole skeleton or finding only a head?

Charlotte hoped the rest of the body lay nearby and then shook her head at the oddity of the wish.

She glanced around her plot of dirt and realized she might be kneeling in a whole graveyard. More bones. More heads. She scrambled to her feet and dropped her shovel.

Charlotte glanced at her house, back to where her chalkboard wall waited patiently.

She really needed some chalk.

Chapter Two

The Sheriff’s deputies allowed Charlotte to stay in her home while they oversaw the removal of human remains from her garden, the garden she now lovingly referred to as The Garden Never to be Touched Again. It wasn’t as catchy as The Garden of Eatin’, the nickname one couple in Pineapple Port had dubbed their screened-in porch area, but it would have to do. It was still better than lanai. Everyone in Pineapple Port had a lanai. Outside of Hawaii, calling a porch a lanai smacked of Sun Belt snobbery as if Florida sun porches were more exotic than those in Maryland or Vermont. Maybe they are. Her fellow Floridians could grow palm trees and dwarf fruit trees in their southern porches. Maybe it was okay to call a porch a lanai. I mean, if it makes everyone happy…

Charlotte rubbed her eyes.

No wonder I never get anything done. I spend time thinking about the dumbest things. A human head was sitting in her garden, and all she could think about was whether she had the right to call a porch a lanai.

Priorities, Charlotte, priorities.

Outside, two young deputies stood in drab tan uniforms, watching the dig with little interest. Frank Marshall, Darla’s husband and the Manatee County Sheriff, stood beside the diggers, clearly wishing he could be anywhere but standing in the Florida sun watching nerds excavate a body one brushstroke at a time. Whenever Charlotte trotted water to the crowd in her backyard, Frank released an exasperated sigh that conveyed his deep preference for ice-cold beer. When she offered him a bottle, he glanced at his young companions and declined.

“I couldn’t possibly have a bottle on duty, Charlotte,” he said, retrieving a handkerchief to swab his sweaty forehead. “Not a bottle this early.”

“A can?”

Frank tilted his head and peered at her from beneath his brow, encouraging a second guess.

Charlotte considered the emphasis Frank had put on the word bottle.

“Aaah…”

She popped back into the house, poured the bottle of beer into a coffee mug, and returned.

“How about coffee?” she asked, handing Frank the mug.

“Oh, sure,” he said, glancing at the younger officers. “I would love some coffee.”

“It’s good. I grind the beans myself.”

“Do you, now?”

“They have a nutty, almost hoppy taste, don’t you think?”

Frank glared at her. “Mm,” he grunted, taking a sip. “You should probably go back in. I don’t want you contaminating the scene.”

She grinned and went back inside. Abby barked as she entered and ran toward the front of the house. Charlotte followed her.

“What is it, girl? Is Timmy down the well?”

The police had stretched a length of yellow crime tape across Charlotte’s front gate, and a line of chattering neighbors stretched from one side to the other. The police might as well have sat in the front yard with a bullhorn screaming, “Scene of the crime! Come see the scene of the crime!” Like sharks to blood, the people of Pineapple Port smelled gossip fodder from miles away.

Charlotte wasn’t only the youngest resident of Pineapple Port. She was the most famous. Growing up in a retirement community made her the local oddity. If she purchased a different brand of coffee, within two hours the whole neighborhood knew. Crime tape was overkill.

She’d moved to Pineapple Port with her grandmother, Estelle, at age eleven, following her mother’s death. Estelle died nine months later. Mariska and Darla were her grandmother’s best friends, and they conspired with Darla’s husband, Sherriff Frank, and Pineapple Port’s founders, Penny and George Sambrooke, to allow Charlotte to remain in her grandmother’s home. She spent most of her time at Mariska’s until her teens, when she officially moved back into her grandmother’s home. Though she lived alone, she had everyone in the community as foster parents, with Mariska and Bob, who lived directly across the street, as primary caregivers.

Growing up in a fifty-five-plus community had pros and cons. The con was having endless other nosey grandmothers watching her every move. The pro was access to golf carts. Everyone in the neighborhood had a cart, some quite fancy. Access to souped-up golf carts was a child’s fantasy, and as a child, she’d dreamed of becoming a professional golf cart racer. She’d been horrified to discover there was no such thing. All other career options paled in comparison.

As an adult, the pros and cons of living in the Port shifted. The neighborhood scrutiny contributed to her lackluster love life. That was a huge con. The one time a man spent the evening at her home, she’d been greeted by winks or scowls by nearly everyone in the neighborhood the following day. In retrospect, she wished she’d worn a t-shirt that said, He got to second base and then slept on the sofa.

On the pro side, she never wanted for jams, jellies, or crocheted items of any kind. People without an endless supply of homemade jelly didn’t know what they were missing.

Charlotte returned to her kitchen and watched them dig, drinking the rest of Frank’s beer from her coffee mug to calm her nerves. The Sheriff wasn’t the only one trying to avoid scrutiny. Frank looked through the window, and she held up her mug in cheer. He reciprocated.

As they enjoyed their beers, the forensic team removed and labeled each part of a skeleton. Charlotte watched a tech dust and place what looked like a toe bone into a baggie. She took another sip from her mug.

“I’m her mother.”

Charlotte’s head swiveled toward her front door. She heard arguing. She recognized one voice as that of the female officer guarding her front door. The woman had a terrible demeanor, and her sharp bark was undeniable. The other voices sounded more familiar, particularly the one claiming to be her mother.

She drained her mug.

Charlotte walked to the front door to find Darla and Mariska on her porch with their faces twisted in agitation. From the conversation, she deduced the two were attempting to gain entry by claiming to be her mother and grandmother, but they’d forgotten to agree upon who would play which role, and neither wanted to be the grandmother.

“So, you’re both her mother?” asked the officer. “Or you’re both her grandmother?”

Charlotte opened her door just as two other neighbors, Penny and Bettie, joined Mariska and Darla on her stoop.

“Charlotte, dear,” said Mariska. “I was so worried for you. What’s going on? Tell Mama.”

Darla glared at Mariska.

“What’s going on?” asked Penny. “I demand to know what’s going on.”

Charlotte knew she’d have to tell Penny everything. Pineapple Port’s matriarch ruled all the important committees and planned all the events worth attending. Those who disappointed her were doomed to a lifetime of weak bridge partners.

“Your grandmother and I are very worried,” said Darla, stepping on Mariska’s toe.

“Hi, Charlotte.”

Behind the three louder women stood five-foot-nothing Bettie “Bettie Giraffe” Dahl, adorned in her trademark giraffe-print blouse.

“Hi Bettie, you’re back,” Charlotte said, unsurprised to see her. Bettie had no permanent place of residence. She visited friends until it was time to hop to the next host home and appeared in Pineapple Port two or three times a year.

Bettie waved. “You look beautiful, Charlotte.”

Bettie never had a bad word to say about anyone, didn’t mind if other people did all the talking, and her obsession with giraffes made holiday shopping for her a breeze. Her collection of friends was no mystery.

The officer turned to Charlotte, her thumbs hooked in her belt and her demeanor hovering somewhere between annoyed and simmering volcano. She was a woman of many moods, all of them variations of cranky.

“Two of your mothers are here,” said the officer. “Should I be on the lookout for any more?”

Charlotte shook her head and stepped outside, leading her four visitors away from the door and toward the crime-taped gate.

“What’s going on?” asked Mariska as Charlotte half-beckoned, half-dragged her away from her front door. She herded the three instigators until they arrived on the edge of her property, as far from the officer as possible. Bettie, Charlotte knew, would follow wherever the others went.

“Are you okay?” asked Darla. “There’s tape everywhere. We thought you were murdered.”

“I’m fine. I was going to call you, but they showed up so fast I didn’t get a chance. Did you read the tape?” Charlotte pointed to the yellow strips draped across her gate. “It says, Do Not Cross.”

“It’s on the fence,” said Penny, punctuating her comment with a sniff. She had a sniff for every emotion, from a level one Not Really Listening to You to a level ten Fury. This was about a two: Don’t Waste my Time. “They didn’t go across your door with it. It’s a mixed message at best and a fine symbol of their infinite incompetence.”

Charlotte paused, waiting for a level five Why is Everyone so Stupid? but Penny instead chose a well-timed hair flip, which, according to the body-language thesaurus, landed somewhere between a sniff and an eye-roll.

“We didn’t cross the tape,” said Darla.

“We didn’t cross it,” echoed Penny.

“I didn’t cross it,” said Bettie. She looked at Charlotte with large brown eyes. “I didn’t, did I?”

Charlotte smiled and patted Bettie on the shoulder.

“No, you didn’t cross it, Bettie. None of you did. But we need to disperse this crowd. You’d think Justin Bieber was throwing a concert in my backyard.”

“Who?” asked Penny.

“Oh, he’s that awful Canadian kid,” said Darla. “Needs a good kick in the pants.”

“But what’s going on?” asked Mariska again.

Charlotte looked around to be sure no one but her immediate crowd stood within hearing distance.

“After you two left this morning, I went to work on my garden and found bones.”

Charlotte said found bones in a dramatic whisper. She didn’t mean to; the word bones just inspired drama.

Mariska’s eyes grew wide as silver dollar pancakes (one of the dollar-fifty specials at the local diner, half-price on John F. Kennedy’s birthday.) Charlotte knew all the deals in town. She didn’t mean to; she just naturally absorbed that sort of information living in the Port. Coupons, promotions, and deals made up twenty percent of local small talk. Fifty percent was medical related; the remaining thirty was a mixture of bragging about grandkids, disapproval, gossip, and recipes.

“Whaddya mean, bones?” asked Darla.

“Dog bones?” asked Bettie.

Bless her heart.

“Well, it was Franny’s Cairn who did the actual finding, but no, human bones. Definitely human bones. A skull, to be exact.”

All four women put their hands to their mouths, except Penny, who put her hands on her hips and cocked her head hard enough to send her short bob haircut swinging.

“That’s ridiculous.”

Charlotte shrugged. “It’s true.”

“There was a body in your yard?” asked Bettie. “A whole body?”

“No skin or clothes, just bones, but yes. When they removed the concrete for my garden, the bones were underneath. They’re old. The police and some forensic guys are back there processing the scene.”

“Ooh, is Frank there?” asked Darla. “I’ll get the whole story from him.”

“He’s there. He isn’t happy about it, but he’s there with two other officers.”

“Two policemen?” asked Bettie, touching her hair. Bettie was an incorrigible flirt.

“Did they bag and tag him yet?” asked Darla.

Darla watched an inordinate number of crime shows. Charlotte could see she was giddy at the opportunity to use her crime slang. Telling food store employees to bag and tag a sack of potatoes just wasn’t as satisfying.

“Are you a person of interest?” asked Penny.

“What? No.”

Charlotte realized the local gossip mill would have her labeled as an escaped convict/serial killer before Jeopardy! aired that evening. Even sharing what facts she could would spare her little in the imaginations of bored retirees.

“From what I’ve overheard, the bones are at least ten years old,” Charlotte said, taking a moment to make eye contact with each of the women except Bettie, who had already lost interest and was watching a Blue Jay hop around the azalea bushes.

“And I can promise you they’re at least fifteen years old because that cement has been there since my grandmother moved in. When I was eleven. I didn’t kill anyone and tunnel them under my grandmother’s porch like some kind of psychotic Lord of the Rings dwarf.”

Penny squinted at her, her expression cold. “You were always a precocious child.”

“Is it a man or a woman? What age?” asked Darla.

“I hope it isn’t a child,” said Mariska.

“I think I heard one of the nerds say the bones were female, but to be honest, I’m not sure. I can tell you the skull was normal adult size.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Mariska. “I mean, not good, but better.”

“Do you think we all have bodies in our yards?” asked Darla, glancing down the street toward her own house as if it were a party guest she’d just found lurking near her good jewelry.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Penny. “This land was nothing but swamp when George and I expanded Pineapple Port, not a gravesite.”

“I told you not to build this place on an Indian burial ground,” said Charlotte.

Mariska gasped. “What? It was?”

“I’m just kidding. Poltergeist reference.”

The women stared at her with blank expressions.

“You know… Little girl gets sucked into the TV? Their house was built on an Indian—”

“Precocious,” muttered Penny.

Charlotte sighed. “Look, never mind. The bottom line is I don’t know much yet, but I’ll tell you everything when I find out. You all go home and let me do the snooping. Maybe if you leave, some of these others will wander off.”

Charlotte watched a woman slowly pass her house, Dachshund in tow. It was the tenth time she’d passed by, and the stubby-legged dog looked tired. One more circle and the poor thing would be dragging behind her like a deflated party balloon.

None of the women moved.

“Hello?” said Charlotte. “Did any of you hear me?”

Darla and Penny remained planted on the sidewalk just outside Charlotte’s gate, trapped in a contest to see who could purse their lips more tightly. Bettie’s attention wandered down the block, and Charlotte followed her gaze to find a tall, athletic-built man headed in their direction. He had dark hair, not shaggy, but long enough that Charlotte suspected it took real effort to keep it so perfectly in place. As he neared, his mouth curled into the sort of charming grin that could melt the icing off the ladies’ best church bazaar cupcakes.

He made eye contact with each woman, spending no more or less time on each, and then glanced at the yellow tape half-heartedly hugging Charlotte’s picket fence.

“This must be the place,” he said.

The four women watched, silent, as the young man slipped past them and walked toward the stoop. The grim keeper of Charlotte’s doorstep turned toward him as he approached, preparing for battle.

Good luck with her.

After a short conversation, the officer stepped aside and allowed the tall stranger to enter her home, her dour puss replaced by two rows of teeth arranged in the shape of a genuine smile.

She giggled as he passed.

Giggled.

Charlotte would have bet money the woman had never giggled in her life.

The officer’s face collapsed like window blinds as she noticed eight eyes on her. She shifted back to her usual mask of disapproval. She crossed her arms over her chest. Charlotte wondered if the officer had just given her home to the dark-haired man and planned to keep her out while he redecorated.

“Who the hell was that?” Charlotte said aloud, not expecting an answer.

Darla, Penny, and Mariska all answered in unison.

“Declan.”