“Stop it,” she heard herself say. “Stop it. I promise I’m fine. Calm down.”
“I’ll calm down when I know what’s going on.” His tone promised violence, a new, unsettling thing. “Light. Close your eyes.”
She did, and his hand briefly left her shoulder. Light exploded; she blinked furiously and peered up at him. He examined her face, used his grip on her shoulders to spin her around and looked at her back. Then he jerked her back around and hugged her again. “Anna.”
If he doesn’t let go of me I’m going to wet myself. She struggled, pushing him away. “I think I need to use the toilet,” she said primly. “Please. I might also throw up. Not to mention cry. And scream. That sounds good. Really good.”
His jaw went tight. He looked down at her, his eyes darker than usual because he wore a gray sweater, the sleeves pushed up; the gun was tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “No screaming. Stay in here; we’ll make sure the house is secure and I’ll find you some shoes. There’s glass.”
“It came in through the window. It was scratching, and then it came in. I ran in here.” I’m babbling. She pushed her shoulders back and her chin up, suddenly aware that the tile was freezing and her legs were bare. Gooseflesh raced up her arms. Nausea warred with the need to visit the toilet. “I really think I’m going to throw up.”
“All right.” He let go of her, one finger at a time. “Stay in here. If you hear gunshots, get back in the bathtub. Good choice.”
“Thanks.” Forget throwing up. I want to pee. And you’d better get out of here, or there’s going to be a puddle on the floor.
He stepped back, had a little trouble getting the door to shut properly; the doorknob was broken. How many people had tried to break it down, including him?
I didn’t lock it. All they had to do was turn the knob. Some professionals. I’m glad they didn’t think of just opening it. Her teeth wanted to chatter; she set them tightly together and turned around. Toilet. Let’s take care of business first and worry about whoever tried to kill me later.
It was, she reflected, almost getting fucking mundane.
No. Not really. She extended her arms and looked down at her hands. They shook so hard her fingers almost blurred.
Chapter Eleven
“They couldn’t have come in through the window,” Hassan said flatly. “Look out there, and up to the roof. The angle’s all wrong. It’s not impossible, but why should they bother when they already had penetration to the second story? Answer me that.”
Willie, sweeping up the broken glass, glanced at him. She said nothing, but her agreement was clear. Her dark hair was mussed out of its usual sleek tight bun and she had the sleepy-eyed look of a woman who had been rudely awakened, despite her calm smoothness as she went from one task to the next.
Not like Anna, who sat on the bed, her hands clasped and her eyes huge, looking at the floor whenever she wasn’t sneaking little glances at Hassan and Willie.
Josiah folded his arms, leaning against the doorjamb. He needed a moment.
How could anyone have known Anna was here? He’d been circumspect, scooping her up at the hotel and making sure he was free of pursuit before bringing her in. His name wasn’t connected to hers in any professional circles. At least, he’d done what he could to make sure.
That wasn’t what bothered him the most, though.
“The bodies.” His voice cut through Hassan and Willie’s muttered exchanges. “Did either of you see what I saw?”
Hassan rounded on him, dark eyes aflame with something Josiah recognized.
Fear.
“Don’t start, mate.” The slim dark man’s accent wore through the words, turning each one into a bullet. “What the fuck is going on here? You better start talking, or I swear I’m going to…” Apparently no threat was dire enough, because the slim man trailed off, his jaw working and his dark eyes ablaze.
“What precisely are you going to do? Head for the hills while the getting’s good?” Josiah folded his arms, the gun a comforting weight pressing in against his side. “I saw the same fucking thing you did, man. The same thing.”
Hassan shook his head, wordless. His pulse beat visibly in his throat. The dark man turned on his heel, his gaze coming to rest on Anna’s bowed head. “You.” His tone had turned chill. “What the fuck did you do? Nobody had a fucking clue she was here, Wolfe, right? So she must have—”
“She hasn’t had a chance, Hassan. Think about it.”
“That’s just it, mate. I don’t want to fucking think about it. I say we search her, inside and out.”
“Don’t be rude,” Willie sniffed.
Hassan took a step toward the bed. Josiah sighed inwardly.
“Well?” the other man demanded. “How did you tell them you were here? Huh?”
“I didn’t,” Anna said, quietly, in a dry cricket whisper. “I couldn’t. I…Josiah…”
“Leave her alone.” He restrained the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh. “You saw what I did, Hassan. Admit it.”
“All I’m admitting is that I want some answers from her.” Hassan jabbed an accusing finger at Anna, who pushed herself up to her feet—or tried to, only to halt halfway and sit down, hard, as if her legs wouldn’t quite hold her up.
Willie’s handheld broom paused in its steady whisking.
“Hassan.” Josiah’s tone was soft and cold. “Stop it.”
The air boiled with tension, Hassan threw up his hands, a short, sharp movement that almost, almost made Josiah twitch.
“For God’s sake.” He shook his dark, sleek head, and the strange, nervous tension evaporated. “You’re mad. I’m mad, we’re all mad here. You saw it too?”
Scalding relief swept through Josiah. Now Hassan was thinking clearly—and, bonus point, Josiah was suddenly very sure he hadn’t gone crazy himself. “Of course I saw it. I’m just not sure what it was.”
Willie’s steady sweeping resumed. Anna was now staring at Josiah as if he’d grown another head. Her eyes were very wide, and very green.
“I’ll fucking tell you what it was.” Hassan shoved his hands in his pockets. “They turned to dust. I slit that punter’s throat; he should have been gushing. But no, there was a fucking poof! And the next thing I know, I’m staring at a handful of sand.”
Willie’s sweeping stopped again. She leaned back on her haunches, her dark gaze moving from Hassan to Josiah, then swinging over to Anna. “I shot two of them,” she added, matter-of-factly. “Both right in the kopfe. Nobody came to haul the bodies away, but they were gone, and I’m going to have to run the hoover down there.” She waved the little handheld broom idly, as if for emphasis. “Something very strange is going on. Anna? Can you shed any light on this?”
All eyes on you, Anna. He let himself look at her again, at the gleaming of her hair and the dazed, uncomprehending beauty of her face.
She’d folded her hands in her lap like a little girl. “There was someone outside the window. The shadow was bobbing up and down, and I heard scratching. Then I ran for the bathroom.” A flush rose in her cheeks, and she looked down at her clasped fingers. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Well, you showed far more presence of mind than most civilians, sweets. Bolting into the bathroom and getting in a cast-iron tub. Josiah’s chest hurt. Realizing they had slipped upstairs past him had caused such a sharp upswell of panic inside his ribs he’d almost thought he was having a heart attack. Getting into the room and seeing the empty bed was one of the worst things he’d lived through yet, and that was a surprise. He did, after all, have a good long list of bad-to-worse things in his life.
“Scratching at the window?” Hassan was pale under his caramel coloring. He didn’t glance nervously at Josiah, and that was faintly unsettling. He wanted Hassan more worried about him than about what had just happened, for any number of reasons, one of which was Anna herself.
Thank God he’s being reasonable. If he goes off the deep end I’m going to have to do something d
rastic.
Anna nodded, a tendril of silken hair falling in her face. “Like a cat. And the shadow was bobbing up and down. Like a balloon.” She shivered. Her feet rested on hardwood; the slippers were Willie’s, embroidered with red dragons, and too big for her. “Are they going to come back?”
She looked at him as if he knew all the answers, instead of only knowing one or two and suspecting a hell of a lot of unpleasant ones. “Not tonight, baby.” Wish I was as sure as I sound. “It’s near dawn, and they had one hell of a surprise. We’ll move out, get to a safer location.”
Willie finished sweeping up the glass and stood, smoothly, dangling the paper bag full of broken window. Chill air made the drawn curtains move slightly, and the faint, indirect glow from the open bathroom door wouldn’t help out anyone with a scope.
“You mean we can’t stay here?” The fresh color drained out of Anna’s cheeks.
“They’ve tried once, they’ll try again. They’d be fools to come back without debriefing and reinforcements. This was just a raid, and it tells us that no matter what else, they want to keep this quiet. Nice and swept under the rug.” He sighed, a familiar pain beginning to knot up the muscles at the base of his neck. “They don’t have a secondary wave, or they’d be on us now while we’re recouping. That means we have a chance of slipping away.”
Her fingers twisted together, her knuckles turning white. She said nothing else, and he wanted to be on the bed beside her, to put an arm over her shoulders and console her; let her lean on him and reassure himself that she was all right.
That was a party of sweepers; they came to leave nothing in here alive. We have got to get out before they can scramble some surveillance. They underestimated us as much as I underestimated them.
Then there was the little matter of the exploding bodies.
For a moment, the fact that this didn’t disturb him as much as it should was…troubling. If he decided he didn’t really care about anything but the next logical step, that he would think about it later, everything got a lot more manageable.
Manageable is good. Manageable is very good. “So Hassan and Willie are going to go out of town one way. We’re going to go another. And we’ll hook up someplace nice and quiet, and go about our business.” He met Willie’s gaze with a sense of relief; the tall, dark woman was outwardly calm and seemed only mildly puzzled.
“I don’t think that’s a good—” Willie began.
“Wolfe, without backup, you—” This from Hassan.
“I’m not leaving,” Anna said flatly, and glared at him. He was immensely cheered to see that furious, green-eyed stare. It meant she was angry instead of terrified. “I hired you to kill whoever killed Eric.”
You and I are about to have a talk, sweetheart, and I don’t think you’re going to like it. “You two get packed. I want you ready in ten.”
Willie subsided, but Hassan evidently thought it was still under discussion. “Come on. We don’t even know exactly what we’re dealing with here. At least we should—”
“Ten minutes. Now, get out.” His tone didn’t admit argument. Willie reached forward, wound her fingers in Hassan’s left sleeve.
“Come on. Help me pack.” She drew him out, closing the bedroom door—miraculously unharmed by the night’s fun—with a firm click.
That left Josiah with one pale and shaking Anna, who sat on the bed and stared as if seeing him for the first time.
“Do you think this is a game?” His tone was harsher than it had to be. She was alive. In one piece. Safe. “Do you?”
Anna pushed herself up to stand, making it without much trouble this time and wincing as she put weight on her swollen ankle. The bruise on her face mocked him. “I hired you.” Her tone was much softer than his, but still sharp enough to cut silk. “You told me I’d hired you. I am not leaving until whatever Eric was working on is done and the people who killed him are—”
Well, would you look at that. She still manages to infuriate me without even trying. He made a concerted effort not to yell, an effort that curled his fists. “You promised no temper tantrums, baby doll. I told you, I am going to handle this in my own way, and you are going to shut the fuck up and do what I tell you, when I tell you.”
“Yes, sir,” she shot back. Her eyes glittered, and if his fists were tense hers were outright clenched. “You’re the professional here, right?”
It was, he told himself, absolutely normal. She was exerting some control in a situation where she didn’t have any. It made sense for her emotions to be all over the map, and he was the only person she could feel even halfway safe taking this out on.
Still, it pinched at him, right where he needed calm and control the most.
“Just be glad you’re fucking alive.” He shook his hands out. She’s not going anywhere. Relax. Just…fucking…relax. “Damn right I’m the professional. I get more for a single goddamn event than you can make in a decade, and your mother’s paltry little nest egg wouldn’t even make a dent. It’s as close to a charity job as I’ve ever—”
“Fuck you!” she yelled, taking a step forward onto her good leg. “I promised you what you wanted! I want whoever killed Eric to pay, and if you’re such a goddamn hotshot, it should be no goddamn problem for you!”
He realized too late what he’d just said to her. At least she wasn’t sunk in apathy anymore. If she was angry at him, at least she wasn’t crying about her brother, and it showed she still felt something for Josiah himself. Just what, he wasn’t sure.
He’d never been sure what she saw in him.
On the minus side, however, he was handling her badly. As usual. He seemed to do nothing but handle her badly.
A completely predictable civilian reaction, whipsawing on the fine edge of panic and rage. He’d seen it often enough in the untrained.
The normal. He hadn’t really been one of them even before he’d found out what he was made for.
The important thing right now was to stay calm. The situation is what the situation IS, one of his trainers had said, a long time ago. For a tautology, it was pretty effective.
Take it from the top. Willie and Hassan could have been collateral damage; he might even have been. The sweepers were after Anna. She was too dangerous to someone to be allowed to live, and if Josiah didn’t watch it, she would end up dead.
How had they found her? That bothered him.
It bothered him a lot.
First on the list of necessary items was calming her down. Reassuring her, as far as he could. “I did not take this job to exact revenge on whoever slit your brother’s throat, Anna. I took it to keep you alive.” And to keep you with me, no matter what. “The situation has undergone a rather drastic change that requires reevaluation. I’m not going to evaluate sitting here.”
Her eyes flicked toward the window, the thought transparent on her face. Another raw civilian reaction, one with a little more presence of mind than most.
She was so goddamn stubborn. He could admire it, unless it would get her killed.
“Go ahead.” It was work to get the words out past the rock in his throat. “I’m the best chance you have to stay alive. You do something stupid and I’ll handcuff you. I advise you not to push me on this.”
She dropped back down on the bed, glaring at him as if she could happily boil him and eat him for lunch—which was all right. “You never used to be this much of an asshole.” Her voice broke, unsteadily.
Which was bad. He wanted her furious at him, not unsteady and aching.
I was. You just never saw it. “You never had professional erasure teams after you before. I’m going to find you some clothes. You should get ready to go.”
“Go where?” Her jaw set, her eyebrows drawing together, and the urge to take the few steps between them, take her face in his hands, and kiss her breathless almost took his legs out from under him.
Business first, hormones later. “Anna. Go and brush your teeth, wash your face, do whatever you have to do to get ready. Stay away fr
om the window; it’s a two-story drop straight down anyway. If you hear anything strange, get in the bathtub again. Stay here until I come get you.”
She went extraordinarily still. Indirect light from the bathroom’s night-light shadowed the bruised half of her face.
He had to persist. “Is that absolutely clear, Anna?”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Crystal.”
“What are you going to do?” Make her say it, for God’s sake. Make her understand. His hands ached. He wanted to touch her, wanted to take her shoulders and shake her. Reaction was setting in for him, too. Delayed and unwelcome, he wanted a little more time before he had to process this.
“Get ready to go. Stay in this room. Until you come to get me.” Her chin jutted a little, defiant, and her shoulders hunched. It was impossible for her tone to be any blander.
“Good girl.” He turned to the door, paused, and found it impossible to leave without saying something else. “I mean it, Anna. Every single word.”
“The part about where you just let my brother’s killer get off scot-free? Or the part about me whoring myself to pay you for whatever you feel like doing?”
He winced inwardly. I probably deserve that. “I’m not going to let your brother’s killer ‘get off.’ I’m going to make damn good and sure you don’t end up like Eric did. Get ready.”
He left her in the room, closing the door quietly, and took stock, only to find that his hands were absolutely steady. He was in operating mode now.
The next move was his.
* * *
“I don’t like it,” Willie said softly. She looked down at a pile of fine, grainy ashen grit, all that remained of one of the attackers. There was a deformed, flattened lump of metal on the carpet in the short hall leading to her bedroom—the bullet, stopped by something solid that had exploded into ash. “If I wasn’t sure none of us were crazy…”