Rio couldn’t tell who was more surprised. The four men who rushed into whatever the hell space she was in . . . or the man she’d just killed with two bullets to the heart.
The shooting had happened in the blink of an eye. She’d been marched into the room and the guy in black with the shaved head had stood up from that table over there—and looked at her as if she were fresh meat.
The cold happiness on his face had been something to remember. Especially as he’d taken out a knife with a blade as long as his arm.
After he’d been informed where she’d been found, he’d excused the two guards, and the sound of the lock getting turned had been like a coffin lid secured over her body.
So self-assured he’d been, so completely in control. And in spite of her mental confusion, she’d known she had only one chance, given that tremendous, sword-like weapon in his hand.
Out with the gun. Two shots just like she was drilling targets at the range: Right into the center of his chest.
Real blink-of-an-eye stuff.
In the aftermath, he’d stumbled backward, looking at his sternum like he was baffled at the fact that the lead slugs hadn’t bounced right off him or something. She hadn’t been interested in his death throes other than monitoring him to be sure that he didn’t get his hands on another weapon in his last three and a half seconds of life. After a couple of final twitches, he’d stayed still, and just as she’d wondered what the hell to do next—
The welcome party had burst in.
Luke jumped forward. “Are you all right?”
Rio was in his arms next.
She didn’t know who went for who first. She didn’t care. As she squeezed her eyes shut, she just held on to that strong, warm body, and breathed in his cologne, and felt gratitude for being alive.
Not that he wore cologne. God, he smelled like home . . .
Dimly, she was aware of a strange cracking sound. Then another. Followed by two duffle bags being dropped on the floor. Had he and Apex brought luggage?
Who cared. In this moment, Luke was what mattered.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” he said.
She pulled back and touched his face. Then came to her senses. “Not yet. I need to help—”
Rio didn’t finish the thought as something in the background caught her attention. Looking around Luke’s muscled arm, she blinked. A couple of times.
The two sounds she’d thought were bags hitting the floor had not been about any kind of Samsonite. Apex had done something dramatic to the two guards. The two men were both lying facedown—no, wait, their bodies were on their stomachs. Their heads were facing upward.
Meanwhile, the guy was walking over to the open door and calmly shutting it. Locking it. “We’ve got problems now.”
“More,” she corrected numbly. “We have more problems.”
As she stated the obvious, a series of Caldwell Police Department rules and regulations weaved their way around the fact pattern of everything that had just happened with the man and the big knife and the handgun she still had in her palm.
She was in over her head. Big time. And her allies in the situation were a pair of drug-dealing killers.
“All right,” Luke said as he started to pace around like he was thinking.
When he came up to a display of rifles mounted on the wall, he nodded like he’d sought their advice and decided to do what they’d told him to. “We need to play this like we’ve taken over. Apex, you and Mayhem will stand guard out in front of here until nightfall. No one will question it. Then, as soon as it’s dark, I’ll take her out—”
“Brace yourself for the head of the guards.” Apex went over to check out the bald guy. “They’ve been looking for their opening all along, and they’re going to see this corpse as a challenge, not a done deal. And do you really want to run this place?”
“We’ll deal with that as it comes.” Luke glanced to the closed door. “In the meantime, we make this death really fucking obvious. We hang the body up outside on the wall. It’s a coup. We’re in control now.”
Apex shook his head. “It won’t last. The guards are going to attack.”
“It doesn’t have to last. All I need is nightfall.”
While they talked, Rio did some walking around herself, the contents of the large space finally registering properly. Things were set up as a military seat of command, the bed and an old forties wardrobe the only civilian furniture, the rest of it collections of rifles and guns, what she knew were explosives—and then other supplies including food, water, and camping equipment, like the man had been prepared to get gone at a moment’s notice.
Coming up to a rudimentary conference table, she tried to look casual as she checked out all kinds of documents with columns on them. Everything was handwritten—which made sense as there was no computer or electronics around that she could see—and the data was organized by dates, weights, and dollars. Wait, there was also a list of names and times.
She needed to copy this all somehow, even though that was crazy.
And where’s the money, she wondered.
With this sort of scale, there was going to be a crap ton of cash somewhere on the premises, and that presented both a security and a storage challenge.
Just before she turned away, she saw the cell phone. It was a newish one, without a protective case, nothing but a flat plane of glass you could access the world with. Glancing across at Luke and Apex, she put her hand out and scooped the slippery unit into her palm.
It didn’t fit in her side pocket. Too big.
So she turned her back to the pair of them and put it down the front of her pants, inside her underwear.
When she pivoted around again, Apex had the dead guy up off the floor, the knife that had been in that hand falling loose and bouncing in a clatter.
“I’ll take care of this,” he said. “And find Mayhem.”
With an utter lack of bother, like he was doing nothing more than moving a sack of potatoes around, he went over to a keypad, entered a series of numbers in a pattern, and opened the way out.
And then she and Luke were alone.