Well, as long as you didn’t count the two dead guys on the floor. But really, they weren’t going to interrupt much, were they.
“I need to put both of them out there, too,” Luke said in an apologetic tone.
As if they were a pair of houseguests who had overstayed their welcome.
“I can help.” She glanced over at him. “We’ll do it together.”
“Are you okay?”
As Lucan asked the question, his eyes were making like they were tied to a brain that had any kind of medical training, going up and down Rio’s body, searching for injury. More injury, that was. But she seemed all right. Her color was good and he could scent no blood other than the Executioner’s.
Goddamn, the woman was like a cat with nine lives.
“Yeah, I’m all right.” She continued her walk around, stopping over by the back door that led out into the parking area. “There’s a keypad here. I’m taking that means it’s got a lock on it.”
“Yeah, everything’s secured—” When she went to pull at the handle anyway, he put his hands forward. “Wait! Stop!”
She froze. “What?”
“Don’t open that.”
“Oh, you think it’s alarmed?”
No, he didn’t want to take any risk that it would let in a stream of daylight—because unless there was a nuclear-winter-worthy cloud cover in the sky, he’d end up a flaming ball of vampire.
“That’s right,” he lied. “We have to be careful. We don’t want more company.”
Rio dropped her hand and nodded. “You’re right.” She glanced back at him. “I don’t know that I’m thinking right.”
“Jesus, I wonder why.”
He went over to her and held his arms out. The fact that she came up right against him was a relief.
“How did you do that?” he said as he looked at the bloodstains on the floor.
“Shoot the guy?” She shuddered, her strong body quaking. “I was just lucky. He underestimated me, and so did his guard. I wasn’t searched. I had the gun. I used it. If they’d stripped me, I would have been in big trouble.”
Stripped. As in weapons. As in . . . clothes.
In a surge of aggression, Lucan became furious enough to want to go out to the wall and kill the Executioner all over again.
“I’m going to get you back to Caldwell,” he told her as he closed his eyes. “There are vehicles here, and I’ll get a key, and . . .”
As she pushed herself away from him, he cleared his throat and prayed she wasn’t going to argue with him. “What.”
“I can’t leave yet.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the guards Apex had taken care of. “I need to help that patient down in the clinic.”
“That’s not your problem.”
“If not mine, whose? They don’t know how to give him pain relief safely, they need me to help. I can get him—”
“Do you not remember what just happened here?” He pointed to that bloodstain by the bed. “How many near misses do you need before you stop rolling the dice with your life?”
She just shook her head. “I’m not leaving here until I help him. So you need to get me back in that room with the drugs—”
“Oh, come on—”
There was a series of beeps on the far side of the door, and Lucan put himself between Rio and whatever was coming in—
Apex entered with Mayhem tight on his heels. The latter clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
“Nice work, Lucan! How the hell did you get a clean shot at the Executioner?”
As Rio’s eyes flared, Lucan muttered, “I didn’t.”
“Executioner?” she said.
Mayhem looked at her. Looked at Lucan. “Exhibitioner was what I meant. That motherfucker—’scuse my French—used to go around flashing people all the time. I mean, if I never see his pollywog and two lily pads again, it will be too soon. Phew. Thank God you shot him.”
This was followed by a fist pump offer directed at Rio.
After which everybody just blinked at the guy.
“What?” Mayhem asked as he lowered his arm.
Like he was totally surprised that no one at the BBQ wanted to try his four-day-old, fermented homemade slaw.
“So glad you’re here,” Lucan said dryly. Then he turned back to Rio. “Listen, you’re going to forget about Kane. You’re leaving these quarters—”
“Don’t you dare too-dangerous me.” Rio glared at him. “I’ve earned the right to be taken seriously instead of coddled like a civilian—and the proof was right there at your feet until that body was taken out of here like a bag of sand.”
As she jabbed a finger at where the remains had been, Lucan wanted to yell at the top of his lungs. Instead, he tried to rein himself in. “I know you want to take care of Kane, but he’s fine—”
“Is that his name? Well, Kane is dying by inches, and he’s in constant pain. Do you want to go through that? Or would you rather be spared some of the suffering by those around you who are able. What would you want, if it were you.”
From over by the door, there was a soft curse, and Apex walked off sharply.
Rio continued to speak stridently. “That poor man’s dying is not something you can stop, but his agony is. So someone is going to help me get some heroin to test and then we’re going to take care of him.” She glanced around at all of them, her eyes narrowed. “I’m not asking for permission, gentlemen. I’m looking for partners.”
Mayhem spoke up at that. Of course he did. “As in crime? Partners in crime? Because we are sooooo good at that. I mean, we gotchu on the felony thing. Totally.”
As Lucan pictured himself slapping the guy into silence, Mayhem shrugged. “What I say wrong now?”
Sweet Jesus, was all Lucan could think.
No,” Vishous said. “The Jackal’s not going to be involved in this search for the prison camp. Period, end of.”
As he laid down the law, everyone in the King’s study looked over at him. Including George, who you’d think would have been stone cold sleeping as he lay under his master’s great carved desk, by the clawed feet of the great carved throne.
But nope. The golden retriever was alert and judging him, too, evidently.