Three years? He hadn’t worked in three years? Something, somewhere along the way, had gone very wrong. She absolutely had to talk to Viktor and Vadim.
“To move to the forests of Colorado? Was the reason behind that because of that guy Andre?”
End conversation. Cormac’s yummy lips clamped shut, his thick muscles went rigid.
Teddy sighed, annoyed they kept playing this ridiculous game of I’ve Got A Secret, with no end in sight. “I get it. I went too far. Forgive me for trying to figure out what’s going on when my life’s in danger.” She pivoted on her heel, preparing to go in search of someone who would actually engage in a conversation, when Cormac gripped her arm in a light hold.
The contact of his grip made her pulse race, but she kept her cool.
“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you. But the story’s long and complicated and we’ve known each other what, four or five hours? There’s a modicum of trust we have to establish.”
“All bets are off if my life’s in danger, Cormac. I can’t defend myself if I don’t know what’s going on. Screw trust.” She shook him off and moved away from him.
Because you’ve told him everything, Teddy Bear? C’mon. Play fair here, girlie.
She had to make a phone call and she had to make one now. Nina had reassured her there were all manner of proper safety measures taken to keep them safe, like cell phone jammers and security systems she’d set when they went to bed. Which meant, she needed to get outside to make a call before the alarms were activated.
Wandering away from a silent and obtuse Cormac, Teddy headed toward the room connected to the great room and ducked inside, looking for an exit.
She made her way down the long hall and found she was right back in the kitchen, where there was a six-paned glass door. Peeking outside the window, she saw the door led to one of the entries to the hedge maze.
Popping it open and praying it didn’t sound an alarm, Teddy slipped outside and turned her phone on, shivering as she waited for it to wake up.
She was calling this off. Right now. It was over. Screw the money. There had to be another way to get it.
As her phone lit up, she saw two things. The picture she’d sent her brothers of Cormac laying in the snow had never sent, which was likely a good thing—and there was a message in her voice mail inbox.
The piper was calling.
Oh shit.
Chapter 6
She clicked on the name and inhaled deeply before putting on her most professional tone and saying, “Theodora Gribanov here.”
“You found him yet?” the voice at her ear, gruff and heavily laced with a Jersey accent, asked.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck. “It’s been an entire thirty-two hours since you hired me. I told you these things can take time.”
“Yeah, while you run up a fuckin’ expense account on my dime, that kinda time? I damn well knew I shouldn’t have hired a broad.”
Moron. “Because there are so many places for a broad like me to shop in the forests of Colorado while I’m on a job. Speaking of, you can always fire me. In fact, I quit. Free of charge.”
“Quit? What the fuck are you talkin’ about? You just got started!”
Jesus, he was testy. What was the gig with this guy? “And now I’m damn well done, okay? So it’s been real and all.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he hissed in her ear. “I gave you a hefty pile of cash as a deposit to do a job, you bitch!”
Teddy clenched the phone in her hand, ready to lob it across the top of the hedge maze. “And I’ll send your hefty pile of cash right back at’cha the second I get off this phone and I can transfer it from my account to yours. I’m out, hear me? Out. Later!”
She hung up while she still had the opportunity to cut him off and hit her bank account, transferring the lump deposit he’d made back to his account, and then she turned the phone off. She needed time with a computer to investigate this feeling in her gut that said something wasn’t right. Whatever this was, she wanted no part of it anymore.
Teddy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. She’d needed that money to help Sanctuary, and now it was gone with the wind. But no way was she getting into something that grew shadier by the second.
A tear slipped down her cheek for all the animals and wild birds that’d be farmed out to zoos and places they didn’t belong, to be put on display because she’d never be able to get Sanctuary out of hock now. Mr. Noodles and Suits and Kim and Kanye would all suffer.
Then she swiped the tear away in anger. She was just tired. That was all. She’d figure out another way to do this.
Once she wasn’t being hunted, that was.
Slipping back inside, she let her face rest against the cool wood of the doorframe, in the hopes she’d gather her thoughts before she had to face a crowd of people.
A hand thumped her back, clunky but gentle.