It was Luke’s reflexes that moved the stick a half second before David grabbed it. So intent was her brother that he launched himself over the desk and scuttled after it, like a pit bull on a steak even as Luke raised his hand over his head, keeping it out of his reach.
“DAVID!” Dani cried, reaching to restrain him.
“MINE!” David screamed like a small child denied a favorite toy. No, it was more than that; there was terror warring with hope in his open expression. Dani was more afraid of that than any other abnormality she’d seen in David lately.
“Go watch the door!” Luke grunted. David’s nails were digging into Luke’s fist, trying to get the stick out of Luke’s hand.
“It’s mine! Father left it for me!”
“Then what’s the key?” Luke demanded.
“Give it!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Katie stepped through the door and hissed so hard it had to have burned the back of her throat. “I can hear you all the way across the house!”
“That stick!” David cried, and opened Luke’s hand enough to expose the device. Both of David’s hands were on Luke’s hand and wrist; Luke was pressing him back with his free hand, and Dani was trying to pull them apart.
“It has enough information to put Benny away for life!” David was sobbing. “I was supposed to use it, I was supposed to have it, and HE stole it. It’s mine!”
Katie strode over to the wrestling match and plucked the USB stick from Luke, holding it up the light to see it better. “That’s what’s on here? Evidence?”
Then, before Dani could figure out what she had in mind, Katie turned and simply walked over to the microwave and threw the stick inside. She hit a single button, and within seconds the stick exploded in a shower of multicolored sparks that bounced off the walls and window like a spastic fireworks celebration. It jumped, twisted, and finally a small, resentful fire popped and slowly burned.
Dani stood helplessly, hand outstretched toward the conflagration, halted mid-leap in what was supposed to be a desperate attempt to save it.
The door opened. In walked Benny.
“I destroyed it,” Katie said, turning to welcome him with a cheerful smile.
“Good.” Benny smiled, and called over his shoulder to the first thug through the door: “Jimmy, tomorrow, go out and get another microwave.”
Luke and David let go of one another slowly, standing and straightening. Dani put her hand down. The room filled with smoke.
No one looked anywhere else but at Katie.
For her part, Katie’s eyes never left David. In her eyes was hate. It absolutely radiated from her.
There was small beep from the microwave. Apparently it was done.
So were they.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I told you,” Katie seethed. “I told you I would make you pay.” She poked David in the chest and then smiled up at him. It was the same sort of smile a cat uses to greet a mouse. The way David was wrapped up in himself, it seemed an appropriate analogy.
Luke blinked once in surprise. Some stuff was clicking together, but not fast enough.
“Katie, what the hell’s going on?” Dani asked. Luke put his arm around her. She was shaking, though she was doing everything in her power not to show it. He tried to draw her back, away from the others. Wanting to protect her.
Being Dani, she resisted.
He looked around for something to use as a weapon, something they could use for cover, whatever they could conceivably use. The room was too crowded, and there weren’t a whole lot of options. Diving under the desk would get them nowhere. And against hardened killers, all of whom have guns? Yeah, throw a stapler at Benny.
“What the hell was on that USB?” Katie yelled, shaking David hard like a terrier with a rat. Also not a bad analogy. Poor David’s head rocked back and forth so violently it was a wonder it stayed on. Luke almost felt sorry for him.
“I don’t know!” David wailed, flailing at her uselessly. Trying to get away.
She was interrogating him. She didn’t know.
Suddenly everything clicked. Luke realized when he’d seen David at the party, he was arrogant, self-assured. Later when they had gone climbing, he’d been an ass, then...
“You sent the note,” Luke blurted. Everyone stopped as though the projector had broken, and the film stayed in place.
“What are you talking about?” Dani turned to Luke, hurt and confusion in her eyes.
“At the party. ‘Boom, you’re dead’. It was you who placed that on his jacket.”
“Just a little love letter,” Katie purred, preening a little as though she’d been complimented. Her grip released on David’s shirt, sending him to the floor, hard.
“If it wasn’t you,” Luke asked David, trying to force pieces into place, “then why didn’t you get worried when it happened? You took that awfully calmly, as I recall.”
David shrugged. “The jacket? Father said that one of my friends from college was playing a gag. I thought he knew. I figured the car was the same thing. I was getting pissed, and then Father vanished.”
“The coward,” Benny cursed under his breath, adding something that Luke couldn’t quite hear but that seemed to involve a whole lot of four-letter words.
“But how did you key the car?” Dani looked back and forth between Katie and David. “You were with us the whole time.”
Katie smiled and looked over her shoulder.
Benny shrugged, extending his hands in a helpless, what’re-you-gonna-do kind of gesture. “Ms. Linnear was in my employ. She only needed to call. I had a man go and deliver her message in her place, while she kept all of you busy.”
While she established an alibi taking the long way back around to the car, giving everyone else plenty of time to discover the message with her nowhere near, Luke realized. He frowned. “And the empty box.” Luke added after a minute. “The bomb that wasn’t...”
Benny smiled. “I thought that would be a nice touch.”
“But what was on the STICK?” Katie yelled, bringing the attention back to her by kicking David hard in the shins. David whimpered, and scrambled backwards out of her reach, coming up against the couch, and half-climbing, half-falling onto the cushions.
“It no longer matters,” Benny said as he lay a proprietary hand on her shoulder. “it’s destroyed. Tell me, Agent Milligan, or whatever you go by, how many copies are there?”
Luke had seen that coming for a while. He figured Benny would catch on sooner or later; being a vicious killer didn’t mean you were stupid. When Katie came into the picture, it had to happen. He was a little surprised by Dani’s reaction, as she should have seen it coming, too. She stood there, her eyes wide, looking for all the world like the Easter Bunny had just torn apart Santa Claus.
“None,” David piped up, sounding forlorn.
Dani turned to him, her mouth opening and closing as though she couldn’t get the words out that she sorely needed to say. Luke was beginning to worry; if she kept swiveling her head around like that she was going to get whiplash.