Page 11

Chapter

Ten

BONES

G race Black was a problem. The delicate, fragile looking woman with her doll-like features was likely used to getting her way. Doubtlessly, she charmed and coaxed her way through life and achieved what she wanted with a smile and a wink.

The fact Lunchbox nudged her to eat and no one said anything while she ate seemed to displease her. Despite those objections, which she didn’t voice, she dug into the food. The first couple of bites were tentative. The next few were a little steadier.

Alphabet waited for her to begin eating before he tucked into his own plate. When my breakfast was done, I rose to wash the plate. Voodoo had eaten earlier, and currently he sat there studying Grace.

Instead of joining us, Lunchbox leaned against the counter. He had his arms folded and like Voodoo, he studied Grace as well. When I walked past him and broke his sight line he frowned at me.

I shook my head as we locked gazes. Not a good idea.

He raised his shoulders. What did I want from him?

I just stared. I wanted him to think. The woman was a client. That was all.

With a snort, he nodded back to the table where she attempted to stealthily slip bacon to Goblin. The only one unaware that we were all watching her was her.

After bumping a fist to Lunchbox’s shoulder, I took the time at the sink to wash up. I’d washed the earlier dishes as well. Lunchbox cooked, one of us cleaned.

“Do you want any more?” Alphabet asked as he pushed his chair back. The scrape told me he was done with his breakfast too.

“No,” she said. “I couldn’t eat more. It was very good, Lunchbox. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He moved to begin cleanup at the stove and Alphabet eased his way over to the sink. The slow pace betrayed his discomfort. His leg was still bothering him. Lunchbox said it was hurting the day before.

We were going to lock down here at least one more day before we put him back on the road. No one spoke while we finished cleaning, then I carried the coffee pot back to the table so everyone could refill their cups.

Unsurprisingly, Lunchbox and Alphabet took the chairs on either side of Grace. They were already invested. Successful jobs required a certain amount of dispassionate commitment.

“Ms. Black,” I said, opening the conversation. “We need to ask you a few questions, but before we do that—in the interests of covering all our bases—can you fill us in on the details of how you came to be aboard that rig?”

“Yes,” she said, not playing any games. I appreciated the directness. “I can tell you what I know. First, however, I want answers to my requests beginning with a phone so I can call my sister.”

“You’ll need to wait a little longer,” Voodoo said before I could respond. “I will get you a burner you can use. If you are being tracked, which the pair of five-man teams who attempted to reacquire you suggests, then we don’t want to leave a digital trail for them to follow.”

She paled at the suggestion.

Alphabet blew out a breath, his expression turning grim. “He’s not wrong. Our phones are encoded and linked. If we used one of them, we’d need to dump them all and start over. Right now, we can’t do that.”

All rational explanations. We couldn’t do it because we didn’t have Alphabet’s gear here. For her part, Grace worried at her lower lip.

“That means my sister is in danger.”

“Highly probable,” I told her and ignored Lunchbox’s sharp frown. I didn’t see any use in mincing our words. “That means the sooner we have actionable intel, the sooner we can make some decisions.”

“But what if they get her while we wait for another phone?” Those words cost her, the hell in her eyes made that clear.

Time to rip this particular blinder off. “I would propose if she has been targeted the same as you or in order to get to you—then she’s already been taken. Calling won’t help her and will only endanger you.”

The soft blue of her eyes went wet with unshed tears as she put a hand over her mouth. I wasn’t telling her anything she wanted to hear. As unfortunate as that might be, she needed to understand that anyone sending trained teams after her weren’t going to stop.

We didn’t have time to softball this.

The expected tears didn’t fall. We were given a front row seat to her wrestling her emotions back under some control. The struggle played out on her face as she finally dropped her hands to wrap around her coffee cup.

“I hate that you could be right.” Temper blazed in those eyes as she raised them to meet my gaze once more. “I hate that maybe she was already gone before I was.”

“Explain,” I told her. It wasn’t quite an order, but the time for coddling was later.

A sigh deflated her and she dropped her gaze to her coffee cup. “Amorette, she’s my sister, and I had plans for a weekend away. She’s an attorney, and a crusader. She’s—the best.” Grace licked her lips, gathering her composure. It was a fascinating process to watch. “We were going to meet at a place we rented at the Outer Banks and just have a girls weekend. She never showed up…”

With each sentence, Grace gained strength until she recited her hours from the drive to arriving to calling her sister and each call going unanswered and unreturned.

Amorette Black was likely gone before Grace left Manhattan, but I kept that assessment to myself. Her time in the Outer Banks probably only delayed her own acquisition.

When she reached the part about driving to her sister’s place and then being grabbed it made me reassess. Maybe Grace wasn’t the target. But who targeted an attorney and then took the model sister?

Alphabet’s expression went stony when she described where she woke up.

“They knew you specifically?” Voodoo asked, shifting forward in his seat. “By name?”

The question stymied her for a moment, then she lifted her shoulders. “They kept saying ‘you,’ like they meant me. I assumed they must have known me. Not trying to be arrogant, but I have a very well-known face. So, they might very well have meant me but not known my name.”

“But your sister is your identical twin?” Voodoo continued and I could see where he was going. Grace’s sudden hard swallow said she did as well.

“You think they took her thinking she was me?”

“We’re not thinking anything,” I resumed the line of questioning. “There are a number of theories we can speculate on, but I’d rather hold on all of those until we have all the information. No sense in wasting time or emotional energy on a worry that might not be one.”

The way her teeth scraped over her lower lip nagged at me. It was such a sign of open vulnerability.

“I guess,” she said with a sigh, then rubbed a hand against her face. “Anyway, the man who was in charge I guess—I never got his name—had the suit whipped for trying to hurt me.”

No matter how hard she worked to divorce herself, the tone didn’t quite ring true. Kidnapped. Waking up in a strange place. Shackled. Women being raped around her. Then being raped herself.

She didn’t describe it that way, but whether she went along with the plan or not to prevent injury didn’t make it anything but forced consent.

“In the morning, there were shouts and fighting. I don’t know who the people were that came in, but there was also gunfire. I think I just froze, in the hallway. The man tried to make me go with him, but I couldn’t move.”

Now she folded her arms and rubbed her hands against her biceps as though trying to chase away a chill. I didn’t doubt the memories she detailed were unpleasant.

“You were going into shock,” Alphabet told her. While there was a rough sympathy in his eyes, he didn’t try to comfort her. “It’s normal in live fire. Especially if you’re not used to it.”

“He gave up and left me there.”

“Fucking coward,” Lunchbox muttered. I didn’t disagree, but leaving her there put her on that rig. If he’d gotten her out, she might not be sitting here.

After, she described hitting her head and then waking up in the truck.

“I have no idea how long I was on there. I don’t even really know what day it is. I was going to look at my place and then those guys came in and I froze again.”

“You didn’t freeze for long,” Lunchbox said. “You were fighting.”

“I guess,” she said. “So…now you know what I know. Does that tell you where Amorette is? Or how we can get to her?”

“No,” I answered. “It gives us a place to start. We need another day for Alphabet to rest and you should too. You’re still shocky.”

“I am not,” she argued, a frown tightening her brow.

“You are,” Voodoo slid right into the fray without batting an eyelash. He liked to smooth things over. “Your breathing is shallow. You’re pale. Your eyes are glassy. You have zoned out twice during the debrief. Being in shock isn’t an insult or a weakness. It is, however, something we can’t ignore.”

“He’s right,” Alphabet said, frowning as he studied her. “We need you whole and that means looking after yourself.”

“But if we spend another day here, that’s another day before we can even try to call Am.” She clasped onto the razor thin thread connecting her to hope where her sister was concerned.

I was under no such illusions. Yes, we would verify everything, but based on what she told us, her sister was most likely abducted and was fuck knew where at the moment, or she was dead.

I kept the latter to myself.

“Gracie,” Lunchbox put a hand over hers where she white-knuckled the coffee cup. “You resting doesn’t mean we stop working. We need supplies and gear. We need to make arrangements to move to another location. Voodoo will need time to get you a burner and we can also reach out to contacts and start a line of inquiry.”

Not a bad plan. One of those contacts would obviously be Doc. He was the one who called us in the first place.

“And I do what? Just sleep? Stare at the walls?”

“You rest, you regain your strength and tomorrow, we will get on the road.” I rose. “If you want to argue and refuse to sleep, then we could be here another day or longer. The last thing that will help your sister is if you collapse or freeze up because you haven’t dealt with the shock.”

Cold? Maybe. But she seemed to respond to the facts.

Grace stared at me. A dozen arguments sparked and then died in her eyes without her saying a word. The impasse lasted another minute, then she jerked her hands from Lunchbox and shoved the chair back.

While she didn’t run, she did stride down the hall to the room she’d slept in the night before. The soft click of the door echoed far louder than if she’d slammed it.

“That was a bastard thing to do,” Alphabet said, glaring at me.

“It was necessary,” I reminded him. “She’s not the only one who needs rest. Get some rack time. I’m going to make some calls.”

None of them argued, not even the compromised pair. Voodoo had played his part, but he didn’t look any happier about it. Making the girl miserable wasn’t the goal.

Keeping her alive was.

She didn’t have to like it. She just had to live.