Christ, I was slipping. I’d let Drew get the whole way into the cabin and talk trash to me before I knew it was him. Being by myself for the past several weeks had me lowering my guard too much.
I did a push-up off the couch cushions and looked over the back.
“I see that you’re living like a king out here.” Mr. Clean stood by the mountainous pile of beer cans, staring down at it.
He had on a gray suit and tie. The man always wanted to look good when he was on the job. He said that people respected a sharply dressed detective.
I figured he was full of shit and just liked to play dress up.
Like a little girl.
A two hundred and twenty pound girl.
With a gun.
He was the only man who wore a suit that I trusted.
“Don’t make fun of my aluminum throne.” I got to my feet and stayed in front of the couch.
It was good to see my friend again, but I was wary of the lecture I was sure would follow.
Drew looked over at me and grimaced. “What’s that shit all over you?”
I inspected my chest. My sweat and the nastiness from the couch coated most of my skin. “Sorry. If I’d known you were coming I would have notified my butler to get the place in order.”
“Ashley, you have goop all over you. It looks like you were just on Double Dare.”
“I wish. I loved that show.”
Drew kicked a few empty beer cans out of the way and walked further into the cabin. He peered around at the dirty floors and dingy kitchen. “Nice to see that the landlord has upgraded the place.”
“Yeah, it really shows that he cares.”
Drew opened the fridge, frowned at the smell that wafted out, and quickly closed it again. “I’d be drunk all the time if I lived here too.”
“Did you come here just to shit on my life? If so, I’d rather skip that so I can get some sleep and then get back to my drinking.”
“That’s only part of it.” He peeked into the bathroom and shook his head. “Beautiful.” He finally stopped judging my bachelor pad and leaned against the wall by the far end of the couch, standing about ten feet away from me. “I got a call from Jane Barker. Seems she’s come upon some money.”
“Oh yeah? Good for her—she deserves it.”
Drew nodded. “That she does. It’s an odd situation, though. She logged into her account and found an extra eight grand in it. The account it was transferred from was closed. She called me to see if I could look into it.”
“And here you are.”
“And here I am.” Drew crossed his arms over his chest. “That was a good thing you did, Ashley.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
We both knew I had given her the money, but I didn’t want to admit it. Drew thought that I was a bit of a masochist because of the way I lived. Money had been an issue for me since I was discharged, and I knew full well that he saw my giving away what little had come to me as a sign of my self-loathing.
Of course, he wouldn’t say that because of whom I had given it to, but that didn’t keep him from thinking it. Sometimes, it didn’t take a telepath to know what someone had on their mind.
My monetary situation had been a point of contention between us for a long time.
Drew had often tried to talk me into winning some money by playing poker or blackjack.
With my ability, that would have been easy.
Too easy.
I didn’t feel right about the whole idea of it. People gambled because they thought they could win. If I were sitting across from them, always knowing what hand they held, it would be the equivalent of stealing from them.
I was many things, but a thief wasn’t one of them.
My moral compass often got me into less-than-desirable situations.
Being perpetually poor appeared to be one of those.
“You deserved that money too.” Drew gestured around at my highfalutin palace. “This is beneath even you.”
“Why? Why do I deserve anything more than she does? Her husband is gone. I’m still here.” I mimicked his gesture around my place with a bit more anger than I’d intended. “Look around you, man. My life is over. She has a lot of years ahead of her. So does her kid.”
“Do we really need to get into this again?” Drew sighed.
“I’d rather not. Having you define my worth is getting old. Let’s just get drunk and laugh about shit.”
“The sun isn’t even up yet.”
“Everyone keeps saying that to me.”
“It’s time to come back to the world again. We need your help.”
“We?” I didn’t like the sound of that. When people said they needed my help, it usually ended up with me getting shot at. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“You know who I’m talking about. Don’t act stupid.”
I knew. Of course, I did. Smith was still out there. He had a vendetta against the United States’ government. I always knew they would come knocking, wanting me to help them find that scar-faced bastard.
What I didn’t expect was for them to send my best friend, my only friend, to do it for them.
So, I decided to ignore it altogether.
Like a man does.
“How’s Melissa?” I asked.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“She still hate me?”
Drew didn’t answer.
“I don’t blame her, you know? If you didn’t know me, you’d have a normal life. You’d catch bad guys and then go home and play softball.”
“Play softball?” Drew smirked.
“Isn’t that what regular people do?”
“How would I know? Being normal is boring. I’m getting tired of these games, Ashley. We went through this a long time ago. Don’t make me talk you off the ledge all over again.”
“I’m not—”
A small voice came from the door. “Goddamn, it fucking stinks in here. Take a shower, you smelly bastard.”
The tone, vulgarity, and overall mischievousness of that voice could only have come from one person.
I looked around and grinned at Nami Williams. She stood by my epic mound of beer cans, waving a hand in front of her face. I laughed, and said, “Short Round!”
Nami wore a t-shirt with some anime-style characters on it that I didn’t recognize. Her long, black hair was pulled into two ponytails jutting from either side of her head. “Short Round? What the hell does that mean?”
I gaped at her for a full five seconds before looking over at Drew. “Is she for real?”
Drew shrugged. “Probably. She’s into some really weird stuff. I doubt she has time for the classics.”
“Both of you can kiss my perky, black ass. What classic?”
“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Are you telling me you’ve never seen it?”
“Sounds stupid.” Nami stepped further inside. “And don’t call me short, Ogre.”
“If you ever call Indiana Jones stupid again, I’ll punt you like a football.” I held my arms open and beckoned her over. “Now come give me a hug.”
“What are you covered in?” She pointed at my chest. “Is that petroleum jelly? Did you know that Drew was coming over so you oiled yourself up for him?”
“What?” I asked. “You act like you’ve never seen a man covered in jelly before.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, feast your eyes and fantasize.” I considered bouncing my pecs, but figured it best to save my sweetest moves for a special occasion. “And no, I didn’t do this for Drew. He wouldn’t be able to handle my overpowering masculinity.”
Drew bayed laughter. “Don’t drag me into this.”
“Why not? You dragged me all the way over here to Redneck City. You deserve everything I can dish out.” Nami turned her attention back to me. “I don’t want to be out here any longer than I have to. The woods are gross. Get in the fucking car and come back with us.”
I ignored her and turned my attention to Drew. “Why is she here?”
“Don’t act like I’m not standing here,” Nami said. “I came here to talk your dumb ass into helping us find that jerk weed, Smith. We all owe him one or fifty.”
Drew said, “Exactly. I knew you wouldn’t listen to just me, so I brought help.”
“I’ve only met Short Round one time. Why would I care what she thinks?”
“I’ll kick you right in the dick.” Nami walked around the couch and peered up at me. “We went through hell together, so don’t pretend like we’re total strangers.”
It had been quite a while since I’d been around her, so I had almost forgot just how short she really was. I stood at least two feet taller than she did.
And she was right about one thing—combat makes brothers and sisters out of the least likely of people. Nami and I had nothing in common outside of our penchant for swearing.
But a lot of guns, explosions, and murders had brought us together. It was a bond that only those who have experienced extreme circumstances could understand.
I opened my mouth to fire off another smart-ass retort when she winced.
“Whoa, you really do stink. What’s that funk coming off you?” She waved her small hand in front of her face again. “You smell like a bag of assholes.”
“I just went for a run. Shut up.”
“What did you run through? A waterfall of skunk piss?”
Drew whistled. The sound was so loud and startling in the small room that both Nami and I jumped. “I’d rather not stand here and talk about Ash’s hygiene. Let’s get this over with so we can all get to work.”
“Sorry, Baldy. I’m sitting this one out.” I plopped onto the couch.
Dust puffed up around me.
Nami took a few steps back, her eyes growing into horrified ovals. “I’m literally in Hell.”
“Here’s the pitch,” Drew said. “A new unit has been formed to find Smith and everyone working for him. Nami and I have been brought in because of our skill sets and our knowledge of what happened with Murdock, you, and Smith. But if we’re being honest, there’s only so much we can do without you.”
“Murdock is dead,” I mumbled. “And you don’t need me to find Smith. Unless I get within a few hundred feet of him, or someone working for him, then I won’t do you a damn bit of good. You’re the detective. Go detect.”
“Stop being a pussy,” Nami said.
I clapped my hands together. “Oh, well, never mind then. You’ve convinced me.”
Drew ignored both of us. “Things are worse than we thought, Ashley. Smith has more telepaths working for him than anyone knew about. He kept them, and a whole lot else, secret. We don’t even know how many of them there are. And he’s using them to blackmail key people in the intelligence industry. He has moles working inside the system everywhere.”
I didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Shit.”
“It gets worse,” Drew continued. “We think he’s planning something big, but we don’t know what or where.”
“How do you know he has something planned then?” I asked.
Drew nodded at Nami. “She managed to recover data from some destroyed hard drives left behind at the Psych Ward and identified one of the agents Smith was blackmailing. He didn’t have much information to give us when we arrested him, but we found out that he’d stolen some cryptography equipment for one of Smith’s men. He didn’t know who the man was, but he described him as tall with short hair and dead eyes.” Drew paused for effect. “And he wore a black suit.”
My shoulders tensed.
He’d just described the bastard I’d known as the Man in Black. We’d duked it out in a hallway and elevator not that long ago, with me winning the fight, but taking a beating of biblical proportions. My knee had been stiff for quite a while after that shithead had stomped on it.
I’d had to get stitches inside my mouth because of him.
That hurt.
Drew saw the sour expression spreading across my face. “Yeah, him. This man had kidnapped the agent’s mother and beat the tar out of her until he got what he wanted from the agent.”
I rubbed my temples. A headache was forming in a hurry. “So what you’re saying is that you need me to help you find out who is being blackmailed and who isn’t. You don’t know who to trust in our own government.”
“Exactly. We don’t expect you to go out on missions with us if you don’t want, but we sure could use your help when we bring someone in for questioning. You’ll know instantly who has done what and why. It’ll save us a ton of legwork.”
“And you’ll get paid,” Nami said. “Then you can actually take a shower every so often, you know? You’re so gross right now that you probably have mushrooms growing in your ass crack.”
I needed a drink in a bad way, so I got up and walked over to the fridge. Grabbing a can from the upper shelf, I popped the top. “You’re asking me to go inside of people’s heads again. You know what that does to me.”
Drew inspected his feet. “I know, man. I know. But I’ve run out of options here. People are scared shitless of what Smith might be planning. Considering what he tried to pull off in D.C., it’s hard to imagine that his next scheme will be anything short of catastrophic to us.”
“And you’re the Great White Hope.” Nami grinned at me. “Which really says a lot about how fucked we are. You’re drinking beer at sunrise and we’re asking for your help.”
I took a sip from the can. “Why are you here so early, anyway? I mean, it’s a good hour and a half drive or more to get here. You had to leave by, what, four in the morning?”
“The agents keeping an eye on you told us that you’ve been shithouse drunk by noon.” Drew pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the screen for a second. “We knew that we had to get here early if we were going to find you halfway sober.”
“Looks like we screwed the pooch on that one,” Nami said.
I shrugged and took another swig. They were right, of course, but I didn’t particularly want everyone listing off my numerous problems to me. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I’d slipped into full-blown alcoholism.
I’d started drink number two by breakfast, for Christ’s sake.
“So, what, you’re the IT support for this little operation?” I asked Nami. “They call you if someone’s email doesn’t work?”
“Don’t sass me, Ogre.”
“And I assume you’re helping with investigations?” I tipped my can at Drew. “What about your regular job at the station?”
“I’m doing both, right now, though I’ve been spending a lot more time on this lately. The feds told my captain to keep it quiet while I’m helping them.” He watched me for a bit. I returned his gaze, unblinking. “So, what are you going to do?”
I pretended to think about it as I polished off the last of the beer, but I’d already made up my mind. My fighting days were over. When I got involved, things went to hell. “Sorry, ladies. I’m retired.”
The empty went to the top of the pile. I was the John Elway of beer throwing.
“That’s what I thought you were going to say.” Drew walked across the room, heading for the door.
For a moment, I thought he might have actually given up.
I should have known better.
He stood in the doorway and waved at someone outside.
That made me do what I should have done when they’d first arrived—I let my mind wander out into the open space around the cabin.
Someone else was out there.
Feeling her presence made me suck in a quick breath. “You bastard.”
Drew looked at me over his shoulder. “Sorry, man, but you didn’t give me a choice.”
Sammy climbed out of the SUV outside and made her way toward my cabin.