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“Yes, ‘shit’. That is correct.”
The voice that emerged from behind me was familiar. So was the paunch pressing into the small of my back. That could only be...
“Slim?”
If I hadn’t been afraid any movement would result in a bullet through my skull, I would have kicked myself. I’d completely forgotten the promise I’d made to this bounty hunter. And while I had been attempting to track down Jimmy English’s killer, I definitely hadn’t informed my supposed partner of what little progress I’d made.
Nor had I sent my twin to waylay that confession letter. In the midst of worrying over a dying cousin, an anonymous murderer, and a pesky skinless, I’d totally dropped that ball.
“You sound so surprised. Did you forget I existed?”
And now I’d hurt his feelings. If the gun hadn’t been so cold and hard against my skin, I would have started laughing. This wasn’t a break-in. This was a couple’s therapy session.
“No, of course I didn’t forget about you.” I shifted my weight sideways, wanting to be prepared if Luke provided a distraction. Even flicking on the light would have proved helpful....
Apparently, though, Luke didn’t want to solicit gunfire in his dining room. Because his voice was just as far away as it had been previously when he spoke again. “How about we take a seat? Discuss this like rational human beings.”
Slim’s bark of laughter vibrated through my body. “Just like in Bastion’s July story from last year. Talk down the guy with the gun. Offer him a beer. Get him comfortable. Then—” the hand around my throat loosened for a split second as he gesticulated “—boom! Someone sneaks up behind me and knocks me over the head.”
“Except, your back is to the wall.”
Luke sounded so calm. But here in the darkness, I thought I could smell him. Wolf-like, the aroma came to me as an emotion rather than an odor. Worry. Tension. He was preparing to strike....
A move that not only wasn’t necessary; it was contraindicated. Slim was a reasonable guy. He wouldn’t shoot me...unless some stranger dove toward him out of the dark.
So I did my best to defuse the situation by keeping the other bounty hunter talking. “How did you find us?”
“The old thumb-drive-in-the-police-parking-lot trick.” Slim shrugged. “Found out you’d been present during a second suspicious death and that this guy was your only alibi. It wasn’t hard to track down where he lived.”
The room fell silent. I could almost see the way Luke’s eyebrows drew together as he requested clarification. “Thumb-drive-in-the-police-parking-lot trick? I don’t get it.”
“December, three years ago?” Slim’s arm loosened a little further. “Subtitle: Cops Can’t Help Being Helpful? If you drop a thumb drive in their employee parking lot, someone’s bound to pick it up and plug it into a computer to see who it belongs to. If it comes preloaded with a virus underneath innocuous files, then you end up with a backdoor into password-protected servers.”
Slim’s arm wasn’t so much around my throat now as resting on my shoulders. A few more of Bastion’s stories chewed over and he’d let me go so we could chat with each other face to face.
So I translated, first for Slim: “I don’t think Luke reads the forum.” Then for Luke: “Bastion likes to write up our adventures. He has a lot of fans.”
“Fans I promised to introduce you to.” The light in the dining room flipped on after all, but Luke wasn’t the culprit. Instead, Bastion stood swaying in the hallway...then he crumpled to the floor.
***
LUKE WASN’T THE ONLY one to bark expletives this time. All three of us swore a blue streak.
I did more than emote, however. I also let my knees fold just as fast as Bastion’s had. Turned the drop into a roll. Then sprinted to my cousin’s side.
In the process, Slim’s gun grazed my temple. I’d bruise, but that didn’t matter. All I had eyes for was Bastion’s head against the hard floor tiles.
Which way had he fallen? When my eyes winced shut at the end, had his crumple turned into a swan dive? I was afraid to move him and find out.
“He fell on his ass. He fainted. He’s fine.”
Luke’s words sounded brusque, but they tasted like honey. His hand brushed mine aside, slid into the indentation between Bastion’s collarbones. Luke’s eyes closed as he counted. Then he nodded, gaze latching onto mine and buoying me up before he explained verbally. “A hundred beats per minute. Just about what he was at previously. Not great, but no worse than he has been.”
Only then did I look away from my cousin, expecting to find Slim’s gun trained on the three of us. Instead, the bounty hunter had his phone out. If I wasn’t much mistaken, he was about to call an ambulance.
I put every ounce of authority I could into my voice as I barked. “Don’t.”
“Bastion can’t write my story if he’s dead.” The rebuttal should have sounded petulant. Instead, I got the distinct impression Slim was less interested in the promised writeup and more interested in ensuring that his idol remained safe.
Grace would have pounced on that weakness. She would have manipulated Slim’s emotions until he let us entirely off the hook.
But I wasn’t my twin. Plus, I had a sneaky suspicion Slim might prove useful.
So, instead, I rolled back on my heels and offered what I hadn’t given Slim previously. A pie-shaped slice of the truth.