by Eva Chase
At his grim tone, I braced myself. “What?”
“I put some pressure on a guy with access at the airport here. Three men booked tickets together from Zagreb to Split at the last minute yesterday morning. Under different names, but they’ve used covert tactics in the past. You thought they might be focusing on Split, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I muttered. “Before I heard them talking about their travel plans the other night. Fuck. You know what it is? They found the bug, and they decided to jerk us around like we’ve jerked them.”
Garrett’s notepad hadn’t been specific enough to tip me off. He’d jotted down information that I guessed must have come from conversations with various police officials here, but he’d been looking into thefts and similar crimes all along the coastal mountains. There’d been a few more pages devoted to the Split area than to Zadar, but it hadn’t been totally unbelievable they might have found out something else that had tipped them the other way.
I let out a growl of frustration. Bash gave a dry chuckle. “How should we pay them back, Mori?”
“I need to know what they were doing in Split. They might have found the place already. If they stick their noses any more into this situation…”
Bash diplomatically avoided reminding me that I was the one who’d pointed the trio toward a possible mountain-side commune in the first place. “We’ll find a way to redirect them.”
“Yes, yes.” I glared at the ceiling, and the ping of an incoming text on one of my other phones carried from my purse. I reached for it, and my eyebrows jumped up. “Well, isn’t this interesting. Inspector Detective Lestrade just reached out. They want me to come by their hotel for a chat.”
Bash made a skeptical noise. “I don’t like the sound of that. Either they want something out of you, or they think they’ve got something on you.”
“I might as well play ball to see what they’re up to. One can hope they’ll have their guard down a bit if I seem to be cooperating by coming to them. Are you in your spot near the hotel?”
“I’ve got eyes on the lobby and the audio coming through.”
“All right. I’ll tell them I’ll meet them in the lobby, and I’ll stay close to the windows once I get there. On the off-chance I should need backup, I’ll signal you.”
“I’ll be watching.”
I texted Garrett with the lobby suggestion. He agreed readily enough. I studied the phone for a moment longer, debating calling him up just to hear the tone of his voice. The written word was such an opaque medium.
Well, I’d get an even better read on the three of them in person. It wasn’t as if they could be arranging to arrest me or anything that involved. Even if they had found the commune of the shrouded dagger, they couldn’t have connected the place to anything I’d done, since I’d never been near the place. At this point they might know more about it than I did.
I hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet, so I ordered room service and took a quick shower, and then downed eggs and pastries while pulling on a simple smock dress that gave me plenty of room to maneuver. I hadn’t made any promises about exactly when I’d meet Garrett and the others.
By the time I reached their hotel lobby, the trio was already standing near the elevators. Too tight a spot for my tastes. I ambled along the broad front window where Bash would have a view of us and waited for the three men to come to me.
Sherlock swiveled, revealing a padded plastic brace around his foot and a crutch tucked under his arm. As he made his way over with a swaying gait, something in my chest twisted. Had those perverse bastards managed to hurt him while he was just poking around? I’d wring all their psychopathic necks on my way to that dagger.
But I wasn’t supposed to know where they’d been or even that they’d left town. Better to let them think they had me fooled a little longer.
I cocked my head as they reached me. “What happened to you? A little too much breaking and entering?”
Sherlock gave me a thin smile. His expression struck me as cooler than usual. “I never break and enter,” he said. “It’s hardly my fault if a door just happens to open for me.”
I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. John looked more tense than usual too, which I’d have put down to concern over Sherlock’s injury if it had been the only change. Garrett had his hands slung in his pockets, his mouth set in a scowl, but that was pretty standard from him these days. He probably wasn’t all that happy about the stolen notepad.
I glanced around the little semi-circle they’d formed. “I’m here. What important matters did you need to discuss?”
“I think this is the sort of conversation it’d be better not to have in public,” John said. “Come up to our rooms?”
A warning prickle crept up my spine. “No, that’s all right, I’m perfectly happy here,” I said. “Or we could head down the street to Franjo’s. I did just eat, but I can always find room for a little extra dessert.”
Sherlock shifted to the side. If he hadn’t been on the damned crutch, I might have marked the movement faster, but my first instinct was to assume he was simply adjusting his balance. The next second, the blunt metal muzzle of a gun pressed into my back, just below my shoulder blades. Right where a bullet could shatter through my ribs to puncture my heart.
John rapped his walking stick against the ground in additional warning. Garrett’s expression tightened even more.
“We’re going to the elevators,” Sherlock said in a flat, measured voice that had more steel to it than I’d ever heard before, “or the three of us will be carrying out the rest of this investigation without any assistance from the late Jemma Moriarty. Are we clear?”
My pulse stuttered. I hadn’t pictured this possibility, and if I had, I’d have said they’d never have been fully committed, that they’d have been bluffing enough that I could have slipped their grasp with a few well-placed blows and a fast dash.
There was no bluff at all in Sherlock’s tone or the others’ eyes. No hint of the desire I’d managed to stir in them before. If I played this wrong, the man at my side would kill me, clean and simple.
What the hell had happened yesterday to harden them like this?
It was my fucking fault for underestimating them. I should have watched my back better; I should have read their mood faster. I shouldn’t have let myself get so damned cocky.
I wasn’t alone, though. I gave a slight nod and turned toward the elevators, splaying my hand against the side of my purse where it’d be visible through the window.
Bash would follow. Between the two of us, we’d get me out of this mess.
“This is a rather different reception than you’ve generally given me,” I said as we marched across the lobby, Garrett falling in behind me to block anyone else from seeing Sherlock’s gun. “Would someone like to fill me in on why you feel this is necessary?”
Garrett guffawed roughly. “Give it a little thought, and I’m sure you can think of a few dozen reasons.”
His pocket rustled with a metallic rasp. As the elevator door hummed closed, he tugged my arms back behind me.
Panic flashed through me. I dropped my purse and jabbed out with a knee, an elbow, not thinking, just drawing on years of physical training.
Those years might have given me the upper hand against one of those men, but three—it was a desperate gamble. My heel smacked Sherlock’s calf just above his ankle brace. He hissed, but he stayed on his feet, shoving me hard against the elevator wall with the muzzle of the gun digging deep. John let out a grunt from the impact of my elbow, but he wrenched my hand back into Garrett’s grasp. His walking stick shot up to jab my throat.
The solid bite of a pair of handcuffs clicked around my wrists. I jerked back from John’s stick, my throat aching where he’d hit me. “What the fuck?” I sputtered.
“We’ve become better acquainted with the full extent of your criminal activities,” Sherlock said. “I’m afraid it no longer seems wise to let you roam around freely.”
“So,
what? You’re going to chain me up in your hotel room like a dog?” I summoned the composure I’d momentarily lost and twisted my head to catch Sherlock’s gaze. “Maybe you get off on that idea.”
A flicker of discomfort crossed his face, but the gun didn’t waver. “Believe me, I don’t take any pleasure from this at all.”
John scooped up my purse as the elevator stopped at their floor. They hustled me off and escorted me straight to their suite.
“I’d still like to know what it is you’re expecting to get out of doing this,” I said. “You obviously don’t have any grounds to arrest me, or you’d be taking me to the police.”
Sherlock pushed open the door. “I don’t trust the local law enforcement to take a deft enough hand with your dealings. You might improve your situation by talking to us. When we’ve seen where you stand, you can be assured you’ll be delivered to the appropriate authorities.”
“For what? What do you think I’ve done? Isn’t there some rule about informing people what you’re arresting them for?”
“We’re not arresting you,” Garrett said. “We’re just asking some questions.”
John pawed through my purse and came up with a single phone—a new burner I hadn’t used yet. I’d at least been wary enough not to cart all my devices to this meeting. “There’s nothing on here,” he said to Sherlock, who made a dismissive gesture.
They’d been set up for this capture. The three of them ushered me through the living area into Sherlock’s bedroom, where a wooden chair was already poised by the foot of the bed. The covers lay neatly tucked and a hint of tobacco laced the air, just like when I’d snuck in here two days ago. Otherwise everything felt totally different. The taste of blood lingered in my mouth, sharp and metallic, from biting my lip when Sherlock had shoved me in the elevator.
Garrett pushed me into the chair. The hard back jarred against my spine. He secured the chain of the handcuffs to a wooden rung with a plastic restraint. I sat there awkwardly, my calves braced against the chair’s legs, an uncomfortable burn already pinching the muscles in my shoulders.
I sought out John’s eyes. Of the three, he’d always had the softest touch. He’d warmed up to me first and resisted me the least.
“You can’t really think this is okay. It’s not as if I’ve hurt anyone.” Recently, anyway.
He dropped his gaze. “We don’t know that,” he said stiffly.
The others had stepped back to stand in a slightly looser semi-circle than they’d formed around me downstairs. Sherlock stood in the middle, right in front of me, his pistol still clutched in his free hand. He leaned his weight on his crutch. I had the urge to suggest he get himself a chair too, but mouthing off at him in his current state didn’t strike me as all that wise.
“The first part is simple,” he said. “We’ve seen indications that you’re not working entirely for yourself but under the duress of a higher power. Tell us who has given you orders or directed your activities, however they have, and we may be able to end this unfortunate confrontation right now.”
I glared at him. “I don’t work for anyone. I don’t take orders. When I meet a ‘higher power,’ I hand it its ass.”
“All right. Then what orders have you given to your group operating out of the mountains near Split.”
If he expected me to look shocked that he’d figured that out, I didn’t see any point in giving him the satisfaction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What are they doing that you’re all up in arms about?”
The three men exchanged a glance. Fucking shrouded folk. Fucking cult. The trio had obviously seen or heard something out there yesterday that had shifted me in their minds from tempting shades of gray to pure menace to society. What were those deluded assholes up to other than protecting their beloved dagger?
“There’s no way she doesn’t know,” Garrett said.
“I concur.” Sherlock shifted his cool blue gaze back to me. “From the time I’ve spent in your presence, I can’t believe you wouldn’t be keeping strict control over any operations carried out on your behalf.”
If they wouldn’t tell me what the problem was, I couldn’t explain it away. I might end up telling them more than I wanted to at the same time. I dragged in a breath, and the air conditioner thrummed on. With that sound, the bedroom door eased open just an inch, so smoothly none of the men facing me noticed.
My spirits leapt. Bash had made it. I had to give him an opening, had to turn this situation around so we could break me out of it.
My fingers shifted against the back of the chair, feeling for where I could grip it. Even attached to my rear, it could make an effective weapon if I swung it well. All I needed was to batter my way through the trio to the door, and then it’d be Bash’s gun against Sherlock’s. A fair stand-off.
“I think you’ve been talking to the wrong people,” I said to buy myself a little more time as I readied for my charge. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done or ordered done that should be such a shock to you after what you already knew. Nothing worse than what you’re doing to me right now, so I guess that makes you a bunch of hypocrites.”
“Nothing worse—are you joking?” Garrett snapped. He motioned to Sherlock. “She isn’t going to say anything. This is pointless. We should just arrange to turn her over and figure out the rest on our own.”
“Turn me over?” I said. “I still haven’t heard how you’re going to accomplish that.”
Sherlock stepped closer and crouched down in front of me. Too close for me to whip my chair around without him catching the signs and stopping me before I could land a real blow. My fingers tightened around the rungs I’d gripped. The second he stepped back—
“By proving you’re in possession of not one but multiple stolen artifacts,” he said, and tugged the skirt of my dress high enough to reveal the gold cuff. He met my eyes pointedly. “I did some more research. You have four major thefts on your rap sheet just with this.”
John mumbled a curse behind him. My bared skin tingled with the cooling air. The blood vessels around the cuff showed starkly through my flesh, as if my thigh was starting to turn as translucent as my fingers had the other day.
He reached for it, and my heart stopped.
“Don’t touch it!” I said, instinctively jerking back in the chair. The movement sent a pulse of pain up my bound arms.
Sherlock ignored my protest. His fingers slid along the cuff searching for a connective seam. “We need it disassembled so we can confirm each stolen item with the original owners.”
My chest constricted so abruptly I couldn’t breathe. The second he detached that thing, Bog would sense my presence, no matter where in its world the shrouded one was. It would descend on me like the demonic fiend it was and shred my soul. In one instant, everything I’d done, everything I’d fought for, would shatter.
I whipped up my foot, catching Sherlock in the jaw. He reeled back, his gun hand jerked up, and in that instant I knew there were two ways this could go. I could die in a pool of blood or a shrouded one’s gullet, or I could scream and bring Bash blasting in, taking all three of the men around me down.
My blood or theirs.
My throat clenched around the scream. I didn’t want either of those choices. But Bash didn’t wait for more than the sounds of scuffle he’d already heard. The door slammed open.
The words broke from my mouth. “No! No, Bash, don’t.”
My hitman halted on the threshold, his hand quivering as if it’d taken a concentrated effort to hold himself back from squeezing the trigger. Garrett and John jerked out of the way, John fumbling a pistol out of his own pocket. Sherlock’s head jerked around to take in the new arrival. He kept his gun aimed at my head.
“I can still take them, Mori,” Bash said, his voice raw. “Piece of cake.”
“No,” I said again. The decision I’d made without much chance to think it over reverberated through me. I dragged in a breath. “I don’t want them dead. They’re just doing their j
ob.” Too fucking well.
He grimaced. “Fine. But if anyone shoots her, she won’t be able to tell me to stand down anymore, so you’d better be ready to lose your own life over that choice.”
“Who the hell are you?” Garrett said, braced as if he wanted to fight but didn’t know how to start. As the only man in the room not holding a firearm, he couldn’t be blamed for a little uncertainty.
Bash didn’t answer.
“He’s the guy who would have killed all three of you if I hadn’t stopped him,” I said, managing to keep my voice steady. “That’s not how I want to leave this room. Please don’t make me regret it.”
Garrett let out a choked sound. “So you’ll kill kids, but we’re somehow exempt?”
“Who said anything about killing kids?” I said, my gut wrenching, and then I knew with a punch of cold right through my chest. The shrouded folk and their brutal rituals, their sadistic ideas of fun. They hadn’t been quite discrete enough down near Split.
My whole body tensed. I’d like to strangle the fiends—and then rip their misty heads from their bodies and dropkick them off a cliff.
Too bad that might not even hurt them.
Sherlock looked back at me, at the rage that must have crossed my face, and his own cold expression faltered with a hint of uncertainty. His hand adjusted its grip on the gun, and Bash cleared his throat.
“Get that thing away from her head, now.”
Sherlock eased back, groping for the crutch he’d set down. My gaze slid from him to Garrett and John standing rigid at opposite ends of the room, then to Bash in the doorway between us. What an epic mess I’d made. And if I didn’t want it to still end up with a whole lot of blood on the floor, I was going to have to talk my way out of it.
I’d decided the trio’s lives were worth something. Worth enough to trust that they wouldn’t take mine. Why should I even care?