Chapter 33 Clarice
CLARICE
Clarice recognized the moment that everything went sideways, quite literally.
“Enough!” The older woman who looked like someone’s crabby grandmother made a gesture and Bruno’s ill considered advance abruptly changed direction, crashing him into and breaking the French doors open onto the balcony.
To Clarice’s distress, he didn’t stop there, but went flying over the rail in a spray of broken glass, sailing out into space and landing on the frozen swimming pool with an explosion of shattered ice before he disappeared beneath the dark surface.
She heard her own scream like it was from someone else, but the nearest goon grabbed her as she got to the railing and pulled her back as if he was worried she was going to jump in after him.
“If he surfaces, shoot him,” Hunter said casually. Several of the nearest goons took that as an invitation to fire wildly at the pool and Clarice gave a strangled noise of dismay as little dimples appeared all over the ice.
“He’s a shifter,” the old man next to the apparently-magical grandmother said. “He might be something aquatic.”
Clarice found herself the focus of attention.
“What does our friend Bruno shift into?” Hunter asked her.
Clarice stared at him in horror. If Bruno wasn’t already dead, he would be the moment he came up for breath.
“I don’t know,” she said faintly. She didn’t mean it as a lie, she simply couldn’t make sense of anything, flooded with shock and dismay.
Air didn’t feel like it was getting to her own lungs. “I don’t know.”
“His son’s an armadillo,” one of the gray-coated men said. How much did these people know?
“That doesn’t mean he is.”
“Can you get it out of her?” Hunter asked the woman who had pushed Bruno over the edge without touching him.
Grandma gave him a disgusted eye roll. “Your ignorance is showing. Anyway, I thought you were the information expert. I’m beginning to doubt this partnership is an equal one.”
“Magic is one thing,” Hunter said dangerously. “Money is quite another.”
“This is pointless,” Grandpa said flatly. “That man is not a problem any longer.”
Because he was dead. The mercenaries were still watching the broken surface of the pool and Bruno hadn’t surfaced.
No one could hold their breath that long.
Nothing could. Clarice’s chest ached and she realized that at some point she had started crying; tears were tickling her cheeks and clouding vision that was already swimming.
Had the blast killed him, or knocked him unconscious so that he drowned?
Had one of the shots gotten lucky? It was bitterly cold. Maybe the shock had killed him.
“This woman is useless,” the Grandma. “Can we get rid of her, too?”
“I don’t think she’s useless,” Hunter said with a thoughtful frown.
Clarice felt her heart do a sick flipflop as if it was far away.
They were casually talking about her life, and she was sure she ought to be worried, but she felt sort of distant from her own self.
Shock? Grief? It was still silent below them, no sounds of splashing or cracking ice, and Clarice’s hope that Bruno would miraculously surface and somehow dodge the bullets that would follow was getting slimmer as her stomach felt worse.
“We can use her to get into the day care. Even if she’s not the Chase woman, the dad came here for her, so they must have some kind of connection.”
Every time that Clarice thought things couldn’t get worse, they managed to.
Were they going to use her to get to Gil?
She had to protect the boy, and the purpose gave her welcome clarity.
“What do you think I can do?” Her voice wavered, which Clarice thought was understandable, given the circumstances.
“And what do you want with Gil and Tara? They’re just kids!
” Did these people have any humanity to appeal to?
No one seemed very bothered that Bruno was dead.
“Look, Veronica, you don’t need—”
“I’m not Veronica Chase!” Clarice wept.
“She’s not Veronica Chase,” a familiar voice said. “I am.”
Clarice couldn’t decide if she was mad or just relieved to see Veronica sailing up the stairs with a goon scrambling behind her trying to look like he was in control. “I told you!”
Probably, rubbing it in was not the most diplomatic move Clarice could have made.
“You must be Hunter,” Veronica said, in her coldest freeze-them-out voice.
She usually saved that one for inspectors bringing her bad news and banks that were being difficult.
“I told you I was not interested in pursuing an association after I sent Owen packing.” She raked Hunter with a head-to-toe look that was thoroughly unimpressed.
Her fur-trimmed, cream-colored coat made Clarice’s borrowed white one look shabby.
“Owen was under too much scrutiny to continue as a partner in our operations, so I found new ones.”
“Don’t presume,” the scary old woman who looked completely harmless and had thrown Bruno through a window scoffed. “We’re only in this as long as it is convenient to us.”
Veronica seemed to see them for the first time. “I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced. You are…?” She managed to sound perfectly polite and yet completely condescending.
“Will you do something with them?” Grandma ignored Veronica’s outstretched hand. “Or do I have to throw someone else off a balcony?”