Chapter Six
Hunter
“Sit,” I say as I gather the tools off the kitchen table and then gesture at the two chairs. I leave the whiskey out; after the night I’ve had, I need it. First, with everything happening with Charlie and him being sick and cranky I feel like I’m losing my mind from both worry and lack o sleep, and second, after all that shit that happened in the drugstore and probably looking like a prime creep to the cute cashier, Emily, and now, finding her and someone else snooping… Something strange is definitely happening tonight, and I can’t take any chances.
“Please don’t kill me,” Emily says.
“Don’t kill me either, but you can get a little rough, if you want to,” says her friend with a wink. “I can take it.”
She’s too confident by far, so I point the gun at her and cock the hammer. “You sure about that?”
Her pupils dilate, and her mouth opens slightly, revealing a pierced tongue. “Want to try me?”
This one is too freaky for her own good. I won’t get any answers from her; the only thing I’d get is encouragement to interrogate her harder, probably with the word ‘ daddy’ thrown in there.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” I say. And I don’t. There’s a finally sleeping infant in the other room — a feat that took a fuck ton of rocking and singing a lullaby, which in and of itself was a fucking strange experience — and I was looking forward to relaxing. “The last thing I want is to deal with you two and whoever the fuck you’re working for. No, I was supposed to have an hour or two of peace, so I could fucking drink my whiskey, clean my guns, and just relax.”
“That’s how you relax? Hot,” the tongue-pierced one says. There’s a flush on her chest. “Tell me more.”
“Sophie, shut up,” Emily hisses.
“Yes, Sophie, shut up,” I say. I grab a dish towel and a roll of duct tape. I shove the towel in Sophie’s mouth and use the duct tape to secure it in place, and then use some more to bind her to the chair.
She makes a sensual noise that sounds like an aroused goat.
“Sophie, are you moaning right now?” Emily says. There’s a blush on her cheeks.
Sophie nods, remorseless. Then moans again.
I look at Emily. “We’re going to the living room. You make any sudden moves, and I will shoot you and your friend.”
The gagged girl moans again, and her legs open slightly. In all my time fighting insurgents and terrorists in the military, in my time riding nomad and dealing with the criminal underworld, I have never, ever, seen anyone so horny to die.
Emily leaves her chair and hurries into the living room. She takes a seat on the dusty sofa. “I’ll be good,” she says. The comment may be directed at me, but her eyes and focus are clearly on Charlie.
I step into her line of sight, blocking her view of him. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer them. If I think you’re lying, there will be consequences. If you make too much noise and wake him up from his name, I will do things to you that your friend in the kitchen would find deeply erotic.”
Color blooms across her face.
“I’ll be honest. And quiet.”
“Where’s your boss? Is he here?”
“I don’t know who you are talking about. My boss from the pharmacy?”
“Don’t bullshit me. I know who you’re working for. How are you to contact him? Do you have a phone number for him?” It’s probably a burner. I doubt Victor’s that stupid, but he may be overconfident, and overconfident men make mistakes, like giving their real contact information to stunning young women.
“Nick — if that even is your real name — I don’t know who you are talking about.”
“Then who are you working for?”
“I work for Ironwood Falls Meds the wide-eyed, scared, and innocent look could all be an act. It isn’t beyond Moretti to have the resources to hire someone good enough to pull it off. Plus, there’s the fact that she found me. “So you aren’t working for the Reapers?”
“No. I don’t know who that is. I work for my paycheck and because my job gives me credit toward my college coursework and spare time to finish my papers when it’s quiet.”
I take a long drink of whiskey. “College coursework?”
“Yes. Because I’m in school to get my doctorate in pharmacy.”
Another long drink. This is not how I wanted to spend my Friday night, trying to decide if the beautiful young woman with nice handful-sized tits, wide eyes, and a mouth that looks like it’s made for smiling, laughing, and sucking my cock is lying to me. “Fuck, did I just kidnap two college students?”
Fuck, again. I didn’t mean to say that shit out loud. I need a lot more whiskey and some fucking sleep. I’m losing my damn mind.
“No,” she says. “Just one. Sophie graduated a few years ago and now she works at Buzz on In. It’s a coffee shop.”
“That deviant is a barista?”
“She got her degree in Sociology and a minor in interpretive dance,” she says, as if that explains everything. Which it does. “But, mainly, she got those degrees because she was sleeping with those professors at the time. She’s fun. When she isn’t, uh, being extra.”
“Extra? Extra what?”
She blinks, smiles at me. If it didn’t seem beneath her, I’d almost think she there was condescension in that smile. “You’re a little older, huh?”
“Early thirties.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?” Don’t say it. Don’t fucking say it. “That I’m too old to get it?”
Fuck, I said it.
“Maybe,” she pauses, smiles, looks at me, like she’s doing everything in her power to see me, without seeing the weapon in my hands. “It just means she’s being excessive.”
“And there are times she isn’t?”
“She has to sleep sometimes, I suppose. And, when she’s smoked some pot, she’s pretty chill.”
I shake my head. Why do I even care about what’s going on in this not-that-younger-than-me woman’s life? I drink some more whiskey.
“How did you two find me?”
“I took a picture of your truck and texted it to my friends to have them help look for you.”
“Why?” The idea that my picture is floating out there, being passed around, while others might be looking for me — or, even worse, sharing that information with even more people — makes my throat tighten; am I slipping that much? I stand, tighten my grip on the gun, point it at her. I have to regain control. “Why were you hunting for me?”
“Because of the baby.”
Her eyes flicker to Charlie and the room feels like an inferno; I loom over her, getting so close that the only thing she can see is me, and the only thing I can see is her. I can smell her, too. A gentle scent of strawberry, and a subtle vanilla aroma; body wash or hand cream, maybe. I can count the freckles on her cheeks. See the individual strands of each gentle wave of hair.
But as tempting as she is, she just said the magic words to set me off. I don’t care how the quiver in her lips stirs my cock to life or how my hands want to drop this gun and explore each soft inch of her curvy body; I plucked Charlie from the smoke and flames and carried him past the bodies of his mom and dad — my brother, my sister-in-law; Charlie is all the family I have left in this world, and I will burn it to the fucking ground to keep him safe.
“Why the fuck do you care about that baby?”
Suddenly, Charlie turns onto his side and emits a mewling cry that makes every hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. I turn my head just in time to see a thick stream of vomit erupt from his mouth, followed by another cry. Then, shade by shade, cry by cry, his complexion changes, grows pale, and his little limbs shake.
“I followed you because I was worried,” she says.
I turn to see her standing, her back straight, her kind eyes locked on Charlie and shining with a suggestion of steel.
“You were worried?”
Her voice is unwavering, warm, but with a hint of don’t fuck with me .
“Your baby is sick. Really sick. And I can help him. In fact, I might be his only chance. But if you want my help, you’re going to need to give me that gun. It’s up to you, Nick, and there’s not much time. What’s it going to be? The gun or your baby’s life?”