Chapter 11
T heir flight to London was anticlimactic. They ended up at a small private airport, and government vehicles came with men in black suits to pick them up and to carry them away.
The initial sight of the men made Heather pause. She glanced over at Royce and murmured, “Is this what you expected?”
He gave her a grin and nodded. “Something along these lines, yeah,” he murmured. “They’re nothing if not into theatrics.”
The MI6 driver and his partner in the passenger seat shared a knowing glance. Then the driver shot Royce a look in the rearview mirror.
Royce just smiled.
Heather sighed. “I suppose I have to go in for questioning or some such thing,” she said, hating that she sounded grouchy and ungrateful. Still, she was tired and wanted time at home, preferably alone. Although the thought of being on her own wasn’t as comforting as she thought it would be.
“You have to expect some questions,” the driver replied. “A lot of effort was expended to help move this process along.”
She winced and shook her head. “I sound like an ungrateful bitch. That’s so not me.”
“And that’s okay,” Royce added, putting his hand on hers. “You’ve also been through an awful lot lately. Stop trashing yourself.”
“Easy to say but not so easy to do. Too bad you’re not my fairy godmother and can make that happen with a wave of your wand.”
“Hell no, I’m not worth a damn in a skirt,” he quipped.
His remark was so unexpected that she burst out laughing. He grinned at her, and she realized he’d done it on purpose. She sighed. “So, we’re back to your being one of the good guys.” He raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything. “You are,” she repeated in a persistent tone. “Yet I get it. You probably don’t want to be called that, but…”
“Don’t like being called what?” he asked, frowning at her. “Did I miss something?”
“A nice guy,” she clarified. “You probably don’t want to be called a nice guy.”
“Sure, I do,” he said. “You could call me a hell of a lot of worse things.”
“Here I thought men didn’t like it. I thought it was a phrase that upset them.”
“Doesn’t upset me,” he muttered, turning his attention again to the road.
Now Heather noted a little too much commotion on the road. “What’s going on?” she asked.
He shot her a look and then gave her a bright smile.
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I’ve come too far to ignore the warning signs.”
“Good,” Royce stated, “because that means those instincts of yours are working.”
She frowned at him and looked outside. “Everything’s still so damn fuzzy. I was hoping clarity would return faster.”
“We can’t talk about everything here,” he whispered to Heather, catching the driver’s glance in the rearview mirror once again.
She sucked in her breath, her gaze shifting to the world passing by. She couldn’t sense anything. Yet her cards were heating up in the waistband of her leggings. “Something’s wrong, isn’t there?”
“Let’s just say, we’ve picked up a tail.”
Her gaze locked on Royce’s. “From the airport? That would mean that somebody knew ahead of time that we were landing.”
“It would, wouldn’t it? But then you would be amazed at what kind of money people will pay for information and get it quite easily.”
“Even from Jonas’s office?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” He gave a dour chuckle.
“What’s so funny, damn it?” Heather asked.
“Jonas will be absolutely thrilled to find out he has a mole, a snitch,” Royce declared cheerfully. “Cleaning house is always fun.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you should be having as much fun with all this as you appear to be.”
“Hey, there’s not nearly enough fun on the job as it is,” Rick added.
Heather was frustrated to see a grin on his smug face as well.
“Don’t take that away from Royce.” Rick’s mocking voice was that of a little boy, and she found herself laughing too.
“I know you’re doing your darndest to keep me occupied and distracted and not aware of what’s going on around me,” she shared, “but I do need to know.”
“If you’ve already figured that out,” Rick stated, “I’m not doing a very good job.”
She smiled. “I’m really not foolish, and I do understand that we have a whole different set of problems over here, but I thought I would be safe from Faheed here.”
“I’m not saying you’re not,” Rick pointed out. “Still, he’s probably been keeping an eye on us.”
“Which would imply that he knew where we went.”
“It would, indeed. Remember that our operation rescued you out of Finland,” Rick shared, “and I’m sure Faheed has already recognized that it had military written all over it.”
She muttered, “Meaning government.”
“Yep, meaning government. You are a British citizen, and MI6 tends to not like it when things happen to their British citizens.”
“ Great ,” she murmured. “The question is whether Faheed will leave it alone now or come after me.”
“Does he have any reason to come after you?” Rick asked.
She shrugged. “Not that I know of, except that he wants my company.”
“And it’s a big successful company worth megamillions,” Rick noted comfortably. “So, I guess the question really is, how far does he want to push it?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s not stupid when it comes to these matters, and the fact that he came very close to getting his hands on it once may very well keep him pushing for the prize.”
“And possibly his brother too, right?”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised, but I do love to hate on him.”
Rick chuckled at that. “Always need to be nice to the ladies if you want them to not hate you.”
“How about just being nice, period,” she murmured. “As long as you don’t come across as being a full-on asshole, life becomes pretty easy for all of us.”
“Got it,” Rick said, amid a fit of laughter.
“I guess that comment’s for me.” Royce looked from one to other, and a grin took over his face.
She snorted. “As if you need any lessons in relationships.” He studied her, but she shook her head. “No way you don’t have somebody in your life.”
“Actually I don’t, and I haven’t had for quite a while.” He shrugged as if it were a non-issue. Beside him, Rick started to laugh, clearly tickled at something. Royce glared at him, and she finally caught the look between them.
“Am I not even allowed to ask a question?” she muttered. “May I remind you that you’ve asked me thousands of questions.”
“It was hardly a question,” Rick clarified, still laughing. “More of a fishing expedition. And don’t insult me by denying that.”
She glared at him. “You do know that it’s good to be quiet sometimes.” At that, he burst out in even louder laughter. She sighed and settled back. “You guys are very irritating.”
“I thought we were nice guys,” Royce teased, with an injured tone. Then he added, “Don’t worry about Rick. He’s just in a happy marital state, and he wants to see everybody else be that happy.”
“I won’t argue with that,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was such a thing as a happy marital state?”
“There is,” Rick stated instantly, “but you have to find the right partner for that.”
Just then the vehicle took a hard left, and she was slammed against the passenger door. “Ah, crap,” she cried out. Almost immediately the vehicle took a quick right. She grabbed onto the door handle to stop herself from sliding back and forth, her gaze going from Rick to Royce and back. Then her tarot cards heated up too. And so far they’d never been wrong. Even now they bordered on hot. That was a typical sign of danger. A warning, so to speak. “Please tell me this is all part of the plan.”
Rick smiled and nodded. “It is now.”
She groaned. “We really are being followed, aren’t we?”
“Our driver is doing standard evasive maneuvers, trying to drop the tail.”
She stared out the window, trying to see behind her but couldn’t really see anything. “It’s so hard to know,” she muttered, as she stared all around. “Why would anybody even bother trying? That’s what I don’t get.”
“The fact that anybody is even looking for you is what interests me,” Royce stated. When she shot him a look, he smiled. “The fact is, you’re back in your hometown, you somehow survived that nightmare of captivity with Faheed, which was obviously very well done, so much so that you don’t really know you’ve been being gaslighted or drugged.”
She winced at the truth of his statement. “As much as I hate to hear you say that, I don’t even know how much of what my sister ever told me is true now. If she was also kept drugged into a happy state, maybe she truly wasn’t happy. Maybe all that time it was the drugs talking, and I don’t know shit.”
“Maybe not,” Royce acknowledged, “and I think it’s one more reason why we need to find out who that handwritten mail of Hannah’s went to.”
She turned to face him. “You really think it’s that important?”
“It’s an anomaly,” he declared, with a shrug. “An anomaly that I can’t begin to make heads or tails of, so, for me, yes, it’s that important.”
She pondered that and then shrugged. “How do we find out?”
“I don’t know yet, but that will be something we need to work on. Did she have any friends in the company?”
She frowned at him. “We’re back to that? She didn’t have any friends, remember? The family business wasn’t even a part of the equation for her. She didn’t work there even years before I got her voting rights. Business just wasn’t her thing. Hannah has always been more of a loner.”
“Maybe so,” Royce said, “or maybe she had some friends you didn’t know about.”
“In that case then don’t ask me,” she replied in exasperation, “because, if she did, and I didn’t know about them, I can’t answer the question.”
Just then the vehicle took another hard right, sending her flying again. Royce reached out, wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her up close and buckled her into the middle seatbelt “Here. I’ll help you from getting hurt on these corners.”
“How come you aren’t being tossed around?” she muttered, glaring at him.
“Because I see them coming, and I had my seatbelt on,” he shared, with a laughing tone.
She sighed and snuggled in closer. “We will get out of this, right?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he vowed, looking down at her.
As the vehicle continued its erratic movements, Heather grew uncertain and more nervous. She reached for her ever-trusty tarot cards and gripped them for security. When Royce looked over at her, with an eyebrow raised, she just smiled and pulled them out enough that he could see.
He whispered against her ear, “What good will that do you right now?”
She flipped open the box, and, as she held the deck tightly against her, she pulled out one card from the center of the pack. When she stared down at the Death card, her gaze shifted to the men around her. In an urgent whisper she asked Royce, “Do you know who is tailing us?”
He shook his head, his gaze on the card. She flipped it over and put it back into the deck. “Does that mean what I think it means?” he asked her.
“No, not necessarily,” she clarified, “but it does mean that the path we’re on right now is not good.”
“Not good how?” Rick asked, looking over at her sharply.
“We’re heading into… something ugly.”
At that, the driver snorted. “ Great . Are you the boss now? Do I take your word for it, just because you said so?”
“It’s not just because I said so,” she declared, looking over at Royce and Rick urgently.
Rick leaned across the seat to the driver. “Change of plans now.”
The driver glared at him. “I have orders.”
“And I just changed them.” Rick held up his phone and pointed to the map on his screen. “We’re going here.” With a last glare, the driver took a series of hard turns and came to a stop inside an underground garage. Then Rick barked orders in their faces, “Move, move, move.”
She was quickly hustled out of the vehicle. They wanted to take the elevator, but she was adamantly against it. Rick and Royce aligned to her side. The two MI6 men stared at her, shook their heads, and stepped up to follow them as well.
“Your funeral,” the driver noted. “We have seven flights to go.”
She winced at that, but no way she would back down now. Then, with Royce and Rick at her side, she moved at a slow and steady pace up the stairs. She was tired, but she wouldn’t let them know, not after having insisted.
As she got up to the target landing, the two MI6 men stepped in front, opened the stairwell door, checked, and then motioned for her to step through. They led the way down to an apartment on the left-hand side. As soon as the door was opened, she was pushed inside and came to a dead stop, her mouth open, even as she tried to protest.
Two masked gunmen stood there to greet them, instantly taking down the two MI6 men. Royce and Rick stood still and raised their hands. The gunmen didn’t attack them, but the guy nodded to his partner, who began tying up the two unconscious MI6 men. Meanwhile the head guy held his gun on another man, seated in a chair.
“You were right about one thing,” Royce muttered behind her. “This won’t come to a good end.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I always find that’s the way it works. Even when we change plans to avoid the ending, we don’t like what finds us anyway.”
“You could have pulled that card a little earlier, you know?”
She quickly pulled a new card. “Well, our destiny has changed.” She held up the Fool card.
“Good or bad?” Royce asked.
“Just trust and keep putting one foot in front of the other, but expect the unexpected.”
“So the jury is out. Great .”
“I should have been pulling cards the whole time, but I wasn’t thinking to utilize them in this way. I just used them to keep Hannah happy and for fun.” She shrugged, staring at the two gunmen standing before her, united again and pointing their guns at everyone. Stepping forward, she asked, “So, what the hell is this all about?”
If Royce was surprised at her question or her actions, he didn’t show it. The gunmen moved Royce and Rick forward, their hands still in the air. One of the gunmen motioned them to move off to the side, away from Heather. “Pull out your weapons,” the head guy barked.
“We’re unarmed,” Royce declared. The silent gunman promptly searched them to confirm this.
Meanwhile Heather stared at the man sitting there, guns held on him. Instinctively she knew who it was. “Are you Jonas?”
He gave a clipped nod.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, with a smile.
He just stared at her with a narrowed gaze.
Heather thought Jonas was probably wondering what she was up to. She wasn’t up to anything. That was the problem. She walked closer to Jonas, when one of the two gunman raised his gun to her. She stared at him and snapped, “Do I look like I have a weapon?”
He snorted. “Doesn’t matter if you look like it or not, we don’t trust anybody.”
She didn’t say anything as she was quickly searched, but she certainly didn’t have a weapon. When she pulled out her cards, the head gunman snorted, grabbed them, and tossed them on the counter in the nearby kitchen. She felt that sense of loss immediately.
She hated that feeling and absolutely detested being separated from them. Of course that should have said something to her a long time ago about what power she held over them—or what power they held over her. She didn’t know, but she knew that her instincts were always much more sharpened and fine-tuned when she had them on her person. That said a lot about how she was feeling now, which was a whole lot more in control, right up until he’d taken away her cards. She walked over to the kitchen counter and picked them up. When the head gunman glared at her, she shrugged. “What? You’re worried about a set of tarot cards?” she asked, laughter in her tone.
He motioned for her to sit down, but his subsequent words were a whole lot nastier as he told her to shut up.
She didn’t say anything but sat down beside Jonas. She knew things would get dangerous very quickly. She just didn’t know which way it would break.
She studied Royce and Rick, realizing that they were by far the most dangerous men in the room, even unarmed. The two masked men may have had guns but that wouldn’t stop Terk’s guys. She didn’t know in what way Royce and Rick would act; she just knew it would be something deadly and fast. She stared at Jonas, noticing the huge welt on his face. “Did they do that to you?” she asked in a hard tone.
He gave her a look. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” She glared over at the two gunmen. “Not only are there two of you but you also have weapons, yet you still beat him up?”
“He didn’t cooperate,” said the other gunman in a bored tone, who had been quiet until now. “So, you should probably pay attention.’
She glared at him. “I’m really not very good at that. I’ve been kept prisoner for way the hell too long.”
He studied her with interest. “So, you really are Heather, huh ? Hannah’s sister?”
She nodded, staring at him. “Ah, so Faheed sent you?” she asked.
The gunman who had ignored her question hadn’t shown any recognition of Faheed’s name. She stared down at her cards.
“Put them away,” he snapped. She looked at him and shrugged. “If you want to keep them, you won’t bring them out again.”
She found it interesting that he was so unnerved by them, but she had seen a similar reaction from other people in the past. She found that response more of a curiosity than anything else. She put them away, looked over at Jonas, and frowned to see that his head wound had started to bleed. She noted that her cards were vibrating slightly at the dangerous circumstances, but they weren’t hot and screaming. So the danger hadn’t reached explosiveness yet.
She got up, walked over to the kitchen, pulled some paper towels off the roll, dampening them at the sink. With a dry one in her other hand, she returned to clean Jonas’s head wound. She stood by him, bending closer to blot the blood flow. He frowned at her in surprise, as even the gunmen didn’t appear to know what to do with her. She just shrugged. “This situation doesn’t mean we can’t be nice.”
“I don’t really give a crap about being nice,” the one gunman snapped. “Now sit down and stay down.”
She handed the towels to Jonas, yet remained standing. “If you can keep a little pressure on it, the bleeding should stop soon.”
He nodded and took the towels.
“What makes you think he’ll even be alive long enough to worry about keeping his wound from bleeding?” the obvious leader asked, with a hard snort.
She turned to him. “I know these men. They don’t have to be assholes just because you have an agenda that these guys somehow got mixed up in.”
“What do you mean, somehow got mixed up in? You really don’t think that he was responsible for all this headache?” The head gunman waved his weapon at Jonas.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I’m not exactly sure what this is all about myself. However, if it’s got anything to do with me, then it’s all Faheed’s doing.”
“I don’t know any Faheed,” he snapped right back, then shook his head. “Why do you keep bringing up this Faheed?”
“Why do you need to hide behind a mask?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Just mind your own business.” He waved his gun again. “Sit down and shut up.” When she sat down and glared at him, he snorted. “You know, for somebody who is facing a gun, you really don’t know when to be quiet, do you?”
“I shut up when you told me to,” she pointed out, with a shrug. “The fact that I got up to deal with his head wound doesn’t mean I didn’t follow your orders.”
He glared at her, and she stopped talking but was watchful. She looked over at Jonas to see an odd look in his gaze as he studied her. He didn’t seem to know quite who and what she was. However, if he dealt with Terk’s team much, then Jonas probably thought Heather had all kinds of abilities that she did not possess. She certainly didn’t want him to get the wrong idea and to think that she had any way to get his sorry ass out of this because she didn’t. Still, she was certain that Royce and Rick would pull off some rescue.
She looked over at the guys, with an encouraging smile. At that, Rick just rolled his eyes, and Royce’s lips twitched, as if he thought her response was funny. “So, do you want to tell us what this is all about?” she asked the gunmen.
Immediately the gunmen turned their weapons her way. She snorted. “Fine, fine, shoot us all. It’s not as if we’ll do anything about it.”
The head gunman relaxed slightly at that reminder. “Exactly, you won’t do anything about it, so just shut up.” He bellowed on the shut up part.
Then it hit her. She asked the gunmen, “Are we waiting for somebody?” The head gunman glared at her yet again. She sat back one more time and realized she really didn’t want to know who they were waiting for. A part of her really did, but, if it had anything to do with her family, with her company, then she really didn’t. She sighed as she sat here, thinking about it. “I don’t think I want to know.”
The head gunman ignored her. However, as she went to open her mouth again, his gun raised in her direction. “Ha, I wonder if shooting me will get you what you want?” she asked in a conversational tone. “Because either way, my company sure as hell won’t go to anybody connected to this nightmare.”
Of course she was bluffing because, although she’d a will in place and had begun the charity foundation setup, she certainly hadn’t gotten the final paperwork finished yet. So that brought her back even closer to this being Faheed’s nightmare. “Faheed certainly won’t get it,” she muttered.
“I don’t know what company you’re even talking about, so I don’t care,” the head guy stated in exasperation. “What the hell is your problem? Can’t you keep quiet for even a few minutes?”
“You weren’t talking,” she said, “so I had to.”
“No,” he bellowed, “you don’t. You can just shut up.”
“Then tell me what I’m here for. Why are you holding me, and what the hell is your problem with me anyway?” she asked, glaring at him.
He groaned and looked over at Royce. “Is she always like this?”
Royce shrugged. “Pretty much. She’s just nervous. She’s been through a lot already, including being held prisoner for some time. So finding out that she’s now a prisoner again, not to mention having absolutely no idea what’s going on, is just making her a little more upset. You get used to it.”
“You better shut her up,” he bellowed. “I can’t wait until we’re done with this already, so I’m not putting up with her mouth.”
Royce added, “Maybe you should tell me what we’re waiting for, and we’ll do what we can to help you through this. Obviously she wants to survive.”
“She does?” the gunman asked him. “Maybe she will. But you don’t want to survive?”
“I would love to, but it depends on who and what you’re after, as to whether that’s in the cards,” he replied.
The head gunman gave him a wolfish smile. “I’m glad you understand the situation, and so does your buddy here. But, as for this guy,” he said, with a wave of his gun at Jonas, “I still don’t think he gets it. He thought he could resist, but, of course, it’s futile.”
Just enough ego filled his tone that she glared at him. “Really? So, the two of you overpowered a man without a weapon, even though he’s obviously way older than you.” At that, Jonas stiffened at her side. She instantly rounded on him. “It’s true,” she snapped crossly. “So don’t get in a snit about that.” He just stared at her, as she turned toward the gunmen once again. “So, how is it that you can be proud of this job?” she muttered. “I hope you’re getting paid a lot of money.”
“We are,” the second gunman stated impatiently. “Now, if you don’t shut up, it won’t be nearly enough money to make up for putting up with you.”
Rick and Royce shared a knowing glance, and Heather caught a glimpse of it. She also felt her tarot cards heating up but in a good way. She even felt a surge of energy hitting her in waves. It was profound. Frowning at this new event, her intuition simply said, Your friends are helping .
Encouraged further, she smirked at the gunmen and added, “I hope you got paid upfront.” When she saw the head gunman instinctively draw back his free hand and form a fist, she nodded. “Oh, I see how it is.” She glared in his direction. “You guys beat up women, don’t you? They don’t shut up when you want them to shut up, so boom . You just give them a cuff across the side of the head.”
He stepped forward and asked, “You want one?”
“No, I really don’t, but now that I’ve got your number, I know what kind of little piss-ass cheater you are.”
“I’m not a cheater,” he said in outrage.
“Sure you are. You’re the guy who uses force to get what you want, and that makes you a cheater because you don’t think most women have the same physical force available to them, which makes you a power bully. Just bullies in the sandbox,” she stated, sitting back and glaring at them. “You won’t even tell us what this is about.”
At that, the gunman walked over to Rick. “Make her shut up.”
Rick shrugged. “I can’t.” Then he smirked and nodded toward Royce. “He might be able to.”
She glared at Rick. “Why would he make me shut up?”
At that, Royce walked over, picked her up in his arms, and walked back with her, holding her close as he set her on her feet. The gunmen broke into raucous laughter. She glared at Royce, but he gave her a strong headshake, and she backed off once again, glaring again at the two gunmen.
“See? That’s all you are, bullies. That little display of strength from Royce is all you recognize. You don’t care about the fact that I have a brain, as well as wishes and wants and desires. Do you really think I haven’t had my fill of people like you? For all I know, Faheed killed my sister. So, if you’re associated with him in any way, rest assured I will see to it that you guys pay.”
“We don’t know any Faheed,” snapped the head gunman. “We’re dealing with Englishmen here, not foreigners.”
Such a nasty tone filled his words that she believed him. “Oh, that’s interesting,” she muttered, frowning at him. “In that case, you don’t want me to leave before the Englishman arrives, right? You might not get paid in full, right?” And, with that, she turned and walked to the front door of the apartment.
Even Royce, who reached out to grab her, missed. She was there before the gunmen even had a chance to blink. She had the door open and was stepping out into the hallway, when the second gunmen reached her. She turned on him, spitting mad. He raised the gun in his hand, as she cried out, “No.” Then she gave him several hard kicks to his shins, followed up with an elbow to the eyeball, and plowed him one in the nose with her fist.
She heard the crack of his nose as it broke, but she was too busy crying out in pain to note her success because her own hand hurt so badly. When Royce joined her in the hallway, he stopped in astonishment to see the gunman on the ground and her sitting there, crying out and holding her hand. He grinned, walked over, and picked her up, giving her a whopping kiss. “We’ll have to teach you how to give a proper punch.”
“Really?” She glared at him. “You think I didn’t do okay on my own?”
“You did, but you’re not supposed to hurt your fist in the process,” he added, with a smirk.
Rick picked up the still moaning gunman in the hallway and brought him back inside, where Jonas stood, holding a gun on the head gunman.
Heather looked over at Jonas with satisfaction.
“Not sure what your game was,” Jonas admitted to Heather, “and believe me that nobody else knew the playbook for your attack either. Yet apparently you’re pretty darn effective.”
She shrugged. “I’m hardly effective enough,” she muttered. She walked over to the one standing gunman, and, in a surprise move, she smacked him hard across the face.
Royce joined in and knocked him out, then announced, “Rick and I can carry our prisoners out of here, but somebody needs to revive Jonas’s men here. They need to walk out on their own.”
Jonas interrupted, “I’ve got more men on the way, so I suggest you stick around. Just make sure these two are out for the count and secure them to the bathroom plumbing.”
Royce and Rick took care of that, then searched their pockets for any IDs.
*
While everyone waited for more of Jonas’s men to arrive, Royce was more worried about Heather’s edginess and stressed energy. First, he grabbed some ice from the freezer and wrapped it in a kitchen towel. He had her put it on her hurting hand, as he gently wrapped her up in a hug and whispered, “It’s okay. We’ve got them, or, should I say, you got them. It’s all right.”
She sagged against him, quietly in thought now.
Jonas stepped up beside them. “I didn’t expect you to save the day.” She turned and glared at him, but he just smiled at her. “Hey, whatever works for you, I’m totally okay with it.”
“Fine,” she muttered. “But I want to know who these guys are, what they are doing here, and why?”
“They’re down there because they can’t stand,” Rick teased, with exaggerated politeness.
She rounded on him, and he grinned. “We didn’t get to see this side of you before,” he noted. “I think I like it.”
Royce did too. His grandfather would have called that spunk .
Color washed over her cheeks as she sighed. “I don’t get mad often, but, when I do, I tend to cause a scene.”
“Noted for future reference,” Royce stated, with a smile sent in her direction.
Immediately Rick started to laugh. She turned on him again, and he held up his hands. “You’ve got no reason to be mad at me.”
“No, I don’t.” But she felt her tarot cards burning again. She pulled them out, and this time pulled out the ten of swords. She frowned at that.
“What does that mean?” Royce asked.
“Nothing good, but betrayal is the word that comes to mind.”
“Do the cards have meaning or do you give them a meaning?” Jonas asked, studying her curiously.
“Cards are intuitive,” she explained. “You can say what you want and mock it at your peril, or you can understand that they have their own message, and it’s not necessarily what the card itself is showing you but the message that comes in along with it… intuitively.”
“So as in… psychically?” She rounded on him, and he held up a hand. “I figured I would get a hard reaction to that.” He gave her a knowing smile.
“You’re partially right,” she conceded, “but most people don’t particularly choose that word.”
“Right,” he agreed, “they don’t, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in psychics and psychic abilities.”
“You have good reason to believe,” Rick noted, staring at Jonas. “So, we found no IDs on them. So did you figure out who these guys are?”
“Not yet,” Jonas grumbled.
“I’ve got their phones,” Royce shared, holding both up. “We need to find out who they are, why they’re here, and if they’re after her or us.”
“Oh, I rather like the idea of them being after you,” Heather replied, laughing. “That would be a nice change.”
“It would be,” he began, “except that there’s no reason for anybody to be after us. Therefore, it’s more likely you they’re after.” She glared at him, and he smiled. “Just because we now have these two doesn’t mean that others could still be after you.”
She turned to Jonas. “Are you the one helping me get loose?”
He nodded. “Yes, to a certain extent,” he said, “but I’m also hoping that you can help us put away Faheed.”
She pondered that. “It’s not quite so easy. You know that, right? Faheed has a lot of support.”
“He does, indeed, and that’s making our job infinitely more difficult,” he admitted, “which is why we need somebody on the inside.”
“Somebody on the inside would have been nice, but I don’t know anything, and I, for sure, am never going back.”
At that, Jonas took a deep breath and dropped the bombshell. “Actually… Hannah was on the inside.”