Chapter 27

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

ALPHABET

M y leg ached, I’d been pushing it a lot over the past few days. Lunchbox had suggested I sit out the flight and I’d ignored him. I didn’t need to run to be backup. After the number of ambushes we’d faced already in securing Grace Black, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

“We’ve been asked to accelerate on the next job,” Bones said. The debrief with regard to Grace had been swift. Probably wise, considering the dark looks being exchanged between Bones and Voodoo. “The request was made when you two were taking Miss Black home. There didn’t seem to be any reason to not agree.”

I wasn’t thrilled with Bones just hauling her upstairs and securing her for the moment. Understanding the necessity, considering she’d gotten so angry, didn’t preclude understanding her position. We’d told her we would let her get in touch with her sister.

But we didn’t know where the sister was. Not yet. I had feelers out, but there were so many different trafficking groups in the world. She could literally be held by any of them.

I’d sent a message to Doc about the crew running the truck they’d found Grace on. If the answers were out there, we would find them. Unfortunately, it was going to take time. We needed to find a way to explain it to Grace.

“That’s a bad idea right now,” Lunchbox said when Bones took a beat.

I didn’t disagree with Lunchbox’s assessment. The factory job required transport, infiltration, exfiltration, and then demolition. The kind of job we excelled at, truthfully, save for a couple of potential snags.

“It’s on foreign soil,” Lunchbox continued. “We have Grace here now. We can’t keep her locked up while we’re on a job for three to five days.”

“That’s a generous estimate,” Voodoo said. “They aren’t just moving this job up by a couple of weeks, we were supposed to have another two months. I’ve got feelers out there but I haven’t really been prepping this job. That would mean on the fly changes and working in less than optimal conditions.”

“We’ve done more with less.” Despite his lack of inflection, I didn’t think Bones was any happier with this scenario than we were. “That may be the only option open to us.”

“Unless we just refund their money and tell them to fuck off,” I suggested. “They’ve only done a deposit.” We were still in the process of cleaning that deposit. “Moving the job up, changing the timetable—there are penalties they are going to incur because our risk versus reward is going to be skewed.”

Could we do it? Absolutely. Did I want to right now?

No.

Goblin shifted to sit up and he put his head against my leg. I scratched him gently between the eyes. The action soothed some of the irritation scraping along the inside of my skin. Sitting through a debrief while Grace was left to stew in her room didn’t appeal to me.

“That’s an option,” Bones said, finally, addressing my suggestion.

“But you don’t like it.” Lunchbox had set out the platters of burgers. I’d put one together but I wasn’t feeling much like eating. Though I did slide Goblin a burger of his own. Lunchbox nudged my plate toward me. “You need to take something for that leg. So eat.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off. My phone gave a mild vibration. Maybe one of my searches had turned something up. I’d left the Beast running several programs—including some searches on Grace, her sister, and the people around them. You didn’t just pick a model of Grace’s caliber, or a lawyer like Amorette Black, out of catalog.

Most women sucked into human trafficking vanished into a deep, dark hole and never emerged. The targets were most often going to be women who were not going to be missed. Those with families, social ties, and professional connections generally had folks to make noise.

Grace Black had an international following. No way they could make her disappear without causing a stir. So, who from their lives was involved in their disappearances? Were they linked? Or was it something from one of their lives bleeding over onto the other’s?

No coincidences was a solid theory. I wanted facts.

The alert on my phone, however, was not from the Beast’s search programs. No, it was a motion detector. Probably elk or moose wandering through. It happened. Occasionally, we got bears.

We left them alone, they left us alone.

Tapping the alert, I blinked as the camera view loaded. It was always a few seconds of delay before it came into focus. The side of the house was visible. Part of the fence line. No animals were around.

Rabbits didn’t usually trigger the motion sensors. It needed to be larger and more solid.

“No,” Bones said with a sigh before he pinched the bridge of his nose. Everything about him radiated dislike and impatience. Whether it was for Grace, the situation, or something else entirely, was to be determined. “I don’t. We cultivated our reputation for a reason. They passed all their background checks, right?”

When he flicked a look to me, I shrugged. “Yes. But I still have one more deep dive to do that I thought we had a couple of months on. I can switch some bots from their current project after we get the first info dump.”

It was hardly an impossible task. I could repurpose some of the searches to work on them then go back to searching for the sister. Without finding answers, we couldn’t give them to Grace.

“How fast do they want us to accelerate the op?” Voodoo moved to the table and started putting two burgers together.

“This weekend,” Bones said.

I wasn’t the only one who snapped a look up at him. “That’s incredibly and suspiciously accelerated, did they give you a reason why?”

“Elections are coming up in the country. They want the factories shut down, completely, and erased , before voting opens.”

The alert vibrated my phone again and I dropped my gaze to the open screen that let me see the side of the house. Maybe the motion sensor was malfuncti?—

“I’m not sure I want to do any job for anyone that changes mid-stream to emergency because they want something gone before an election. It feels…”

“Dirty,” Voodoo supplied the word when Lunchbox drifted off. “I get not everywhere works like here, but when you want to bury something like it never happened—that suggests coverup and conspiracy. Do we want to be in bed with these people?”

“We don’t have to be in bed with them to do the job,” Bones reminded us. “No innocents are involved.”

“Allegedly,” I reminded him. “We don’t have confirmation.”

“They are drug processing,” Bones continued.

“Again, allegedly.”

“We don’t have confirmation,” he said before I could and I met the impatience in his gaze with a shrug. “We need confirmation before we agree to move on anything.”

“Safer that way,” Lunchbox said and there was no mistaking the ease in his tone as he blew out a breath. “Maybe they really need the rush, but we risk too many mistakes if we do. So—we tell them we’ll amend the timetable, but we will decide when, and if that isn’t suitable…” It was his turn to shrug.

“Then fuck them,” Voodoo said. “We have plenty of other jobs. Not to mention, Firecracker is here. We can’t just leave her locked up while we leave the country.”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving her locked up,” Bones said with a sigh. “We will need a backup plan for her though. Especially now that she’s here.”

Here. At our place. Where we never brought anyone.

Lips pursed, I stared at the screen and found the source of the movement pissing off the motion sensor. “Probably a good plan, since she doesn’t seem to have any intentions of staying in her room either.”

“What?” Bones frowned. Voodoo abandoned the food he was building to move over to where I was staring at my phone. I had to zoom in, but there she was, wiggling that tiny body right out of the hopper window.

“Is she…” Lunchbox said slowly, staring down at the image. She was damn near out, moving slow and steady. Which was good, because she was looking for somewhere to grab onto.

“Yes, our client ,” I said, stressing the last word with all the irritation I felt, “is trying to climb, headfirst, out of a window on the second floor to escape.”

The flat look in Bones’ eyes didn’t shift. The captain was a good man. He’d always been an excellent soldier. He looked after his team. Somehow, I didn’t think he’d ever had to deal with someone like Grace.

She slid downward, but then twisted to catch the lip of the window before swinging her legs free. My gut didn’t like the drop it experienced at her swing.

“Are we just watching her?” Voodoo demanded. “She could tear that damn wound open.”

“If we interrupt now,” Lunchbox mused, “she could slip and fall.”

As if inspired by his comment, she did slip. I gritted my teeth as she caught herself with two tiny feet on the damn near invisible ledge formed by the house design. She was pressed right up to the building, flattened to it.

“We should go get her,” I said. Because I wasn’t really sure I could take watching her fumble this anymore. A single story fall could kill her if she landed wrong. Even if it didn’t, those were injuries she didn’t need to take.

“Fuck,” Bones swore, then pushed away from the table. Voodoo was one step behind him as they headed outside. Lunchbox waited for me. The limp slowed me some, but the more I moved the easier it became. Goblin trotted along with us.

The wind picked up, swirling in from the northwest. It was mostly overcast at the moment, but the clouds were much darker in the west. Probably a storm rolling through. Bones and Voodoo were just below where she was.

“Maybe we should go up and open the windows from there?” I murmured. Getting her down would be tricky.

“Probably not the worst idea,” Lunchbox said. “Definitely not the best.” He bypassed the others and went for the drain gutter that ran down one of the corners. He climbed it like it was one of the old obstacles during boot.

She noticed us about the time he started up, and she twisted to look—then teetered some before flattening herself against the glass again. Good girl.

“Gracie,” I called, buying Lunchbox some time. “Whatcha doing?”

“Getting some fresh air,” she retorted in a salty tone that made me grin. “What are you doing?”

Bones opened his mouth, but I cut in before he could say whatever remark he had in mind. “Came out for a walk. Wanna go with me and Goblin?”

“Sure,” she responded. “Just give me a minute to figure out how to make my way down.”

Lunchbox was almost there, edging along the building in free climb like it was nothing.

“Hey, Gracie,” he said, not trying to pitch his voice quieter. “Looking for a ride?”

“Not really,” she said. “Thought I could do this on my own, but…it’s a lot farther to the ground than I thought it was.”

“Right.” He glanced from her to the ground, then to me. Voodoo was already studying their location.

“Handoff,” Voodoo called.

Agreed. It would be the easiest way to get her down without further injuring her.

“Gracie, I need you to listen to me. We’re going to get you down, but to do that, you have to follow instructions to the letter. Are you good for that? Or do you need an alternative?”

“And how is your back after your wonder wiggle?” Voodoo added.

“It’s sore, but all of me is sore.”

I did not like that answer.

“Yes, I can follow instructions.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” Bones said.

“Tell you what, Bones,” she snapped over her shoulder. “Why don’t you take your emotional overreactions and shove them up your ass?”

It took discipline to not laugh aloud. Voodoo didn’t even bother to disguise his amusement. “You tell him, Firecracker. Now, Lunchbox is going to take your hand, you’re going to hold on tight to his hand with both of yours and then he’s going to lower you. You will fall—but not far and I’m right here.”

“Oh shit.” The shudder in those two syllables translated clearly. “Can I go back in through the window?”

“Maybe you should have thought of that first,” Bones suggested.

“Shut up,” I said in the same voice as Lunchbox, and the captain scowled at me. Ignoring him for now, I added, “Gracie, just let Lunchbox do the work. You relax. Don’t tense up—and yes I know that sounds easier said than done. Just grip and let him do it. Trust us.”

Silence greeted those last two words and I winced.

“You lied to me before.”

“We didn’t lie,” I promised her. “The situation changed. Intelligence is still being gathered. We should have explained it better.”

“We can work on that ‘explanation’ after we get you down,” Bones tacked on. “If you’re ready to cooperate.”

“Bite. Me.” The vehemence in those two words had Lunchbox chuckling.

“Take my hand, Gracie, I won’t let you get hurt.” It wasn’t about falling, cause she would have to drop some, but we would make sure she landed fine.

Goblin had gone incredibly tense next to me. We were both laser focused on what was going on above.

She said something that I couldn’t hear as she focused on Lunchbox but then she took his hand, he locked his around hers then she was covering his hand with her free one.

“Hang tight,” he said, then he dangled her over the edge. He didn’t take his time or go too slow. Speed was on our side in this maneuver. Then he let go and dropped, only to grip the ledge they’d been standing on with his free hand.

It took a lot of control and there would have been a definite jolt. But she was a lot closer to the ground and Voodoo was right below her.

“I got you,” he promised her again.

“Okay,” she agreed in a shaky voice. Lunchbox didn’t let her rethink it because he dropped her the four feet to land in Voodoo’s arms.

Then, Lunchbox dropped after Voodoo backed away, still holding her bridal style. Relief raced through me.

“So,” Voodoo said, pivoting to head back to the door. “Lunchbox made burgers. Are you hungry?”