“What happened,” Asher says, “is that I decoded your father’s notes to the best of my ability. Now, I need the two of you to help me add two and two to make four.”
“This is my father we’re talking about,” Candace says. “The answer wouldn’t be that simple. Two and two better equal five or you’ll never find your answer.”
“Then let’s find that magic five,” he says, grabbing the bag he’s left on the floor at some point, I suspect when he hit the ground. “We all need to change shirts and wash up again.”
“I’m not reacting to anything,” Candace says. “I feel fine.”
“He’s right,” I say, pointing a finger at Asher. “Don’t get used to those words,” I warn before I glance at Candace. “If you get one wrong rub of that pepper spray, you’ll feel the pain. Lea can get you a change of clothes.”
“Can’t we just go home?” she asks.
“Not a good idea,” Asher says. “Then it’s all over the car.”
Not long later, Lea has forced everyone to take showers, which sends Candace to a female locker room and me and Asher to a men’s locker room. Asher tosses a duffle down on the bench in front of the showers. “You can wear some of my shit. Lea just told me she’s getting Candace some clothes.”
I cut past the clothes and pepper spray. “Any word on her mother?”
“Not yet. I’m forced to devote my time to the most pressing safety issues. I have shit I really need you to look at. Kara sent you a message. She has Max’s wife. She’s staying in one of our safe houses until all of this is over. No word from Max.” He clamps a hand on my shoulder. “Here’s to hoping he doesn’t earn a red dot by his name.”
A few minutes later, I step under a shower, with a clawing feeling in my gut. A feeling that says that Max earned his red dot. Max is dead and he’s not a man who would die easily. But then, neither am I.
***
Half an hour later, I’m wearing Asher’s clothes, and the jeans are so damn tight they’re squeezing the fuck out of my balls which Asher finds far too amusing. The only thing that keeps me from punching him in his balls, just so he can feel for me, is Candace joining us in the main lobby. Candace who looks sweet as fuck in a pair of equally tight jeans that is now making my tight jeans even tighter.
“Now what?” she asks, giving me an inspection that lands on my bulging crotch, a devious smile on her glossy lips.
I grab her and pull her to me, my hand on her perfect ass. I kiss her hard and fast while Asher pats his leather bag. “We need to go through my questions and data collected. Where can we do this?”
“Next door at McDonald’s,” Candace suggests. “I’m starving.”
I slide an arm around her. “I’m sure you now see what a perfect woman she is.”
“Every perfect woman I know I met by being maced,” he teases and winks at Candace, who blushes.
My perfect woman.
So perfect she’s worth killing for. And the killing is coming, the slaughter is coming. It’s in the air, a whisper that promises that the ground we walk on now might be clean and dry, but soon, very soon, we may well be wading through a river of blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Candace
The first hot salted French fry is always moan-worthy. Today is no exception. I moan, and Savage stares at me like he’s going to throw me on the table right here and now and do who knows what to me. “You’re killing me here, Savage,” Asher groans, from across the table. “Stop. Looking. At. Her. That. Way.”
Asher should know better. Rick loves to antagonize, and he proves this point by turning me to him and him to me, while giving me a hungry once over and saying, “Right here, right now. On the table.”
I shove a fry into my mouth. He grimaces and complains, “You’re ruining the mood.”
“The mood is hungry,” I say, shoving a fry into his mouth. He chews and I arch a brow. “Good.”
He grabs another fry. “Damn good fries, but you’re still better.”
Asher shoves a file in between us. “The mood is read this.” We glance over at him and he takes a bite of his burger. I decide right then that with all his long blond hair and tattoos, he looks like a rock star, not a Navy SEAL. But then, SEALs are really rock stars. Asher taps the folder. “I put names next to every dog tag to include current status and location.”
Savage faces forward again, flips open the file, eyeing the list, while I do the same and ask, “Status?”
“Alive, dead, deployed, enlisted,” Asher explains. “There are only five people on that list who are still alive. You, Rick. Three who work for Tag. One who works for your father, Candace. And that someone is here in San Antonio and stateside.”