Page 11 of Lure

“Okay,” she said. “I’d like to find her period, so I guess that will have to be enough for now.”

Aggravation exploded through me. I opened and closed my mouth several times. A huff of a sigh dragged my attention downward briefly. Goblin had his head on her thigh and she was stroking him. I got the need for self-soothing and hated myself even more for being another factor in the reason she needed it.

Jerking my attention back to the empty road ahead, I scowled. The lack of highway lights, speed limit signs—signs of any kind really—and places to stop said more about our remoteness than anything else.

Where the fuck were the guys? We needed to get back to base, and I needed to find her sister and prove to Gracie that we could keep our goddamn promises.

White knuckling the steering wheel while I tried to focus on sniper breathing to wrestle my temper back under control helped. Not much, but some. Then like a gift, my phone rang.

Finally.

I snatched it up, and answered with one stroke of my thumb over the screen. “Alphabet.”

“We’ve hit a few complications.” Bones’ steady voice didn’t do much for my nerves.

“Not enough of them,” Lunchbox snapped. “Or we wouldn’t have problems.”

“How many and how far?” I scanned the area automatically. I saw no other headlights and I hadn’t for more than an hour. If I had to intercept them, we might be too far to do much good.

“We’re twenty minutes out,” Bones answered as though Lunchbox hadn’t issued a single comment. “Maybe thirty if the tracker is off.”

I doubted it. Part of why I hadn’t checked their location earlier, Grace was more important in that moment and I didn’twant to know if they were in trouble. Not until I was in a position to do something about it.

Twenty to thirty minutes, that gave me time to find a good spot. “How many? And do you have a plan?”

“Well, the plan was to lose them a few hours ago.”

The conversational tone peppered with Lunchbox’s derisive snort actually made me smile. The fact that Voodoo wasn’t saying anything didn’t bode well. Then again, he tended to avoid our arguments with Bones, preferring to deal with him directly.

“They are apparently not taking no for an answer, however. That leaves us with the options of digging in and eliminating or pulling them into the trap.”

I was the trap.

“Understood. Numbers?” Since he’d skipped that part.

“Ten or twelve,” Lunchbox said before Bones could. “Pretty sure we hit a couple of them, but they are spread out over three vehicles?—”

The report of a gunshot echoed in the background.

“Nine or eleven,” Voodoo tossed in. “Also a motorcycle, but he keeps dropping back. Sneaky little shit.”

“Got it. Line them up,” I said. “I’ll send a message when I’m in position.” I hung up and stared ahead then glanced to the area around us. It was just all dark emptiness around us.

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked.

There was zero point in lying to her.

“We are going to have problematic company and I need to find a place to deal with it.” Sooner rather than later.

“More tossing bombs on them kind of problematic company?” The direct question almost made me smile.

“Close, but not letting them get that close.” I glanced down at my phone then ahead again. The silence dragged taut between us.

“Can I help?” The unexpected offer left me in a quandary. She could, but she shouldn’t have to. “I mean I don’t really know anything about mixing up chemicals or anything…”

The laugh that escaped was more disbelief than humor. “We don’t have the stuff for that on board.”

“Oh,” she said, with a long exhale of relief. “Good. I suck at throwing things.”

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