Page 102 of Tactically Acquired

“Let’s hope she’s smart enough not to pay them a dime.”

Rae turned quiet, her brows furrowed as she stared at the container between us. I knew that look. She wanted to say something, but didn’t know if she should.

“What is it?”

“Have you noticed anything strange about Audrey?”

“You mean other than the fact that she tries to jump me every time she sees me?” I retorted.

She shot me a look and grabbed another slice of meat. “Like you aren’t trying to get in her pants too.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“But seriously, you haven’t noticed anything?”

“Not really. Why?” Rae always noticed everything. It was one of the reasons Cash hired her and kept her around during interrogations. She was a great read of people and could sense when something was off. And right now, there was something going on that she wasn’t telling me.

“Look, I just?—

The door down the hall opened and Rae immediately stopped talking, cutting me a look that we weren’t going to discuss it. I rose from my stool and walked over to the end of the hallway, waiting to hear what the verdict would be. Audrey didn’t look a whole hell of a lot better than when I left her. She still had puffy eyes and her face was all splotchy, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore.

“Have you decided what you want to do?” I asked.

Audrey nodded. “I’d like to go home.”

I was afraid she was going to say that. My gut churned at all that would need to happen, but what choice did we have? It wasn’t like I could keep her from her mother’s funeral.

“Alright. We’ll start preparations.”

“What about the funeral?” she asked. “Don’t I need to start making calls?”

“I’ll get you a secure line,” I told her. “Under no circumstances can you tell them where you are or give any hints about when you’ll be arriving. The less information, the better. The only thing you can discuss is the actual arrangements of the funeral.”

She nodded, not even putting up the slightest argument. “Yeah, I understand.”

My fingers itched at my side. I wanted to go to her and hold her—to tell her everything would be alright. I hated that she was going through this, but in reality, everyone dealt with death at some point in their lives. It wasn’t like any of us could hide from it. So why was this bothering me so much?

“Give me a few minutes, okay?”

She nodded and walked away with Spencer. As soon as she was out of the room, I turned to Rae, already uncomfortable as hell. “No mistakes on this. We need a solid plan and one hell of a secure location for this funeral.”

“It’s Hollywood. I’m not sure secure is even in their vocabulary, but we’ll do whatever we can.”

I slid my hand over my head, already running through a dozen scenarios. This could go FUBAR so fast if we weren’t careful, and even if we were… ”Any chance we could convince her to hold the funeral out here?”

“I doubt that, but you could always ask.”

“Maybe a funeral here and a celebration of life in Hollywood when this is over,” I muttered to myself. “I’ll get Lock on the phone. We’re gonna need Fox out here ASAP.”

“Just tell Max to go easy on the scotch. The last thing any of us needs is another dance with the devil,” Rae sighed. “We got enough of those with Scottie.”

“And now Max has picked up his puking habit,” I added.

“He’ll behave if we bring Christa along.”

My gaze snapped to hers. “You want to bring Christa along on a job?”

“To keep Max in line? Hell yeah. Besides, going to a funeral seems right up her alley as a minister’s daughter. Maybe it’ll bring us some luck, too.”

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