Page 126 of Tactically Acquired

“I’m on the side of the sane. You kept saying you didn’t want to get involved emotionally. You pushed her away the whole fucking time we were there until the last few days. Are you really surprised she didn’t want to tell you?”

I hated when he was right about shit. It just pissed me off. “Did I ask you to be logical? Where’s FNG’s team?”

“Posted around the floor. Fox called Lock to fill him in.”

“Poor Lock,” I chuckled.

“Is it really FNG’s team?” IRIS asked, switching gears. “I thought Max was leading.”

“Regretting that you’re not on their team?”

“Nope. Well, not completely. I do wish I got to have more fun.”

“We just had a car chase. What part of that isn’t fun? You got to blow up a house!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t want me to,” he griped. “FNG would have let me. Fox would have let me. Max would have?—”

“Lit the cigar and watched it all burn,” I agreed. “And you’d probably end up dead twenty years before your time. I didn’t realize you were so eager to leave Jane.”

“Are you kidding? Now that IKE is back, all she can do is talk about how we’re best friends,” he snorted. “I really need to get rid of that guy.”

“If you wanted to get rid of him, why the hell did you help him?”

“Good fucking question,” he sighed. “Because he means something to her.”

Thumper came limping down the hall, his head bandaged and a scowl on his face. He’d seen better days, for sure, but he still had his leg. That was a bonus.

“All clear?”

“Sure. What’s our status?”

I skipped the part where he refused to answer the question and moved forward. If he didn’t want to dwell on his injuries, I wasn’t about to press him about it. “They’re getting checked out now.”

“How long until the news breaks?” he muttered.

“Can’t be too much longer. I was hoping we’d at least make it out of here first, but I don’t suppose that’ll happen,” I said,nodding to the nurse’s station where a young woman kept glancing in our direction.

Thumper shot her a death glare, then shook his head. “What the fuck are we gonna do about the director? If he really set this whole thing up, how the hell do we prove it?”

“How do we call it off?” IRIS asked.

I didn’t have any fucking clue, but this didn’t feel like a kidnapping anymore. “That wreck was way too fucking violent for a kidnapping.”

“You think he’s switching tactics?” IRIS asked.

“I don’t know, but something’s been bothering me. When we were with Ginger, she said Audrey shouldn’t have lied to the studio about being blind.”

“Right, because she hasn’t told them,” Thumper answered.

“But what if she meant that she had already told the studio?”

I looked at both of them, wondering if maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe I was just paranoid as hell, but why the hell else would three vehicles not only chase us down, but then slam into us like that and flee the scene?

“If they wanted to kidnap them, why didn’t they take the opportunity after the accident?” Thumper questioned.

“Exactly. At first, I thought it was just because we were all there, but there were three vehicles. They had to have enough manpower.”

“Spencer said they got out of the contract and it was costing the studio millions. If Ginger did tell them that Audrey is going blind and she can’t do another film, maybe they decided to cut their losses and just get rid of both of them,” Thumper thought out loud. “How much would the current film bring in upon release if they were dead before the premiere?”

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