Page 23 of One Cry Too Loud
“If she’s in those woods, she’s got a big problem,” Kat said. “Charlie showed up fifteen minutes ago. I’ve got him patrolling the woods and looking for her.”
“Charlie is here?” Holly asked. Her face went paler and a shade of pain tinted her eyes. I remembered the way Charlie ran off after hearing what Holly had to say. It was obvious she was still hurt by that.
“Who the hell is Charlie?” Tag asked.
“He’s one of us,” I said. “Former Navy.”
“Former Navyandspecial forces,” Kat added, revealing a part of the man’s past that I hadn’t been aware of. “I’ve seen him work his way out of situations that would have flummoxed the world’s best. He can handle a woman in the woods.”
“She’s not the only issue, though,” Tag said. “Michelle and the archer aren’t the only people who saw Nefarious’s offer. More people will come for you. They’re probably coming right now, and if you just called in a police report-”
“Miller called that in. I made sure of it,” I interjected.
“That’s good, but it’s not enough,” Tag said. “You want to blame me for what happened here? That’s fine. It’s not true, but let’s pretend that it is for a second. This is one phone and it’s got the kind of security on it that would make the Pentagon green with envy. What do you think Nefarious can gleam from a police report spitting distance from your hometown?”
“You make a good point. I won’t lie about that, but someone is dead and there are things that have to be done. I can't ignore that.”
“Then let me do them?” Tag said. “You’re talking about giving a statement, right? I’ll give the damn statement. I wasn’t on Nefarious’s hitlist. He doesn’t want me dead. As far as I know, he doesn’t even know I’m alive.”
“You can’t give a statement about what happened. You weren’t there,” I said.
“You’re being ridiculous. I’ll say I was there. You told me what happened. I can parrot it,” he answered.
“We’re not going to be doing that,” I said. “We’re not lying to the police, and we’re certainly not impeding a murder investigation by giving a false statement. I’ll tell them what I saw and they can investigate as they see fit. That’s the way it’s supposed to go, and even though that archer tried to kill me, he deserves a true and honest investigation into his death.”
Tag looked at Holly incredulously. “How do you deal with these people?”
“He wants to do the right thing. It’s respectable,” Holly said.
“Okay. We’ll put that on his tombstone. We’ll put it on all three of their tombstones,” Tag said. “Honestly, I’m trying to help you, and you people insist on staying here and turning yourselves into a handful of sitting ducks. It’s so agr-” His eyes went wide. “A handful.”
“What?” Holly asked.
“What if they didn’t have to be a handful?” Tag asked, a smile breaking across his lips.
“A handful?” Holly asked. Instantly, her eyes went wide too. “A handful! That’s genius!”
“What the hell is going on?” Nate asked, looking around the table.
“I'm not sure we’re meant to understand,” Kat replied.
“How do we do that, though?” Kat asked. “We don’t have any equipment.”
“I do, actually,” Tag said. He reached into his bag and pulled out a laptop.
“You brought a computer here?” I balked.
“It’s got the same security as the phone, and honestly what would it matter now?” Tag asked. He popped it open. “I’ll hook up to my hotspot. I have it bolstered, and we’ll get this done.”
Holly got up and moved around the table excitedly.
“Okay.I’m paying for all of this. Somebody tell me what’s happening,” Nate said.
“We’ve been trying to hide,” Holly said. “We’ve been trying to scrub ourselves off the grid completely, which is an almost impossible task in this day and age if you’re up against someone who can access things the way Nefarious can.”
“But what if we did the opposite?” Tag asked. “What if we flooded the grid with your intel? What if we made dozens and dozens of fake Jacks, of fake Kats and fake Nates? What if we made it look like there were so many of you that even Nefarious, let alone the people vying for his bounty, didn’t know which one was real?”
“You can do that?” Kat asked.
