He watched Sarah spread her feet and hold the gun competently in both hands, pointing it at where Twist and Micah had followed his directions and were facing the wall.
As Blaze was leaving the bedroom, one of them must have twitched. Sarah said, “I’m a farm girl. I’ve killed a lot of coyotes and other varmints my life. One or two more won’t bother me one bit.”
What a woman. Once this was over, he would make sure he showed her how much he appreciated her valor.
Sure enough, an entire package of long zip ties and two black cloth bags with drawstrings were lying on the coffee table in Logan’s creepy all-white living room, as colorless as Arctic dry-suit scuba training on the blinding ice under the sun-leeched sky. He also grabbed a white-handled serrated knife from the white-enameled block in the kitchen, just in case.
When he returned to the bedroom, Sarah was sitting on the bed while she held the gun on Twist and Micah. “These two clowns say they want to negotiate.”
Blaze got to work cranking Twist’s hands from the back of his skull down to behind his back and interlocking the zip ties around his wrists. “You don’t have a lot of position to negotiate from.”
Twist muttered, “This room is bugged for both audio and video. I can sweep it, and then we can talk without being overheard.”
Blaze did the same to Micah, zip-tying his hands behind his back.
Micah’s sharp glance suggested more.“How longhas it been bugged?”
He winced. “A few weeks after I came on board, which was months before that time you and Kylie stayed here.”
“That fucker.”
“I don’t know whether Logan or anybody watched, but the mics and cameras are here,” Twist said.
Micah shook his head. “I should’ve known better than to trust him, but it didn’t even occur to me that he might be spying on us in his own guest room.”
Blaze stood, stretching his back after bending over to where they sat on the floor. “I don’t know that I need you guys. I could leave you here tied up and let Mary Varvara Bell deal with you when she figures out you failed to keep us from escaping, or I could just shoot you myself.”
Sarah said from over on the bed, “I’ve always heard about how people in New York City mind their own business and don’t care to investigate when they hear gunshots.”
She played bad cop pretty well. Blaze was amused.
He glanced back at her but didn’t take his eyes off the two men sitting on the floor for more than a second. “I’d just strangle them with this arm.” He flexed, and his biceps bulged under his short tee shirt sleeves. “No reason to waste bullets.”
Sarah chuckled from behind him.
Blaze said, “I was about ready to take Micah out anyway after he held that fucking gun on us a few days ago,” he said.
“Not to mention that they both called my aunt, who wanted to kill us,” Sarah said. “Kill him anyway.”
Blaze chuckled this time. “You’re ruthless.”
“It runs in the family.”
Micah turned his head but didn’t say anything.
Twist, however, said, “The mics and video are connected to an off-site hard drive. They will see and hear all of this.”
Blaze sighed and tucked the gun into the back of his waistband again.
He used the knife from the kitchen to pop the plastic zip ties that he’d used to bind Twist’s wrists. “Get busy getting rid of them, then. Sarah, if that one moves, shoot him.”
“Sure,” was all she said.
She either was a little bloodthirsty or a pretty good actor. Blaze was a little worried about which one it was.
Then again, farm life. She probably ax-murdered and ate those chickens she named.
In the living room, Twist rifled his backpack while Blaze held the gun on him the whole time. He came up with a small apparatus with a loop on the top. “I know where I put bugs, but I don’t know if I’m the only one who bugged this apartment.”
