Scarlett
Well, she’d talked the big talk now she had to walk the walk. Ballsy had suited her much better when she was young and stupid.
Now her arrogance would put them all in harm’s way.
They might have been better off cowering.
“What happened?” She blasted the question at Tyrone the moment he fell in step alongside of her as they entered the hospital.
The men spread out to pace the perimeter of the reception area. There were a lot of bodies there this morning. Only a few pointed cameras in her direction or seemed sick or injured. They’d want to weed out any potential threats.
Hermione stayed close to her side, clinging to her hand and trotting to keep up with Scarlett’s agitated pace. Claire and Emmy followed behind.
“He used his NSA connections to be released from holding before the police could press charges against him,” he told her as he waved off one of the persistent reporters who was up early enough this morning to catch her arrival. “Is this your daughter? Or shall I say, your other daughter?”
Scarlett forced a pleasant smile for Hermione and swung their clasped hands back and forth until her daughter giggled. “Yes. Hermione this is Mr. Halliday. Can you say hello?”
The toddler dropped into a pretty curtsey. “Pleased to meet ye, sir.”
His brows shot upward. “I’m going to add that to the list of questions I’m not going to ask.”
“Good idea,” Scarlett agreed. “These are my friends Claire Urquhart and Emmy MacLean.”
They made polite greetings.
“We’re going to go grab some coffee before we go up,” Emmy told her. “You want anything?”
Scarlett and Tyrone declined and the two women veered toward the cafeteria. Scarlett turned back to the matter at hand. “So what next?”
Tyrone shrugged as they headed down the hall to the elevators. “I’ve put some of the boys I’ve hired out there to find him and track him, but we’ve got nothing so far. He may be using a fake ID or disguising himself. Either way, he’s gone to ground.”
“Pretty far under,” Scarlett grumbled. “The dirt bag. I can’t believe they wouldn’t hold him for attempted murder.”
“No witnesses, Scar,” he reminded her.
“I would have lied.”
Tyrone’s smile was grim as he looked over his shoulder at the four Scotsmen grilling every person present that morning. “Really? What about them? They all strike me as the upstanding sort.”
They were.
That was the problem. None of them could think like Jameson. He risked his livelihood in his pursuit of Hugh. Followed them to another country to satisfy his vengeance. If their conclusions last evening were correct, he’d trailed her and Laird to the theater with the intent of killing them from the shadows, without even having proof of who Laird was. Jameson had shown himself capable of harming innocents along the way.
There was no telling what level of deceit Jameson would descend to or what underhanded tactics he would use to get to them. To hunt them.
On her side were four men who, regardless of Laird’s ominous threat, were more apt to meet their foe face-to-face in an honorable duel. Like gentlemen.
They’d never dream of shooting a man in the back, or in the dark, like Jameson. It could be their downfall.
“Well, unlike them, my moral compass can sway from the north when the situation demands it,” she said. “It’s my superpower.”
“I always would’ve guessed you wrote the book on straitlaced virtue,” Tyrone jested. “What? Did you recently fall in a vat of toxic waste or get bit by a spider or something?”
“No, I got shot at. But same difference.” Scarlett grimaced. “My morality’s extremely flexible these days.”
“Should I address you as Elasti-Girl now then?”
He laughed at his own joke. Sadly, Scarlett’s sense of humor was pretty dried up today.
