Doubt managed to squirm in between the chinks of Bruno’s certainty. How well did he really know Clarice? Maybe she’d been playing both sides this whole time and stringing him along. Instinct didn’talwaysknow best, and maybe he had been so eager for a connection that he was willing to ditch common sense and caution.
It didn’t seem likely that she was involved with this unsavory lot, but it was still dangerous how much she knew about Bruno and Gil. Bruno had been worriedforClarice, but maybe instinct was freaking out because it knew that she was going to break and tell them everything!
To Bruno’s surprise, his armadillo uncoiled enough to snort in disgust at the very idea.She’s safe.
Even if nothing else was.
“Up the stairs,” the guard said behind him when Bruno hesitated inside the front door.
The house was really something extra, with an entry suited for grand balls and whole circuses. A staircase went up a half-floor and split in two, wrapping around to a mezzanine above. Bruno was struck by the utter impracticality of it all. There was no arctic entry, and the cold air fogged in freely with them. Who in Nickel City had this kind of money? Who, with this kind of money, would choose to live in Nickel City? No wonder it was on the market.
Bruno went quietly to the stairs and the guard followed him a few steps behind.
“I’mstillnot Veronica,” Clarice’s voice carried clearly down the hall above, and Bruno breathed a sigh of relief and quickened his pace. She was okay. So far. Instinct still suggested that something awful was going to happen, but at least they’d be facing whatever was going to happentogether.
There were other voices, arguing in Portuguese, andBruno followed the sound while his handler kept pace behind him.
The room that the hallway opened into was as useless and overblown as the entry below, with gold edging and high windows with frost suggesting that they were single pane. They were looking out over a big yard and…was that a swimming pool beneath them? In Montana?
“The contractor was supposed to drain the pool,” Clarice was saying with a shake of her head. She was standing at the window looking out at the frosted view, for all the world as if she was simply showing the house. “The whole place was meant to be completely winterized. I will need to have firm words with the contractor and find out what else they neglected to do! Frozen pipes can be very expensive to fix!”
A man in a fur-trimmed jacket was talking quietly on the phone in one corner, keeping a watchful eye over the rest of the room, and he met Bruno’s eyes with a steely look. Bruno would have put money on him being the one calling shots (Hunter?), and he did a quick appraisal of the rest. There were a dozen men in the room, which was large enough that none of them were crowded together, and the groups they had gravitated to were telling.
The well-armed men speaking Portuguese looked like mercenaries, and they were unhappy about something, but very disciplined, keeping careful watch with weapons at hand. One of them turned to put Bruno in his line of vision, the others were keeping their attention on Clarice. There was another cluster of men that were standing with Clarice at the window, and Bruno categorized them asinvestorsin his mind at once. They were unarmed, and looked soft and concerned. They were wearing gray jackets with matching logos that might have been an S or a long-necked bird.
A sour-faced man and a woman stood apart from the others, looking painfully plain-clothed compared to the others. They were older and wearing ordinary winter coats and stocking caps. They wouldn’t have looked out of place in a grocery store or complaining about neighbor disturbances in a city council meeting. Neither of them was outwardly carrying weapons, but Bruno wondered if their jackets covered sidearms. They made his instinct, already pegged, shiver in warning.
The man in the fur-trimmed jacket hung up and pocketed his phone. “This is a private event,” he said in a deliberately light voice.
Clarice turned from the window and Bruno was gratified by the look of hope and relief that she shot him. He returned his gaze to the ringleader with effort. “I must have lost my invitation,” he said, channeling every shred of self-control that he had to sound mild and unbothered. The last thing he wanted to do was ratchet up tensions. “The name is Bruno.”
“I understand that you’re here for Veronica?” Ringleader sounded equally controlled and careful.
“I’m not Ver—” Clarice said ferociously as she stepped forward, but cut herself short when one of the mercenaries moved to intercept her. “Sorry!”
“I think there’s been some kind of mixup,” Bruno said, in his most soothing voice. “Clarice is a realtor thatworksfor Veronica.”
“And you?” Ringleader managed to sound very reasonable. “What do you do, Bruno?”
“I’m a therapist.”
That got a chuckle of amusement from several of the men.
“Hertherapist?”
“No!” Clarice said at the same time he did.
That got more laughter.
“Well, Bruno. It’s a pleasure, I’m sure. Perhaps you can be of some use to us, since Clarice has proved less…cooperative.”
“I’ve been cooperative!” Clarice protested. “I’m just not Veronica and I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“He’s a shifter, Hunter,” the man at Ringleader’s side said suddenly, just as Bruno realized the same in return. Instinct was still acting like a thrumming undercurrent of unhelpful white noise, but it was clear about this.
There was another shifter among the men by Clarice, but Bruno couldn’t tell which of them it was. And shifter clearly didn’t meansafe.
“Look,” he said, hoping to get some kind of control over the situation. “I think there’s been some kind of mixup…”
