Shiloh hugged himself. He couldn’t look away from Archie’s slumped form. “Sorry if youstartledme? You shot him. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
He continued muttering the phrase, a panicky mantra. Blood spread slowly, a shadow beneath Archie’s head.
“It’s going to be okay,” Bishop said. Damn, his client-soothing voice was hard to access right now.
Shiloh’s attention snapped away from the corpse. “That’s what Kit said. I didn’t believe him.”
Bishop didn’t have an answer to that.
Headlights rounded a corner. “Car incoming,” Bishop said to James. “Is that one of yours?”
“Yes, don’t shoot the sketchy black SUV,” James answered. “She’ll take Shiloh—you take the car. I’ll tell you where to go.”
Then he resumed his muffled urging to his driver.
“This is a friend,” Bishop said, as the SUV pulled up. He probably should have said something earlier, but Shiloh flinched, like he hadn’t noticed the car’s approach.
“Sure.” Even in his shock, Shiloh managed to sound classic-teenage unimpressed. His resemblance to Kit heightened. “Whatever.”
A woman jumped out of the SUV. She moved quickly into the streetlight’s glow, so Bishop recognized her from the team assigned to the house. “Here,” she said, offering the keys.
Bishop took them. “Get this kid back to the house. Make him tea or something.”
“Let me throw up first,” Shiloh said faintly.
“Sure thing,” the woman said, looking considerably less enthused. She touched her earpiece. “I need backup with a biohazard. And there’s a dead body, too.”
Bishop was already in the SUV, his body moving without waiting for his mind’s direction. The split second before the car purred to life echoed with strange silence. Archie was dead, and that meant nothing. Not when Kit was missing, in a monster’s grasp.
“Where am I headed?” Bishop asked.
The car’s navigation system blinked online. A mechanical voice instructed, “Proceed to the route.”
“Just follow directions,” James said, reassuringly smug. “Race you there.”
Holden’s side of the car was quieter. Nearly silent. As James muttered and ranted at Bishop, Holden had a line open to Darius. They only verbalized the essentials.
Turn around. Kit’s been taken. He’s still in San Corvo. The locations were wrong.
In between, all they traded were quiet breaths. Holden forgot Darius was there sometimes. His full attention stuck on a small, handheld screen. James had an identical one. They’d been right. A phone tracker wasn’t enough. Darius’s gun tracker wasn’t enough either.
Hopefully, this would be.
“He’s stopped,” Holden said, unblinking. Waiting to see if the tracker would move again. It had paused before. The Viper obeyed red lights, apparently.
“What’s the address?” Darius asked. His voice would be calming if Holden gave a shit.
Holden read it off. “Looks residential.”
Information shuffled through Holden’s mind. According to Kit—and Holden agreed—the Viper liked to control the scenario. But leading enemies to his nest didn’t make sense.
Someone else’s nest, though…
“Does Archie still own a house?” Holden asked, certain he was right.
But being right didn’t matter if they were too late.
45
