Brie and I look to each other and she guides me to the side, near the billiard table.
“Yes?”she calls out.
The latch clicks, and the door unlocks.
Brie spreads her legs into a strong stance, arms raised, gun pointing.
Eddie Thorne steps into the room.
The man looks like hell—bloodshot eyes with dark circles beneath them, wrinkled clothes, facial growth unruly, and a handgun that’s significantly larger than Brie’s pointed directly at us.
His hand shakes slightly, a notable difference from Brie, whose hands are rock solid.
“Eddie,” I say, as friendly as I can muster, aiming to calm the situation.
“I don’t want to shoot you,” Eddie says by way of greeting.
“Good to know,” I offer.“I’d be more likely to believe that if you lowered your gun.”
“I need to know… What’s going on?”
Ah, the question of the hour.So many people with a need to know.“What exactly are you asking Eddie?”
I step to the side of Brie and she crosses in front of me once again.I have half a mind to yank her behind me, but on account of the guns in the room, I grind my teeth and stay still, knowing that if I step closer, Brie will likely repeat her move and the end result is moving her closer and closer to the end of Eddie’s barrel.
“Are the cops coming for me?”He looks past Brie, his dark eyes pleading, a man defeated.“That’s all I need to know.I’ve been monitoring news coverage.There’s nothing.Can I go home?Or is someone coming to my door?”
“That’s what you’re afraid of?”This day has been eye-opening for me.Not one client question about business interests, and now Eddie’s greatest worry isn’t his job, or how he betrayed me and countless others, but whether he’s facing time in the slammer.
“I can’t imagine anyone will attempt to prosecute you, but I don’t have an in at the DOJ,” I say, hedging—KOAN has ties, but I’m not offering him a pipeline.
“You’re more valuable to the authorities as a source,” Brie says, her tone dry and entirely unsympathetic.“If you shoot either of us, that changes.”
He blinks, like he’s processing the truth of her statement.The slight tremors in his hand are reminiscent of a drug user, as are the blown pupils.
Christ, is he high?
“If you lower your gun, I’ll lower mine,” Brie says, her voice calm and commanding.
Eddie lets the muzzle dip and releases it from one of his two hands to rub his forehead, damp with sweat.“This is such a fucking nightmare,” he grumbles.
“You’re not the first to say that to me today.”
He glances up, eyes pleading.“I never meant for all of this to happen.The other group, they don’t work like this.”
“You mean Magpie?”
He flinches, then nods.“Elena…she runs a different game.”The whites of his eyes give him a wild appearance.“I didn’t mean this,” he says, glancing down at the gun.“She sent someone to my house.She wants me dead.”
I scratch at my jaw.Brie has lowered her gun, but she’s still standing forward, no doubt so she can lunge between us if needed.
“She tried to kill us too,” I admit, aiming to ensure Eddie doesn’t see us as the threat.Eddie is a bomb, and I want to defuse it.
He nods solemnly, and somehow I don’t think this is news to him.But then again, he said he’s been monitoring the news and the bomb located in my condominium tower has been all over the local news, probably national as well.
“But you…you didn’t turn me into the cops?”
“Your name has been mentioned.But they’re far more interested in the people who used the information you sold for extortion.”
