She snorted. “You know I could help you on your case, right?”
He wasn’t going to argue with her in front of her family. “You are not on my case, and that’s the end of it.” He kept his voice low, but nobody seemed to be listening to their conversation, anyway.
She patted his jean-clad thigh. “We can talk about that on the drive home. Either way, I’m on the payroll now, remember? We have actual assignments.”
That was fine, but his fight with Rock could get her killed. During this escape from reality, he’d been able to banish the images of Candy Folks’s autopsy, but soon he’d be back at his crappy office searching for the guy who’d killed her while also preparing to either kill Rock or die trying.
Dana brushed his arm, and the scent of orange blossoms wafted over him. “Congrats on winning bingo. Beginner’s luck and all.”
“Thanks.” A chill clacked down his spine, and he stiffened, going on alert. He scouted the room, landed on a couple of kids eating pancakes in the corner, and then kept going to a window facing the golf course.
Gary Rockcliff stood framed in the window, looking right at him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Wolfe’s muscles tightened, and ice flowed through his blood. Gary Rockcliff jerked his head to the south and then disappeared. Barely keeping his cool, Wolfe set his napkin on his plate. “Excuse me.”
Dana’s eyebrows rose, but everyone else kept up their conversations.
His knife was in his boot. Oh, he’d end up in jail and probably be banished from all future Mulberry breakfasts, but if he got the chance to kill Rock right now, he was going to take it. All sound disappeared as he strode through the restaurant and outside to the club grounds, spotting Rock lounging in an outdoor seating area next to a board set up for tournaments.
Wolfe counted the civilians in the area as well as the avenues of escape, his gaze never leaving his enemy. Heat and humidity swam around him, making his shirt too tight.
Rock sat in a lounge chair at one corner of an unused outdoor fireplace and gestured to the seat across from him. “Please.”
Wolfe reached down for his knife.
Rock lifted his right hand, showing a detonator with a green blinking light. Coils of some kind attached the device to his hand, so that nobody could take it away.
Wolfe’s gut clenched. “You wired the place.”
Rock smiled, revealing his too long left canine. “I do love things that go boom.”
Fuck. The happy group in the restaurant behind Wolfe had no idea. He started to turn back, to run, to do something, when Rock whistled. “Just sit.”
Was there a choice? Wolfe turned back around, pulled out the chair to sit, staring at the man he’d once considered a brother. Rock had let his buzz cut grow out, but his eyes were as sharp and blue as ever. The beard was new. Today he wore a gray golf shirt and khaki pants that showed muscle and brute strength. Wait a minute. Was that a hickey on Rock’s neck? “How did you find me, Gary?”
“What? No nicknames any longer because I killed a couple of morons in the desert?” A scar down Gary’s throat moved, right beside the hickey, when he talked.
“No. You don’t deserve a nickname.” Wolfe would never call him Rock again, and he deeply regretted holding that throat wound together on a mission until they could get help. “How?”
“The gods favor me, as you should know by now,” Gary said.
Wolfe forced his body to remain relaxed when all he wanted to do was leap over the fireplace and break Gary’s neck. The detonator no doubt had a dead man’s switch, so if he tackled Gary, the bomb or bombs might explode. “How so?” he asked, wanting confirmation.
Gary looked past him to the restaurant. “Luck. It always finds me.”
Wolfe sat quietly, his mind spinning. Luck? If it was luck, then Gary hadn’t been looking for Wolfe. So the only way he could’ve found him would’ve been through Dana? The pit in his gut now made sense. “Heroin,” he murmured, the puzzle still not quite fitting together.
Gary focused on him again. “What about it?”
Candy’s notes. The drugging. Albert Nelson’s ties to Frank Spanek. The missing CEO—Theresa Rhodes. Heroin tracked over the southern route. Serena’s deciphering of Candy’s notes and finding heroin in them, in a story about Theresa Rhodes Ah, crap. The pieces all swirled around, hinting at the danger of the ticking explosives as everything dropped into place. Finally. “Nice hickey.”
Gary studied him. “Thanks.”
The cases were combined. His and Dana’s and poor Candy’s. There was no doubt Rock would detonate the bomb and enjoy watching Wolfe react, so there was only one option. Hopefully he’d get the facts right. Time to bluff. “I know about your woman. Have a friend on her right now, watching through the scope.” Wolfe went with his gut, faster than his brain at the moment.
“Bullshit,” Gary retorted.
