She was a pain in the ass, but she was cute.
Fun too.
I don’t want to believe Margot knows the meaning of the wordfunif it doesn’t come with flaying someone alive.
And I don’t believe for one second that her only motivation in lying to the triplets is that she hastrust issuesand doesn’t want to complicate the lies they’re telling their families.
She’s up to something else. I can feel it in that part of my gut that’s never steered me wrong.
“Have fun tonight,” I say as I saunter out of the room like I don’t want to touch her back just to see if her skin would also be the kind of asshole that would pebble up with goosebumps under my fingers. “Hear Jonas is gonna be there.”
She doesn’t reply, but I swear I can hear her thinking a solidmotherfucker.
Also, I didn’t hear anything at all about Jonas Rutherford, and even if I had, I doubt it would’ve been that.
Decker said since their friends who co-own the retreat center started having kids, they don’t hit town after naptime much anymore. And Jonas’s security team would probably have a fit at an underground speakeasy.
No easy second exit route.
Margot’s security guy seems none too pleased with it either as he interviews me for a position as his backup after I get dressed in the living room while Margot’s showering.
He tells me he’s running my references and will be in touch.
I don’t wait for her to finish getting ready, and soon after my informal interview, I’m happily strolling into Silver Horn myself after giving the password at a nondescript door in the alley behind an Indian restaurant downtown.
I’ve heard of this place, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it in person. Dim lighting, lots of low, curving furniture in reds and blacks. Old-fashioned paintings of mountains and gold mines hang on the brick walls between red velvet curtains that can be drawn around various sections for more privacy.
Fucking swanky for a small town in the mountains.
Decker and Jack are at a seating area tucked in a back corner beyond the glossy wood bar with a curtain mostly closed around them, so I make my way over the Turkish rug-covered wood floor to join them. Decker’s in the same clothes he was in the other day—or maybe his pants are green instead of tan today?—and Jack’s wearing a PAC-MAN T-shirt that makes me want to hit an arcade. Their hair is polar opposites—Jack’s military-short, his face shaved, while Decker’s as shaggy as I’ve ever seen him in both hair and beard.
Jack’s dog is on the floor beside him. He lifts his head, pants, and wags his tail a bit, but otherwise doesn’t react to my presence.
“Margie with you?” Jack asks as I take a seat in the chair farthest from the door with my back to the wall and a view out of the parted curtains.
I shake my head. “She was showering or napping or something.”
“How’s her van?”
“Seems to be running fine now.”
“Good.”
Decker eyes me, and for some reason, that makes Jack sigh.
I look between the two men. “You doing some kind of silent triplet communication?”
Lucky drops into the seat beside me, dressed in dark blue nurse’s scrubs that aren’t dissimilar to the housekeeping uniform at the retreat center, just a different color.
“Dude, why are you having Rhys investigate Margie?” Lucky says to his brothers.
“That’s exactly what I was just asking,” Jack says.
I glance back at the bar.
Bartender’s occupied, and clearly, they feel comfortable talking about their business here.
Curtains must be effective, because I can’t hear any distinct words from the conversations of the other groups of people here.
