“Too much coffee,” Simon lied thinly. He ignored the itch at the nape of his neck and leaned forward. “Who is your project lead again?”
Confusion made Lau screw dark eyebrows together over his nose. “What? Hold on. I thought she sent you?”
He had started to push himself up off the couch, hands up and frustrated, when the bullet punched through the glass window. The shatter of glass gave Simon a second to react, but his muscles were clenched with the expectation of violence, and he was in motion before he even consciously knew he needed to be.
He lunged over the coffee table, sending the mugs flying, and tackled Lau back onto the couch. It wasn’t enough, but it jolted the center of his mass out of the sniper’s sights. The bullet caught his shoulder and punched through the flesh and bone without drama.
It was rarely as cinematic as you expected. Not in the moment.
They landed on the cushions with a thud. Lau started to hyperventilate as the situation hit him, and Simon rolled them both onto the floor. Under the tranqing blanket of the painkiller he’d taken earlier, Simon’s shoulder started to scream again. He ignored it and folded his arms over both their heads.
Blood spread over the floor and soaked into the carpet along with the spilled stewed coffee. Either the shooter had seen that he’d missed or he just liked to make sure. Either way he kept firing and perforated the wooden walls of the house. Bullets ripped into the cushions, punctured the leather and sent the stuffing flying. The noise was deafening, and then it stopped.
“What the hell! What the hell?” Lau spluttered. He reached up, touched his head, took away bloody fingers, and stared at them in shock as they started to shake. “What thefuck?”
Simon rolled off him and to his feet. He grabbed Lau and dragged the shaken, shocky man up and stuck his shoulder under his arm when he staggered. Blood dripped on his jacket and onto the back of his hand.
“Move,” he said. “We need to move, Lau. Now. Come on.”
They stagger-ran into the kitchen and out through the back door. Behind them Simon heard a boot kick the front door in.
Chapter Seventeen
THERE WERE—barring the exceptions that proved the rule—only ever two options when it came to on-hold music. It was either 80s pop—Jacob had spent more hours listening to “Walking in Memphis” than was humane—or classical music if it was performed by an orchestra with no soul.
Tuscan Blooms had picked the former.
Jacob pinned the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he reached back to dry his ass on one of Simon’s towels. He absently hummed along to the Smiths as he passed the towel between his legs and gave his balls a quick dry. He tossed the towel at the laundry basket, turned toward the bedroom, and paused when he found Fozzy staring at him from the bed.
“Don’t judge,” he told the dog. “I saw what you were doing last night. You’re gonna lick that thing to a nub.”
Fozzy blinked his beady little eyes, heaved a sigh, and lay down. Still staring.
Jacob shrugged, grabbed his jeans, and held them up to assess the stains. He imagined them on someone else and how he’d judge them, then sighed and tossed them after the towel. Too scruffy for what he wanted to pull off. He went to Simon’s wardrobe and flicked through the perfectly pressed and hung dress pants.
Hot as hell on Simon. Not quite right.
A quick hunt through the drawers turned up a pair of black chinos and a fitted gray T-shirt. The fit wasn’t exactly tailored, but he didn’t want to look too good either. He was just shoving his feet into his sneakers when the harried florist in Tuscan Blooms picked up the phone.
“Hello,” she said. “I’msosorry for the wait. It’s just really busy here today. How can I help you?”
Jacob switched ears. He could imagine how busy it was. He’d donated a couple of grand and recruited some online contacts to spam the florist with telephone orders. Considering the sense of humor of most of the people on that board, there would be some pretty inappropriate bouquets sent the next day.
“I wanted to order a wreath?”
“Of course. Friend or family?”
“Business associate,” Jacob said. He sat down on the bed and scruffed Fozzy’s ears as he talked. “Ah, sort of. My employer passed away, and we’re sending flowers from the office. We have an account with you.”
He said it confidently.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the florist said. In the background a phone rang. He could hear her moving around in an attempt to dim the noise. “Could I just get where you’re calling from?”
“PeaPod,” Jacob said. He rhymed off the address while he pulled his foot up onto the bed to tie his laces.
“Oh,” the woman said. “Your employer was Harry Clayton, the man found in the river.”
“Yes,” Jacob said. He hesitated with his fingers hooked through the loops in the laces as he scrabbled through phrases for the most useful social interaction. “It’s awful. We don’t really know what happened, though, and we can’t talk about it.”
