Grade pulled an annoyed face. “If I did,” he said, “would they be trying to kill me?”
“You’re an annoying little prick,” Hadley said. “I would.”
He drew the gun back and punched Grade in the side of the face with it. Grade yelped and went down onto his knees. Blood dripped between his fingers and onto the floor as he cupped his mouth.
“Stay down,” Hadley said. “Or I’ll put you down for good.”
Clay cleared his throat.
Hadley spun around and staggered backward. He swung his gun up, but Clay grabbed his wrist before he could aim it. He broke Hadley’s thumb with a sharp jerk and caught the gun as it dropped. He tucked it into the waistband of his jeans and pressed the muzzle of his gun against Hadley’s forehead.
“I could say the same to you,” he said. “Grade? You OK?”
Grade spat onto the dirty concrete and nodded. “I’ll live.”
Hadley snorted out a chuckle as he skinned his lips back in a grin. Clay had to admit, from this side of it, that was off-putting.
“Not for long, though,” Hadley said. “You know what? It’s almost fucking worth it.”
Clay was going to ask “What?” but then he heard the other cars pull up outside. He grabbed Hadley by the collar, gun slid around to press against his temple, and dragged him over to the window to look out.
Three black Lexus sedans. None of them belonged to Harry or Ezra.
Fuck.
Doors opened and Nesmith’s men piled out, suit jackets stripped off and Kevlar cinched over their shirts. Submachine guns were cradled in the crook of their arms, and Limpy, one foot strapped up in a hospital walking cast, dangled a brace of grenades from one hand as he got out of the back of one of the sedans.
“Fucking Nesmith couldn’t see what was right in front of him,” Limpy yelled as he hobbled forward. “But I did. Some fucking Dashiell Hammett bullshit about two-timing whores and bartenders. Then you head straight up here, Traynor. What, do you get a cut? Is that why you tried to tell us Buchanan was dead?”
What?
Buchanan was…
“It wasn’t Buchanan who got shot,” Grade said.
Of course not. Clay had all the pieces already; his brain had just played shuffleboard with them. But here they were now, all laid out, and how the fuck had he missed it the first time?
“Of course it wasn’t,” Clay said. He looked at Hadley, who grinned at him. “Because you’re Buchanan.”
The moment of realization was shattered as a burst of gunfire strafed the front of the building.
“You’ve got five minutes,” Limpy said. “Come out or we come in.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dory’s nails werebroken down to the quick. What was left of the red resin polish made her fingers look mutilated. They could have been. Grade tried not to think about it as he unlocked the cuffs. It helped that Dory was already on his case.
“So you just happened to have a handcuff key on you?” she asked, her voice prickly with judgment. “Just hanging out on your keyring.”
“Where else would I put it?” Grade twisted the key, and the metal ring clicked open on Dory’s right hand. Behind them, Clay had Hadley… Buchanan… pinned up against the wall as he choked the truth out of him. Or as close to it as you could get with the time limit they had. “It’s a key. I put it on the key ring.”
“Don’t try and be smart,” Dory said. “Just because you skipped fourth grade—”
“And sixth grade.”
She ignored the correction. “It doesn’t make you smart; it just makes you clever.”
“It’s the same thing.”
