“We don’t have a lot of time for whys,” he said, his voice growing louder as I caught a footfall on the floor. It sounded like concrete, tile—something hard, not the carpet there’d been in the office. The air here was cold, damp. A basement?
He hadn’t looked like a big guy. How far could he have dragged me? How long was I out?
“Why don’t we have a lot of time?” I asked, focusing on the thing that seemed to matter the most. I wished I could see his face. His tone didn’t tell me enough about whether the time comment was meant as logistical or a threat.
“My guess is the Creed Global team never wanted you out of their sight. They’re probably coming for you. I was sloppy getting into your website from here, even with a VPN. I should have known they’d track me back. I got a little cocky. Now this location’s burned.” He paused. “Onthe upside, I have you. Once we’re finished, I’m just down to Silas.”
Fear curled in my stomach at his calm. Even without the loose-end comment, this guy was surprisingly chatty. That didn’t bode well. People only gave up their secrets when they had good reason, or when they had nothing to fear because they were about to silence the person they were talking to.
I pushed down the panic. I had to stay sharp, use what I could to stay alive.
Keeping him talking worked in the movies.
In the back of my mind, I filed away that Silas must still be alive. If I got out of this, Eli would want to know.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you need to kill Emily Shaw?”
He ignored my question, the scuff of his shoes, and the direction of his voice telling me he was pacing in front of me. “I was hoping that scene I left at Janus Vault’s hideout would motivate his team to do the work for me, but they’ve been useless, spending more time looking for me than Silas. Where’s the loyalty?”
We’d thought the way the files were dumped out looked staged. Now I knew they had been. I tried another question. “What does Silas have to do with Emily?”
“They haven’t told you much, have they?” he asked, sounding amused at my ignorance.
I was going to kill Eli. Except I probably wasn’t going to get the chance. I didn’t answer.
“How about we play a game?” he said. “They may not have let you in the loop, but I’m guessing there’s a good chance you’ve got some information buried in your head that could help me. This job is more complicated than Iexpected. I want to finish up and get paid. Things are becoming messy. I don’t like mess.”
“You blew up my van,” I said. “That was pretty messy. Ditto for Emily Shaw.”
“Bombs aren’t messy. Bombs are beautiful. Fire and noise,” he said, and I thought I could sense a smile in his voice. “Blood and body parts are not my thing. Fortunately, by the time you explode, I’ll be long gone.”
I wanted to snap back with another sarcastic comment to show him I wasn’t afraid, but at the casual mention of me blowing up, my throat went dry.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, breathless.
“I need to sanitize this location and neutralize you, and I need to do both quickly. But I could also use some answers. So, I strapped a bomb to your chest. It’s on a timer.”
His voice got louder. Air moved against my cheeks, carrying a woodsy scent that could be cologne. A slight pressure on my chest, and a beep, like he’d pushed a button.
“There,” he said, satisfied. “Now the timer’s started. Ten minutes. Ten minutes for you to answer some questions. If I like the answers, maybe I’ll turn off the bomb, and we’ll do this a different way.”
“But you’re going to kill me,” I stated flatly.“Even if I talk.”
“It’s my job,” he said easily, clearly not bothered by my objections to my coming death.
“Your job is to kill people?”
“My job is to clean things up, and the people running Ghost Trace left more loose ends than they’d planned. They didn’t think it would matter. Emily and Silas were bad enough, but then you stumbled into the mix. So now I haveto get rid of you, along with any evidence you’ve left behind.”
More than anything, he sounded irritated at the additions to his to-do list.My death was an irritation.
Fuck this guy.I might be ten minutes away from death, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“What’s Ghost Trace?” I asked, mentally sifting through everything the team at Sinclair Security had let slip. I was sure I’d never heard the words Ghost Trace.
“Jesus, they really did keep you out of the loop. You don’t need to know about that. We don’t have time to waste with explanations, and that’s a complicated one. I don’t even know all the answers. But I know enough to know that Emily Shaw needed to go, and so does Silas Creed. And you, for getting in the way, collecting all of your evidence.”
Ghost Trace might be what Eli and his team needed to figure out where Silas was. And it was going to die with me. What a waste.
