Page 29 of 72 Hours

“Yeah?” Junk growled back and took his own step forward.

“Shut the fuck up, both of you,” I said wearily. It’d been enlightening, seeing Niall play the territorial game with Junk, but it was exhausting too. “Niall, I trust Junk completely, as a friend. I don’t see how he could have been involved in anything that disrupted the park. Junk, Niall’s a... colleague of mine, so lay off. Besides, you don’t want to know about his right hook.” I winced, the sudden burst of emotion tugging too painfully at a weakened body. “Can someone fill me in on the bit about the snivelling little turd? Does that mean you caught someone out there?”

“The dog—” Niall began.

“Yeah, Dylan got him,” Junk interrupted proudly. “Teeth like ’n industrial clamp.”

“Once he bit that arse, he never let go?”

Junk grinned back at me. Niall rolled his eyes.

“The sniveller?” I prompted.

They looked at each other, then looked over to the archway to my kitchen. I turned my aching head and stared at a man I’d not realised was there at all. Possibly because he was trussed to the kitchen stool and gagged like a turkey for Thanksgiving and would’ve had extreme difficulty making any kind of original sound, let alone coherent words. The lower half of his face was bound by a large, tightly knotted scarf. It was one of Junk’s; he always wore an amazing array of brightly coloured neck scarves, an unexpected sunburst of personal expression in amongst the habitual denim and leather. I stared at our captive, and frightened eyes met mine.

It was Greg, Simon’s young assistant.

I WAS MOMENTARILY SPEECHLESS with the shock.

Greg seemed to have stopped snivelling by now, as Junk had called his frightened whimpering. Or maybe it was the sore effect of Dylan’s bite marks in his butt.

“Take off the gag,” I said hoarsely, in Niall’s direction.

“In a moment.” Niall pulled up the card table beside the couch, and sat on it, facing Greg. He rolled his gun around in his hand, making it pretty damned obvious that he slept, ate, drank and possibly starred in wet dreams with it, until Greg’s fascinated eyes started to glaze over. Then, having made whatever point he wanted, Niall leaned forward and unfastened the scarf.

“It wasn’t me!” were the young man’s first words. Sounded like one of the kids on the park after a baseball and cracked window incident. He looked a bit like a kid, too, his blond hair sweaty and tangled, his eyes wide and scared. He spat out some threads of cloth and the words tumbled out swiftly. “For God’s sake, Niall, it wasn’t me who shot him!”

Niall’s lips were closed tight. I’d seen this “silent torture” strategy before. It was damned effective.

“Look!” Greg cried, wriggling in his chair. “You’ve taken my gun already and checked it. It’s not been fired, has it? And did you find any other weapon on me?” I glanced over at Junk and he shook his head slightly. Obviously Greg’s Department-issued gun had been clean, and there’d been nothing else found on him. “Tanner!” Greg was casting that pleading look over to me, now.

“Not a whole lot of other suspects,” I said softly. “And it’s not as if you were just passing.”

Greg grimaced. “I know, I know. You were never meant to know I was here. Simon sent me, as extra security, you know? Jeez, I was just scoping out the place, wondering why the hell it was so quiet, when I saw something around the back of that trailer. But when I went to look, suddenly that dog leaped at me, attacking me!”

“Something around the back of the trailer,” I repeated. I instinctively knew a firm approach would be the best way to unnerve a young type like Greg. I stared back at him, my gaze kept as steady as the throbbing in my arm allowed. Beside me, Niall slid his fingers up and down the gun barrel. Junk stared at the pair of us, obviously intrigued by the bizarre double-act.

Greg started to stutter. “I tried to catch it—him—tried to see who it was. But just as I got close, I heard the shot, and saw someone run off. And then, like I told you, the fucking dog—”

Junk growled, rather like the dog himself, and Greg flushed bright red.

“What did you see, Greg?” That was Niall—a low but sharp tone. Like a fingernail dragging slowly down a stone wall.

Greg looked panicky. “Not enough. God, if only I’d run faster... I think it was a guy. The figure was short and slim, but he ran like a man. There was just the one shot, then I turned to come back towards Tanner’s, then there was snarling out of nowhere and....” He swallowed, hard, his eyes going wide and flickering uncertainly towards Junk. He looked frighteningly young. I could see him tugging helplessly at the ropes around his wrists. They’d been tied by Junk, so there was no weakness there.

“You were sent to watch Niall? To watch me?”

Greg flushed. For the very first time, there was a flash of slyness in his expression. “I know, I thought it was odd too. Simon... well, he’s not always himself nowadays.” He suddenly seemed to think he’d been indiscreet, because the panic returned and he gabbled quickly, “No, forget that, of course, I wouldn’t say anything out of turn. He said Judith agreed to it. I was to come and add support around the trailer park, check out any strangers, you know.” He shrugged, and there was the return of his usual clear, naïve look. “You know what he’s like. How he worries. That’s Simon.”

“Right,” I said, carefully keeping the pain and emotion out of my tone. “So he dumps Niall on me with threats of eternal damnation if he’s not kept safe, but despite that, sends his own guys to spy on me.”

“Shut up,” Niall said. “Seems like a good thing he did. Maybe saved you from a visit to that eternal damnation.”

I glared at him, the throbbing in my wound all mixed up with the pounding of the blood around my head. No, I’m there already. Started the minute you stumbled in with your boxes and your familiar scowl.

Junk stirred behind me, and I shot him a look. He looked over at Niall, and they shared a nod. Seemed like they understood each other just fine about this.

“You can untie him,” Niall said. “He’s okay with us.”