There were a lot of things she didn't know about Seth Mackey.
He slowed and turned onto a steep gravel road. The sedan struggled and spun for a moment, but the tires finally gripped and soon they were bouncing along a narrow, rutted road.
The road dead-ended, the headlights of the car illuminating the porch of what appeared to be a large, ramshackle house. A light burned in the downstairs room off the porch. Seth killed the motor.
The porch door opened. A very large man was silhouetted against the light behind him. Seth got out of the car. “It's me,” he said.
Seth opened the passenger side and pulled Raine out, wrapping his fingers around her upper arm like a manacle.
“This isn't necessary” she hissed.
He ignored her, and dragged her towards the house. A muscular, hawk-nosed man with a short beard stared at her, stupefied as Seth pulled her through the doorway.
She blinked, taking in a swift blur of images. A big, smoky kitchen that seemed almost tropically warm. A kerosene lamp burning on the table. A card game was laid out, a coffeepot. Glasses and cups, a bottle of whisky. A sink full of dirty dishes. Two men sat at the table. The man with the beard closed the door and followed them in, leaning against the wall and folding massive arms over his barrel chest.
One of the men at the table was smoking a cigarette. He had the same hawk nose as the bearded man, and his big feet were propped up on the open door of the woodstove. There was a hole in the big toe of his sock, she noticed, before he pulled his feet down and stubbed out his cigarette. He was long and skinny, shaggy-haired, his lean face glinting with golden beard stubble. Green eyes, sharp and watchful.
The other man was clean-shaven and extremely hand- some, with a mane of tawny hair pulled back in a thick pony-tail. He had similar green eyes, with which he studied her body with undisguised interest.
The skinny guy with the hole in his sock broke the spell. “What's going on?” he demanded.
“I need a room I can lock from the outside, a padlock. A heater. And blankets.”
The three men looked at each other. Looked back at her.
“What the fuck do you think you're looking at?” Seth snarled.
The handsome long-haired guy jumped up. “The attic room ought to work. I'll go scrounge up a futon.”
“I'll get a padlock out of the shed,” the bearded man said.
The skinny one rose to his feet and reached for a cane. “I'll get some blankets.” He gave Seth a hard look as he limped by. “Then you and I are going to have a talk.”
“Whatever. Let me get her squared away first,” Seth said, pressing his hand against his side. He was paler than she had ever seen him.
The skinny guy's eyes widened. “Jesus, man, what did you do to yourself?”
“Later.”
They put her in the attic. There was a bustle of activity, which she could not follow. Someone dragged in a space heater and turned it on right next to her, but she didn't feel the heat. The man with the ponytail draped a blanket over her. The skinny guy was speaking to her, but she didn't hear his voice. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, looking worried, and said something to Seth. Seth shrugged.
The men filed out of the room, Seth last. He cast a hard look at her over his shoulder. She closed her eyes against it.
The door shut Clunk, rattle, and the padlock was engaged.
Connor popped the first aid kit open and pulled out a roll of gauze. “Get that sweater off,” he said. “Let me take a look.”
“It's no big deal, I told you. Give me some more of that whiskey.”
“Shut up and get the shirt off, bonehead. Some antibiotic ointment and some Band-Aids are not going to kill you.”
He dragged the thing over his head with a sigh. Davy pulled a dishcloth out of a drawer, ran hot water over it, and handed it to him.
He sponged the blood streaks off, wincing as Connor smeared antiseptic gel over the long, ugly slice and taped bandages over it. Sean tossed him a red flannel shirt, which he pulled on very slowly and carefully. He was too tired to bother buttoning it.
The three brothers plied him with whiskey and pried the whole tale out of him, bit by bit. By the time they were finished, Seth was so wiped out that even their long, speaking glances to each other didn't bug him anymore. The end of his story was greeted by silence, broken only by the crackle of the woodstove.
“OK “ he said, bracing himself. “Get it over with. This is the part where you guys tell me what an asshole I am. Go for it. I'm ready.”
“Nah,” Connor said. He put an oak log into the wood-stove, prodding it with a poker until it nested in the coals. “You got it wrong. This is the part where we calmly discuss our options.”
Seth gulped whiskey and wiped his mouth. “I told her everything, get it? Lazar's onto me. If we follow the pistol now, it'll be into a trap.”
“Based on the fact that the killer tracked you down tonight?”
Seth was startled by Davy's skeptical tone. “It's the only thing that makes sense.”
“Not necessarily,” Sean said. “Maybe you slipped up. You're not superhuman. Maybe there’s something you don't know.”
“There are three possibilities,” Connor said. “One, she never planted the chip at all, and told Lazar everything from
the beginning. Two, she planted it, Lazar discovered it and is onto the two of you. Three, she planted the chip, Lazar doesn't know, and the ski masks aren't Lazar's. I personally don't favor number one. Why would he attack her if she were collaborating with him? It doesn't jive with what I know of her personally, either.”
“What do you know about her personally?” Seth said bitterly.
Connor raised an eyebrow. “I enjoy the distinct advantage of not being in love with her, so trust me, my judgment is way better than yours. Why would she call a hit man to whack you right after you saved her life? Come on, Seth.”
Seth shook his head. “There was no other way that guy—”
“Shut up and listen for once,” Connor said curtly. “I don't like number two, either. Victor's not the type to show his hand by sending an incompetent goon to attack her. He's the type to rub his hands together and wait until you fall into his trap.”
“The second guy was not an incompetent goon,” Seth said. He touched his bandaged side with a grimace. “He almost got me.”
“Yeah, the second guy worries me,” Connor said. “Which brings us to number three. The ski masks are Novak's, not Lazar’s. We know that he wants her. And he'll go to any lengths to get what he wants.”
Seth buried his face in his hands. “She Is in on it,” he repeated stubbornly. “There's no other way the guy could have found us. And her boot had an X-Ray Specs beacon in it I sold that shit to Lazar.”
“So?” Davy said. “You dusted her stuff too, right? Maybe he just thinks that she belongs to him, like you do.”
“And he tagged her because he wanted to keep an eye on her, like you did,” Sean added. '“Cause he's a paranoid control freak.”
“Like you are,” Connor and Davy finished in unison. They grinned and gave each other a high five.
Seth grunted. “Don't expect me to have a sense of humor tonight.”
“You don't have a sense of humor at all,” Sean observed. “Why won't you even consider the possibility that she's not lying to you?”
Whiskey and exhaustion let the truth just fall out of him. “I can't afford to consider it. I want it too much.”
“Ah. So what you're saying is, you're chickenshit,” Sean said.
Seth was too tired and depressed to react. “Better to err on the side of being a suspicious bastard. I'll live longer”
“Yeah, maybe. But your life won't be worth a damn.”
Seth didn't even bother to glare at him. “It doesn't matter,” he said dully. “Whether she did, whether she didn't, she stays in that room until this is over. I'm following the gun alone. I accept the consequences of what I've
