She glanced down at JT.
He winced but gave her a nod that let her know he was all right.
“I guess that means you knew something was wrong,” Patrick continued.
She shifted to a crouch and realized there was a mirror over the bar. She could see Patrick standing warily at the edge of the room, as though he hadn’t decided if he was going to go for the prize or run away.
“Keep him talking,” Nina whispered.
“You couldn’t think we wouldn’t realize the prototype was gone,” JT said.
“I was hoping you would think Bill had hidden it somewhere. I thought I would have a little more time,” Patrick replied. “Where is it? Deanna obviously stole it out of my room earlier tonight. I’ve got a meeting in thirty minutes and I don’t like to think about what will happen if I don’t make it to the beach.”
Probably the same thing that happened to Bill. But at least she knew where and when the drop was supposed to be. All she had to do was survive and she could catch the spy.
“I don’t know where it is.” JT moved so his back was to the couch. He watched in the mirror, too, as Patrick started to inch his way toward Deanna’s body. “She hadn’t gotten to the part where she told me what was going on. I thought she was upset I was engaged.”
A nasty chuckle came from Patrick. “Yes, we’ve all thought she was pathetic, hanging around when it was obvious you weren’t ever going to fuck her. Or promote her.”
Nina kept her eye on the mirror. She could feel JT behind her. She wished there was some way to get him out of this, but he needed to stay down. If he moved for the bedroom, he would be exposed, and she didn’t trust that Patrick wouldn’t shoot anything that moved. She studied him carefully and his arm was already shaking. He wasn’t used to holding a gun for so long. She would bet he’d had minimal training at best. It was dangerous since he wouldn’t know how to control himself or the weapon he held.
There it was again—that horrible anxiety that something could happen to JT and she would spend the rest of her life mourning him.
“If you don’t know where the prototype is, I don’t have a lot of use for you,” Patrick said, though there was a tremor in his tone.
“How do you think you’re going to get out of this?” JT’s voice was strong and steady. “Nina works for a private security company, but she’s got ties to the government. Yeah, that’s right. They know something’s happening, and they won’t stop looking for you even if you do manage to kill me. So the question is do you want to add another murder to what’s going to be a long time in prison for you?”
Nina’s heart was thumping in her chest, adrenaline flowing through her system. She could see the way this would play out in her head. Two more steps from Patrick and she could ease around the side of the couch, pop up, and plant two squarely in his chest.
Two more steps and it would all be over.
Patrick stopped. “If I kill the two of you it can look like a lover’s quarrel. I can make it look like Nina found out about you and Deanna and killed you both then herself. That’s what women do when they lose their shit.”
Where the hell was Hutch? Patrick wasn’t moving. He seemed stuck in a loop, trying to figure a way out of a trap that wasn’t ever going to let him go. The longer she waited, the more chance he would figure it out and come to the conclusion that nothing mattered. A desperate man was a dangerous man.
“Or you could take the prototype in Deanna’s bag and run,” JT offered. “I think it’s probably in her bag. She came up here to tell me about what she’d learned. Dee is smart. She knew something was going on and she tried to solve this thing herself. She came close. She figured out it was you.”
“Nosy bitch never could stay out of things that didn’t involve her,” Patrick said, but he started moving toward the table again.
One more step.
Patrick came into clear view and Nina stood, took her aim, and fired. And again, taking out both lungs.
She watched his eyes flare and he put a hand to his chest. His gun clattered to the floor and then he followed.
She took a deep breath, banishing her panic. It was over. At least this part. She looked down at JT. “You can come out now. He’s dead.”
JT got to his feet, his skin sheet white. “Are you okay?”
Nina nodded. “I’m fine, but I have to make a couple of calls.”
“I really do think the prototype is in her bag,” he said. “She stole it earlier and she was bringing it to me. Damn. I can’t believe he shot Deanna. I need to see if she’s all right.”
He started to move toward where his assistant lay, but nearly jumped out of his skin when her seemingly dead body sat up.
Deanna looked around, a wild look in her eyes. “Where’s my gun?”
Nina moved to her and noticed there wasn’t a drop of blood on Deanna’s T-shirt, though it sported a nice hole in the chest. She held a hand out. “Body armor?”
Deanna took it and let Nina haul her up. “Of course. What? You think I would walk into some criminal shit without protection? My dad was a cop. And I am always prepared.” She winced. “Though I wasn’t prepared for how much that would hurt.”
“You’re all right?” JT stood back as though he wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but the job wasn’t over
