Only the two bad guys didn’t come back to the kitchen right away. Garret heard them drop onto the couches in the front room, gathered around Gregg. “Now where do we want to deep-six our former partner?” The killer laughed at his own words.
“Some marshland’s not too far from here,” the big guy said. “The center is really deep. We dump him in there, and he won’t be found for quite a while.”
“That works for me. You mind if I have some of that pizza he had?”
“Nope, I don’t mind at all,” he said.
The one guy hopped up and headed to the kitchen. But he heard sounds of the big man getting up and following. But quietly. Always wary, always on the hunt. Always alert.
“I hope he left us some,” the one guy said, seemingly unaware of what he was up against. But anybody in this business already knew that you don’t turn your back on somebody like that, and, in his case, you’d never let a guy, who had just killed your other partner, out of the room, where he could pull a gun and come back and take you out without a thought.
And, if Garret were ever in a situation like that, he would try to do the same thing; that’s exactly how he would make this work. A little scary to think about, but he watched and waited because the tableau in front of him could go any which way. But he knew one thing: it would all break loose very quickly.
Chapter 14
“Why hasn’t Garret said anything?” Astra asked Kano.
“He’s said plenty,” Kano said, hiding with them in the trees.
“Yes, but he hasn’t said it’s all clear, hasn’t said we can come, hasn’t said he needs you. Nothing!” She hated that sense of worry driving her.
“I know you’re worried about him,” he said, “but he will tell us what he can.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Do we know for sure nobody else is here?”
“No, I think Garret was expecting two men to be posted out here.”
“And we don’t know how many came in with them in the vehicle?” Astra asked him.
“Yes, we do,” Kano answered patiently. “Listen. Just because you keep asking the same questions, it doesn’t mean different answers will show up.”
She groaned. “Sorry, it’s an old habit.”
“I get it,” he said. “Most of the time, it wouldn’t be an issue, but, right now, it’s pissing me off, so would you mind?”
She grinned in the darkness. “No,” she said. “I’m good.”
“Why can’t we just go home?” Amy said.
“What home is that?” Kano snapped. “The one you walked away from, where you were secure? We would all be doing much better right now, instead of sitting out here in the dark, after having to come after you.” That shut up her sister, which surprised Astra, but maybe Amy finally understood some of what she’d brought on.
“But, if Garret’s in there,” Astra said, “he’ll need help. You need to go help him.”
“I need to make sure you two are safe,” he said. “If you weren’t here with us, or if we hadn’t found Amy at the same time, I would be in there, but we can’t afford that. So our resources are a little thin.”
“So then let me go,” Astra said quietly.
He snorted.
She looked at him balefully. “I was a help last time.”
“Beginner’s luck,” he snapped back, and then he held up a finger.
She shushed immediately and turned to look. Indeed, somebody was walking around. He held a rifle over his shoulder, completely unsuspecting of anybody being out here. She wondered if he was really that stupid or if he just really thought nothing was going on. As she watched, Kano looked at her, motioned for her to stay with her sister, then disappeared into the shadows. She sank back into the darkness. “There is just no end to these bad guys,” she murmured.
Amy wrapped her arms around Astra and held on.
Touched, and for the first time maybe understanding where her sister was coming from, she hugged her back.
Amy whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She nodded against her sister’s hair. “I know,” she said.
“I sure wish I had stayed where I was supposed to. I’m also sorry about Garret,” she said. “I knew it was all wrong, right from the beginning.”
“So why did you stay with him?” Astra asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He was a force to be dealt with. I just didn’t know how.”
“And is Gregg any easier?”
“Very, and he treats me differently.”
“No, he treats you more like a porcelain doll,” she said. “Whereas, Garret treated you as a partner.”
“Yet he knew I wasn’t a partner. I was always inferior in his eyes.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“Oh, I do,” she snapped. “He had that look that said I just wasn’t quite what he wanted me to be, like he was always disappointed in me.”
Astra didn’t have anything to say about that because she could possibly understand it. Her sister was always one of those who looked after herself instead of the good of both. “Hopefully your relationship with Gregg is a little easier.”
“Easier, maybe,” she said. “But sure as hell not better in that sense of them treating me like I’m stupid at times.”
“These are very capable men,” Astra said. “You have to give them some leeway.” She held her sister in her arms, and the two of them just rocked back and forth in the darkness. She listened for any kind of sound, but there was only silence, with an occasional twig crackling here and there, or a leaf would fall and catch her eye. A bird would call somewhere in the darkness, and it all just grated on her nerves, as the tension wound up tighter and tighter. She squeezed her arms, until Amy protested.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I wish Kano was back.”
Suddenly he was there, carrying another man. He slowly lowered him to the ground, next to the other
