“Charlie, I don’t want to leave you to deal with this on your own.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I said, sternly, and kissed him on the cheek. “You have to understand that this is my fight, now. It was always going to happen like this.”
“No, it wasn’t meant to go down this way. Where’s Grant, where are the… where his friends?” It was a mark of how stressed he was that he’d said ‘Grant,’ instead of ‘Grandpa.’
“Ready, Charlotte?” Gamma asked. “This is a dead-end. We’ll have to return to the inn to prepare for them.”
For Jordan and for Kyle.
One for each of us to deal with.
The time had come. We had tried to take the fight to them, and they had remained hidden. Now, we’d lure them to us and fight on our terms.
I took a breath and squeezed my grandmother’s hand, once. “Ready.”
25
“We’ve got to move quickly,” Gamma said. “Quickly.”
I helped her carry tables out of the dining room and into the front hall, the nerves rebounding now that we weren’t actively seeking my ex-husband. We had to barricade every exit and entrance except for the entrance to the kitten foster center.
Our rationale was that Kyle and Jordan had been accessing the inn through a hidden passage in there. That meant we had to block off every entrance and exit that didn’t lead that way.
Thus, our enemies would be funneled through that exact route. And we kept the lights off—they wouldn’t be able to see while we could.
“I want this to be over,” I said, as we stacked yet another table in front of the main doors.
“It will be soon.” She didn’t have to say, “one way or another.” We both knew that was true.
Gamma and I made quick work of barricading the library door, the front door, the back door of the kitchen, and placing a single table in front of the base of the stairs, one that was covered in trinkets so that if they came through that way—a slim chance—we would hear it.
After, Gamma took a position in the dining room, using a chair as cover, and aimed her pistol at the kitten foster center’s door.
I took a place behind the table at the base of the stairs, doing the same.
And we settled in for the long wait.
The creaking of the inn settling around us after a long day’s heat played tricks on my mind. Were the noises nefarious? Was that a mouse scuttling overhead?
I forced myself to take deep, even breaths.
It will be OK.
But what if Kyle still didn’t show? I couldn’t stand much more of this waiting for him to appear. It was torture—probably why he’d taken his time in the first place.
And where were Grant and the NSIB task team that was meant to help us?
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I stiffened. Who would call me now?
“Answer it,” Gamma said, quietly, not having shifted her focus from the kitten foster center’s door. “It’s got to be him. Answer it.”
Or it could be Smulder, right?
I removed the phone from my pocket and placed it on the floor. The number flashing on the screen was unfamiliar. I answered the call and put it on loudspeaker.
“Hello?”
A moment of silence.
“It’s been too long, Charlotte.” My ex-husband’s voice, deep and gravelly, sent a spike of recognition through my gut. “Did you and your grandmother have fun playing musical chairs? I’ve enjoyed watching you two panic.”
Gamma didn’t say a word.
“Where are you?” I asked, trying to emulate her calm. “You’ve hidden yourself for so long, why don’t you and Jordan come on out? I’ve got a high-caliber bullet with your name on it.”
“In that little pea-shooter?”
How was he seeing us?
Of course. Hadn’t Hannah said that Jordan had set up a camera to watch her? How many others had he put in place?
“I have entire task team here to take you down,” I lied.
“Ha.”
“Where are you?”
“Tell you what, ladies. Put your weapons down and we’ll come out.”
“Not a chance.”
“Fine. Have it your way.” The call ended, and my screen went black. Fear clawed at my throat. What was he going to do?
The door that led to the kitten foster center opened, and I tensed, my finger shifting to the trigger, instantly.
But it wasn’t Kyle that strode into the room.
It was Special Agent in Charge Grant.
26
No, that wasn’t correct.
Special Agent in Charge Grant wasn’t walking, he was being held and guided. Being forced forward by a man who had a gun pressed to my boss’s temple. Grant had tape over his mouth, his hands tied behind his back, and the man who pushed him forward was one I recognized.
A redheaded, burly guy in tactical gear—one of the two men who had helped Grant stop Gamma and I from completing our ‘Operation Burger’ at the beginning of the week.
A dirty agent. He had betrayed the NSIB. Or he had always been working with Kyle?
I pointed my gun at him bud didn’t fire.
The plan had been to attack Kyle and Jordan on sight—pop a bullet into their legs so they couldn’t run and call in for backup, but that wasn’t an option now. The back up had been captured. And our options were fast running out.
Grant and the redheaded double agent shifted off to one side, and two more people came through the door. One was Jordan Ames, also redheaded—was that a theme for double agents now? —and the other…
Oh goodness.
It was Kyle.
My ex-husband.
Blond but thinner than I remembered. He was lean, wiry and strong, and his sharp green eyes focused on me, a smirk twisting his thin lips. He had been traditionally handsome when we’d met, but now I could see nothing but the evilness in him.
I had made up that silly story about us needing an exorcism in the inn, and now the evil had arrived. He wasn’t the man I had married, he was the man who had
