Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Kyle took a seat across from her, the careful way he moved letting her know he was giving her space.
Or was he lulling her into a false confidence? This would be an excellent way to get all her information right before he had her hauled off.
“Uncle, could you please explain to MaeBe what you’ll do to me if I force her to go to Loa Mali against her will?” Kyle’s eyes were on her as if he could read her mind. Which he had.
“I’ll show you how I taught MaeBe to kick a man in the balls. You can get up close and personal with the technique.” Ian settled his big body into the chair at the head of the table.
He was being a bit of a hypocrite. “You know you told me once you would lock me up if I didn’t do what you wanted.”
Ian shrugged. “What I wanted was to make sure you could protect yourself. Now you can, and you’ve earned the right to be a moron and run headlong into danger if you choose. You should have read your employment contract. It’s got a moron clause in it. Only morons who can fight are allowed to.”
Charlotte winced. “Mitch always tries to take that out.”
She hadn’t actually read the contract, but it would be exactly like Big Tag to put in some weird clause he couldn’t legally enforce. It was one of the reasons she loved working here. It was constantly amusing.
“So I’m not going to be kidnapped?” MaeBe asked.
Kyle leaned forward. He looked tired, his eyes slightly red and that normally well-kept hair of his messy. Like he was a guy who hadn’t slept well in a long time. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid of a lot of things, but I don’t have the right to tell you what to do. I’m going to ask you to take the threat seriously and protect yourself. She will come after you again.”
“Are we certain Julia intended to kill MaeBe?” Charlotte asked. “Or did the sniper she sent think he was taking out West? You said something in your report about the man who attacked you last night saying he was going to bring her in.”
“It’s entirely possible that the object of the attack was to take out her bodyguard and make it easier for the operative to grab her,” Kyle said. “Did you find anything out about him?”
Ian sighed, and his eyes rolled slightly. “Well, he was packing some fake ID that says he’s Ed Jones from Topeka, Kansas.”
“He’s not,” Adam corrected. “We got lucky with this guy. He has a record. They tried to cover it up, but I’m awfully good at finding the stuff they thought they erased. He is…or rather was…Jeremy Harris from Oklahoma. He was thirty-four and a small-time dirt bag. He did some time for assault. I’m not sure if he made his connections in prison, but shortly after he was released on bail, he disappeared and shows up again as Ed Jones, and there was serious cash behind his new identity. I’m still working on figuring out his movements. I think he’s probably excellent at evading security cameras.”
“We all know if he’s Consortium, he would have had access to tech that is not available to the general public.” MaeBe had first become aware of that high-level facial imaging evasion tech during the Jessica Layne case. Julia had been wearing a pair of glasses that warped the light around her face and made it impossible to get a photo when she’d made her first appearance in Mae’s life. “Did he have anything like that on him?”
They hadn’t gone through the guy’s pockets. They’d had to move quickly and then they’d handed him over to Ian and Alex.
“He did not,” Ian replied. “But he did have a potent sedative. It was in the same device Julia Ennis used on the doctor. It was hidden on his arm. We know it was a sedative because my dumbass brother nicked himself on it and fell straight asleep in the middle of stashing the body.”
Taylor’s eyes went wide. “Is he okay?”
Charlotte grinned. “Theo met them at the stash site. He said it was the best sleep he’s had in years, so hopefully that hits the market soon.”
The idea of Theo Taggart meeting his brother and Alex McKay to stash a body and ending up taking a long nap because he picked up the body in the wrong place made the corners of her lips curl up. He would never stop catching hell from the group.
“So he was definitely trying to kidnap MaeBe.” Kyle wasn’t even close to smiling.
“It’s what all the cool kids are doing these days.” The snarky remark was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Ian snorted. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you sound like Mae in months.”