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Jason and I both caught her arm.

“May I use your bathroom, please?”

“I’ll take her,” Trish said. The taller woman eased Lisa out of our arms and toward the open bathroom door. Uncharitably I hoped she wouldn’t throw up in our room anywhere, but I was glad for the privacy. Though, looking at the two suited guards at the door, I guess privacy was stretching it.

We waited until the door closed behind the women, and then I looked at him. “I take it you and Lisa dated in high school.”

He nodded. “We did.” He was going to make me ask. Fine.

“She recognized you once you were nude, Jason. What clued her in? You and the Summerland boys not quite identical when the clothes come off?”

“You’re mad I made you work for it,” he said, grinning.

“Not mad, just tired of being embarrassed about stupid things. Answer the question.”

“I shave.”

“I assume so does Keith.”

“I wasn’t talking about my face.”

Oh. “You mean you shaved totally smooth in high school, too?”

“No, but I did shave enough so that no body hair showed in the costumes for dance recitals. I didn’t start shaving completely until after I started stripping. I got enough grief from the other guys about what I did shave, I can’t imagine what they would have said if I’d showed up smooth as I am now.” He shook his head. “I liked parts of high school, but other parts sucked.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

There was a knock on the door. One of the suits turned and spoke quietly to the door. He started to take the flip-bar off.

I called, “Stop.”

He glanced at me, hand still on the flip-bar. He had brown eyes and hair to match. His eyes tried for hard and empty, but he was too fresh out of the package to carry it off.

“Our room, so we get to say who comes and who goes.”

Brown Hair looked at his partner, who was also young, with hair cut so short I could see his skin through the hair. He wore small silver-framed glasses over pale eyes. The haircut made me think ex-military. I’d have to wait and see if the haircut matched anything else before making the final call.

Military Cut gave a tiny shrug.

Brown Hair said, “It’s Peterson and the governor’s man.”

“The governor’s man, you mean, Chuck?” I asked.

Another exchange of looks between them, and then they both nodded as if they’d timed it.

I exchanged a look with Jason. Did he think their referring to Chuck as “the governor’s man” was as strange as I thought it was?

Jason shrugged. “I think we have to let them in; we did call them for help.”

He was right, darn it. I nodded at the suits by the door. “Let them in.”

The two suits exchanged another look. It was Military Cut who said, “You do know we don’t take orders from you.”

“All right, guys, first, what are your names?”

They looked at each other again. Did they do that before they answered any question, or was it just because I was confusing them?

“I’m Shadwell,” Military Cut said.

“I’m Rowe,” Brown Hair said.

“You’re Shadwell and Rowe?” I made it a question, because I knew if they hung around I would never be able to resist calling them Shad and Rowe, it would just be too fun.

Jason proved he knew me well, because he touched my arm and said, “Be nice.”

I grinned at him for a change—but controlled myself out loud. I could always be irritating later; I was good at it. “Okay, guys, here’s the deal: you say you don’t take orders from me; well, we don’t take them from you, either. We’ll need to figure out a way to cooperate or it’s going to be a very unpleasant few days.”

There was a sharper knock on the door, and I was pretty sure it was Chuck’s voice saying, “Open the door.”

Rowe said, “Can I open the door now?” in a tone of voice that said he was unimpressed with anything I’d said.

“Sure,” I said. Because he could be unimpressed, as long as he did what I wanted him to do.

29

PETERSON AND CHUCK were having a fight, sort of. They weren’t yelling or throwing punches, nothing so uncivilized, but they were pissed at each other. It was there in the way they spoke to each other, the set of their body language,