Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [49]
“There’s no doubt in your mind that his intent was to kill you?”
She shook her head. “When he came for me, he said, ‘There’s a fine spot for them to find you, curled in the fireplace with the soot and the ash.’”
“Was it just him, do you think, or were they all in on it?”
Alli, thinking back to how Conlon and the third guard had acted, said, “They were all in it together. I just think Rudy was the crew chief.”
The tears had dried on her cheeks, making tracks in the dirt. He could see that she had regained a good deal of her self-control. Just the fact that she could make these observations about her attackers was proof that she was heading for the right line of work at Fearington.
“It’s okay. You’ve done remarkably well.” He hugged her and gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom. “Now go wash up.”
He turned to see Thatë staring intently at him. “What?”
The kid lowered his head, stared at the floor between his feet. “Nothing.”
Jack sat down across from him and took a swig of his beer, which was now close to room temperature. “Spill it.”
Thatë gave a little laugh. He sounded like a hyena nervously cackling in the bush.
“How d’you get her to listen to you?” the kid asked. “You threaten her, or what?”
Jack considered the source of these questions. “I didn’t get her to do anything. Alli takes my advice.”
“So how you make her respectful?”
Jack tried not to show the alarm that sprang up inside him. “Thatë, she trusts me.”
“She trusts you?”
Behind the closed bathroom door, the water had begun to run in the shower.
Thatë frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
As the kid jumped up, Jack, laughing, reached over and pulled him back down.
“Not now.”
“Why not now?”
“Because she’d find a way to obliterate your nuts.”
Thatë looked at him askance. “You’re fucking with me, right?”
Jack shook his head. “She killed a man today—a professional bodyguard—and maimed two others.” He let the kid go. “You still want to try?”
Thatë shook his head. “Man, I still don’t know about you.”
At that moment, the bathroom door opened a crack, and, through a small cloud of steam, Alli said, “I need clean clothes.”
Jack looked at the kid, who inadvertently gave a classic double-take before making for the bedroom. Jack heard some drawers being pulled out. He and Alli exchanged looks, but he was uncertain of either her mood or what she was thinking until she breathed: “Emma…”
“What is it?” he whispered back.
Alli gave a tiny, violent shiver. “I feel her.”
Thatë reappeared with a stack of clothes: a pair of black stovepipe jeans, a black-and-white T-shirt with WIG-OUT emblazoned across the chest, a hoodie, and a pair of sweat socks.
Alli sniffed at them.
“They’re just washed,” the kid said. “I know how to take care of myself.” He led with his chin. “Couldn’t do anything ’bout underwear.”
“No problem,” Alli said, taking the pile from him. “I’ll go commando.”
* * *
NAOMI STOOD just to one side of the entrance to the Fortress Securities building, between two columns, hidden from anyone who came and went. She was scanning the dossiers of the three guards, hoping to find some link, some anomaly that might make something click. It was chilly, the evening clanking onto the city streets like a spent shell. Lights sent smears of illumination across the sidewalk. Headlights rolled toward her, then away slowly in the mounting rush hour traffic.
She had done her best to rattle Gunn’s cage. If there was something to what she had intimated she wanted to know about it. She’d made a shot in the dark, to be sure, but she was waiting for Gunn to emerge. If he had become alarmed by what she had said he would go see Henry Holt Carson in person;