GIDEON’S BACKhad been up before Schumer had even opened the door.He knew for a fact nobody else was being recorded.Harding and Denison would be taking notes on their phones.Gail and Crosby—who had both given up their other plans that weekend to canvass employees when they learned what was up, as had Kylie, who was on overwatch instead of Crosby—were doing the same thing.
Gideon wanted a direct line to overwatch while they were in that house.
There was something in the air.Gideon wasn’t sure if Carlyle could feel it, but for Gideon it was almost like a smell, rancid like meat that hadjustgone bad in an ice chest, and Gideon wanted to stick his nose in the air and peel his lips from his teeth and scent the wind.
Instead, he watched as Carlyle disappeared up the stairs, and while Gideon wondered what he’d find up there, he kept his eyes very firmly fixed on Schumer.
“Can I interest you in a drink?”the man was saying as they entered the sitting room.A wet bar stood in the corner, white marble, ebony cupboards, gray tile.It was almost as unsettling as the gray rug on the gray tile on the floor—absolutely monochromatic.
Gideon wondered if the guy had, like, athingabout color, any color whatsoever.Even the stairs had been a black wrought-iron railing against a white marble staircase.No runner.
Ye gods.
“No, thank you,” Gideon replied to the drink offer.For one thing, it was only 11:00 a.m., but for another?Even if he’d been dying of thirst, nothing in this place made Gideon want to accept any offers of hospitality.
“Do you mind if I get one for myself?”Schumer asked.“Tonic water and lime.I like the bitterness.”
“Knock yourself out,” Gideon replied, not able to suppress a shudder.Soda, yes.Selzer water, fine.But quinine in the morning?Blech.
And while part of him wanted to take this opportunity while Schumer was busy to glance around the house, part of him—the animal part—didn’t want to think of turning his back.
Schumer busied himself behind the bar, and Gideon, still standing, started small talk.It wasn’t his favorite; the conversation he’d had with Joey about Spider Monkeys andWickedhad been much more satisfying, because in spite of Carlyle’s short responses, the kid (must think of him as a kid, because otherwise, damn, those cheekbones!) had been thoughtful.Not always funny and not always kind.But thoughtful.
Gideon rather hoped the team was growing on him.He’d certainly been impressed that Crosby, Pearson, and Kylie had volunteered to work this canvass on their off day, the better to keep Schumer from thinking they were on to him.
“So,” Schumer said, pulling Gideon’s attention sharply back to the present.“you guys don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday?”
Gideon snorted.“Oh, we do.Theater tickets, sports events.One of us even knows New York’s hottest DJ.We’re a rockin’ bunch.”
“But you made this a priority.”His voice was flat—not questioning—and Gideon’s hackles actuallyruffled.
“A friend of mine called,” Gideon said, shrugging.“She’d been putting pieces together on her own.My unit thought she’d earned some help.”
“And howisdear Kathy doing?”Schumer asked.
Gideon wasalert to the danger now, keeping his eyes on Schumer’s hands.Not Schumer’s face, because that bland, all-purpose smile hadn’t shifted once since they’d started talking, and neither had that ripe baritone.A true sociopath wouldn’t give anything away in his voice or his face; he didn’t feel enough to let it show.It was hishandsthat would be busying themselves, and while Gideon could see that Schumer was cutting a lime up and putting it in a glass bowl, he could also see the occasional little twitch or quiver that said he wanted to go for something but was too conscious of Gideon’s regard.
“You know Kathy?”Gideon asked, andthere.Schumer had palmed something as he’d bent to put the limes in the refrigerator.
“She’s been around the office,” Schumer said offhandedly, coming out from behind the bar.He’d left the drink, fully made, on the counter of the bar, and Gideon almost missed what happened next from checking.
“Oh yeah?What fo—oh fuck!”
Schumer rushed him, rounded shoulders down, a stiletto held in his left hand, the same hand he’d used to cut the limes.Gideon might have been gutted by that thing—long, thin, sharp—if he’d been caught unawares.
As it was, he squared to meet his opponent, waited until Schumer was almost upon him, then stepped smoothly aside and seized Schumer’s wrist, pinching hard at the ulnar nerve, between the thumb and the forefinger.
Schumer moaned and sagged, releasing the stiletto, but just as Gideon caught it, the guy rallied, pushing up and surging against Gideon’s chest.
Gideon fell backward over the coffee table, and it shattered under this weight, but he didn’t let go of the stiletto.Instead he held it front and center, and Schumer fell on it, throat first.
Gideon scrambled out from under the gush of blood and the fleshy body, not minding the glass, although he could feel the cuts in his hands, his elbows, fuck, hisass, and knowing he needed to answer Kylie’s urgent summons from the phone in his pocket before she sent in the Marines.
“Chadwick!”Joey called, surprising Gideon into glancing up from Schumer’s still-thrashing body.Heshouldtry to staunch the bleeding, but, oh, hey, open wounds!That would be abadidea.
“Chadwick!”Joey repeated, rounding the staircase and hitting the foyer before rushing into the sitting room.“He’s got akillroom!I thought this guy was astockbroker.”
“So did I,” Gideon said, straightening his tie with a bloodied hand and then reaching for his phone.“And then he went to get himself a drink at the bar and tried to rush me with a stiletto.”
