“He makes too good of a target. He can’t defend himself, and he’ll get distracted trying to help people and forget to be careful.”And whoever was watching Cora on that webcam might be after Reece as an encore.Jamey left that out too. She bent to look Frodo in the eyes. “Hey. You with me?”
He wiped his brow again but nodded.
The club’s main room was wall-to-wall packed in what was certainly a fire code violation. Frodo went to the DJ, and Jamey kept her eyes peeled around the room as the two of them conferred with tense hand gestures. Grayson was nowhere in sight.
The music cut off. All of the patrons turned toward the DJ’s booth, murmuring in confusion.
Frodo stepped forward and the room fell eerily silent. He cleared his throat and raised the microphone, which was shaking in his hand.
“We have a surprise for all of our guests tonight.” His voice was shaking too. “We’re taking the party to the streets where—”
A panicked cry rebounded off the nineteenth century bricks. “There’s a dead body in the server room!”
The crowd erupted into chaos, surging for the stairs en masse, pushing and shoving for the exit.
Jamey cursed and leaped into the fray.
“Frodo! Agent Grayson!Jamey!” Reece kept rattling the doorknob even though he knew it was useless. Something on the other side was door blocking him in.
The thumping bass suddenly cut out. Distantly, Reece thought he could hear Frodo over a microphone. He took advantage of the quiet to pound on the door. “What’s going on?”
“Sorry, kiddo,” came Diesel’s voice through the door. “But your sister said to guard this door, and no disrespect, but she’s both hotter and scarier than you.”
“Diesel?” Reece put his mouth against the crack between the door and the frame. “Diesel, come on, just let me—”
“There’s a dead body in the server room!”
Reece froze. “Ben?”
That was real terror in Ben’s voice. And that hadn’t been a lie.
Reece smacked the door with his fist, so hard the sleeve of the hoodie came down over his hand. “Ben!Are you okay?”
A dead body. But who—how—
The server room.
Egner.
Reece’s knees buckled, sending him to the floor as the screams started in the club. He squeezed his eyes shut, forehead on the door as scared people began to run, fancy shoes scrambling over wood floors.
How could Egner bedead? Jamey had just talked to him. Had someone killed him while they’d been only feet away, in Frodo’s office?
Against the door, Reece’s hands began to shake.
But he couldn’t fall apart; he had to keep it together. There was a whole club out there of people who could be in danger.
“Jamey!” He slammed his palm against the door, hard enough to cause another bruise. “Agent Grayson!”
Then, in Reece’s pocket, his phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Only four people in Seattle had his phone number. Grayson and Jamey wouldn’t call in the middle of that mess, which meant it had to be Liam.
Liam.
Reece grabbed his phone like a lifeline. If Liam knew Jamey was in trouble—Liam would help—
But the text wasn’t from Liam. It was from the one remaining person who had Reece’s number.
