My pulse races as I run through scenarios that involve prying someone off of him, hightailing it to an emergency room, or interrogating this Tucker asshole with my favorite knife until he tells me where Rowan is.
My business is one that requires calm decision-making and a steady hand. I’ve got neither of those right now.
None of my panicked scenarios involved finding a shaky, glassy-eyed Rowan standing over a body with a bloody trophy in his hand.
“Rowan. Baby. Hey.” I’m approaching slowly and quietly, hoping to get his attention without scaring him. “Are you okay?”
A tired laugh slips out. He gestures vaguely with the trophy. “You know, I think I’ve been better.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.” My hand slides over his. “Why don’t you let me take this, huh?”
Slowly, carefully, I pull the trophy from his hand. I use some cleaning wipes from my pack to get Rowan’s prints off, and the bits of blood and other stuff stuck to the one corner. The red-stained wipes go into a sealed wet bag while I look him over again.
He looks okay, I think. Out of it, but okay. Thank fuck.
“Rowan. Can you tell me what happened here?”
“There’s someone coming to kill me,” he says quietly. Almost to himself. “There’s a car coming to take Tucker to the airport soon.” For the first time, he looks right at me. “What am I going to do, Milo? They’re going to know it was me.”
I press a kiss to his parted lips. “No, they won’t. It’s going to be okay.” I pull out more wipes, getting every nook and cranny of the trophy clean, then I return it carefully to the spot it looks like it came from on the desk. Pushing into Rowan’s space, I grip his chin and urge him to look at me. “We’re going to take care of this, okay? You and me. Together.”
“We are?” He blinks. “How?”
“Hey, so I took care of the other guard and—ooohhhh, shit.” Jalen stops short as he enters the room, taking in the dead body at our feet.
“Someone’s coming to kill me,” Rowan tells Jalen in greeting.
“Nobody’s coming to kill you,” I assure him. “I won’t let that happen.” I nod to Jalen. “He says there’s a car coming to pick this guy up too. You mind taking care of that while I wrap things up here?”
“Gladly.” Jalen throws up a hand. “Better you than me. Hate dealing with blood.”
“Really?” Rowan looks confused.
Jalen shrugs. “You think every pet owner loves cleaning up dog shit? Dealing with fluids is a pain in the ass. Nobody enjoys it.”
“Not true,” I insist. “Ran across a guy in Texas who loved seeing it gush. Compared it to cutting open an over-easy egg.”
Jalen makes a face. “If you’ve ruined eggs for me, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“You don’t need the cholesterol anyway, old man.” Ha. Payback. And I know it will piss him off.
Jalen’s only got a few years on me.
He shows me both of his middle fingers on his way out of the room.
“Okay.” I tap Rowan’s cheek. “Need you to hang with me for a few minutes, baby. Can you do that? Let’s take care of this and get the hell out of here.”
“But what about—”
“Jalen will take care of it. Or I will. Either way, you’re safe now.” I pick up a drink sitting on the desk and take a sniff. Bourbon. “Were you drinking this?”
Rowan shakes a head. “I took one drink, but I didn’t like the taste. Which is good, because I think it might have been poisoned. Tucker only offered me alcohol once before, and he seemed like he wanted me to drink it a little too much.”
I drop to the floor and start checking pockets. Sure enough, I come up with a small baggie full of a micronized powder. “Probably whatever this is. Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Grabbing the bourbon bottle from the minibar, I empty most of it into a decorative fern by the window. Then I make sure the only prints on the bottle are Tucker’s and put both on the desk, leaving the lid a little loose as if old Tucker here was too busy self-medicating to put it on carefully. Last, I pour some of the contents of the glass into Tucker’s mouth.
“What are you doing?”
