Page 24 of License to Kill

“Negative; they’ve got snipers in position on the roof of the neighboring buildings. They’re on orders to shoot anyone armed.”

“So we ditch the weapons in a pile, sit, and look pretty and hope no one else finds us.” That would buy us a few minutes—maybe. “If I’m not on a kill-on-sight order.”

“I doubt it.”

“The whole rogue agent thing does tend to put a cramp on one’s life expectancy.”

“I already told you they had changed your status to missing and at high risk or presumed dead. Your pa’s body and your blood at the scene of the crime, along with other evidence you were a probable victim helps with that. Sure, you had a fight with your husband, but they’re not stupid, not when there’s plenty of evidence your ma killed your pa and probably tried to kill you, too. You left enough blood at the scene you would be dead if you were a little more human and a little less fox. Then we pulled that other ruse. You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll believe that when they don’t shoot me on sight.” I limped to the nearest group of boxes and went to work removing my weapons, piling them up. While tempted to keep my loaner Glock, it joined my pile. It took a little help from Amelia to hop onto the box and sit. “Just don’t give them an excuse to shoot us.”

“Were you aware you’re covered in blood?”

“That happens when you’ve been shot.”

“On your face.”

“That must look so charming.”

Amelia chuckled and stripped off her weapons and set them with mine before sitting beside me. “The Bride of Chucky got a few new toys. Cards?”

The FBI would be talking about the bust for a long time to come if they found us while playing cards. “What game?”

“Go Fish?”

“I haven’t played that in years.”

Amelia pulled out a pack of battered cards from her pocket and dealt, and we settled in to play, talking in normal tones so when the FBI found us, they wouldn’t believe we were attempting to hide.

“We’ve been spotted,” Amelia reported. “They have no idea what to make of, and I quote, ‘two female tangoes covered in blood with enough weaponry to stock the army.’”

“You do seem to have gotten some spatter on you, too.”

If anything, Amelia appeared like she’d just gotten off shift at the local slaughterhouse. “That one guy got a little too close for my comfort.”

“Got any queens?”

Amelia snorted and tossed me a pair of cards. “You really don’t care there’s a bunch of men with rifles staring at you, do you?”

“I’m tired, my arm hurts, my leg’s throbbing, and I want a bath. Frankly, if they shoot me, they’d be doing me a favor at this point.”

“No such luck. They’re going the arrest route, since we haven’t been caught in the act of actually doing anything and we aren’t actually armed. Isn’t that nice?”

“Sounds great. Jail’s bound to be safer than this.”

“Especially when you’re a badass little chick who can kick in the face of anyone who tries anything stupid.”

I tossed my hand of cards down, since there was no point in playing when we’d be in handcuffs soon enough. “Want to make bets on how long it’ll take them to run our IDs?”

“I bet they’ll make us rot until tomorrow morning just to be dicks.”

“They’ll run our prints within a few hours, but they probably won’t get the results in for a day or two. If I’m lucky, they might even bother to patch my arm up before tossing us in holding. We’ll probably get to share a cell, but they won’t let us keep the cards.”

“You? Lucky?”

I snorted, and when I heard the thud of footfalls approaching, I lifted my hands, wincing at the pulling of old and new gunshot wounds alike. Amelia tossed her cards, followed my lead, and shook her head.

It didn’t take very long for them to arrest us and shove us in the back of a cruiser waiting outside of the building.