AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How’s Mom and Dad?”
“Good. Mom’s better. She’s back to cooking for the bar S, and Dad just signed a three-year contract with them, so they might buy a fifth wheel. I’m trying to talk them into something more permanent, but you know Dad.”
On the stove, the pot began to bubble.
“When are you comin’ home next?”
“Christmas. We have a two-week practice break.”
“Mom will love that.” Behind Harry, in the background, a female voice lifted. “Oh, hey, I gotta run.”
“It’s ten at night. Who is over there?”
“I’m at work. Don’t get excited. Still single.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He held up his fist and Hud bumped it, weirdly, through the screen.
He was hanging up when he heard it—a creak of the floorboards upstairs. Or maybe it was just his imagination, because—
Nope. Another creak, and he stilled. Held his breath.
Then he turned off the heat on his stew and grabbed a kitchen knife. Wished it were night and not high noon.
He stilled as feet came down his stairs. Booted feet, and then legs garbed in cargo pants, and then a black puffy parka, and finally, a sleek black ponytail.
“Ziggy?” He put down the knife as his handler—was that what he should call her?—walked into the room. “Can’t you use the front door?”
Ziggy walked up to him with such an easy confidence it was a little unnerving. She carried a lethal aura about her, despite her smile. The woman could bring a dead man to life with her looks—that dusky skin, those sharp golden-brown eyes, the way her smile curved up, as if curious.
“You should know me better than that.”
Yeah, he didn’t know her at all. Just a phone call here and again, and recently, a midnight rescue of Tate Marshall. “Um. Do I?”
She raised an eyebrow, then sighed. “I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here.”
And that chilled him to the bone. “Why?”
She came up to the counter. “When’s the last time you saw Iris Marshall?”
A beat. And he couldn’t exactly lie, but the truth suddenly turned to acid in his chest. “Two days ago, around six p.m. in Milan.” He took a breath. “Why?”
“I just came from her place. She’s not there.”
Oh. He set down the knife. She glanced at it, back to him.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“That’s not good. Not good at all.” Ziggy turned and walked to the window, stared out of it.
He didn’t know why, but the action simply had his gut tightening.
And then she turned. “We need to find her. Because twenty-four hours ago, someone took a hit out on her.”
He blinked at her. Tried to make out the words. “A hit. Like…someone is going to assassinate her?”
“Yep. And if we—and by that, I mean you—don’t find her, my guess is that they’ll put the blame on you.”
