Chapter 7
Colt
Colt was pretending to read ESPN highlights on his phone but he was actually watching John. The man was not right. He looked right, reclining in his chair cleaning a rifle and drinking coffee strong enough to kill a man but he wasn’t. Something in his eyes was off. Something in his posture was off. Plus the motherfucker was working the cotton pad hard enough against the barrel to scrub the metal clean off.
The two of them were all sitting in the surveillance quarters waiting for Schwartz to arrive, a task that left Colt with way too much time to get bogged down in thoughts that he tried to shove aside. Like the fact that his buddy might be depressed.
He didn’t know that for sure, but even if he did he wouldn’t bring it up. John was Colt’s oldest friend, his business partner, his brother in everything but blood but he never asked him personal questions. Doing so was tantamount to insulting his dead mom.
“Still waters run deep,” his own mother was fond of saying about John. Well the water in that particular river was looking murky as hell these days, and for the fucking life of him Colt couldn’t work out why.
When they’d first left the military there’d been some culture shock but everything was fine now; they had a business, a high paying job, friends and women aplenty and still John was surlier than Scrooge McDuck.
Colt had gotten the guy laid; he’d gotten him drunk; he’d waited for it to blow over. Nothing was working and it was starting to make him nervous. He knew at least two dozen guys who’d killed themselves, all men he’d served with. They did it quickly with rope and guns or slowly with booze and drugs but they all ended up the same way. As he wanted to believe John would talk before things got that bad but Christ knew none of the others had.
For the first time since he’d left the military Colt would have killed for a CO to report to, someone to nudge and say “can you shove Blackwood at a shrink or something?” Now, who was he going to approach? Their investors? His mom? If he called John Blackwood Senior and so much as implied his son was depressed, John Blackwood Junior would plant a KA-BAR in his temple. And if he brought up the other thing he knew about John…Colt shuddered at the thought. They’d only ever discussed his thing once and it had been followed by nine weeks of loaded silence. He wasn’t going through that shit again. But still, what was he supposed to do? Let it ride until John pulled himself out of his funk with a noose?
“I’m not equipped for this,” Colt muttered to himself.
“What’d you say?” Seb asked as he wandered by, head in his phone.
“I said ‘shut up and text your clingy girlfriend.’”
Seb glared at him. “I will. Don’t call Maddie clingy.”
“She is clingy,” Colt said, relieved to focus on something that wasn’t John’s mood. “You should check your dick for a subdermal tracking device she’s so clingy.”
He was disappointed when instead of punching him Seb shot him a filthy look and left the room.
John slid his foot from the desk to the floor with a bang. “What’s up your ass? You nervous?”
“No.”
“You must be. Stop taking it out on Seb.”
Colt scowled into his coffee. That was rich, getting head shrunk by a guy who got annoyed when people knew it was his birthday. “Why have a rookie if you’re not gonna give them shit?”
“He’s got a lot on his plate with his girl.”
“I know he does, I heard her screaming at him last night, going on about how he’s never gonna marry her.” Colt twirled a finger around his ear. “I thought she was nuts while we were serving, now we’re in a place with cell reception I know she is.”
The corners of John’s mouth twitched. “They’ve been together since they were sixteen, cut them some slack.”
Colt snorted. “We should be worrying about her cutting some slack into the condoms they’re using. That woman is not above using a baby to get a ring and you know it.”
John stared down at the floor. “Seb wouldn’t be thinking about college if he had a kid.”
Colt leaned forward, sure, he’d misheard him. “Are you fucking serious?”
John started as though he had forgotten Colt was there. “Huh?”
“I said ‘I think Seb’s girlfriend is gonna try and get pregnant on purpose’ and you said ‘he wouldn’t go to college if he had a baby.’”
“Oh yeah, right.” John forced a very hard laugh. “Don’t worry about it. They’re probably not fucking anyway. Jesus hates unmarried sex and all that.”
He lay down the over-polished rifle. “I’m gonna go get coffee, you want coffee?”
Colt held up his mug. “We’re already drinking coffee.”
But John was already slamming the surveillance quarters door behind him.
“Jesucristo.” Colt barely heard himself utter his mom’s favorite curse word. He laid his forehead against the cool wooden desk. If John didn’t buck up he’d have to commit to the ultimate act of betrayal; drag him to a headshrinker and sit on him so he couldn’t escape. The very thought made his palms sweat.
Seb came back into the room. “Can I sit down now? Without you yellin’ at me for no reason?”
“Whatever,” Colt mumbled, then he had a sudden rush of inspiration. Maybe John wanted a girlfriend and Seb’s relationship drama was bumming him out?
In the eleven years Colt had known John he’d stayed stubbornly, unswervingly single, but that could have changed. They weren’t on active duty, staring down the insanely high odds on divorce anymore. Maybe he wanted a girl?
Colt had barely begun to praise himself for his insight when he realized that theory didn’t hold a lot of water. If John were in the market for a girlfriend he’d have shown a lot more attention to the woman they picked up last Friday. Instead he’d loved her and left her, heading off for the shower and abandoning Colt to small talk, drive-home duties. They’d shared a lot of women over the years, most of them strangers, a couple of Colt’s exes and John had treated all of them with the utmost respect. But that night, with that girl, he’d never seen him get out of bed so fucking fast.
Colt had no doubt people would find the regularity with which he had devil’s threesomes either gay or completely fucked up but he was forty now and long past giving a shit. Watching girls get laid was hot and if he were actually gay or even bi he’d be on Grindr getting his cock sucked every night of the week, which he wasn’t because he didn’t want to fuck men. He knew exactly what was in two-guy threesomes for him; attention, visuals, the taboo. He suspected John had other motivations but he was as eager to talk about them as Colt was to talk about his sisters’ sex lives, that is, not at all.
“I don’t get it,” Seb said abruptly. “Ms. Elkin told us we’d be briefed, and now Schwartz is arriving and we still only have the name. Ain’t that a little odd?”
“This is private security, kid. If you want transparency work at a pizza place.” Colt paused. “Fuck, I should have said ‘glass factory.’ If you tell this story, say I said glass factory.”
Seb ignored him. “We’ve always been briefed in the past. And if Schwartz is dangerous—”
Colt pointed at the wall in front of them where two dozen large screen stood stacked on top of one another, each displaying a different room in Castle by the Sea. “Look at this place kid. Schwartz is one guy locked in a house the size of a football stadium. I’m more nervous about losing him. Or watching him jerk it in those purple panties.”
Seb rolled his eyes. “You know you don’t need to…Is that them?”
Colt glanced at the screen Seb was pointing at. Sure enough there were two black SUV’s sandwiching a limousine at the front gate. “That’s them. I’ll let John know. He out back?”
Seb nodded. “Yeah, I think he’s smoking. He doesn’t look so good.”
“What do you mean?”
Seb flushed. “He just seems a little strange. Out of it.”
Colt felt a surge of relief at knowing he wasn’t making the whole thing up. “He’s been like that for a while.”
“I noticed. Think we should say something?”
Colt gestured at the incoming cars. “Now isn’t a good time. We’ll deal with it right after Schwartz is settled.”
John burst into the room, pale and a little sweaty. “They here?”
“Yeah,” Colt said as he and Seb both tried not to look like weren’t talking about him. “You coming outside to meet them?”
“I’m gonna monitor from here. There’s no security risk with all the muscle Elkin brought and I wanna watch how Schwartz reacts to you. Got your earpiece?”
Colt tapped his left ear. “All set.”
“Good. Head out there now, get the guy in the house and send Elkin back here when you’re done.”
“On it,” he said and headed outside without another word. He’d follow orders from this sharp, capable version of John over talking to him about his feelings any fucking day of the week. By the time he made it out the front the cars were already parked in the circular driveway, the limo closest to the entrance. Middlebend’s guys were hefting large boxes out of both of the black SUV’s.
“What are those?” Colt asked a bearded guy with a sig on his hip.
“Clothes, shoes, books, got ‘em out of storage from New fucking Zealand if you can believe it.”
“Thought that shit was here already?”
With a quick look at the limo the security guy rolled his eyes. “You know how women are.”
Colt frowned. Did he mean Elkin? Why would she be bringing shit up to the house?
The passenger door to the limousine opened and a fat guy in the ugliest purple shirt Colt had ever seen got out. He gestured impatiently to whoever was inside.
“That’s gotta be Walshaw, Elkin’s partner,” John muttered in his ear.
“Nice shirt.”
John laughed. “Head over and twenty bucks says Schwartz is short and fat with glasses.”
“You’re on.” Colt drew himself up to his full height and moved toward the car, not too fast or slow, calm and steady. “Afternoon I’m—”
A woman in a red dress emerged from the limo like this was a red carpet movie premier and Colt’s mouth failed him. Sex. Sex had grown legs and started walking around.
“What the fuck?” John snapped. “Who is she?”
Colt barely heard him. His gaze was locked on the woman. She was fucking gorgeous. Dark hair, huge tits, full mouth, if his type was listed in the dictionary her picture would be underneath it.
“Colt,” John said. “Who. Is. She?”
“Dunno,” he said, finding his voice again. “Live-in pussy?”
It was the only thing that made sense. Schwartz must have had a companion approved. He’d have to watch some other man bury his dick between this woman’s legs. His hackles rose at the thought.
“I don’t want you to guess, asshole, I want you to stop staring at her like a fucking idiot and find out.”
Colt strode toward the limo but his attention was honed on this beautiful girl, eyes sucking up as many details as they could—the smooth olive of her skin, the length of her legs, the shiny dress lacquered over curves that could bring a man to tears. Then, far later than he should have he noticed her arms were angled in a strange way, almost as though she was…“Holy shit.”
“What?” John demanded.
“The girl, she’s handcuffed.”
“So?”
“I think she might be—”
Before Colt could elaborate on his theory Elkin emerged from the other side of the limo. “Good morning, Mr. Stone.”
“Uh good morning.” Colt resisted the urge to take a few steps backward. Elkin gave him a deep-rooted case of the creeps. She wasn’t much older than him and pretty attractive but the first time Colt imagined kissing her in New York his lips prickled like they’d been swabbed with acid. She didn’t seem human enough for sex.
“Did you, uh, have a good journey?” He fumbled.
Elkin’s gave him a thin smile. “It was certainly interesting. May I introduce my associate Mr. Walshaw?”
The man extended a meaty hand and Colt shook it. His skin was as unnaturally warm as Elkin’s looked cold. “How’d your set up go, mate?”
“Yeah good?” Colt said distractedly. He could feel the girl watching him and wasn’t sure whether to acknowledge her or not. When he looked she quickly lowered her head.
Walshaw followed his line of sight and gave him a greasy conspiratorial smile. “See you’ve spotted our girl. Mr. Stone, this is Daniel Schwartz.”
Colt’s stomach dropped. He’d been right. “We, uh…didn’t know she was a girl.”
“Yes, she has quite an unusual name,” Elkin said. “Though you might have assumed from the items we had delivered to the house?”
Colt’s mind flashed to the purple panties. Fucking hell, how could they have been so stupid? “We thought it was a man with different…interests.”
Walshaw and Elkin laughed the laugh of polite acquaintances. “Well, shall we head up to the house?” Elkin suggested.
Colt wasn’t listening. Daniel Schwartz had just lifted her gaze and looked him full in the face. She was undeniably beautiful but she looked in dire need of a Gatorade, a shower and a lie-down. Her makeup was smudged and there were shadows under her eyes. In fact the only thing that looked fully alive were her eyes themselves. They were something else. Big and bright, and full of fire. He couldn’t look at them long enough to figure out what color they were.
“Buenos dias, señor,” the girl said in liquid voice.
Colt turned to Elkin. “She’s Spanish?”
“Colombiano,” Schwartz said with a quick flutter of lashes. “Señor.”
Colt only had a second to wonder how he was going to supervise a girl who was that hot and sounded like Sofia Vergara when he noticed Walshaw glaring at the girl with pure hatred. “She’s not Colombian.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“She’s. Not. Colombian.” Color was rising on Walshaw’s stubbled cheeks. “She’s an idiot.”
Colt looked back at the girl who smiled nervously. “Me llamo Camilla. No sé por qué estoy aquí.”
“What did she just say?” Elkin demanded.
Colt glanced from Elkin to Schwartz. “She, uh, says her name’s Camilla and she doesn’t know why she’s here.”
Walshaw glanced at Elkin. “Ma’am? What should we…?”
Elkin stalked around the limousine and gripped the woman, Camilla, or Daniel, or whoever, by the arm. “Mr. Stone, I can assure you this woman is a terrorist, and her name is Daniel Schwartz.”
“Terrorist?” John barked in his ear.
“Terrorist?” Colt repeated.
The woman shot him a wide-eyed look of panic. “No soy un terrorista. Señor por favor, ayúdeme.”
Colt took a step closer. “Ms. Elkin, why is this woman telling me to help her?”
Elkin shook the girl’s arm, making her long dark hair fly around her shoulders. “Because she’s a little beast. Ms. Schwartz, if you do not want to spend the next fourteen hours unconscious you will cease this immediately. I mean it.”
Camilla’s eyes began to brim with tears. “No entiendo. Por favor, ayúdeme señor.”
“I said that’s enough!” Elkin slapped the girl so violently her teeth rattled.
“That’s enough!” Colt said, and without meaning to, without thinking, he reached for his gun.
That was a bad idea. As one, the security guys around him dropped the boxes they were carrying and drew their own weapons. John swore in his ear; Walshaw hollered ‘fuck’ and moved behind the limousine door. Only Elkin remained calm, straightening up to stare right at him. “Mr. Stone, what do you think you’re doing?”
“He’s defending me, Leslie. Obviously.”
At first Colt had no idea where the strange female voice was coming from, then he saw Camilla’s entire demeanor had changed. She grinned at him, straight-backed and smug. “Hey there big guy, how’s it going?”
Colt gaped at her. “You were fucking with me?”
“Well yeah mate. Obvs.” Her eyes glittered with mischief. They were, Colt realized, gray.