Ball & Chain

Zane grunted. “Okay, everyone calm down. The power being out isn’t a big deal. We need to get to the freezer to check that body. We have a theory.”



“And we still need to gather everyone in the sunroom,” Ty added.



“Why?”



“No one’s safe in this house alone. And right now everyone is separate and alone. Hell, it’s the only place with light now. Why are we going to the freezer?”



Nick flicked his phone on, shining the light of the flash on the floor.



“Just . . . you two head for the generators, see what’s going on out there,” Zane said as he trailed after Nick and his light. “We’ll meet you in the sunroom and help gather everyone.”



“Hold on,” Ty hissed, following and grabbing Zane’s elbow. “Are either of you even armed?”



“O’Flaherty has his gun.” Zane squeezed Ty’s arm. “We’ll be fine.”



When Nick disappeared down the steps, the light went with him, and Ty’s face was enveloped by shadow. “Well that’s great, Zane, but Doc and I aren’t armed so I’d rather not go out into the stormy night to check the generators that some psycho with an ax probably just killed, not without at least a sharp stick or something.”



Zane nearly laughed. “We’ll stay together then. Come on.”



The flashlight reflected off the stainless steel of the kitchen, and Nick moved carefully toward the freezer, checking any blind spots and making certain they were alone down there. Kelly pulled the freezer door open, and Nick shined the light inside.



“What the hell are we doing down here, anyway?” Ty asked again.



Zane glanced at his shadowed face. “Nick is itchy.”



“Again?” Kelly asked.



“It’s the walls,” Nick said. He had his knife out, cutting through the thick plastic bag they’d wrapped Nikki Webb’s body in. He and Zane moved closer, handing their phones off to Ty and Kelly.



They examined the girl’s arms and legs, finding several scratches. The skin was reddened and torn in some places, just like Nick’s forearm.



Nick was nodding as he looked her over. “She mentioned being itchy when I interviewed her. I didn’t think anything of it. But whatever’s making me itch, it got to her too. She’s been inside the walls.”



“Wait a minute, so she’s one of our doers?” Ty asked. “Son of a bitch.”



“Looks like,” Zane said. “She could be the woman we saw on the beach. Means her partner killed her. He’s tying up loose ends.”



“Allies being killed means the endgame,” Ty pointed out. “And we don’t even fucking know what game we’re playing yet.”



“Hide and seek?” Kelly suggested.



“Shut up,” Ty huffed.



“Watch it,” Nick growled. He sounded truly angry. He and Ty stared at each other in the light of Kelly’s phone.



Zane could sense something coming to a head. He just hoped it waited until they were off this island.



Kelly subtly moved to stand between them. “We could be after just one person now. That’s good, right?”



“We shouldn’t assume that,” Zane told him. He took his phone back from Ty. “Let’s get back upstairs, check the power, and get some questions answered.”



They vacated the freezer, closing it carefully behind them. Zane took Ty’s arm and held him back as Nick and Kelly went up the stairs. “What’s going on with you two? What set him off?”



“What do you mean?” Ty asked, though he sounded a little too nonchalant to truly be clueless.



“I mean why does O’Flaherty look like he wants to deck you? And why’s it all coming out now?”



Ty shrugged, glancing up the steps. “Stress, I guess.”



“You didn’t say anything to him about him and Kelly, did you?”



Ty seemed offended that Zane would even imply that. He huffed in answer. “No. What’s bothering him, it’s our issue. Him and me.” He pulled his arm away and started up the steps. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”



When they reached the great hall, Kelly was trying to explain to Nick why they needed to go to the sunroom, but Nick had planted himself in the middle of the hall, arguing that he needed to get into Nikki Webb’s room and search her things.



“It might already be too late, but we need to see what she had up there. She might have answers.”



“We need to arm ourselves is what we need to do,” Ty countered. “Who cares who’s doing this or why if we’re all dead by morning?”



Nick glanced at him, then he and Kelly shared a look. Kelly nodded, but Nick’s jaw tightened.



“Gun room? Or our rooms?” Kelly asked.



“Both,” Ty said with a nod at Nick and Kelly. He tossed Kelly the key to their room. “Gather everything we’ve got from our rooms. You know where I stash my shit. We’ll head for the hunting stuff. Meet in the sunroom.”



Before they could separate, though, Stanton stalked out of the sunroom, two of his Snake Eater bodyguards trailing after him with lanterns.



“I hope you have a good reason for causing this sort of alarm, young man,” he said to Ty. His normally placid voice echoed off the walls of the great hall.



Ty took a few steps to meet them. “Sir, we’ll explain everything, but right now you and everyone else are safer together in the sunroom.”



“Then join me, won’t you? And explain now before there’s a panic.” Stanton waved a hand toward the sunroom doors, and Ty had little choice but to do as he was asked. The request wasn’t exactly unreasonable, after all.



Ty gestured for the others to come with him. Zane would rather have them there as backup if things got out of hand, so he was glad Ty was at least on the same page with him. The Snake Eaters took up their posts on either side of the doors, and they wouldn’t let Ty follow Stanton in until he submitted to a search.



“Are you fucking serious right now?” Ty asked.



English put a meaty hand on Ty’s chest and pushed him a step back. “You’re doing your jobs. We’re doing ours. Hands up.”



Ty did an impressive job of keeping a tight rein on his temper, doing as he was asked. English ran the wand over him, then let him in the room. The others each went through the same routine, with Nick’s hip setting the wand off again. Frost patted him down just as he’d done the first night, quietly joking about his shrapnel being inconvenient, then let Nick through. Nothing else pinged, though. Where and when had Nick stashed his gun?



“Gentlemen, you have the room,” Stanton announced once the glass doors were closed.



Ty glanced over the small crowd. He looked to Stanton again, narrowing his eyes at the man. “That’s good, Mr. Stanton,” he said, his tone changing to one that made Zane groan internally. He was about to do something ill-advised, Zane knew that much.



Out of the corner of his eyes, Zane saw Nick and Kelly share a glance and then subtly move farther apart, spreading out. They knew that tone of voice too.



“We’ve determined one of the victims is actually a culprit. One of the victims was trying to sell your company’s technology. And one of the victims was trying to buy it,” Ty announced, keeping his voice bland and almost amused. “Care to guess who is who?”



“Is this some sort of a joke?” Stanton asked.



“Ty, what the hell is going on?” Deuce asked from one of the sitting areas.



“Did Ernest Milton have access to the DOD tech you were developing?” Zane asked Stanton.



Stanton looked briefly shell-shocked before recovering his wits and nodding. “But only pieces of it. He was trying to sell it?”



“To someone on this island,” Ty provided.



“It’s kind of obvious it wasn’t the cook,” Kelly added drily.



Stanton rubbed at the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “This makes no sense. Ernest would never sell that technology. He knew how sensitive it was, and he was a patriot.”



“Aren’t we all,” Nick murmured.



“He also didn’t have all the pieces. Without all three sets, it’s useless to any buyer. Is that what got Ernest killed?”



Zane glanced at Ty, earning a raised eyebrow in return. Three sets? That meant it was possible Milton had gone through with the sale of his information, hoping his buyer wouldn’t be wise to how many pieces there were.



“Who has the other pieces?” Nick asked.



“I control one,” Stanton answered. “It remains with me at all times. The other remains with the head of security. He is currently in Philadelphia.”



“Milton wasn’t just selling his piece of the technology,” Ty told Stanton. His eyes darted to Deuce and Livi. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth. “We found a confirmation on his laptop. He’d hired someone to kidnap Amelia from their home in two days’ time. Probably as leverage for your piece of the information.”



Deuce lurched to his feet, protesting wordlessly. Stanton put a hand to his mouth, turning to look at Deuce and Livi before meeting Ty’s eyes again. “That . . . I told Milton to do that.”



“You what?” Livi cried.



“It wasn’t a kidnapping,” Stanton said, raising his voice as more people protested. “It was a test of your security, to see if someone could get to her.”



“And you didn’t think to tell us this?” Deuce shouted.



“Once the wedding date was moved, the point was moot.”



Ty took a step back and turned to Zane, frowning as the Stantons and Gradys began to argue. The shouting and accusations bounced off the walls, wild gesticulations and posturing mirrored by candlelight in the darkened glass. The scene quickly devolved into chaos, but Ty and Zane ignored the feuding families.



“Something’s not adding up, right?” Zane asked. Ty nodded. “If Milton was running a check on Amelia’s protection, it’s possible he was doing the same thing the night he was killed.”



Ty nodded again, covering his mouth with his hand as he spoke. “He could have been baiting the buyers, trying to find out who they were. If they killed him, it means he recognized them, and they knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be selling this shit.”



“So our bad dead guy is now a good dead guy?” Kelly whispered. He’d come up behind Zane, so quiet in the confusion Zane hadn’t realized he was there.



Zane glanced over his shoulder. Kelly stood with his arms crossed, scowling. Nick hung back, edging farther from the three of them. Zane did a double take when he saw the look in Nick’s eyes, like he was staring into the distance, no longer truly with them.



“Oh shit,” Zane whispered.



Ty and Kelly both turned to investigate, both of them stiffening when they noticed Nick edging closer to the door like he might be trying to escape. But Nick didn’t look for an escape when he suffered his flashbacks. He went on the attack.



The Snake Eaters had waded into the fray, trying to separate Stanton from the rest of the angry group. Stanton, though, had Livi by both arms, apparently trying to explain his actions to his daughter as she shouted at him. One of the Snake Eaters, the woman named Avery Kline, came up beside Stanton and pried his hands from Livi. Then, in the confusion, she wrapped her arm around his neck and yanked him backward, pulling her gun and using him to shield her body from the other Snake Eaters. Then she fired into the air before Zane could move to stop her.



The shot echoed, like fire bouncing off their eardrums. The glass ceiling shattered and rained shards down on the occupants of the room. Ty and Kelly both hit the ground, covering their heads. Neither man had seen what Zane had seen; they’d merely heard the shot and reacted. Screams of terror and pain followed. People dove to the ground, shielding their loved ones or covering their ears. Rain poured in through the shattered panes. Ty and Kelly clambered to their feet again.



“Anyone makes a move and I put one in his ear!” Kline shouted. She directed her words to her fellow Snake Eaters, who all looked stunned by her betrayal. She knew they were the only ones in the room who were armed because they’d wanded everyone as they came in. “Guns down, now!”



English pulled his lapel aside, showing her his weapon. He glanced at Frost and Park, nodding for them to do the same. All three men set their guns on the floor with great care.



“I came here for one reason, and I’m getting off this fucking island. Now,” Kline said to Stanton. She pointed her gun at Livi’s head. “Take me to that memory drive or I kill her.”



Stanton nodded furtively. She began to back toward the doors, dragging him backward with her. She aimed the gun at Zane and the others, eyeing them suspiciously as they stood with their hands in the air. She sneered at them. “Fucking Recon, my ass.”



Another gunshot tore through the sound of the torrential rain, and then the bullet tore through Avery Kline’s head, dropping her as Stanton cringed away from the splatter of blood and brain matter. He stumbled away, leaving Nick standing behind the body of the woman he’d just shot, gun still drawn.



“That’s Force fucking Recon to you,” Nick said to the dead woman. “Bitch.”



Chapter 10



Ty and the others stood in stunned silence. The only sound in the room was the rain pouring in through the ruined roof. Ty looked from the bleeding body to Nick and back. He didn’t dare move, and he was glad the rest of the room seemed too stunned to make any sudden motions that might set Nick off. He didn’t know if they were losing Nick to the past, or if the man had been paying closer attention to the Snake Eaters than Ty and the others had and had simply anticipated a move.