Page 45 of Talk to Me

“We’ll take care of it. Cut our losses, use their tech or what there is of it, but we need to move again. Especially if they are trackable in any way.” McQuade put away his whittling and rose. “Wrap it up with her, then we’ll deal with the other one and get them out of here.”

“We’re just—gonna off them?” I grimaced and earned two bland looks. Yes, I sounded like an idiot, sue me. However… “It’s one thing in a fight, it seems a little overkill, I guess, since they are prisoners.”

“Are you planning to stay here, babysitting them?” McQuade asked.

“Or sit on them until you have to let them go and let them come after us again?” Remington drained his coffee. “Because I’m not on either front.”

“Same,” McQuade said. “If you’re a little squeamish, go ahead and step out. But leaving them behind is leaving them to come after us again.”

Would the threat of death make them talk? I studied the hooded figure with the headphones placed over her ears.

“Pain wasn’t making her talk,” Remington said. “Death is a release, not a threat.”

Yeah.

“Okay, I’ll go make more coffee. We need to plan our next steps.” It wasn’t until I collected their cups and climbed up the stairs from the basement to the kitchen of the little cabin that I realized what I’d said.

We.

We needed to plan our next steps.

I guessed we were working together. The house had power thanks to a generator. There was also some tinned food in the pantry and other supplies that were designed to keep without power on. Made sense.

I used the first pot of hot water to put together an easy meal of rehydrated mashed potatoes, canned corn, and peas. Not my favorites, not even remotely gourmet. Apparently butter wasn’t something the place came with, but it was hot and it would be filling.

Second pot of water hit boiling about the time the pair ascended the steps—sans bodies. Not my circus or my monkeys. Body disposal could happen later. The temps up here were not going to do much more than freeze the bodies anyway.

All three of us made do with instant coffee, powdered creamer and some fake sugar shit. Whatever, it helped with the bitterness. Once we were seated at the rickety table, bowls of mashed potatoes and vegetables in front of each of us and with cups of coffee, I eyed them.

“Who starts?”

Maybe the putting our heads together thing came from me, but these two had something planned. Most likely individually. That said, I’d rather get a feel for it on all fronts before we launched into this. However, neither seemed willing to offer up the first morsel of data.

“Look,” I said, lowering my cup of coffee and looking from Remington to McQuade, then back to Remington again. “We don’t have to like each other or be buddies. We’re not all that likely to hold hands and skip. What we are, is very dangerous and each of us possesses skills the others may not. We all have a similar goal…”

“Patch,” McQuade said with a grunt. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t try to avoid mentioning it.

“Exactly.” I tapped my finger against the table. “She’s our switchboard. Someone took her. The longer we play games with each other, the more likely it is for them to keep getting away with it. When we went to her place, we got noticed. These distractions are to let them do what?—”

“Clean up behind them in case they forgot something.” Remington’s eyes narrowed.

“Might be too late for that.” McQuade pulled out a slip of pink paper. “Not sure fifteen digits is what they wanted but…I found this sticking out from behind her white board.”

“Could be nothing,” Remington commented.

“Could be everything. But from this point forward, we work together. I’ve got a setup that will let me do some research. I’m not Patch and I don’t pretend to be, but we can at least dig in deeper.”

“Or we can set up here and wait for the scratch off team,” McQuade mused. “They are going to want to know if their people were successful.”

“That’s just more grunts,” Remington said with a shake of his head. “I want the head of the snake, not the worms that slither below it.”

He had a point. I dug into my food as the two of them eyed each other with cold, distant expressions. Yeah, we were definitely not going to be the bestest of buddies.

Totally fine with that. I didn’t have to like them to use their help.

“If I had to guess,” McQuade said. “This is an account or wire number. If we can track it to a bank, we can figure out who it belongs to…”

Could still be nothing. I finished my food then pulled out my phone. When I beckoned for the slip of paper, he hesitated. I didn’t push or demand, I just waited.

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