Page 11 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“Could be family?”

“He said he was at a crossroads and reevaluating his life. I guess it’s possible he inherited the house, and he’s trying to decide what to do with it.”

The door opened, and a nurse shooed Tulsa inside. “Ma’am, you can’t just meander around this facility.”

“She was only looking for food,” I told her. “We’re starving.”

“If you want food, you press the button.”

“When can I get out of here?”

“When the doctor says so.”

“Service with a fuckin’ smile,” Tulsa said once the nurse had backed out of the room. “Should’ve gone to a regular hospital—there’d be better vending machines.”

After the Cleaners took over, I’d been shipped to the private medical facility at Nellis rather than the nearest emergency room—they’d ask fewer questions on base, and the staff were used to our antics, which was both a good thing and a bad thing.Spare me the lectures.

“How do you feel about busting me out of here?” I asked.

Tulsa sighed. “You should wait.”

“Michael Trevino didn’t have any kids,” Echo said. “His parents predeceased him, and his only sibling was a brother, also dead. He got married at twenty-five and widowed at thirty.”

“Definitely no sisters?” Sin asked. “Cole’s surname is Gallagher, not Trevino.”

“Not that I can see. I can focus in on Cole again, but there’s nothing significant in the public domain after he graduated from the University of Coastal California, San Diego campus.”

“So go to the non-public domain,” I said.

“I will, but if he’s based in San Gallicano, that makes things harder. And whoever landed on his phone last night did a damn good job of breaking it.”

Valeria had bitched like crazy about the phone. There was no way of repairing the damage, so she’d swapped it for a dead version of the same model. Cole would have theinconvenience to deal with, but at least we’d fixed the bullet holes. The Cleaners had even replaced the wine, which happened to be a seven-hundred-dollar bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild—cue more bitching.

Tulsa dropped onto the bed beside me, and I gritted my teeth as red-hot pain surged through my left leg.

“We need to consider all the angles,” she said. “Sending a four-man hit squad after a person isn’t an everyday occurrence, and from what we know so far, Cole Gallagher doesn’t seem to be a guy in that kind of trouble. Right?”

I had to agree. A man who made powerful enemies generally had an inkling that he was a target. He carried a gun. He watched his back. Cole’s only weapon was in his pants, and he definitely hadn’t been aware of his surroundings. At the Black Diamond, his eyes had stayed on me and only me.

“Right.”

“But Jez was there too, and she’s earned that honour many times over.”

True, but Ididwatch my back. My front and my sides too. Nobody had followed us to McNeil last night; I was certain of that. And as for the hit team… The thought that someone would send those four idiots to kill me was almost insulting.

“That doesn’t fit either. Nobody even knew I was going to be at that property.”

“What if Cole was bait? You said yourself that he was short of money—what if somebody noticed your penchant for hitting it and quitting it and decided to set you up?”

I shook my head. “If that were the case, they’d have sent a prick in a suit. A guy older than me, a little drunk, a little horny. Cole wasn’t my usual type.”

“So why did you go home with him?”

“I don’t know! He was nice, I guess.”

Tulsa grimaced. “Yikes.”

“Don’t start.”

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