Page 146 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

Collectively, we decided to get some sleep and fly home in the morning. Storm still looked a little worse for wear and Barbie, who’d been dealing with admin and planning, said there was no urgent need for us to be in Vegas. Although I wasn’t sure I agreed with her. AceInTheHole was still on the loose. Cole wasn’t safe. And nobody would tell me what was going on.

“Echo told us not to,” Barbie said to me over coffee andtres bocados, the traditional San Gallician breakfast of scrambled eggs, curried beans, and flatbread that Frankie had picked up from a local diner. “None of us want to wake up and find the Cathouse has been taken over by Skynet.”

“Echo wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, you think? You don’t remember that guy she bumped off with a smart toaster?”

Okay, yes, I did remember the toaster incident. She’d hacked the internet-connected appliance in the middle of the night, shut off the safety features, and cranked up thepower until the whole thing melted and set the house on fire.

“We threw out the toaster after that. We installed extra smoke alarms.”

Not that we truly thought Echo would hurt us, but if she had the ability, then others did too.

Anyhow, none of my so-called friends had spilled a single detail all day, so now I had to do what I’d been putting off for weeks. I had to speak with Echo. Yes, she was my oldest friend, but she frustrated the hell out of me on occasion.

First, I poured myself a glass of wine, and then I settled onto a sun lounger on the terrace. This really was a beautiful property. Cole had good taste, and not just in women. Maybe I could take a real vacation someday? Fly to San Gallicano, take the ferry to Emerald Shores, and spend a week or two here with Cole?

My future looked very different than it had just two short months ago.

One did not simply pick up a phone and call Alexa Stone. She didn’t have a regular phone that wasn’t a burner—she didn’t trust big telecom—and she never stayed in the same place for long. If you wanted to get in touch, you called her answering service, where a nice lady informed you that you’d reached Church Group—Echo’s idea of a joke—and offered to take a message. If Echo felt so inclined, she’d call you back. If she liked you, she might give you an email address, and if you were in her self-designated inner circle, you talked with her via an app she installed on your device without bothering to ask first.

I half expected her to blow me off today, but she answered.

“Why are you calling? You’re supposed to be on vacation.”

“Have you been under a rock? Didn’t you hear what happened out here?”

“Of course I did, but that’s done now, so you can enjoy your vacation.”

“I’m flying home tomorrow.”

“Are you?”

Oh, hell. There was something about the way she said that…

“What do you know that I don’t?”

“I know a lot of things that you don’t, but if you expect me to tell them to you, you’re out of luck.”

“What’s happening with the Galaxy and AceInTheHole?”

“Everything’s under control. That’s all you need to know.”

“That isn’t all I need to know. I need to know who I’m going to drop-kick off a skyscraper.”

“Absolutely nobody. Everything will be fixed by the time you get home.”

“Why do you do this?”

“Because I like you. I wouldn’t do this for just anybody.”

“What, drive me insane?”

“You’ll thank me later.”

She hung up, and I stared at the phone screen, a hundred curses on the tip of my tongue. Echo always did things her own way. I’d learned that when Levi Sykes’s parents had sent their fancy lawyers after us, and she stole most of their money so they couldn’t pay the legal costs anymore. My share of the spoils was still sitting in a numbered account, hidden safely in Panama. I’d never touched it, but nor had I given it back. Linus and Mary Sykes didn’t deserve their millions if they were going to use it to cause others harm.

Anyhow, Echo was a law unto herself. For a briefmoment, I considered calling Chase since he knew more about what Echo was doing than anyone else, but he’d just toe the company line.

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