Page 48 of Some Like It Hot

“Riley, can you get that?”

Oh. Um, but okay. He retrieved her phone. “It’s your dad.”

“Answer it.”

He thumbed the call open. “Barry, this is Riley.”

A pause, then the older man’s voice came through the line. “Is Larke around?”

Riley glanced at Larke. She was removing a small metal slug from Thorne’s shoulder. Dropped it with a plink into a mug that Orion held out for her.

“Sort of. She’s busy. Can I give her a message?”

Another pause. “What’s going on, Riley? We’re at Alicia Salmon’s place, and there’s a dead body here.”

Right. “Yeah. Uh…”

“I want to know if my daughter is okay.”

“Tell him you’re fine,” Riley said and held the phone under her mouth.

“I’m fine, Dad.”

Riley put the phone back to his ear. “We had a little medical emergency, but we’re all okay. And…when you say we—”

“Me and your boss, Tucker, a couple feds, and Skye.”

Riley tried to sort out this information, but his brain locked ona couple feds.

Like the kind who could be after Thorne?

“Where are you?” Barry asked.

Larke had applied combat gauze to the wound, stopping the bleeding, wrapping it around Thorne’s arm. “You need a couple stitches, but—”

“Riley?” Barry said through the phone.

Riley watched as Thorne pushed himself up from the table and shook his head, as if trying to clear it.

Your dad did follow the rules—but he also followed his gut. He wasn’t reckless, but he wasn’t afraid to take risks.

“We’re on our way back to the ranch. We’ll meet you there.” Riley hung up.

Thorne stared at him.

“I figure if Dad’s final mission was to get you home, I can’t stand in the way.” Riley offered his hand to Thorne.

Thorne took it, his grip firm. “‘If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…’”

“‘I am that man,’” Riley said softly, the SEAL quote settling inside.

“Yes, McCord, I believe you are.”

* * *

Riley had washed his hands,his arm, changed into a shirt donated by Orion—olive green and faded, just a little small around his biceps—and now Riley sat on the seat of Larke’s truck, his face fierce, staring at the black cloud of doom that billowed across the horizon like the anger of Hades.

“That doesn’t look good,” Larke said as she turned off the dirt road that led to Orion’s place and back onto the highway.

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