Page 316 of Lodestar

“Good.” Calmly, I studied the outer door, just waiting for someone to burst in and uncover what I was doing.Butit seemed Anna had everyone suitably terrified of trespassing because no one even knocked.

“Exiting elevator in three, two, one…”

Nodding to myself, I rushed over to the second door and pulled it open, shrieking, “Where are the EMTs?”

Most of the ten-strong team were out on their lunch break, but two turned to stare at me just as D called, “We’re here, ma’am. Please, step aside!”

As they bustled forward into the office, I started sobbing when the first woman approached me.

“What happened?” she cried, standing on her tiptoes to peer over my shoulder as I blockaded the door.

I hurled myself into her chest and started wailing like I was traumatized.

“Jesus, you should have gone into acting,” Conor muttered in my ear, but I ignored him, too engrossed in the role that would keep the front office distracted as the ‘EMTs’ worked on Foundry.

Within twenty minutes, Foundry was declared dead, his ‘corpse’ was carefully loaded into the body bag with Smythe, and they were both on the stretcher that D and Troy wheeled out of the building.

In the time that it took for the staff to make it back from their lunch break, their boss had died and he had been taken to the morgue.

Amid the chaos, I slipped out of the office and reverted to my regular brown hair in the restroom which, courtesy of Anna, stank like the pit of hell.

Tucked away in a stall, I removed my makeup and changed my clothes quickly. Not just because I needed out of there, stat, but because that ex-lax and its results were potent as fuck.

By the time I was in the elevator, I was relieved to be inhaling non-tainted air, and I was smiling to myself at a job well done.

14

STAR

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, CATSKILLS MOUNTAINS

“Hello, Sheridan,”I called out, waiting, ear hovering against the shipping container for him to reply.

He didn’t disappoint. “LET ME OUT OF HERE!”

I smirked at no one in particular. “Where would the fun be in that?”

“FUN? You sick bitch! Let me out of here. Who the fuck are you? Do you know who I am?”

“Unfortunately for you, she does,” Conor said with a chuckle.

“You need to keep away from the door, Sheridan, or I’ll make you regret the day you were born,” was my amicable retort as I leaned one of Conor’s toys against my leg.

Conor dipped his head to whisper in my ear, “It’ll take a cow down if you’re not careful.”

“Isn’t that the point of a cattle prod?”

“How the fuck do you have such good hearing, D?” Conor grumbled.

Ignoring them, I tapped the shipping container. “Sheridan, are you standing near the door?”

Silence.

“I bet he’s by the door,” D mumbled. “Never did have any sense.”

“I agree.” Bracing myself, I turned to them, nodded, and watched as the three stood behind me like a barricade in case Sheridan managed to get the drop on me.

Unlikely, but we tried to plan for all eventualities.

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