Page 31 of Four Calling Birds

He stood up, wiped his mouth, and went to Lotte. “Will you lift your shirt?”

Lotte looked confused. But…

“Don’t fucking do it, Lotte,” I growled. “Taz, I swear to God, you’re going to be dead to me.”

Bo kept on barking, coming off the couch and trotting over to the dining nook. He looked at everyone, then circled around Lotte, barking at Taz.

“We’re looking for a half inch sized bump, like a horse-pill sized ibuprofen,” Taz said, mechanically, hovering over my wife who stayed in her seat. Bo barked up at anyone who came near her, baring his teeth.Good dog. “Get away, you mangy old mutt.”

Bo kept on barking, and I wanted to be right there with him, yapping my head off to get that insane psychopath away from my wife. But somewhere in the back of my mind was Taz’s description of the bug.

Realization crept over me slowly. So slowly. And it did on Lotte as well.

It took her less than a few seconds to figure it out. Fucking Taz. She was a bitch, but it was the price she paid for the processor she called a brain.

Lotte lifted her shirt, to the place on her spine, right below her bra-line, where that strange scar looked back at me, with the bump underneath. I had assumed it was some kind of tissue buildup, or calcium deposit…something.Scars do weird things. The body isn’t always the smartest thing in the world.

“Go ahead and cut it out,” Lotte said, grinding her teeth, leaning forward on the table.

Taz looked down at it with a look of glee that made me sick. Shewantedto cut into my wife. The fucking insane serial killer. Did she hate her that much? Really? For what? For a few missed phone calls?

The knife glinted in her hand, ready to pierce into Lotte’s skin. But she paused. Her eyes darted around my wife’s bared flesh, as if noticing all the little scars at once. Her mouth opened, then shut. Then, her eyes fell on the black stitches of Lotte’s new wound, and her brows furrowed together in concern and indignation. As if the cuts on my wife’s skin was a personal insult to her.

Who knew what connections happened in that twisted mind of hers.

I might have loved her like she was my own kid, but that head of hers was a mystery Freud couldn’t dissect.

“We should let Charlotte lie down,” Taz lowered her arm, as it swung at her side. “You should get your med kit out, Goose.”

“Just cut it out,” Lotte said. “It’s… I don’t like knowing it’s there. I want it out now.”

The slight waver in her voice made me pause in my fight against Veder. He loosened his grip. I looked at Taz, who looked back at me with a sudden look of remorse.

With a small, annoyed sigh, she turned to Goose. She looked like this whole thing had been a huge irritation for her.

She handed Goose the knife, planting the hilt in his open palm.

“They didn’t bug the car, alright.” Taz went back to her seat, and flipped a paper over the table, and it twirled along the surface, stopping right in front of Lotte. “They bug their human merchandise. Some of their escaped trafficking victims were tagged, like wild animals.”Humanmerchandise was her cold way of referring to slaves. “Or… dogs. Just in case they have to catch and release, and probably to keep tabs on their buyers.” She looked at my wife with an impassive, unsympathetic gaze. “Some people hypothesized that they bug their soldiers too.”

If you didn’t know Taz, you wouldn’t realize what she was doing. She wasallowingLotte to know her thought process. She was explaining herself. She was reaching out, in her own, twisted way.

Taz looked at me, then at my wife. “Looks like we just confirmed it.”

My phone buzzed again, and I looked on my phone to see a midnight blue Cadillac CT5-V driving down the bumpy dirty road. That thing’s suspension was gonna take a real beating.

“Griff is here.” I flatly stated. No one else on the team would ever drive a car that swanky.

VD clenched his fists, his eyes looking frightened for a moment, before calming down to placid indifference.

“Oh, this is going to be so fun!” Taz clapped her hands and rubbed them together with a malicious grin.

“Taz! I swear to God, you’re the biggest instigator of chaos this world has ever fucking known. Can you lay off?” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I love you, but you are grinding my fucking gears.”

She was like the teenage daughter I never wanted. If she had beenmydaughter, I would have sent her to boarding school by now. And not a nice one. Like the kind where drill sergeants scream at them 24/7 and make them hike and do push-ups as punishment. If she hadn’t joined the Army, she would have been put away for brawling or arson. Maybe both. At the same time.

“Sorry, Top,” she said, without a hint of contrition. “I’ll keep the commentary to myself. Jeez.”

I snorted. She was funny, I’ll give her that.

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