Page 46 of The Hard Way

“I don’t know what you want!” Andy said.

Zeus waited, but Andy wasn’t coming out with it. Zeus put his face close to Andy’s. “Do you know what an accessory to murder is?”

“Wait—what? Murder?”

“Yeah, murder,” Zeus growled. “Andaccessoryto murder is when you withhold something germane to the investigation. And we will come across that thing, and we’ll know it when we see it. And we will go to the police on it.”

Andy shook his head, seeming outraged. Was it possible he wasn’t hiding something?

Zeus let him go. “Come on,” he said, heading out. Odin and I followed, trudging out of the barn and onto the trail leading back to the house and the driveway.

“You really think—”

“Shhh.” Odin shoved something into his ear.

We continued to the car in silence and got in.

“Why didn’t you push him more if you really think he’s withholding something?” I asked Zeus.

“I put a bug in his pocket,” Zeus said.

I sat up. “To listen to him?”

“Shhh,” Odin said again.

Zeus lowered his voice. “We’re seeing if he calls Nancy, or who he calls. If he told somebody, he’s calling them right now.” He put the car into gear and drove off, partway down the road, then pulled onto the shoulder.

I could now see that Odin had an earbud in. “He’s working.”

“Maybe he texted the person.”

“This isn’t a texting situation,” Zeus said. “Trust me. People up to something, especially if they’re scared of being found out, they don’t text. They feel like it leaves a trail. They talk, being vague as possible.”

“Clanking,” Odin said. “He’s just working on that tractor.”

“There’s something he’s not telling us,” Zeus said. “Maybe it’s not related to the crime. Could be something else. Did you feel it, Ice?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have the radar you do.”

“Just tune in. Deep inside you. Your impressions.”

I tried to tune in, but whereas my guys seemed to have high-tech radar with digital signal processing when it came to liars, I had some messy little tea leaves and a Hello Kitty ring. “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “I don’t know.”

Odin pulled the earpiece out. “He’s not calling anyone.”

“Record it.”

“It’s recording,” Odin said. “But if he was going to call somebody, he would’ve.”

“Agreed,” Zeus said, all official and military. “What I really would like is a bug on Nancy. We should’ve thought of it, because I’d like to see who she called after we visited. We need ears on her.” He fell silent. “Dammit.”

We just drove, and I could tell by the silence in the car, and by my guys’ shuttered expressions, that each of us was streaming our personal dark thoughts. Mine had Vanessa in a women’s prison like onOrange Is The New Black. And a legion of SWAT teams descending on us at Margie’s, gunning us down among broken cupids. Or taking us off in separate cars, and that’s the last I ever see of my guys. And them being held in dark little rooms where they tell everything in exchange for a reduced sentence for me. That’s the kind of thing they’d do.

Back when I was stuck in this town, I’d dreamed of a life of adrenaline and wild escapades. But back then, the only stakes I’d imagined were my own safety.

Now the stakes were these men I loved more than anything, and when I thought of what could happen to them, it made me lose my nerve. It made me want the opposite of risk. We were in a car. Together. We could go find Thor and run.

“We need a break,” Zeus said, echoing my thoughts. “We need to know this isn’t Denko, because if it’s Denko, everything changes.”

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