Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(116)

Hobart glanced at her, dismayed. She’d been his podmate since babyhood, and he knew her weak points like his own. When she was stressed, she moped. She’d hidden her depressive tendencies from King in the testing cycles, but she couldn’t hide them from her podmates.

The situation was critical. They’d barely slept in the three days they’d been ensconced at Cray’s Cove. Steele’s home was impregnable without an army to assail it, and there was no sneaking up on it by stealth, either. They had to wait for an opening, chewing their knuckles while the clock ticked, feeling King’s disapproval like a cold fog curling all around them. They tried to get some sleep, spelling each other for half-hour naps from time to time, but they mostly relied on the pickup drugs.

The car that had left a couple hours before, full of McCloud wives, had been the first opening, but they’d been unable to take advantage of it, with King’s imperative of stealth and guile. King should have sent them a dozen agents for backup. They could have stopped the car, killed the young man, taken the women and the baby hostage, and had a strong card to play. But no. They were being punished with an impossible task. But just maybe, that impossible task had now become possible.

The electrifying news they collected from Rosa Ranieri’s cell gave them no time to prepare, to plan. Tam Steele was rushing to the hospital emergency room. Lily Parr was with them. It was never going to get any better than this—if they were brilliant, and quick as a snake.

If. He glanced over at Melanie’s wet eyes and trembling mouth. Damn. That was a big if, with Mel in such bad shape. He wished he could call King and get him to give Melanie a Level Five pick-me-up like the one King had done for him. He’d taken care not to tell Mel about that. She was shaky enough already. “Take your patch, Mel,” he ordered. “You need it. I already took mine, before we left the hotel.”

“We’ll slit our own throats,” Mel moaned. “We may as well have gotten gassed with the other shredders, back on cull day. It would have been better to end it then. Instead of busting our asses, for years, for nothing. For him to just hate us. I can’t stand it. I just can’t—”

“Put on your f*cking patch!” Hobart yelled. The car screeched to a stop at the red light just in time. “Get yourself together!”

Mel fumbled for the Calitran-M. Hobart watched until he ascertained that the little red dot was affixed to her inner wrist.

“You’re wrecked, Mel,” he said. “We’re changing the plan. I’ll be the nurse. You be the drunk.”

“Bad idea.” Mel’s voice no longer wobbled. “Rosa Ranieri talked to me for a half hour in the baby store. She liked me. She’ll have a positive reaction when she sees a nurse she knows. Instant trust, in a box. Plus, you’ve done your face, and I haven’t.”

She was right. He didn’t like it, but at least Mel was sharpening up. Hobart glanced at himself in the rearview. Not bad, for a rush job. He’d dyed his hair, reshaped his eyebrows, and shaved a new hairline days ago. He’d put a straggling dark wig and a ski cap over that for the first act of their improvised melodrama. With brown contact lenses, a jaw prosthesis, cheek padding and the goatee, Rosa Ranieri would never recognize him. She’d had eyes for only the babies and Mel anyhow.

So back to the original plan, such as it was. He stuck his hand into his pocket, fingered the glass-framed photograph he’d swiped from the desk in the office of the hotel manager, the tiny bottles of Jack Daniels he’d taken from the hotel minibar. They’d brainstormed madly in those last, fumbling seconds. Neither was satisfied with the plan, which was filled with uncontrollable variables. Too damn bad. They had counted minutes to execute it. They had to just go for it. Everything was at stake. Their lives, on the top of the list.

“You do know that if the nurse on duty in there is a man, we’re f*cked, right?” he said. “It’ll be too late to switch roles. And if there are too many people on the nursing or the administrative staff? Or if someone sees us too soon? Or raises the alarm?”

She gave him a look. “We’re f*cked anyhow, Hobart,” she said. “You know that. We have nothing to lose anymore.”

He opened his mouth, but she shushed him. “Sssshhh, they’re talking.” She concentrated, pressing the headphones to her ears. “Val Janos is giving the driver directions to turn left up Trevitt Grade,” she said. “We’re still ahead. By about four minutes. There it is.”

Water sprayed wide in a brown arc as Hobart accelerated through the puddle outside the hospital parking lot. He parked. He and Melanie looked at each other and linked hands, squeezing hard.

They leaped out of the car and headed toward the entrance.



Bruno tried calling Aaro for the fifth time. Still busy.

Everyone was on edge since Edie’s phone call to Kev about Tam’s emergency run to Rosaline Creek. Kev and Sean were the worst, being not just worried and tense, but angry, too.

“I cannot believe it,” Sean repeated. “It’s hypocritical. After the shit she gives me for taking risks? And off she goes, running back to Endicott Falls, today? Like, what the f*ck?”

“To be fair,” Bruno pointed out. “You ran off to shoot people and blow shit up. She went home to go back to work at her bookstore.”

“What difference does the nature of the errand make, if there are killers out there?” The SUV swerved, hydroplaning on the oily asphalt.