Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(91)

“I will not bet my life on that, you dog,” Marina snapped. “They would kill us both. Idiot. Step away from the girl. Now.”

Yuri muttered something filthy and sullen, and backed away, staring fixedly at Sveti. Marina shoved him out the door, and glared down at the girl, who had dragged herself into a crouch, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees. Marina grabbed the limp T-shirt from the examining table and snapped it smartly into Sveti’s face.

The unexpected blow made her whip her head back, bonking it hard against the painted white cinder-block wall. Her eyes welled full again.

“Stop whining.” Marina knelt down and stuck her face into Sveti’s. “And stop trying to lure him with your scrawny little tits, you stupid tart. Or there’ll be trouble. Do you understand?”

“But I don’t want—I wasn’t—”

Crack, a hard backhand slap connected. Sveti’s head hit the wall again. “Do you understand?”

Yes. Sveti’s mouth formed the word, but made no sound.

Marina tossed the shirt in Sveti’s face, and heaved her big, solid block of a body to her feet. “See that you do. Now get that whining brat out of my sight. I’m sick of looking at her.”

She stumped out, slammed the connecting door. Locked it.

Sveti pulled the tattered T-shirt over her shivering self, wondering how it was possible to hate someone so much and still be so grateful to her. She tried to get to her feet, but the thigh Yuri had kicked buckled under her. She finally just crawled over to Rachel, and pulled the little girl onto her lap.

They huddled there for a long time, clutching each other, until it was impossible to tell who was comforting who.



The batwing flutter of a shadow across her face jolted Becca out of the doze that had overcome her. It was that big black SUV. Adrenaline jolted through her. A Mercedes, she noticed now. Too late to catch the plate number, damn. The vehicle had already turned perpendicular to hers, and pulled to a stop in front of the hotel’s back entrance.

It pulled away again, leaving Diana behind, clutching a white box to her chest. The SUV accelerated away, as if it were glad to be rid of her. Diana stared after it, looking dazed and lost. Her eyes looked huge. The raccoon effect of tear-smudged makeup. Becca was very familiar with that particular fashion statement these days.

She firmly squashed a niggling feeling of sympathy for the woman. Save it for someone who deserves it, she lectured herself. If Diana was in cahoots with that poisonous snake Mathes, who was involved with that monster Zhoglo, then she was up to no good, and that was that.

Diana stumbled over her feet on her way to the rear entrance. She seemed baffled by the fact that it was now locked, and stared blankly at the door for several seconds before fishing out her key card.

Becca chewed her knuckles and thought it over. At this point, it was unlikely that Diana would leave the hotel again. Whatever she’d been planning to do, she had done. There was little else that Becca could usefully do here—other than call Nick, come clean, and hand the whole thing over to him. Which meant she needed a phone.

But she was unwilling to leave and lose track of Diana again, after all this chasing around, losing her and pinning her down again. The pay phone in the corridor of the hotel had a clear view of both entrances. She would hang around the door and wait for an opportunity to slip in after the next legitimate hotel guest.

God, this skulking and loitering made her nervous. She sauntered towards the hotel, fishing out her dead cell phone for cover, and wishing, for the first and only time in her life, that she smoked. Just to have a believable excuse for lounging around in doorways.

Before she got halfway across the parking lot, Diana exploded out the back door and hurried to her car. No white box. She did not appear to see Becca at all—even when Becca abruptly changed course and headed back to her car. Diana was swept up in her own inner drama, thank God.

Becca pulled out after her, her heart thudding, and forced herself to keep a discreet distance. She didn’t have far to go. Diana pulled over at the nearest roadhouse bar, a seedy windowless cement building with a neon sign that read Starlight Lounge.

Becca parked as near as she dared, and slumped in her seat. She held the phone to her ear and watched as Diana took off her glasses, covered her face with her hands, and wept for ten minutes. Then she sprang out of the car, lurched over to the curb, and vomited.

Becca flinched in involuntary fellowship. Ooh. Nasty. So Diana belonged to the Mighty Sisterhood of Stress Urpers. Bummer for her, that she’d chosen a life of despicable crime. If she kept this crap up, she was going to be hurling her hash left and right.

Diana dabbed her face with a tissue and stumbled into the bar. Becca got out of her car, feeling like a puppet being manipulated by an unfamiliar entity. She strode over to Diana’s car and peered in.

The passenger seat was cluttered: paper coffee cups, sunglasses, a comb, used tissues smeared with mascara, a ripped open package for a digital voice recorder. The plastic bubble that had held the small rod was empty.

A crazy, half-baked idea began to form as she stared down at the sunglasses. She gazed at her own reflection in Diana’s car window. Her own hair was slightly shorter and not quite as floofy, but—hmmm.

Half of her screamed no, stop, back it up, call it off. The rest of her shrieked go for it before you chicken out you pansy ass airhead, go!

She looked for a big rock, found one a safe distance from Urping Ground Zero, and screwed up her courage. This was going to be the hardest part. Going against all her social conditioning. If anyone saw her smashing in another woman’s car window, she would just start shrieking that bitch is screwing my husband!