In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(39)

“I didn’t hear him talk,” he admitted. “It wasn’t a chatty moment.”

“So our Ukrainian interrogator is an equal-opportunity *. Maybe he has a race quota to fill, you know, for personnel.”

His jaw spasmed. Sarcasm was Trish’s coping mechanism. They all had their favorites. It was stupid and childish to be bugged by it.

Trish shook her head. “Just be careful, okay?”

“I will,” he said. “Thanks, Trish. I owe you one.”

“You owe me more than that, buddy,” she called out after him.

At the car, he dug in the backseat until he found the clothes he’d been meaning to take to the dry cleaner since before his last bullet wound. The shirt was creased, and had stiff, discolored pits, but it was better than Tenly’s workout rag. He pulled it on. He’d still look like hell for the hospital visit, but a slightly more elevated level of hell.

He made a straight shot for her hospital room, but an elderly woman was asleep in the bed Sveti had used.

Irrational terror zinged through him. He’d left for headquarters after Becca and Nick arrived, with the understanding that she not be left alone. He’d trusted Nick to be appropriately paranoid. He’d left the explaining to Sveti, having a long day of explaining to get through himself, downtown. So where the f*ck was she now?

He waylaid the first person in scrubs that he saw, a middle-aged Latina nurse with a long black braid. “Excuse me, ma’am, but where’s the girl who was in this room? Did they take her somewhere else?”

The nurse looked at the door he indicated. “Oh, yes. Her family came for her. She was discharged a few hours ago.”

“Family? Which family?”

The woman’s dark eyes widened at his barking tone. She took a step backward. “I don’t know her family,” she said coolly. “She was not my patient. She was discharged, and that’s all I know.”

“Thanks,” he called as he loped away.

He pulled out the burner phone he’d picked up this morning before going to headquarters. He’d wanted to be able to place calls, but not receive them. No scolding rants from his father, no hysterical shit fits from his sister, no stern lectures from his grandmother. He plucked Kev’s phone number out of his unassisted brain, after a few false tries.

Kev picked up. “Whom am I speaking with?”

“It’s Sam,” he said.

“Jesus! It’s about time! Where the hell have you been? Why aren’t you answering your phone? We’ve been calling all day!”

“My phone’s AWOL. I left it with Sveti by accident this morning. I’ve spent the day in an interrogation room, sorting it all out.”

“So I heard,” Kev said.

“Where did they take Sveti?” Sam demanded.

Kev paused, too damn long for Sam’s nerves. “Um, listen, Sam—”

“Nick and Becca’s? Miles and Lara’s? Cray’s Cove? Where?”

“I think Tam and Val were the ones who ended up—”

“Later, Kev.”

“Stop! Wait! Don’t go racing up there right now. Tempers are high, people are being irrational, so just chill and wait a couple of—”

“They’re pissed at me? I put my ass on the line today!” he yelled. “I killed three men for her, and they’re giving me attitude?”

Kev coughed delicately. “Your ass on the line might have counted for more if she hadn’t spent the previous night in your bed.”

Sam stopped in the corridor. People veered sideways to give him a wide berth. “You are f*cking kidding me! The only reason I saw them take her was because she’d spent the night with me! She’d have been tortured to death if she’d been home alone!”

“Don’t freak. I’m not judging you. Sveti’s a big girl. She can do what she wants with any man she wants as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t want your ass kicked when you’re all wound up. Avoid the scene for a day or so. They’re protective of Sveti, and Tam’s freaking—”

“I’m not the one who was hurting her!” he shouted.

“I know that, and you know that, so chill,” Kev soothed. “There’s no place in the world that’s safer for her than Cray’s Cove, Sam, so relax. I’m heading up there with Edie tomorrow, and so are a lot of the others, so stay clear of the meeting of the clans if you—”

Sam hung up. Kev called back immediately, but he let the phone buzz unanswered. Enough of this shit. Granted, Sveti, Tam, and Val didn’t have the number of his burner phone, but none of them was stupid. They could have called Horvath or Tenly, or even the main switchboard.

He probably wasn’t fit to drive, he reflected, as he got on the road. His hands vibrated on the wheel. But he wasn’t going to fall asleep. He might never sleep again. His body tissues were marinated in adrenaline.

It was a long drive. He peeled off the interstate onto a series of smaller highways to get to Cray’s Cove. He’d been there only once, not long after the bullet wound to the lung, the one he’d gotten following Bruno Ranieri around. Tam had hosted Bruno and Lily’s engagement party, and since he’d taken a bullet in their service, he’d scored a pity invite. Tam had a visceral dislike of anyone who represented the law, but he’d been too curious not to check the place out. And anxious to get another glimpse of the remote Svetlana in her lofty tower. Way up there where the air was so thin. Just stars and clouds. The occasional bird.