Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(7)

He shuddered, hunching deeper into his jacket. He figured he was past the worst of his grief. He no longer spent his days wishing for death. But thinking back on that awful evening was still like scraping a fingernail over a raw nerve. He suspected it always would be.

Living in the past is victimization. Living in the future is manipulation. Live in the present…

One of the many mantras he’d picked up at AA whispered through his head, and he did his best to shake off the heavy weight of heartache that made him want to reach for a drink. Instead, he concentrated on the now. Easy enough when Chelsea got tired of waiting for him to respond and inquired, “So then why haven’t you tried to contact her?”

“Well, ’cause she made it pretty clear she didn’t want—” His words came to a halt so fast he thought maybe his larynx came equipped with air brakes.

“What?” Chelsea demanded impatiently. “What did she make clear?”

Dan ignored her, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

Zoelner immediately sensed the change in him. “What?” he asked, casually reaching inside his jacket pocket for his weapon. “You have that feeling again?”

He was referring to the creepy, crawly sensation Dan had suffered since they landed in Cusco. One minute he was fine. The next minute, it was like a whole colony of invisible ants skittered over the back of his neck and scalp. “You don’t feel that?” he asked.

“Dude,” Zoelner said, “look who you’re talking to. I pretty much live in a constant state of paranoia. I think it’s a factory setting Langley installed.”

“That and the ability to blend into a crowd and go statue-still at the drop of a hat,” Dan added, never before having seen anyone quite as chameleonlike as Zoelner.

“Eh.” Zoelner shrugged. “That has less to do with Langley and more to do with my old man.”

“Oh, do tell,” Chelsea piped up. She was determined to get a story out of one of them.

“Some other time,” Zoelner said. “Like, maybe next century.”

Whatever Chelsea said in response was lost on Dan because he got another jolt of bad juju.

Damnit! What was that?

Ever so casually he allowed his gaze to swing around the square, wondering if the unending hunt for Winterfield and the accompanying boredom had finally gotten to him. If his subconscious had decided to stimulate things a bit by making him sense something that wasn’t there.

No one by the fountains looked hinky or suspicious. Neither did anyone on the park bench across the way. As for the flagpoles…

His eyeballs came to a stop so quickly he assumed they left tread marks on the backs of their sockets. He rubbed a hand over his face, blinking. Okay, so his eyes were playing tricks on him. He shook his head. Hard. Hoping to untangle whichever wires had crossed on the pathway from his retinas to his brain.

“Whoa. Did a bug fly into your ear or something? What the hell is up with you?” Zoelner demanded.

Dan swallowed, his heart stuttering, tripping, galloping, then stuttering again. “D-do you see that woman over there?” He indicated the direction with his chin. “The one who looks like she could be Marisa Tomei’s sister?”

“Where?”

“By the flagpole.” He could hardly breathe.

“Which flagpole? There’s more than one.”

“The gay pride flagpole.”

“What?”

“The rainbow flag! Jesus!” Dan barely refrained from pointing. A strange buzzing sounded in his ears. Maybe Zoelner was right about that bug.

“Now who’s being the grumpy Gus? And just FYI, around here a rainbow flag doesn’t have anything to do with gay pride. It’s used to represent the Incan culture and—” Before Dan could tell him to shut the hell up, Zoelner stopped himself. “Christ in a cardigan sweater,” he muttered. “I’ve obviously had way too much time on my hands. I’m pretty sure I read the entire Peruvian guidebook.”

“Goddamnit!” Dan had reached his wit’s end. “Do you see her or not? The one with the ice-cream cone!”

“Yeah, I see her,” Zoelner finally said. “So what?”

“Do you need me to fly the drone around?” Chelsea’s excited voice sounded in Dan’s earpiece.

Part of the deal that’d been made a little over forty-eight hours ago with the CIA was that the spooks would agree to stop looking for Winterfield themselves and let Dan and Zoelner work the case alone if Chelsea Duvall was allowed to join the mission and report back to The Company bigwigs on any progress. As an added bonus, the CIA had thrown in a drone. Nothing that could drop bombs, mind you. Just a little aircraft about the size of an extra-large pizza box, big enough to support a long-range camera lens and the gizmos necessary to uplink directly to military and government satellites. Sitting in their rented room with her laptop open, Chelsea had been piloting the craft high in the airspace above Cusco, taking photos of the folks in and around town, hoping for something to pop.

“No,” he told her emphatically. “No need for the drone.”

“How do you know?” she demanded.

“’Cause it’s Penni DePaul.”

Zoelner chuckled, actually chuckled beside him. Of all the times for the guy to grow a sense of humor. “Holy shit! Are you serious?” he said.