Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

Slowly, Hollis forced herself to look up.

At first, the room appeared just as it had been, with her fellow agents intent on their workstations and oblivious to her sudden tension.

“Hollis.”

She caught her breath and turned her gaze to the doorway that DeMarco had passed through only moments before.

Not quite in the dining room but a couple of steps out in the foyer stood a familiar figure. Appearing entirely solid and hardly ghostlike, she had long fair hair and an anxious expression.

“Hollis, go after him.” Her voice was clear and strong.

“What?” Hollis was barely aware that Diana was gazing at her in puzzlement, that Miranda and Quentin exchanged looks before beginning to rise from their chairs.

“Go after him. Stop him. Now.”

“Why? Andrea, what’re you—”

“If you don’t stop him, he’ll die. Do you understand? He’ll die . There’s a bomb in one of the cars.”

Quentin said, “Hey, is she—”

Hollis didn’t hear the rest. She jumped up so abruptly that her chair fell over behind her with a crash, and she raced from the room. Andrea had already vanished by the time she reached the foyer, but Hollis hardly noticed.

She flung open the front door, banged through the screen door, and was across the wide porch and jumping over the steps down to the walkway before she could even begin to look for DeMarco. She drew in a deep breath to yell his name.

And was yanked off her feet and into the shadows of the big magnolia tree that shaded half the front yard.

Dale McMurry hadn’t stayed past his shift as Bobbie had. He wasn’t the ambitious sort, really. The gig as a part-time deputy offered decent pay and good benefits, and more often than not he served as a less-than-glorified file clerk.

Which suited him just fine.

He didn’t mind at all living rent-free in his parents’ basement, where his mama still cooked for him and did his laundry. It gave him a handy excuse for why all his “relationships” ended by the third date: Girls figured out quickly that he wasn’t a great prospect for their future.

Of course, some might also have figured out that he was gay, but since they hadn’t asked and he hadn’t told, he allowed himself to believe they just thought he was a loser.

His dad might sneer at a loser, but at least he wouldn’t beat the shit out of one.

So far, anyway.

His second-shift job allowed Dale to let himself into the house after midnight, when the old man was usually asleep in front of the TV, and his mama never woke him for breakfast until his dad was at his own job as a mechanic for one of the car dealerships in Serenade.

The arrangement worked for Dale.

However, he wasn’t such a mama’s boy that he wanted to spend all his free time at home. So on that sunny Wednesday morning, he drove his car downtown and parked in the back lot at the sheriff’s department, then walked the block or so to one of the few recreational spots the town could boast, at least for locals: a game room with pool tables, arcade games of various eras, and the latest thing in video poker machines.

Dale didn’t have a gambling problem. What he had was a crush on the assistant manager of the local bank, who often spent his lunch hour at the game room.

Since it wasn’t quite lunchtime, Dale got himself a soda from the snack area, then sat down at one of the arcade machines near the front window, where he could both watch the door and see the sheriff’s department.

Sheriff Duncan hadn’t expressly forbidden it, but he disliked any of his deputies, even the part-time ones, hanging out in the game room, especially in the middle of the day.

The street was quiet. Dale noted idly that the two SUVs left for the feds were still parked out front of the station. He fed a few quarters into the machine and began zapping aliens.

Gabriel Wolf was not what anyone would have called a patient man—except in his work. In his work, he had all the patience of his namesake when hunting, with the skills, reflexes, and cunning to match. He could track just about anything over just about any kind of terrain. He also possessed a kind of sixth sense that wasn’t quite psychic, which often told him where his quarry would be—even if that quarry was more predator than prey. And he preferred to flit among the shadows whenever he got the chance.

He considered it an irony of the universe that his twin sister, Roxanne, was the night hunter of the pair. {see Blood Dreams}

Don’t blame me for that .

“I’m just saying, maybe splitting the duty the way we have may not always be the best way to go about things, that’s all.” He spoke aloud out of habit but kept his voice low so nobody would think he was talking to himself and maybe come after him with a net. “Why not shake things up a bit? I could try a nap in the daytime; you could try a nap at night. These abilities of ours are supposed to be train-able. Right?”

Trainable up to a point, but you know the limits as well as I do. Look, if you want to try again, we will. But not in the middle of a case, all right? Pay attention to what you’re doing .

“How hard is it to walk, for Christ’s sake? I haven’t needed to pay a lot of attention to that for more than thirty years. I’m roaming around in a Christmas store, Rox, just innocent as hell, like any tourist, looking at a lot of sparkly shit I don’t want to buy. And how come so many of these little towns have Christmas stores, anyway?”

Because they’re popular. Because tourists come from miles around for a good one .

“Yeah, yeah. Want a snow globe? There’s one here with Santa and his sleigh inside.”

I think I have —

When his sister’s thoughts broke off abruptly, Gabriel could feel the familiar crawling sensation of unease; if he had been his namesake, the fur would have been standing up stiffly all along his spine. After a lifetime of sharing thoughts, sometimes the absence of them was far more important. “Rox?”

Let’s not play innocent tourist anymore, Gabe. You need to get out of here and to high ground. Something is happening .

“What is it?” He was already moving toward the exit, but casually so as not to draw the attention of the few other browsers or the store clerks with their slightly comical elf hats.

Not sure. Something closer to the center of town. Wait. Lemme concentrate .

There was a pause in his mind as Gabriel smiled automatically at the clerk nearest the front door, waved a friendly hand, and exited the Christmas store.

Got it. Our sniper is back .

Gabriel slid behind the wheel of their rental and started the car. “What, in town? In broad daylight? That doesn’t sound like a pro. Are you sure it’s him?”

Pretty sure. He isn’t shooting. Watching. He’s watching…. Oh , shit, Gabe. I think maybe we should have taken him more seriously, kept eyes on him no matter what .

“We kept eyes on him—until he headed out of town and hit the highway hours ago. You put a bug in his car; we’d know if he came back. I checked just before I went into the store, and there was nothing.” Gabriel dug into the backpack in the passenger seat until he found the GPS tracker. He turned it on and checked the small screen. “Still nothing in the area. That car isn’t within fifty miles of Serenade.”

Maybe he switched cars. Maybe he did a sweep and found the bug. All I know is that he’s back — and he has toys I didn’t find in his room or his car. Very dangerous toys. The kind that go boom .

“Shit. Has he—”

He’s planted one of them in an SUV that’s parked in front of the sheriff’s department. Goddammit, it’s one of ours. One of the two vehicles supposedly left locked up last night. It hasn’t gone off. Yet. And I think…our people have been warned. But he doesn’t know that. Dunno if he has a remote or the bomb’s on a timer, but he wants a seat near the show .