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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

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The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Thirteen

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

If this had been a normal job, Parker would have been insulted by how easy it was to evade security. After all, they were clearly looking for her—they mentioned finding “the thief” several times, loudly, over their radios while clomping down the hall in their clunky bad guy shoes. She could have avoided them blindfolded, if she’d had the time to play.

But this wasn’t a normal job, and she wasn’t in the mood for playing.

Actually, the guards had been more of a help than a hinderance. Their patrol patterns had showed her where the safe was, so she’d known exactly what to avoid, and they’d confirmed that Lancaster was in his top-floor office.

And they’d given her a gun.

Well, not given, exactly, but as good as. It wasn’t her fault that the guard on the top floor didn’t have the stamina to stay conscious after being tased. And if they didn’t want people to take their guns after knocking them out, then they should have more than one guard patrolling together.

Lancaster had practically invited her in.

She stole down the hallway on silent feet, the guard’s Glock in one hand. According to the men she’d overheard, the next security sweep of this floor wouldn’t be for another six minutes. Plenty of time to find and take care of Lancaster.

Follow the plan, said the voice in her head. We don’t hurt people.

“Maybe you don’t,” Parker said. “Didn’t. Whatever. But you’re not here, so I’m going to make sure Lancaster never hurts anyone else, ever again.”

Nate will keep that from happening.

“Obviously not.”

She was at the door now, and she reached out with her left hand to open it while the voice went on not being helpful. You should call him, he said. You should tell him what’s happening. Go back and find the safe. Stick with the plan.

She waved a dismissive hand and focused on the office. Lancaster had his back to the door, sitting in his chair against one wall, but he spun when he heard her enter. “Finally,” he snapped. “You’re late. Hurry up and get this—”

He frowned when he saw Parker, and scooted his chair back when he saw her gun. “How did you get in here?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “The door.”

“Listen,” he said. “This has all been just a big misunderstanding. You’re a thief, right? You want money? I can give you money.”

“I can take money,” Parker said.

“I can get you more.”

Parker stepped into the room, leaving the door open. She didn’t want it to slow her down later.

Don’t do this.

She ignored the voice and addressed Lancaster instead. “You tried to kill me. I could get over that—I know it was nothing personal. But what you did to Eliot...” She cocked the gun. “That, I can’t forgive.”

“It was a mistake,” Lancaster said. He pressed back into his chair, his eyes wide. “I didn’t mean for—”

She lifted the gun. “I don’t care what you meant. Right now, I just want you to beg.”

“Beg?” he squeaked.

Parker added her left hand to the gun, and Lancaster scrambled back until his chair hit the wall. “Okay,” he said. “Okay—Please. Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything—pay anything. Please, anything. Anything you want.”

Don’t.

“That wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be,” Parker admitted. “Maybe you weren’t sincere enough. Maybe you should cry.”

“Please,” Lancaster whispered.

Parker.

“No,” she said. “I think he should cry. I think that would help.”

“Parker.”

“Stop!” she shouted. Across the room, Lancaster flinched, but even that didn’t make her feel better. “Stop telling me not to do this. He deserves it.”

“You don’t.”

“Yeah, well, neither did you,” Parker said. “It still happened.”

Lancaster’s eyes were fixed over her shoulder. The gun trembled in her hands.

“Parker. Look at me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Because yes, okay, she knew the voice wasn’t inside her head, but if she was wrong—if she looked and he wasn’t there, it would mean she was crazy, for real, and it would mean he was gone gone, and she couldn’t handle that. She couldn’t. So she would just stand here and wait, and eventually the voice would go back into her brain where it belonged, and she could get on with killing Lancaster and everything would be fine. It would be fine.

A hand touched hers. Her eyes flew open against her will, and it was Eliot’s hand, and it wast Eliot’s face moving in front of her, and Eliot’s voice telling her to give him the gun. She let it go, and he took it and disarmed it and tossed the magazine away while her heart made sick, limping stutters in her chest. She reached out to touch his shoulder, because maybe his hands had been imaginary, but his shoulder would have to be real. It made no sense. She didn’t question it.

Her fingers brushed his upper arm—his very solid, very real arm—and she took a breath.

“Okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

Eliot turned to Lancaster. “Where are the other bombs?”

“The other—” Parker stared at Eliot, then at Lancaster, wondering if she could get to the discarded magazine before Eliot stopped her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lancaster said.

“Really?” Eliot folded his arms, shifting his stance so his shoulder bumped against Parker’s. “Because if they go off while you’re still inside the building, that could go poorly for you.”

“I wouldn’t—”

The blare of a fire alarm cut him off, and Eliot raised his eyebrows. “That’s Hardison. Nate and Sophie are already outside, along with the evidence that you planned to destroy your own property again. The rest of the building’s being evacuated now. It’s over. Tell me where the other bombs are, and we’ll bring you out with us.”

“Do we have to?” Parker hissed.

Eliot didn’t look at her, but the ghost of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

Perspiration shone on Lancaster’s forehead. He glanced between her and Eliot and licked his lips before swallowing loudly. “Okay,” he said at last. “Let me go and I’ll tell you where they are.”

“Tell us where they are and we’ll let you go,” Eliot countered.

“Okay,” Lancaster said. “Okay. Untie me. I’ll show you.”

Eliot frowned, drawing out the decision, making Lancaster sweat—Parker would have made him wait longer, but apparently Eliot was more worried about the bombs. He nodded once and moved across the room, kneeling beside the chair to remove the phone cord from Lancaster’s ankles.

“All right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Lancaster sputtered. “But you have to untie my hands!”

“You can walk without your hands,” Eliot said.

“But I—”

Eliot grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him to his feet. “Go.”

Lancaster stumbled, turning, and Parker watched the way his hands scrambled for something to hold onto. They were bound behind his back with a belt—his belt, by the looks of it—but he’d worked part of it loose. He twisted as Eliot let him go, bending his arms at an awkward angle, leaning forward at the waist—

“Eliot—”

Parker saw it an instant after he did. The gun up Lancaster’s sleeve went off with a sharp crack, but Eliot was already moving forward, putting himself between it and Parker. He grunted, his body jerking as the bullet hit, and Parker threw herself forward to catch him as he fell to one knee.

She screamed. Lancaster fled, and she let him go, running her hand down Eliot’s chest, searching for the wound while trying to hold him up. This wasn’t happening. Eliot hadn’t come back from the dead just to be shot now—he couldn’t—he couldn’t—

“Parker,” Eliot said, loudly, like it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken. He took her hand, holding it still over his heart where she could feel it beating. “I’m okay. He got me in the leg.”

He was still upright, leaning against her with one hand over hers and the other pressed against his thigh. “See?” he said, easing his fingers back to expose the tiny hole above his knee. “Small caliber,” he said, his teeth gritting over the words. “In and out—nothing serious. What the hell kind of fake cowboy loser carries an actual freaking derringer in his sleeve?”

“You’re not—” Parker panted. “You’re not—?”

“I’m fine,” he said firmly. “Something that small is single-shot, low accuracy, low damage. Okay? Come on, we gotta…” He started to stand, biting down on a curse, and Parker eased under his arm to help him to his feet. With a groan, he reached for his belt and unclipped a walkie-talkie. “Nate?” he said. “J.B.? You there?”

“We’re here,” Nate answered. “Speak up—can’t hear you over the alarm.”

Eliot cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Is Hardison out?”

“Yeah, he’s right here.”

“I’ve got Parker,” Eliot said. “Or… she’s got me. Lancaster’s on his way downstairs.”

A new voice came over the radio—J.B., whoever that was. “What happened?”

“He had a derringer,” Eliot growled. “Got me in the leg. I’ll be slow getting out. The bombs in the basement had cellphone detonators; Lancaster will call to set them off as soon as he gets out of the building.”

“We’ll cover the exits,” Nate said. “You and Parker get out of there.”

“Roger.”

Eliot handed her the walkie-talkie and pushed her gently toward the door. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

Parker moved back against his side. “I’m not leaving without you.”

“I’m right behind you,” Eliot said. “But I’ll slow you down. You have to—”

Parker stopped, standing still when he tried to nudge her ahead again. “Either we both go, or we both stay.”

Eliot looked at her, his eyes serious and tired beneath the bruises on his face, and her heart broke all over again at the distress in them. It didn’t make any sense. He was here now, he was safe, and they were getting out together. Why did he want her to leave?

“Please,” he said. Begged. “Please, go. If Lancaster detonates the bombs…”

“I’m not leaving you,” Parker said.

His expression shattered. “I left you.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her brows furrowing. “You didn’t—”

“I left you,” he repeated, his voice harsh and raw. “Or I—I left the place I thought you were. I would have left you behind.”

“You mean the LanCast building?” Parker asked. Eliot closed his eyes, and she took advantage of his distraction and eased them forward a step.

He went with her, breathing heavily through his nose. “I thought you were inside,” he said. “And after the explosion, I ran off without you. Okay? I abandoned you, and you should—you should do the same to me. I’m slowing you down.”

“I wasn’t inside,” Parker said.

“But I thought—”

“I wasn’t inside.” Parker clipped the walkie-talkie to her waistband with one hand and glared at him from under her bangs. “I don’t care what you thought. I wasn’t inside. It would have been stupid to go back in, and you probably would have died for real if you had. So I’m glad you left.”

“Parker—”

“No,” she snapped. “You’re saying I should just leave you here because you’re feeling guilty about something that didn’t happen? That’s stupid.”

“I’m not—” he sputtered. “I’m saying you can’t trust me. I should have—”

“Stop it,” Parker said. They’d reached the elevator, but when she pressed the button, nothing happened. Eliot opened his mouth, and she turned them both toward the staircase to cut him off. “He must have disabled the elevator. Come on, we’ll take the stairs.”

“Parker, please—”

She kicked open the stairwell door. Eliot let out a pained grunt as he half-stepped, half-fell forward, but she was having a hard time feeling sorry for him. How could he think she would leave him behind? Especially now? She shifted to take more of his weight and spoke without looking at him. “I thought you were dead. Just—gone forever, no warning, no goodbye. And then you come back, and… Do you know what that feels like?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Then why are you trying to get rid of me?”

She tried to say it casually, but it came out just as pathetic and broken as she feared it would—because this was Eliot, and he was supposed to understand her, and—

And she was supposed to understand him, too. She turned her head, listening to his sharp, quiet breaths under the sound of the echoing alarm, taking in his pale face and the whites of his knuckles as he clenched the railing. This wasn’t Eliot in pain.

It was Eliot afraid.

“Why are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked again.

“I don’t want to get rid of you.” He said it softly, breathlessly, like he was trying to hold the words in even as he let them out. “But right now, I can’t—I can’t protect you, and if anything happens…” He inhaled when she moved down a step, his fingers tightening on her sleeve. “You have to get out,” he finished in a weak voice. “I can’t lose you again.”

Parker gripped his arm. Sophie had told her once that Eliot was so good at what he did because he knew how to stay in control when everything around him fell apart. It was the thing that kept him safe… kept all of them safe. It gave him the clarity to do what needed to be done—the hard things, he’d told her once, that the others couldn’t do. Those were the kinds of decisions they made.

The kind of decision he was asking her to make.

“Eliot,” she said. She waited until he looked at her, his jaw clenched in preparation for her refusal, his mouth pressed flat. She stopped and shifted under his arm so she could face him. “If it gets to the point that you need me to leave, I’ll go. But only if you promise that you’ll make it out after me.”

His expression softened, his hold on her shoulder relaxing into something less desperate, and he nodded.

She eased him down another step. “Do you know Lancaster is after actual buried treasure?”

He snorted. “He told me.”

“Hardison found a bunch of audition tapes he made a few years ago,” Parker said. “When he was trying to get into different Westerns. His accent was even worse than it is now.”

Eliot gave a short laugh, and the sound made Parker beam in response.

Everything would be fine now. The certainty sank through her like melted gold after a successful heist-turned-laundering operation—not that she did those anymore—and she let the warmth soothe away the last of her hurt. Lancaster, hidden treasure, bombs... none of it mattered.

Everything was going to be fine.

Eliot’s knee gave out on the last step, but Parker caught him and held him up while he straightened himself on the railing. “When this is over,” Parker said, readjusting her grip on his shirt. “We’ll watch all of Lancaster’s audition tapes. Hardison will put them up on the screens and you can make your fancy popcorn on the stove, and we’ll mute it so Sophie can do the voices.”

Eliot huffed out a laugh. “They were that bad, huh?”

“Sophie is a better actor than he is.”

She opened the door to the lobby, trying not to feel dismayed at the distance between them and the door. They were so close, and Lancaster was nowhere in sight—maybe they’d beaten him down somehow, maybe with his hands tied—

Eliot’s arm tensed over her shoulders.

A man stepped out from behind the receptionist’s desk and planted himself in the middle of the room, blocking their exit. She recognized him as one of Lancaster’s men, but she didn’t know which one—but from the look on Eliot’s face, he did.

“Parker,” he said, his voice low and gentle. “It’s time.”

Her fingers clenched over his arm. She forced them to relax. “And you promise?”

He looked her in the eye and nodded. “I promise.”

She let him go and ran for the door.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

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The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Twelve

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

The server room was in the basement, and Spencer followed his own advice to take the stairs. He took a few moments to clear the floor he was on first, making sure there wouldn’t be any guards to tail Nate and Sophie, and then jogged down the steps to the basement with an excuse ready on his lips. He’d keep it simple and direct, clean and quick—as long as the hacker didn’t blow the story by reacting to his presence the way Sophie had.

Hardison. The name didn’t elicit any kind of emotional reaction, but then, neither had any of the others. It had taken seeing Nate’s face and hearing Sophie’s voice to bring back the vague memories of their presence in his life—feelings, mostly, and the desperate need to get them out of the building. Spencer would have to lure the guards away before Hardison saw him if he wanted to avoid a fight, and if he only had twenty minutes—fifteen, now—that would be the quickest way to do things.

The security guards had reported up to Lancaster the moment Hardison reached the basement. Per Spencer’s directions, they’d stayed out of sight until Hardison was inside the server room, and then they’d simply closed the doors behind the hacker and left him trapped in the glass-walled room. He’d be safe there—Spencer’s orders were not to engage Ford’s team beyond capturing them—but his anxiety rose with every step he descended. It was almost over. Once he got Hardison and Parker free of the building, they could regroup, figure out a new plan, and then... And then what? Would he go back with them, or to Sunny?

Could he go back with them? Would they want him? Nate and Sophie had seemed glad to see him, but that was only because they didn’t know what he’d done. What would Parker think when she found out he’d left the LanCast building while believing she was inside? The fact that she wasn’t was irrelevant; if it was his job to protect them, he’d failed.

What good was he to them if he couldn’t do his job?

The door to the basement loomed at the bottom of the stairs, and he shoved down his misgivings and focused on the task at hand. He hadn’t been in the basement himself, but he’d studied it on the security tapes; the layout was mostly open, giving anyone in the server room a visual of the hallway leading to the stairwell. If he wanted to avoid Hardison’s attention, he’d have to call the guards toward him and hope they didn’t think it was suspicious.

And if they did, he’d handle it. Either way, he was getting Hardison out of that basement.

Spencer blew out a breath at the bottom of the stairs and pulled open the door, standing out of sight of the server room. “Hey,” he called, drawing the attention of all three guards stationed in the hall. “Why aren’t you answering your radios?”

One of the men moved toward him. “What do you mean? We haven’t heard anything.”

Spencer opened his mouth to answer, but movement over the guard’s shoulder caught his attention. Two more men were crouched by the support beam outside the server room, their backs to the stairs.

Unease clawed at Spencer’s gut. “Who are they?”

“Contractors,” answered the first guard. “Something about checking the foundation. What about the radios?”

Spencer spoke without taking his eyes off the men. “Come here. Let me check your frequency.”

The nearest guard came over, but the others stayed where they were. Spencer reached out a hand to take the man’s walkie-talkie and switched the frequency. “Ground level,” he said. “This is basement level. Radio check, over.”

“Basement level, this is ground level,” came the reply. “Roger that. Over.”

“Standby,” Spencer said.

“Roger.”

Spencer lowered the walkie-talkie.“You were on the wrong channel,” he snapped. “You two, get over here so I can fix it before Lancaster comes down here himself.”

He backed up, inviting the first man to follow him through the door and letting it close behind him. He didn’t have the time to choke him out, so he resorted to a quick, sharp blow to the side of his head, catching him when he crumpled and easing him to the floor beside the stairs.

The other two were at the door before he could do much more than straighten up. One shouted before Spencer’s elbow silenced him; the other reached for his walkie-talkie, which only gave Spencer an easier opening.

He took their radios and clipped them to his own belt, then stepped through the door and made his way across the hall toward the men. There was a strangled sound from inside the server room, but Spencer kept his gaze on the threat.

And they were a threat. He could feel it in his gut, and he wasn’t about to second-guess that now. Not if they were doing what he thought they were doing.

One of them lifted his head, setting his hand on the other’s shoulder. “Problem?” he asked.

Spencer nodded at the support beam. “What are you doing?”

“Routine maintenance,” the man said.

“With C4?” Spencer asked.

The man stood, cracking his knuckles while the other rushed to finish attaching the explosives to the beam. Spencer came closer, close enough to draw a punch—and the man obliged, swinging wildly—Spencer caught his fist and countered with his own, and the man dropped. The other shot to his feet, but Spencer danced back a step, his hands raised.

“Who sent you here?”

The man threw a punch, but Spencer dodged and stepped around him. “Was it Lancaster?”

“Shut up,” the man growled. He swung again, missed again, and stumbled when Spencer drew back.

“How many of these did you plant?” Spencer asked. The man tried to hit him again, and Spencer pushed him away. “Come on, man, think about it—when I knock you out like I did your friend, you’ll be inside when the building blows.” He waited a moment, giving his words a chance to sink in, and pressed, “Are there any other charges?”

“You won’t find ‘em,” grunted the man, leaping forward with a sloppy jab.

Spencer hit him in the jaw, letting him land at his feet and jumping over him to crouch beside the beam. An empty duffel bag confirmed Spencer’s fears—there would be more explosives in the building, probably set at different levels to make sure the whole thing came down. It was the LanCast site all over again, only this time, Lancaster would make sure all of them were inside. Then he’d pin the attack on Ford, collect the insurance money, and move on to his next high rise.

The C4 on the beam was set with a cellphone detonator. He disconnected it and stuffed the charges back into the bag, but that only solved one problem. He didn’t know where the other charges were, and he didn’t know when they were supposed to go off. Searching the entire building would take too long—he had to find Parker and get her out, get everyone out, before Lancaster could give the order to bring the building down.

First things first.

He turned to face the server room.

The man inside was tall, and though his face seemed faintly familiar, Spencer was disappointed not to feel an instant rush of recognition. Hardison was watching him, one hand raised to cover his mouth, and when Spencer tossed the hair out of his face, he let out a deafening whoop and slammed his hand against the glass.

“I knew it!” he yelled, punctuating his words with another slap. “I knew it! I knew you weren’t dead—no weak ass explosion gonna take you down—I told them! Whoo! Man, you had me worried, you had me—nah, man, I ain’t gon’ cry again. Open the door, man. C’mon, open it up.”

He’d repeated himself another dozen times before Spencer got to the door to punch in the code, and he practically fell through it when it opened. This time, at least, Spencer expected the hug—everything in Hardison’s stance warned that it was coming—but he wasn’t ready for the intensity of it. Deceptively strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, crushing their chests together as Hardison launched himself through the doorway.

“Where the hell were you, man?” he said, his voice breaking. “Why didn’t you call?”

Eliot locked his arms over Hardison’s back, holding him so tight that he couldn’t take a full breath and feeling like there was still too much space between them—and Hardison was shaking, clutching at his shoulders like he was afraid to let go—and Eliot didn’t want to let go, not until he could make him understand how much he’d missed him. God, he’d missed him—all of them.

He wasn’t himself without them.

“What happened?” Hardison asked, without letting go, without even loosening his grip. His fingers dug into the scrapes and cuts on Eliot’s back, but he didn’t care—he pressed his forehead against Hardison’s shoulder and shook it, fighting for control over himself.

“I forgot you,” he managed, his voice muffled. “All of—all of you, I forgot you, and—”

Hardison pulled back, and Spencer turned his face, pretending to look at the stairwell, checking for more guards—and Hardison shifted to put himself in his line of sight. “You hurt?”

Spencer looked the other way. “I went into the LanCast building, but when it blew, I was thrown clear. Mostly. I hit my head.”

Hardison ducked his head, forcing Spencer’s eyes back to his. “What, you—you lost your memory?”

Spencer nodded.

“And you found us anyway?”

He nodded again.

“Dammit, Eliot,” Hardison said. He pulled Eliot into another hug, this one even fiercer than the last, and burst into tears.

They stood like that for a long minute—Hardison crying and Eliot trying not to—before a crackle from one of the walkie-talkies made Eliot pull away. “Basement level, this is ground level,” said the voice on the radio. “Come in, basement level.”

Hardison let go, and Eliot tried not to miss the contact. He pulled the walkie-talkie from his belt and cleared his throat. “Go ahead, J.B. Did you find them?”

“I got ‘em right here,” J.B. answered. “They came out the side door like you said. Did you find the hacker?”

“He’s here,” Eliot said.

“And the thief?”

Eliot looked at Hardison, who shook his head. “We split up when we got inside. I haven’t seen her.”

“Not yet,” Eliot said into the walkie-talkie. “But we’ve got a bigger problem. I just stopped a pair of Lancaster’s guys from planting C4 in the basement. Looks like they may have put some on the other levels, too.”

J.B. swore, and Hardison held out a hand for the walkie-talkie. “Hey man—uh, Hardison here, or whatever—can you put Nate on? Over?”

There was a pause, and then Nate’s voice came over the radio. “Go ahead, Hardison.”

“I found some stuff on the server,” Hardison said, his eyes finding Eliot’s. “Lancaster definitely means to blow this place up, along with a bunch of his other properties. I found some more threatening letters drafted up in his files, and guess who they’re from.”

“Okay, so he wants us to take the fall,” Nate said. “We’d already figured that much out.��

Hardison nodded. “Right, but what we didn’t know is that he’s also been talking to some pretty hinky people. And he’s given them a new target.”

“June?” Nate guessed.

“He must’ve accelerated his timetable,” Hardison said. “He’s done waiting for her to sell.”

Eliot took the walkie-talkie. “J.B., get back to Sunny’s. Tell her to find some place to lay low until we can get this taken care of.”

“She won’t do it,” J.B. answered. “But I’ll call to give Miguel a head’s up.”

Eliot nodded. “All right, fine. Then we just need to make sure we get everyone out of the building. Hardison, pull the fire alarm when you go out, and let the firefighters know there are guys down here and in the office on the fourth floor. J.B., I’m sending Hardison out to you now.”

“Roger that.”

Eliot pressed the walkie-talkie into Hardison’s hand and pulled another from his belt, switching the frequency before handing it over as well. “Take these—give one to Nate. I’ll get Parker.”

“Hang on—” Hardison grabbed his arm, holding him still when he tried to move toward the door. “She could be anywhere. We have no idea—”

“She’s going after Lancaster,” Eliot said.

Hardison frowned. “How do you know?”

“Because that’s what I did.”

“Eliot, wait.” Hardison kept his hold, his eyes still red and wide with worry. “You’re—you’re hurt, right? And if you don’t remember… It’s too dangerous. Let me go after Parker.”

“No.” Eliot’s voice was low, distracted as he tallied up the time he’d already lost. “Lancaster’s guards will find him any minute now. You have to be outside when that happens.”

“I can help, man, I can—”

“You have to be outside,” Eliot repeated desperately. “I have to know you’re outside. Please.”

Hardison hesitated, setting his jaw as he searched Eliot’s eyes, as the time ticked away.

“I won’t lose her again,” Eliot whispered.

Hardison swallowed. “All right,” he said, gripping Eliot’s hand and then releasing it. “I’ll head outside. You go find Parker.”

Eliot went.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Eleven

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Spencer’s—Eliot’s—head ached. Actually, “ached” was an understatement—it felt like his skull was trying to crack itself in half, and Lancaster’s stupid fake cowboy elevator music wasn’t helping. Beside him, Ford cleared his throat.

“This isn’t the right time to ask,” he said. “But I need to know what you remember.”

He hesitated. His instincts were still to hide his weakness, but Ford was... well, he wasn’t sure what Ford was, except that he was someone Spencer trusted. He could feel that clearly enough, a certainty that settled into the pit of his stomach, whispering assurances that he was safe.

He didn’t really know what to do with that.

“Start with the LanCast explosion,” Ford suggested.

Spencer frowned at him, wondering how much of his mind Ford could read, and counted the floors as they descended. “As far as I can figure, I went inside the building looking for Parker, and met a handful of Lancaster’s men. The explosion blew through a window, and I woke up in the parking garage with Lancaster’s men trying to find me. And I ran.”

He tried to say the last part causally, but Ford shot him a curious look. “Of course you ran. What else were you supposed to do?”

Spencer shook his head. He couldn’t say the rest out loud—not to Ford. He couldn’t risk disappointing him before his memory came back. If Ford knew what he’d done… if he told him to leave…

“Eliot,” Ford said. “You did the right thing. You got away. You found us again.”

Spencer cleared his throat. “When we find Sophie,” he said, turning to face the elevator doors. “Leave Janish to me. He’s dangerous, but I’ve fought him before. I can handle him.”

“You know him?” Ford asked.

“He knows me,” Spencer admitted. “I don’t remember.”

Ford nodded. “At least we know how Lancaster found out about us. Hardison builds a good alias, but there’s nothing he can do if someone recognizes one of us.”

“Hardison is the hacker?” Spencer asked.

The doors slid open, finally, and Ford led the way into the hall. “Yes,” he said. “Hardison is the hacker. He took your loss hard… we all did.”

“Sorry.”

“Eliot.” Ford stopped, holding out a hand to catch Spencer when he tried to edge past. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Lancaster did this to you—to us—and we’re going to make sure he pays for it. You are not to blame. Not for believing Lancaster, or for working with him, or for setting the bait to bring us here. If you hadn’t, we never would have known you were still alive.”

Spencer looked away, and Ford’s grip on his arm tightened. “Is there something else?”

He might have answered—the words were there on the tip of his tongue, ready to condemn himself at Ford’s order—but the crackle of a walkie-talkie sounded down the hall, and Spencer reached out to pull Ford back against the wall.

“Fourth floor clear,” said a security guard, standing out of sight around a corner. “Moving on to the fifth.”

Spencer tugged Ford’s sleeve, and he moved with him without question, easing into a conference room on silent feet as the guard headed for the elevator. Spencer watched through a window in the door until the hallway was clear again, aware of Ford at his back, of the opportunity he was presenting if Ford turned out to be an enemy.

“He’s gone,” Spencer said.

Ford nodded. “Lead the way.”

There was no more conversation then. Spencer moved down the hall on the balls of his feet, keeping his boots quiet on the carpeted floor. Janish would be in the office at the end of the hall, where he’d told the grifter to meet him to go over Lancaster’s afternoon schedule.

A flutter of nerves twisted Spencer’s stomach at the thought of meeting someone else who knew him, someone who had apparently mourned him. He hadn’t recognized this Sophie on the security tapes, and a large part of him felt discouraged by that.

She won’t mind, said the voice in his head. She’ll just be happy to see you.

Happy to see him. Would she be? What about the other woman—Parker, not dead, not abandoned to burn in the building Spencer had escaped from—would she be happy to see him? He couldn’t imagine she would be. Regardless of what had happened at LanCast, he’d forgotten her. She would be hurt, disappointed, and he couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t blame any of them.

A murmur of voices drifted out from under the office door, and Spencer glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ford was ready.

“I’ll go in first,” Ford offered. “Maybe we can bluff our way out. Stay here—there’s no need for you to get any more bruises if you don’t need to.”

Spencer drew back, deferring to Ford’s command without argument or hesitation. It felt good to be following an order, he realized—an order he trusted. He watched as Ford opened the door, pressing against the wall to stay out of Janish’s sight.

“Ah,” Ford said, overly loud in the small space. “Here you are, Mr. Janish! My name is Kevin Reilly, and I’ve just come from a meeting with Mr. Lancaster. He asked for Miss Cullane here to set up the details of our new arrangement. Miss Cullane, if you please...”

“Why, of course,” said the grifter—and her voice cut through the fog in Spencer’s brain, filling the gaps with the sound of her laughter, her advice, her friendship. Her accent was southern, but subtly so, and he could hear the lilt of a British accent in its echoes.

Sophie. God, how had he forgotten Sophie?

“Come along, Miss Cullane,” Ford said, but a heavier step sounded near the door, and Spencer shifted toward it reflexively.

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Janish said. “My orders are to keep you here.”

Ford chuckled. “Orders? Lancaster asked for Miss Cullane personally. I think that trumps any of your orders.”

“He would have checked in with me,” Janish said.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s—”

“Back up,” Janish growled. “And sit down. You’re not going anywhere.”

The door started to close, and Spencer kicked it open before Janish could shut him out. Sophie let out a cry of surprise, but Spencer didn’t look at her—he kept his attention on Janish, who had caught himself on a table and was pushing himself upright.

“Spencer,” he snarled. He had a new black eye and bruised cheek, and Miguel’s words flitted back through his mind: You went into a trance or something, man. You wouldn’t stop hitting Janish, and when I got close, you hit me, too. He couldn’t let that happen again. He needed to stay in control.

Spencer spared a second to glance at Ford, who had his arms wrapped around Sophie. She stared at him with her hands over her mouth, her eyes full of tears.

Then Janish leaped at him, and he forced himself to focus on the fight.

He came at Spencer hard, aiming for his face—Spencer blocked and ducked, stepping back, and Janish drove forward to separate him from Ford and Sophie. It put Janish’s back to them, and Ford was already casting about for something to use as a weapon. But that wasn’t his job, it was Spencer’s, and Spencer couldn’t risk Janish retaliating.

He pretended to stumble, fell back, caught Janish’s hook high on his arm, and swung—

Janish went down, and stayed there.

For a moment, Spencer stood where he was, afraid to look at the others, afraid to see their reaction to his violence. But then a shift of movement pulled his head up, and he had just enough time to lower his fists before Sophie was throwing herself into his arms.

“You’re okay?” she sobbed, burying her face in the side of his neck. One hand came up to cup the back of his head, gently, her fingers resting on his hair while her other hand grasped a fistful of his shirt. She leaned back long enough to examine his face, her eyes running over every scrape and bruise, before she hugged him again. Soft words tumbled out of her in a rhythmic blend of questions and reassurances— “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

He’d lifted one hand to catch her, and he rested it on the small of her back, holding her to him as the sound of her voice settled his heartbeat.

You’re okay. You’re okay.

“Sophie,” Nate said, reaching out and adding his hand to her back. She withdrew slightly, her palms still resting on Eliot’s neck and shoulder, and turned teary eyes to him. Nate glanced at Eliot, searching for something in his expression, and said, “He doesn’t remember.”

Sophie frowned. “What do you mean?”

Spencer cleared his throat and dropped his hands to his side. “Um... amnesia. Sorry.”

Her eyes filled again, and she blinked at Nate before pulling Spencer in for one more hug. “I don’t care what you remember,” she whispered. “I’ll fill you in on anything you’ve forgotten, and whatever I don’t know, we’ll make up. I’m just glad you’re back.”

She let him go then, and he stepped back to give her space as she wiped her eyes. “Do Parker and Hardison know?” she asked.

Nate shook his head. “We came to find you first. Parker’s still looking for the safe, and Hardison’s...”

He looked at Spencer, who forced himself not to look away. “He’s trapped in the server room.”

“Good,” Nate said. “Then we don’t have to waste time chasing him down. Eliot, lead the way.”

Spencer shot an uncertain glance at Sophie, looking for and failing to find any hints of unease in her expression. Apparently she and Nate both trusted him to take the lead on this, which meant it was time to make a tactical decision.

He cleared his throat. “I should go on my own. Lancaster has a guard scheduled to walk past his office in a little while, and as soon as they realize I’m working with you, they’ll lock the building down. You two should leave while you can.”

“We can’t,” Sophie said. “Parker’s still here somewhere, right? It’d be faster to split up to find her.”

Spencer shook his head. “It’s too risky. If any of Lancaster’s men find you in the halls, they’ll know something’s up. They don’t suspect me yet. The smarter move is to get the two of you out now, and I’ll go after the others.”

“How long until the guards find Lancaster?” Nate asked.

“Maybe ten minutes. Maybe less.”

Nate frowned, searching Spencer’s face, and he tried his best to keep his expression open and honest. He couldn’t afford to be distrusted now. If Nate didn’t believe him…

But whatever Nate was looking for, he’d apparently found it. He exhaled and gripped Spencer’s arm.

“You have twenty minutes, and then I’m coming back in.”

Spencer nodded.

Sophie gave him another hug, holding on a few moments longer than necessary. “Be careful,” she whispered.

He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You too. Stick to the stairs—there’s a side exit on the first floor. I’ll meet you outside.”

She rewarded him with a teary smile, and then she and Nate were hurrying through the door.

Spencer swallowed, stepped over Janish’s body, and made his way down the hallway to find the hacker.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Ten

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Nate looked the part when he walked into Lancaster’s downtown office. He’d changed into a black western shirt with a matching hat, courtesy of Sophie’s lifting of one of Lancaster’s company credit cards, and his new boots gave him an extra couple inches to play with as an intimidation factor. He wanted every piece of ammunition he could use for this job.

After all, it would probably be his last.

He gave his name to the receptionist and waited while she called up to Lancaster’s office, then tipped his hat to her when she directed him to the top floor. The elevator blared a terrible blend of bluegrass and pop, and Nate tried not to picture the disgusted expression it would have elicited on Eliot’s face. It was almost over. He could hold on for this last little bit, just long enough for the others to do their jobs. He could give them that much.

The doors slid open, and Nate strode down the hall and into Lancaster’s office without knocking.

“Mr. Riley,” Lancaster said, rising from his desk and offering his hand to Nate. “My girls downstairs say you have a proposition for me.”

Nate shook his hand and sat at the offered chair across from Lancaster. “Mr. Lancaster. I hear you’re in the business of historical acquisitions.”

“I’ve been known to take an interest in various historical items,” Lancaster said, smiling. “What have you got in mind?”

Nate grinned back. “How does the lost cache of the Jesse James gang sound?”

Lancaster went still. His smile was frozen on his face, but his eyes flashed with anger. “If you can find it. Nobody in the last 200 years has managed it.”

“Well, that’s because they’ve been looking in the wrong place.” Nate took off his hat, setting it top-down on Lancaster’s desk, taking up more space than he’d been allotted.

The smile disappeared. “And you think you know where to look?”

“I did,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair. “That’s how I found it.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed. He studied Nate for a moment, frowning, and then shook his head. “You didn’t find it.”

Nate paused, letting the silence stretch a beat longer than necessary. “I’m not sure you want to be calling a potential new business partner a liar,” he said softly. “Not given your own background. What’s that saying about casting stones in glass houses?”

“You’re calling me a liar?” Lancaster growled.

“Well,” Nate said. “For one, you’re making a reputation on this whole country boy thing, but your accent’s a little forced. Too much of an emphasis on the drawl, not enough on the consonants.” Sophie had pointed that one out—something about T-glottalization—Nate decided not to get into the specifics. “Based on your slip-ups, I’d say east coast. Back in the old days, I think they’d call you a tenderfoot.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Lancaster said, glowering.

“Oh, I do.” Nate’s voice was soft, barely audible. “It’s a very distinctive accent.”

Lancaster opened his mouth, but the phone on his desk gave a shrill ring, and he cut himself off. With one final glare at Nate, he ground out, “Excuse me,” and answered without speaking. His expression brightened as he listened, and a premonition of unease worked its way down Nate’s spine.

“Well,” Lancaster said, hanging up with a smile. “I suppose the ruse is up. You play a good hand, Mr. Ford, but the deck was stacked against you.”

Nate’s stomach dropped. He didn’t try to deny it—there was no point—but he couldn’t help the quick glance over his shoulder. Hardison would be in the server room by now, and Parker—

“That was my head of security,” Lancaster said. “My plan, at least, has gone exactly the way it was supposed to. The server room has locked behind your hacker, my man Janish is with your grifter—clever to set her up as a receptionist, by the way, I never even noticed—and my security team is tracking down your thief. That just leaves you, Mr. Ford.” He took in Nate’s clenched jaw and laughed. “Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t have known what you were walking into. If I do say so myself, I set a mighty fine trap.”

“To what end?” Nate asked.

“Ending you,” Lancaster said. “My sources seem to think you’re dangerous, but I have to admit I’m disappointed. You really didn’t put up much of a fight. I suppose without your guard dog—”

Nate was lunging across the desk before he could tell himself not to fall for the taunt. He didn’t care. He would take the fall if he had to, but not like this, not without beating the smirk off Lancaster’s face. He wanted to see the man bleed, see him cry and cower and beg for mercy, he wanted him to—

A hand caught his. One minute there was nothing but Lancaster’s satisfied grin, and then another man stood in the way, his fingers closing over Nate’s fist, his eyes guarded. Nate stopped short, the desk between him and Lancaster, a spike of horrible, agonized hope rooting him to the spot.

“I told you to stay out of sight,” Lancaster snapped.

Eliot kept his gaze on Nate. “You’d rather I let him beat you up?” he murmured, tightening his grip on Nate’s knuckles.

Nate opened his mouth, but couldn’t form the words tumbling uselessly in his brain.

“Get back where you belong,” Lancaster said. “I can take care of him.”

Eliot stayed where he was, watching Nate with a blank expression. “You’re Nathan Ford?”

“You’re alive?” Nate whispered.

Eliot let go of his hand. “No thanks to you.”

Nate flinched; Eliot had always known how to land a good hit.

Except… if there was anything Eliot was better at than landing punches, it was pulling them. Better than any of them, Eliot knew what guilt did to a person, and he wouldn’t use it as a weapon—not against Nate. There was more going on here.

But it was hard to figure out what that might be when the only thing Nate could think was you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.

“Now isn’t the time,” Lancaster said. “Get back downstairs. I’ll call you when—”

“Eliot.” Nate’s voice broke over the name, so he cleared his throat and said it again. “Eliot… What happened?”

Lancaster placed his hands on the desk. “He turned on you. He works for me now, and nothing you—”

“Shut up,” Nate said. He looked at Eliot’s bruised face, at the apprehension in his eyes, and tried to read a message in them. He had to be playing some kind of angle, and if Nate could figure it out, he could play along. But he couldn’t think—it was too much, too much, and he couldn’t think.

“Is that my name?” Eliot asked. “I thought it was Spencer.”

Oh, God. Another rush of grief washed over him, draining him of everything except cold realization. “You don’t remember?”

“Head wound,” Eliot said, shrugging. “The memory loss is temporary. Probably. Jury’s still out on whether I want it back or not. But I’ve heard Lancaster’s version of things, and now I’d like to know yours. I’ll make my mind up from there.”

Lancaster reached for his phone. “Enough. If you’re not going to listen—”

Without breaking eye contact with Nate, Eliot reached out his right hand—bruised and bandaged—and yanked the phone from its cord. He tossed it across the room and spoke as if there had been no interruption. “How do you know me?”

Nate held his gaze. “I’m your friend.”

“And the others?” Eliot asked. “The hacker? The grifter? The thief? They’re my friends too?”

“Yes,” he said, scrambling for a better explanation. Our friend, our teammate, our family.

Eliot scoffed. “Then I am a criminal.”

“Eliot—”

“The blonde woman,” he said. “Who was she?”

Nate frowned. “You mean Parker? Lancaster sent you a message saying he had her, but he didn’t. It was a trap. He lured you into the LanCast building and blew it up. We thought—we thought you were—” He broke off, unable to voice it now, afraid it would somehow undo whatever miracle had brought Eliot back.

Eliot sucked in a breath. “She’s not dead?”

“He’s lying,” Lancaster said. “He’s trying to confuse you.”

“Why?” Eliot asked.

“He tried to kill you before you could come after him,” Lancaster pressed. “He knows what you’ll do to him if you figure that out.”

“That’s not true.” Nate kept his eyes on Eliot’s, his voice firm. “You may not remember me, but I know you. I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.” A hint of desperation worked its way into Eliot’s voice, contrasting with the emotionless mask he was still fighting to keep over his face. “You don’t know what I’m capable of. The things I know how to do. I don’t remember my friends, but I remember that. What kind of a person does that make me?”

“Don’t let him confuse you,” Lancaster needled. He stood and reached for Eliot’s shoulder, but he flinched away.

Nate stayed where he was. “You’re the only one who can answer that,” he said softly. “Whatever you might have done in the past… that’s not who you are now.”

“I’ve hurt people,” Eliot said, scowling. “Stolen. Killed. You’re really going to stand there and say I’m not evil?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Nate said. “Yeah, you have a past, and if you want to know what it was, I’ll tell you. But it doesn’t matter. Lancaster wants to convince you that you’re a bad guy so he can use you, but you’re the one in control here. You decide who you want to be. But I’ll tell you, Eliot—” Nate took a breath, clutching at the remains of his composure. “Whatever you’ve done, bad guy or not, you’re a good man. One of the best I’ve ever known.”

Hurt and hope flared up in Eliot’s eyes—that old, familiar battle between who he’d been and who he wanted to be. Lancaster had tried to capitalize on that struggle, after everything, after everything he’d put them through.

They had to go. Now, before Nate did something Eliot would regret.

“Come on, Eliot,” Nate said, his voice rough. “Let’s go home.”

Eliot hesitated, frowned, and then turned to Lancaster and gestured to the chair. “Take off your belt.”

“My—what?” Lancaster sputtered. “Spencer, listen to me. He’s lying, and I can prove it.”

“I got all the proof I need.” Eliot folded his arms and dipped his head toward Nate’s hat, still resting on the desk beside the broken phone. “He knows to put that crown-down.”

Lancaster blinked at him. “What?”

“Maybe I was working for you,” Eliot went on. “But I don’t have to stay with you. Now take off your belt before I decide to break your wrists instead of binding them.”

Shaking in either fear or anger—Nate couldn’t be sure which—Lancaster undid his belt and dropped it onto the desk. Eliot nudged him onto his chair, pulled his hands behind his back, and secured them with the belt, and then loosened the tie at Lancaster’s neck and gagged him with it. When he was satisfied with that, he pulled the chair against the wall and tied Lancaster’s ankles with the phone cord.

Then he straightened and gestured toward the door. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the others.”

“The others?” Nate echoed.

“Yeah. The rest of your team.”

Nate trailed him out of the office, pausing only to close the door behind them. “You know where they are?”

“I…” Eliot turned away, avoiding eye contact. “I thought you’d killed her—Parker—and I needed to find you, so I made a plan for Lancaster. He described the people you were working with, their reputations, their strengths, enough for me to set a trap. I had him put out a press release to say he’d found something valuable, and that he was holding it here in his office. I figured you’d break in to get it, and I could make my move then. Lancaster sent Janish after the grifter—”

“Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Eliot echoed. “I didn’t know who she was, but I went back over the surveillance footage from the last few days and noticed her lifting a credit card, so I figured she was involved.”

“I’ve never been so glad to have you on our side,” Nate said, surprising himself with a chuckle.

“You’re not mad?”

Nate looked at him. Tiny cuts along the right side of his face were just starting to heal, and his hair covered some of the bruising on his cheek and ear—superficial injuries hiding something so much worse. As bad as it had been for Nate and the rest of the team, at least they’d had each other. What must it have been like to wake up with no memory, wounded and alone, and have to grieve someone he couldn’t even remember?

“No, Eliot, I’m not mad.” Nate’s voice was soft, if a little uneven. “But… When Lancaster told you I was the one who set off the explosion, you didn’t believe him. Or at least, you were willing to give me a chance to explain my side of things. Why?”

Eliot kept his eyes on the ground as they jogged down the hall. “I, um... I had a dream. About you. You and—and Parker, and another woman, and a man. I can’t remember their faces, but when I saw you in Lancaster’s office, it felt...” He shrugged, faint color flushing across his face. “I dunno. Familiar.”

Nate had never seen Eliot blush before. He’d never been this vulnerable before—forced to trust someone he didn’t know, forced to admit a weakness. But he’d chosen to anyway. Part of had him remembered, had reached out and found them against all odds. When Nate had been ready to give up, Eliot had kept fighting.

Of course he had. Memories or no, this was Eliot.

God… he had to tell the others.

He reached for his phone, but Eliot put out his hand to stop him from dialing. “That won’t work—I had Lancaster set up a dampener so you wouldn’t be able to communicate with your crew. Landlines only.”

Nate couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face. He threw his arm around Eliot’s shoulders as they reached the elevator, his chest constricting at Eliot’s uncertain expression even as he leaned into Nate’s touch.

“It’s good to have you back, Eliot,” Nate said.

Slowly, Eliot smiled.

19 notes · View notes

kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Nine

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

The Davidge house was only about a mile from the remains of the LanCast building, and its proximity made Parker itch with impatience. She didn’t want to be removed from the action, removed from Lancaster. She wanted to be there when his world came down around him.

She wanted him to suffer.

Our job is to help people, said the voice in her head.

“Then you help her,” Parker said out loud. “She probably needs protection—we can’t offer her that. You should have been here for this.”

The voice was silent.

Parker kicked at a rock on the sidewalk and sent it bouncing toward the house, wishing she could send it through a window instead, and made an effort to control her expression before she knocked on the door. She hadn’t cried like the others, so at least her eyes weren’t red, but her face felt stiff and cracked, and she couldn’t summon a smile. She didn’t want to try.

The door opened to reveal a stocky man with a bruise on his cheek. He glanced at her, then out into the yard, and moved to close the door. “Go away.”

“Miguel!” a voice inside snapped. A tall woman with curly silver hair came up behind him and took his ear, pulling him back from the door. “You will not talk to visitors that way.”

“You said to watch for trouble!” the man whined.

“Does this nice lady look like trouble?” the woman asked. She took his place in the doorway and leveled Parker with a fierce look that didn’t seem nearly as welcoming as her words implied. “Now what can I help you with?”

“June Davidge?” Parker asked.

The fierce look deepened into a scowl. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m conducting a survey on behalf of the city,” Parker said, falling back on the story Sophie had given her as they’d left the hotel. “We’re looking into various historical sites that were previously owned by city founders. May I come in?”

June Davidge narrowed her eyes as she studied Parker’s face. “You can come in if you tell me why you’re really here.”

Parker blinked. “I said I’m with—”

“I know what you said,” June interrupted. “And I don’t believe it. I been living here my whole life and never had the city show any interest in my property. The only one who has is Stephen Lancaster, and if you’re here for him, then you can march yourself right on back and tell him I’m not interested. And if he wants to send any more of his thugs after me, I’ll—”

“He sent thugs?” Parker said, frowning. “When?”

June crossed her arms. “What’s your name?”

“Parker.”

She waited for more—maybe a surname, maybe a deeper explanation—but Parker just stared back, holding her gaze in silence.

“You better come in,” she said at last. “I got some soup on the stove, and I don’t want it to boil over.”

She turned and went inside, and for a moment, Parker thought about leaving. She didn’t have time for this. They needed to find out what was happening with Lancaster, not waste time chasing down leads in some random woman’s kitchen. If June wouldn’t cooperate, then Parker could get the information another way. She didn’t have to do this.

She needs help, said the voice. Who else is going to help her?

Parker clenched her fists at her sides, took a breath, and went in.

She noted the baseball bat beside the door with interest and approval as she followed June into a small kitchen, filled with the smells of cooking ingredients and the sound of gently simmering soup. The details hit her so hard that she stopped in the doorway, breathing heavily to keep the image of Eliot in his apron out of her mind.

“You all right, sugar?” June asked.

Parker blinked. “What? Yeah, I’m—Um, you said Lancaster sent men here?”

June waved at a little round table against the wall. “Sit down. I’ll get you a bowl of soup.”

“Oh, no, that’s not—”

“Don’t argue with me,” June said. “I need to test the soup, and you look like you could use something warm.”

Parker frowned, but took a seat where she could watch both June and the door. She caught the sound of footsteps in the hall and watched the man from earlier, Miguel, take up position beside the door again, scowling and rubbing his ear.

“The men who came by,” Parker said. “What did they want?”

June ladled some soup into a bowl and set it before her. “Eat up first. We got plenty of time.”

“Actually, I don’t—”

But June handed her a spoon, and Eliot said that people took their cooking seriously, and if they shared it with someone else, it meant they were sharing a part of themselves. She wouldn’t get answers if she insulted the woman’s offer, so she dipped her spoon into the soup—cheesy potato—and put it in her mouth.

“Thank you,” Parker said. “It’s good.” And because Sophie had taught her to be intentional with her compliments, she added, “I like the cheese.”

“It melted nicely, didn’t it?” June said, smiling. “A new trick I just learned.”

She sat in the other chair, still watching, so Parker took another bite.

“Now tell me about it,” June said.

Parker propped her elbows on the table. “I’m looking into Stephen Lancaster, and I wondered—”

“No, no,” June said. “Not that. Tell me about what’s troubling you.”

Parker frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Something’s obviously on your mind.” June lifted a mug to her lips, and Parker caught the smell of mint tea wafting from it. “You’re hurting. It’s not good to hold that pain inside you, and sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger. So go ahead and talk to me, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Parker said.

“All right,” June said. “I’m not gonna force you. Just eat.”

Parker glared at her, but June got up and went to the stove, turning her back on Parker while she stirred the soup. She didn’t speak, and after a few minutes of silence, Parker found herself eating again to keep her hands moving. The soup was fine—food was just food, unless it was Eliot’s—but it did warm her. She hadn’t been hungry before, not exactly, but the more she ate, the more comfortable she felt, and the more that fullness offset the empty ache in her chest.

“Here you go, sugar,” June said, holding out a tissue. “Wipe your face. It’s all right.”

Parker started, taking the tissue reflexively and lifting it to her wet cheeks. She hadn’t felt the tears start, but now that they were there, she didn’t know how she was going to make them stop.

“He left,” she said, clenching the tissue in her free hand.

June sat back down. “Bad breakup?”

“No,” Parker said. “He died. But he shouldn’t have, and it isn’t fair. He wasn’t supposed to leave.”

“Oh, sugar,” June said, folding her hands around her mug. “I’m so sorry.”

The spoon clattered against the side of the bowl; Parker barely heard it. “I hear him in my head sometimes. The things he would say, things he would do. Does that mean I’m crazy?”

“I think it means you love him very much,” June said.

Her vison blurred, and she set down her spoon to wipe her eyes.

“What does he say to you?” June asked.

“That you need help,” Parker said, sniffing. “And that I should help you.”

June smiled. “He’s perceptive. I try not to let on, but this situation with Lancaster… it’s got me a touch worried. This house is all I have. If I lose it, I’ll lose the people I love, too.”

“He wouldn’t want that.” Parker rubbed her eyes again, taking in a shaky breath. “I don’t want that.”

June held out a new tissue. “Then I’m glad you’re here, Parker. What do you need to know?”

***

Parker made her way to the end of the sidewalk, turning to wave as June closed the door behind her. She’d been there over an hour, going through a box of old photographs and letters June had dug out of her basement that morning. “I was trying to figure out what Lancaster might want from this place,” June had explained. “I didn’t even know this was down here. My parents have been gone a few years now, but I haven’t made the time to go through all their things yet. I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

Parker took out her phone, holding up the papers June had given her, and tried not to fidget as it rang. After the third ring, she almost ended the call to try again, but Nate’s voice finally came over the speaker.

“Find anything out?”

“It’s definitely Jesse James’s treasure,” Parker said. “I just finished up at June’s, and she showed me a bunch of letters she’d found in her basement. Well, photocopies of letters. It looks like her parents found them a few years ago and donated them to a museum.”

“What do they say?”

“They’re love letters,” Parker said, scanning the top paper. “From someone named Elizabeth Classen.”

Nate’s voice sharpened. “From the Classens Hardison found? The ones who owned the properties Lancaster is buying up?”

“Looks like it.” Parker shuffled the papers and read over another one. “Elizabeth and Frank James were writing letters to each other, but they couldn’t be together because of Elizabeth’s family. Frank talked about wanting to take care of her and tried to get her to run away with him. He said he had money enough to give her the life she was used to, and said he’d tell her where he hid it if she’d meet him outside of town.”

“Did she go?” Nate asked.

“No. In her last letter, she said she didn’t want to disappoint her family. But then I think he gave her the money anyway, because she said something about how she had enough and didn’t want to spend anything with blood on it.”

“So Lancaster must have found the letters at the museum,” Nate said. “And figured out that Elizabeth Classen hid the money on one of her parents’ properties.”

“And June’s the only one left who hasn’t sold,” Parker said.

“Then, eventually, he’s going to go after her to get her land.”

Parker folded the papers and stuffed them into her pocket. “He already has. She said he sent some of his thugs around today, but her friends chased them off.”

“It won’t be long before he tries again.” Nate paused, and Parker heard his footsteps through the speaker as he started walking. “Hang on, I’m going to add Hardison to the call. We need more information.”

He dialed, and a heartbeat later Hardison answered, “Nate, hey, I was just about to call you.”

“Parker’s on, too,” Nate said. “What have you found?”

“Okay, yeah. I was trying to dig into Lancaster’s records, but they’re all on a closed server. I need to get into his office to get any more.”

“Sophie’s already inside,” Nate said. “How soon can you two be here?”

Hardison’s laptop clicked closed in her ear. “On my way. Parker, I’ll pick you up.”

“Hardison, you get to the servers,” Nate said. “Parker, see if you can find Lancaster’s safe. We need to see if he’s already found that money.”

“What are you going to do?” Parker asked.

Nate’s voice was low and cold, and it sent a shiver over her skin.

“I’m going to distract Lancaster.”

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Eight

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Nate had thought the world was ending after Sam. He went through the motions for a while, trying to do what he thought he was supposed to do, what Maggie needed him to do, what Sam would want him to do. He did try. But he wasn’t strong enough to hold all that pain and anger and hatred, and eventually, it all fell apart around him. He hadn’t ever hoped that things would be all right again, and if he was honest with himself, part of him didn’t want them to be. It wasn’t fair that he could just pick up and move on without his son. It wasn’t right.

But they’d done it for him. The team, who he didn’t want, who he loved and admired in spite of himself, they’d brought him back to life against his will. They’d made him see that he still had a purpose... worth. Family.

And now…

It turned out the world could end more than once.

They’d gotten separate rooms at the new hotel, but they all congregated in Nate’s—just like Boston, just like always—gathering around him, cutting off his escape before he could make it. No one slept. No one spoke. They sat together through the night, staring into the emptiness that Nate had almost lost himself to years before, unable to see a path through it.

They’d discussed this—he and Eliot, in private, one of the times Nate had retreated to the bar to contemplate the things he didn’t tell the others. Eliot joined him sometimes, sitting between Nate and the door with a book or a beer. As long as he was quiet, Nate usually appreciated the company. But he’d come down one night when Nate was several glasses into a fresh bottle, a beanie pulled low over the new stitches on his eyebrow, and sat too close for Nate to ignore him.

“We have to talk about it,” he’d said.

Nate had tried to change the subject, but Eliot wouldn’t let it go. “I need to know you have a plan.”

“That’s my job,” Nate had told him.

But Eliot had just looked at him, his eyes calm and clear. “When it happens,” he’d said—not if, when— “Leave the body. It’s not worth anyone else getting hurt; what happens to it doesn’t matter to me. Get them out, get them safe, regroup, re-plan. Promise me.”

And because it was Nate, because he couldn’t handle having this conversation in anything but hypotheticals, and because he was Jimmy Ford’s son, he’d said, “Yeah, sure. If you die on the job, I promise to leave your body behind.”

He’d said it sarcastically, but Eliot had nodded like it was a real agreement, like he expected follow-through. “It’ll be bloody, Nate,” he’d said, lowering his voice, his head bowed slightly so he was looking up at Nate beneath his hat. “I don’t want the others to see. Do you understand?”

And he had, then. And he hated it, and he put it from his mind, telling himself it would never happen.

He’d been just as powerless to stop it as he had been with Sam. It may not have been his fault directly—Eliot had made the choice to go into that building, without Nate’s orders—but Nate had picked the case. Nate had kept them working past that first job. Nate had relied on him to keep the others safe at the expense of his own welfare.

And now, somehow, he was supposed to keep them going.

The sun rose bright and uncaring through the hotel window, and Parker stirred from her spot at Hardison’s side. “I want to finish this,” she said, looking directly at Nate, her voice a challenge.

“How can we?” Sophie asked. “We have the funeral to plan. Someone should track down his family.”

“No funeral.” Nate’s words were low, but they all heard. Their silence was painful.

Sophie’s eyes welled up again. “Nate, we have to—”

“He didn’t want one,” Nate said.

“I don’t care what he wanted.” Sophie glared at him, her lower lip trembling. “We’re not just going to let him disappear. He deserves to be remembered. Honored.”

“His first priority was keeping us safe,” Nate said. He met Parker’s gaze and gave her a small nod. “Lancaster came after us, and he’ll try to come after us again. We’re not going to let it happen.”

“Then we finish the job,” Hardison said, his voice soft and raw. “Without Eliot?”

Nate summoned his best attempt at confidence. “We finish it for Eliot.”

And then… Then, when he was sure the others were safe, the world could end again.

***

The plan, for the most part, was unchanged: gather information, get close to Lancaster, and find proof of his wrongdoings. It was the timeline that worried Nate now.

“What does Lancaster want most?” he asked, echoing their conversation from a few days before.

Sophie was markedly less animated than when she’d answered the first time. “He idolizes folk figures from the Old West... Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill. He’s tried to build up a reputation as some kind of outlaw hero.”

“Right,” Nate said. “He says he steals the deals away from his competition. We know he does more than that—he likes to walk this line of respectable businessman with a dangerous side. The law doesn’t apply to him because he sees himself as the next Butch Cassidy. So he’s after something, something to make others see him the way he does. It goes beyond using cheap construction materials—that’s just his way of saving money. What’s he saving it for?”

“He’s been buying up a ton of properties over the last year,” Hardison said dully. His laptop was open, and Nate watched him switch from a page full of Eliot’s aliases to a tab featuring Lancaster’s company records. “But I can’t see a pattern in them. They’re different types of properties, residential, commercial, everything, and they’re all over the city.”

“Okay,” Nate said. “So he’s looking for something. Hardison, find what those properties have in common. Then all we have to do is give it to him.”

He stopped himself from thinking too far beyond that.

“What can I do?” Parker asked, appearing at his elbow. He didn’t have the energy to startle, but he took a moment to inhale and hold his breath before answering.

“You have to stay here,” he said at last.

Her eyes flashed. “No. I can’t just—”

“You’re burned,” Nate said. “If you walk into Lancaster’s offices, he’ll know it’s us. We’ll never have a chance.”

“Then I’ll make sure he doesn’t see me,” Parker said desperately. “Nate, please, I can’t stay behind. I can’t.”

He wanted to argue. It was smarter to leave her behind where she’d be safe, where she couldn’t be used against them—but then Sophie was moving to stand beside her, and Nate knew he’d lost the fight before it started.

“She’ll go in disguise,” Sophie said.

“Through the vents,” Parker added.

Hardison spoke without looking up from the computer. “Either we factor her into the plan, or she’ll go in on her own. Which do you prefer?”

“All right, fine,” Nate said. “But Parker, you have to be careful. If Lancaster sees you, it’s over.”

She held his gaze, her expression hard. “I’ll be careful.”

“Hey,” Hardison said. They looked at him, and as she turned, Nate caught the glimmer of a necklace chain on Parker’s throat.

Relief and fresh grief roughened his voice when he spoke. “Find something?”

“Yeah.” Hardison leaned back so they could see his screen. “Lancaster gave a press release this morning.”

They crowded closer, and Hardison snorted as he scanned the article. “Listen to this. ‘Businessman Stephen Lancaster has claimed to have evidence of a significant historical find, which he is in the process of authenticating...’ Bla bla bla… ‘The find is currently being held in his downtown office, which Lancaster assures readers is thief-proof.’ The audacity.”

“What did he find?” Parker asked.

Hardison went back to reading. “I don’t know… it doesn’t say. But it seems like it might be related to those properties he was buying up. I started looking through them, and they all date back to the 1800s. A bunch of them have connections to Frank James.”

“As in Jesse James’s brother?” Nate asked.

Hardison nodded. “Apparently he used to live near here. When he left the gang, he settled near Cement, Oklahoma, with—” He broke off, his eyes wide, and looked at Nate. “Cash. All their cash, from all their robberies. It’s never been found.”

“Jesse and Frank James made their name robbing supply wagons and trains after the Civil War,” Nate said thoughtfully. “They were bushwhackers—guerilla fighters working to preserve the Confederacy. Supposedly, they were trying to gather the funds to continue the war after Lee’s surrender, but Jesse was killed and Frank turned himself in, and the money was never found.”

“Lancaster thinks the money is here in the city?” Sophie asked.

Hardison’s fingers tapped over his keyboard. “Seems that way. It looks like the properties were all originally owned by the Classen family. They go back all the way to the founding of the city.”

“Do they have a connection to Jesse James?” Nate asked.

There was a pause while Hardison typed, but his frown answered for him. “I don’t see anything, but I’ll keep digging. There’s this, though.” He glanced up again, and Nate tried not to notice how drained he looked. “There’s only one building previously owned by the Classens that Lancaster hasn’t bought. It belongs to a June Davidge now.”

Nate nodded. “Then let’s go pay her a visit. Parker, find out if she knows anything about the connection between her property and the James stash. Hardison, keep looking into things here. Sophie and I will see what we can get out of Lancaster.”

“The comms are still offline,” Hardison said.

Nate held up his stolen phone. “Then we’ll do things the old fashioned way. Be careful, be aware, and call the minute you find anything. Lancaster will be expecting retaliation.”

Hardison shot a look at Parker, and the desperate fear in his eyes made Nate’s stomach turn. Parker was capable—they all were—but they hadn’t really had to worry about each other before. There had never been a threat that Eliot couldn’t handle, and now…

He cleared his throat, swallowing his own fear. “We have to trust each other,” he said softly. “We have to trust ourselves. If we doubt, if we hesitate…”

Parker set her jaw. “That’s not going to happen. We can’t let Lancaster get away with this.”

Nate met Sophie’s eyes, still red, still filled with all the pain and shock and fear that had crippled them all, and for a moment, he considered cutting their losses. They could leave town, make it clear that they were no longer a threat to Lancaster, and try to pick up the pieces in safety. That was what he’d promised Eliot, after all—that he would keep them safe. But doing that, leaving now… it would break them. There would be nothing left for them to save.

And he wanted to save them. Needed to save them—needed to keep them going until they could continue on their own, until he could be sure that they would be okay.

And he wanted Lancaster to pay.

“We do this,” Nate said in a low voice. “And we get justice for Eliot. After that… we’ll figure it out. Okay?”

Parker nodded, then Sophie, and finally Hardison.

Nate pocketed his phone and led the way out the door.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Seven

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Stephen Lancaster sauntered through the doors of his downtown office building and set his Stetson brim-down on the receptionist’s counter. “Howdy, miss,” he said, winking at the brunette behind the desk. It was a new girl, one he hadn’t fully charmed yet, but the smile she beamed back at him said she was well on her way to falling for him.

“Mr. Lancaster,” she said, her voice pleasantly low, almost husky. “You’re in a good mood—I was worried after what happened with the LanCast building.”

“That’s all being handled,” Lancaster said, affecting a grave tone. “Of course, I have the families of those workers to take care of, and I swear I’ll get them justice. I’ve been working closely with the police department to find the criminals who did this, and Chief Howard has assured me they will be persecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“Do you have any leads?” the receptionist asked eagerly.

He winked and spoke in a loose drawl. “Oh, we have a few. I can promise you this, darlin’: they won’t be troubling anybody else when I’m through with them.”

“I’m so relieved,” she said, flashing him a brilliant smile. She tapped something on her computer and looked back up at him. “You got a call from the insurance company—did you get the message?”

“I did,” Lancaster said, resting his elbows on the counter and leaning into her space. “I’m heading up to my office to call them back now. When I’m done, maybe you could block an hour or so off in my schedule and come give me your thoughts on the claim. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

Lancaster picked up his hat and settled it low on his brow, running his finger along the brim to point at her. She giggled, and he made his way to the elevator and punched in the number to his office, straightening his shirt cuffs as he went. The top floor was carpeted, and his boot heels made a pleasant tapping sound as he strode toward his door, unhurried. He had time before the phone call, enough to check in on a few other matters, and he expected good news.

He unlocked his door and crossed the cowhide rug to his desk, sighing as he sat in his overstuffed office chair. His cellphone rang—just on time—and he answered with a lazy, “That took longer than expected. Are you on your way back?”

There was a pause, and Lancaster sat up straighter, frowning. “Janish?”

“We ran into a problem,” Janish answered sullenly.

Lancaster’s good mood vanished. “What kind of problem?”

“Spencer’s alive.”

A jolt of fear—no, not fear, Lancaster didn’t feel fear—concern made him glance toward his open door. He had security; he was safe. “That’s impossible,” he said in a flat voice. “He took the same fall that killed Vinny. We know he was hurt, and we’ve been watching the hospitals. It’s more likely he crawled into an alley and just hasn’t been found yet.”

“I saw him,” Janish said. “He was at the house when we went to get the deed.”

Lancaster frowned. What did Spencer have to do with June Davidge? She hadn’t reached out to him—they’d been monitoring her—and as far as Lancaster knew, Spencer didn’t have any connections to the area. “What was he doing there?”

“He didn’t say. He didn’t seem to recognize me, but he stopped us outside the house.”

“You fought him,” Lancaster said. “So he’s dead now?”

“No,” Janish grumbled.

Hell, this was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. When Janish had first recognized Spencer the week before, walking into the LanCast construction site with the blonde he’d since identified as the Parker, international art thief, Lancaster had taken steps to prevent his interference. It had taken some digging and quite a few bribes, but thanks to Janish’s contacts, they’d been able to get more information on the crew Spencer was running with. There were five of them, run by a man named Nathan Ford, though the identities of the other two members of the team had eluded him. It didn’t matter—he knew enough to take action.

A little bit of the best tech money could buy had disrupted their communication, but not before some hasty surveillance determined Parker’s plan to blow up the LanCast construction site. That was easy enough to work around—if he let her blow it up and then proved Ford’s team was behind it, he’d just collect the insurance payout and start over. But Janish had warned him against Spencer, said they wouldn’t be able to fly under his radar for long, and that it would be better to take care of him before pinning anything on the rest of Ford’s team.

So he’d sent Janish to snap a picture of Parker on her way to the building, sent it to Spencer, and sat back and waited for the extra explosives Janish had planted to do their work. It meant sacrificing the men Lancaster had sent to lure Spencer inside, but if it got rid of him and the thief, it was worth it.

Except it hadn’t.

When the blast went off, Spencer had been blown clear and somehow escaped, and they’d found no trace of Parker inside the building. Ford’s team had abandoned the hotel Lancaster had been watching, and he hadn’t been able to track them down yet. Now apparently Spencer had discovered his interest in June Davidge’s property. It was only a matter of time before they came for him, and this time they’d have revenge on their minds.

Lancaster took a deep breath and studied the painting on the far wall. It was a Frederic Remington, depicting a man sitting shotgun on a wagon seat, firing a rifle at a band of outlaws on his trail. Lancaster adjusted his hat and scowled at the phone.

If Ford’s band of outlaws wanted to square off against him, then let them come.

“Get back here,” Lancaster spat. “I want this taken care of.”

“I’m on my way.”

Lancaster ended the call and eased back in his chair, thinking. This was a setback, but he had faced setbacks before. He was smarter than any group of thieves, and he had more than enough resources to make them go away. He just had to find a way to lure them out. Perhaps if he—

“Janish tell you the news?” asked a soft voice.

Lancaster sat up, his attention snapping to the corner of the room, where a man leaned casually against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. His heart made an attempt at escape up his throat. “How did you get in?”

The man he recognized as Eliot Spencer regarded him without moving. “Door.”

Lancaster reached for his phone, but Spencer’s gaze followed his hand. “I wouldn’t,” he said quietly.

“There’s no need to do anything rash,” Lancaster said. When Spencer didn’t react, he cleared his throat and stood carefully, keeping the desk between them. “I can have security here in seconds.”

“If you think that would help,” Spencer said.

“What do you want?” Lancaster asked.

Spencer’s expression was calm, almost bored. “Answers.”

Answers. Okay, he could give answers—no matter how good Janish said this Spencer was, it wasn’t as if he could fight off all of Lancaster’s men if they charged him at once. He could stall, keep the man talking, and wait for the routine security sweep to pass by. He wasn’t in danger.

Encouraged, Lancaster set his hat on his desk and combed a hand through his dark hair. “All right,” he said. “Ask your questions.”

Spencer frowned at the hat before looking back up at Lancaster. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

“Kill you?” Lancaster echoed, holding up his hands. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

“Your men were,” Spencer said.

“You must be mistaken. What happened at my offices was an accident.”

“And my friend?” Spencer asked, his gaze hardening. “Was killing her an accident?”

Interesting… he didn’t know Parker wasn’t inside building. If he didn’t know the whole truth… “She wasn’t supposed to be there,” he said, picking his words carefully. “I tried to save her. Whoever attacked you was sent by someone else.”

Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I believe that?”

Inspiration struck, and Lancaster forged ahead with a little more feeling. “Nathan Ford—he’s not what he seems.”

That made him pause. Lancaster hid his satisfaction, watching Spencer’s eyebrows furrow, his jaw clench. The lie wouldn’t hold for long, but if he could make Spencer hesitate, if he could get him to doubt—

“Who’s Nathan Ford?” Spencer asked.

Lancaster blinked. A spark of anger threatened his composure; Janish must have gotten Ford’s name wrong, and Lancaster didn’t suffer incompetence on his staff. But no, Janish had been sure, and he knew better than to give faulty reports. Was Spencer pretending? Trying to hide his connection to Ford? Lancaster frowned at him, studying the barely concealed confusion still evident on Spencer’s face, and noticed a purple bruise over his right ear. A head injury? He’d been in the explosion, after all—it was possible. He hadn’t recognized Janish. He didn’t seem to remember Ford.

Lancaster gambled.

“Nathan Ford is your enemy,” he said, watching Spencer’s reaction carefully. “You came to me for help against him, but before I could do anything, he lured your friend into the LanCast building, hoping to kill you both. You escaped. I’ve been searching for you, hoping to find you before Ford could finish you off.”

“You sent Janish to June’s,” Spencer said.

“On an unrelated errand,” Lancaster said. “We were lucky he found you.”

Spencer’s frown deepened. “He knew me.”

“You both work for me,” Lancaster said. “I hired you just before your trouble with Ford. You and Janish have never been friendly, though, and I’m afraid Janish took advantage of the situation and tried to get in a few cheap shots. Believe me, he will be reprimanded.”

Spencer shook his head, his expression closing up, and Lancaster pushed on before he could withdraw. “Think about it. You found your way back to me, didn’t you? Part of you must have realized that you were meant to be here. I can help you against Ford. I can help you get revenge.”

“Revenge?” Spencer echoed in a hollow voice.

“It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you again,” Lancaster said. “I can protect you. I can help you fight back.”

Spencer swallowed. “What would you need from me?”

“A plan,” Lancaster said. “Your expertise. Help me set a trap for Ford, help me lure him here, and we’ll make sure he never hurts anyone else again.”

For a long moment, Spencer didn’t react. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “What about June?”

“I need her property,” Lancaster said. “One way or another, I’m going to get it. But with you on my payroll, I’d be willing to entertain alternate measures.”

“You mean you’d send me instead of Janish,” Spencer said.

Lancaster smiled. “It would be the quickest way to get what I need, and the best way to ensure June Davidge isn’t bothered again. Janish is good at what he does, but from what I hear, you’re better. What do you say?”

There was a pause, but the interest on Spencer’s face was clear. Lancaster held out his hand, hiding his grin, congratulating himself on another victory snatched from defeat. It was how he did things—how he’d always done things. When other men hid from their troubles, Lancaster faced them head on. He was a bull in a field of sheep. And with Eliot Spencer at his side...

He’d be unstoppable.

“What do you need from June?” Spencer asked, pushing away from the wall.

“The deed,” Lancaster said. “There’s something I’m looking for, something that may be buried on her property. I’ve checked all the other places it might be, and the Davidge land is the last.”

“What is it?”

Lancaster nodded to his hand, and Spencer came forward, hesitated, and took it.

“Welcome aboard,” Lancaster said, grinning. “Now. What do you know about Jesse James?”

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Six

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

He dreamed of the blonde woman again. She sat at the edge of his bed, poking the bruises on his side while he struggled to keep his coffee in his stomach.

“Does this hurt?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Everything hurts.”

She pulled a combination lock out of the air and started fidgeting with it. “Why are you calling yourself Spencer?”

“Isn’t that my name?”

“I guess,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “That’s what those other guys called you. Janish. You knew him.”

His eyes were heavy, but he fought to keep them open, afraid she’d disappear if he let them close. “I don’t remember.”

“He��s connected to this,” she said. “To me. He’d have answers.”

If it didn’t hurt so much, he would have shaken his head. “I don’t want answers.”

“You can’t come home if you don’t know where it is.”

He did close his eyes then. It wouldn’t be home without her.

“He’ll come back,” she said, ignoring his reaction. “He’ll try to hurt Sunny.”

“I won’t let him.”

She poked his head, and he let out a groan. “You may not be able to stop him.”

“Then what do I do?” he demanded. “Go after him? After his boss? I hunt them down, and I’m just as bad as them.”

“Being bad isn’t all that bad,” she said.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

For a long moment, she was quiet, and when he opened his eyes he feared she’d be gone. But she was still perched beside him, still fiddling, though now there were three locks instead of one. “You and me,” she said softly. “We do the hard things. The things the others can’t do.”

“I don’t want to be bad,” he whispered.

“You might have done bad things,” she said. “That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

She prodded his aching ribs, and he put his hand out, hoping to feel her—but she wasn’t really there, of course she wasn’t, and his palm slid off his side to rest on the mattress. He was so tired. If he could just get some sleep...

“I think he’s finally out,” said a faint voice, and Spencer turned his head toward it.

“J.B.,” he murmured.

“Guess not,” J.B. sighed. “Go to sleep, Spencer. You need to rest.”

“Janish has come by before?” he said.

“On and off for a couple weeks,” Sunny answered. Spencer opened his eyes and found J.B. on a wooden chair beside the bed, with Sunny folding laundry across the room. She wasn’t looking at him directly, and that made him want to curl back up and pretend to sleep.

He propped himself up on an elbow instead. “What do they want?”

“They want me to sell the house,” Sunny said, her attention on the clothes. “Offered me three times what the place is worth, and when that didn’t work, they tried to say I didn’t really own the place, but I have the paperwork to prove it, so I guess now they’re resorting to threats.”

“Why?”

She lifted her gaze, hard and hurt, and stabbed him with it. “You tell me.”

He let the accusation cut, taking a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that he could feel remorse for his part in whatever was going on. Guilt was good; it meant he wasn’t totally lost. But then he sat up, moving his legs over the side of the bed, and waved J.B. off when he tried to push him back down.

He had work to do.

“I know Janish,” Spencer said, speaking directly to Sunny. “At least, I did. I don’t remember exactly, but—”

“Your head injury,” J.B. said.

Spencer shot him a wary look, and J.B. nodded to himself. “I thought so. You said you fell? Judging by that wound, you must’ve hit your head hard enough to cause some memory loss. Pair that with the trauma of losing someone close to you, and you’ve got a pretty good recipe for retrograde amnesia.”

“Let me guess,” Spencer said in a dull voice. “You picked that up when you picked up how to stitch a wound and how to recognize military mannerisms.”

He gave a sheepish shrug. “Yeah, all right. Former Marine, combat medic. I’m guessing Army for you.”

Spencer shook his head helplessly, and J.B. nodded again. “The good news is that your memory should return, if you give yourself the chance to heal. The bad news is I don’t think you’ll give yourself that chance.”

Spencer looked back at Sunny. “It’s not that easy. Someone tried to kill me, after—” After they killed the woman, after he failed to save her—he cleared his throat and pushed on. “I don’t have much to go on. If Janish recognized me, he might be connected. Anything you can tell me could be helpful. If they’re trying to take this house from you, there must be a reason. Maybe I can stop it.”

Her eyes were still sharp, but some of the heat had gone out of her glare. “You could be anyone,” she said, folding and unfolding the same shirt, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles as she spoke. “You could be working with them.”

“I could,” he agreed quietly. “Whoever I was working with, I think it’s pretty obvious that I didn’t go into that building wearing a badge.”

Sunny snorted. “I don’t care about that. You think you’re the only one I’ve taken in who had a past? Miguel’s got a record long enough to fill a city block, and he’s the sweetest boy I ever had stay here—besides J.B. But Janish… His men aren’t like that. They’re cruel. And if you’re with them…”

“He isn’t,” J.B. said before Spencer could agree with her. “Sunny, you know he’s not. You can tell as well as I can.”

The shirt folded, unfolded, folded again. “Maybe now,” she said at last. “But the fact is, that could all change when his memory comes back. We got no way of knowing.”

Spencer eased himself to his feet. “You’re right. I never wanted to bring you trouble; I’ll leave as soon as—”

“Sit back down before you pass out again,” Sunny said. “I’m not going to kick you out for something you haven’t done, no matter how many red flags you got sprouting from you. Everyone deserves a chance.”

“Janish works for Stephen Lancaster,” J.B. said when Spencer stayed upright. “That name mean anything to you?”

He frowned. “The men chasing me mentioned a Lancaster. They said to call him to say one of their guys was dead—he fell out of the window with me, I think. I didn’t stick around to hear any more.”

“Probably a good idea,” J.B. muttered.

Sunny tossed the shirt onto a pile and moved onto a pair of socks. “How does Janish know you?”

“And why were they after you?” J.B. put in.

Spencer shook his head, rubbing absently at a sore spot on his palm. “I don’t know. But I got an idea for how to find out.”

J.B. blinked at him, then at Sunny, and groaned. “Why do I get the feeling this is going to cause me more headaches than it’ll cause you?”

“It won’t cause you anything,” Spencer said. “You and Miguel stay here to make sure Janish’s men don’t try anything again, and I’ll go track down some answers.”

“On your own?” J.B. said.

Someone had removed Spencer’s boots; he found them at the edge of the bed and sat to put them on. “Got a feelin’ that’s not new to me,” he said, his eyes on his feet. He glanced up at Sunny as he tied the laces. “Do you have any idea why they want your house? Anything in the history of the place? Maybe the land it’s on?”

“I wish I knew,” Sunny said. “It’s just a house. Isn’t even that old—my parents rebuilt it in ‘93. They owned the original, but it was torn down ages ago. They left the new house to me when they passed. There’s nothing here Lancaster could want.”

Nothing obvious. Nothing in the building itself, probably—it was more likely to have something to do with the grounds. “How big is the lot?”

Sunny waved at the window. “The yard, that’s it. The original house was smaller, but we added on. I’m telling you, though, there’s nothing of value here. They had to dig out the foundation to pour a new basement.”

The pain in Spencer’s head had returned—or intensified, it was hard to tell—and he closed his eyes against the overhead light while he tried to gather the information into something useful.

You know what to do, said the voice in his head, which sounded suspiciously like the blonde woman.

He sighed. “J.B.,” he said, opening his eyes. “Where can I find Lancaster?”

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Five

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

That night, Spencer dreamed of faces he didn’t know.

Golden hair and the smell of jasmine and graphite; large, warm hands gripping bottles of orange soda, stretching out to grasp his palm, pulling him close until their shoulders bumped together. A soft voice, speaking in a lilting accent that soothed his anxieties, made him smile. Sharp blue eyes watching him, seeing him, and not looking away.

It felt comfortable, at first. Familiar in a way that made him ache with loneliness, but left him feeling content. But then the dreams shifted, filled his mouth with the taste of blood and sweat and fear, and he laid still on his bed/bunk/ledge/grave—the location kept changing—and tried to breathe as silently as possible while feverish shivers wracked his body. He wanted to get up, to cry out, to go back to his undeserved home, but he couldn’t move.

And then the images pulled together, refocusing on the memory of the woman with golden hair. A photograph. She was looking over her shoulder, frozen, walking toward—toward something, toward... a plan, something he knew, something he had to stop. She was in danger. God, she was in danger, and he was just lying there—

He thrashed awake, throwing himself upright as his legs tangled in his sheets, panting, sweating, desperately trying to hold the image of her face in his mind.

But it was gone. For a long moment, he sat leaning over his bent knees, breathing through the pain in his head and his back and his hands, his eyes squeezed shut against the unfamiliar room. Training took over, and he worked his way through each part of his body, relaxing tense muscles and slowing his frantic heartbeat until he could open his eyes with the certainty that they would be dry.

Then he threw off his blankets, pulled on pair of jeans from the dresser, and eased down the stairs on silent feet. The clock on the stove read 4:12 AM, but it was better to do this early, while everyone was still asleep.

He had to go back to the building. It was his only clue, and if she was the one he’d left be hind... It didn’t matter if the men after him were still there, if they were waiting for him to return—none of it mattered. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault.

She deserved better. But if he was all she had, he had to try.

He retraced his journey from the night before with little difficulty; he’d checked their backtrail frequently, compulsively, and the route was easy to recognize. He went at a jog despite his pounding head and throbbing ankle, his senses trained on the shadow of the burned-out building ahead. Reflective police tape threw the street light back at him, winking and taunting as he drew closer. Everything was still.

He forced himself to slow then, creeping through the shadows as he circled the building, searching for any sign of the men who’d tried to kill him. The firefighters and police had already gone, leaving the block in eerie silence that did nothing to soothe the anxiety churning his stomach. It appeared to be empty. He moved toward a collapsed wall, searching out a path through the debris.

He didn’t know what he was looking for. A room, maybe, something that had survived the fire—some clue that she’d been there. Some clue that she’d made it out. He cleared the ground level and moved toward the stairs, patting the soot from his clothes. He would have to replace them, but he already planned on leaving Sunny most of his cash when this was over.

A hand touched his shoulder. Faster than he could think, Spencer grabbed it and heaved, dropping his center of gravity to lift and throw the body connected to the hand. There was a grunt as the body landed at Spencer’s feet, and he crouched to put pressure on his assailant’s shoulder to hold him down.

His grip faltered when he took in the man’s face. “J.B.?”

“You got some impressive reflexes,” J.B. coughed. He grinned, and Spencer let him up with a glare.

“You followed me?”

J.B. rubbed his wrist, wincing as he climbed to his feet. “Heard you leave, and I thought you shouldn’t be out on your own. Head injuries don’t always make for the best decisions.”

“I’m fine,” Spencer said. “You can go back.”

“This place doesn’t exactly scream fine,” J.B. said, lifting his eyebrows.

Spencer turned back to the stairs. “I just have to check something.”

“Maybe I can help,” J.B. said. “There was a report on the fire last night. I saw it on the news.”

Hope and fear clenched in Spencer’s stomach. “Were there any—was anyone—” He took a breath, swallowed hard. “Did they find anybody inside?”

J.B. hesitated, and the hope splintered into dread. “They said there were three people inside… they didn’t make it out in time.”

The floor slanted beneath his feet. He staggered, straightened, stepped toward the stairs—and then his knees were on the ground, and his breath was coming in sharp, shallow pants, and his head felt like it was splitting in two. J.B. crouched at his side, his hands on his shoulders, but his words sounded distant.

“Breathe, Spencer. We don’t know for sure—”

“I left her.” The words dragged themselves out of the hollow in his chest, up his raw throat, over and over again as the realization sank into his bones. “I left her. I ran away and left her.”

“Who?” J.B. asked.

Spencer raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I can’t remember—I can’t—” He fought through the jumble of emotions battering his brain, dug for memories of her, of her name, anything—and she smiled at him, her hair tied back, and laughed when he grumbled at her—she took a bite of the donut he wanted, and he let her have it—she jumped out of a window, and he caught her—she’d trusted him to protect her and he left her to burn alone. Had she cried? Had she damned him? He wouldn’t have blamed her—he damned himself.

Her phantom screams echoed in his ears, and he folded in on himself, pressed his forehead against his knees, and wept.

***

J.B stayed with him until his body stopped shaking. He didn’t know how long it was, and he didn’t remember getting up, but when he came back to himself, J.B. had his arm draped over his shoulders and was guiding him out of the building. They managed that way, Spencer leaning more and more heavily as they walked, until they finally stumbled up the stairs to Sunny’s place. Somehow, they went further, all the way up to Spencer’s borrowed room, where J.B. laid him gently on his borrowed bed and told him to get some rest.

He didn’t.

Hours passed, and no one disturbed him. He laid where he’d been put, staring up at the ceiling and trying to hold on to the memory of her face. He couldn’t see her anymore, and that hurt, but at least her screams had faded.

The rest of the house was waking up. He heard their footsteps downstairs, the echoes of their voices, Sunny’s loud laugh. He wanted to stay where he was, but Sunny had opened her home to him, and he would earn his keep. His clothes were blackened, so he changed again and shoved his cash into his pocket. He would buy new clothes, and the rest would go to Sunny.

It was still early—before 8, some instinct told him—but he smelled coffee as he came down the stairs, and the sounds of something frying filled him with a pleasant feeling he didn’t deserve. Sunny looked up from the stove when he came into the kitchen and nodded to the counter. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself.”

J.B. was at the tiny table with another man, who Spencer assumed to be Miguel. They both had their own mugs already, and J.B. nodded when Spencer looked their way, but Miguel scowled. “¿Este es el chico nuevo?” he said, his voice thick with disapproval. “Duerme hasta tarde.”

“Spencer, Miguel,” J.B. said, shooting a reproachful look at the other man. “Don’t mind Miguel. He takes a while to warm up to newcomers.”

Spencer took an empty cup from the counter and poured himself some coffee. “No es un problema,” he murmured. “Pero no duermo mucho. 90 minutos al día es todo.”

“There you go, Miguel,” J.B. laughed. “No more complaining that no one speaks Spanish.”

Huh. Apparently he spoke Spanish, too. He took a drink to give his hands something to do and studied Miguel over the rim of his mug. He was a small man, compact, built like a wrestler, and he glared at Spencer like he wanted to do more than talk.

“Settle down,” Sunny said, waving a wooden spatula at them. “Spencer, don’t get smart with him, he doesn’t know how to take it. J.B., quit stirring up trouble. And Miguel, I expect you to be civil, d’you understand? Now get your plates and get some eggs, and go eat them in the other room where you won’t be in my way. I got work to do.”

Miguel held Spencer’s gaze as far as the stove, where he turned to whisper up into Sunny’s ear. She swatted him with spatula. “You don’t make that decision, Miguel,” she snapped. “I say who stays. Now get, or I won’t feed you.”

He accepted a plate full of scrambled eggs, took some toast from a plate beside the coffee pot, and elbowed past Spencer on his way out of the room. J.B. followed, smiling an apology as he accepted his own food, but Spencer hesitated at the counter. “I’d like to help out,” he said awkwardly. “If you have anything that needs cleaning or fixing, I can—”

“Eat first,” Sunny said. She piled eggs on a plate and held it out to him, her eyes dark and sympathetic. “J.B. told me you went out this morning. Said you got some bad news.”

Spencer looked away, his gaze following Miguel out of the room. “You’ve been very kind to me. I don’t want there to be any trouble.”

“Like I told Miguel.” Sunny took his left hand and pushed the plate into it. “I make the decisions in this house.”

He took the plate, but before he could say anything else, a thump in the other room made him turn. J.B. leaned into the kitchen, a frown creasing the skin on his forehead. “Sunny,” he said, his voice grave. “They’re back.”

Sunny turned off the stove, letting out an impressive string of curses as she hurried out the door. Spencer set his plate and mug on the counter and hurried after her, adrenaline spiking through him. “Who is it?”

“Stay inside,” Sunny snapped. “Eat your breakfast. This won’t take long.”

J.B. flattened himself against the wall to let her pass and shot a concerned look at Spencer. “Do as she says,” he muttered. “Maybe get the first aid kit ready.” He ducked through the door after Sunny, trusting Spencer to do the sensible thing and stay out of trouble.

Spencer followed them out.

Miguel was on the top step outside the door, standing with his arms folded and his feet planted wide before a half dozen men in suits. They were tall, their muscles bulging inside their jackets, and they wore boots instead of dress shoes.

Enforcers, said a voice in Spencer’s head. Thugs for hire.

Sunny came up behind Miguel and glared down at the men. “I’ve told you before—I’m not selling. Now get off my property before I call the police.”

“I’m afraid we’re past the point of negotiation,” the man in the middle said. He took a step forward, cracking his knuckles. “I’m going to have to ask you to send your boys inside, ma’am. This is between us.”

Sunny lifted her spatula, but Spencer set a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t call her ‘ma’am’,” he said quietly, guiding her back a step so he could slip between her and Miguel. Miguel’s hands were clenched at his sides, and he glanced at Spencer as he moved beside him.

The man in the middle opened his mouth, and something like fear flickered across his face.

“Janish,” the man next to him hissed. “Is that Spencer?”

They looked at him—all of them—but it was Sunny’s shocked expression that filled his vision. Spencer cleared his throat and looked back at the man in the middle. “Walk away.”

“You know I can’t do that,” the man—Janish—said.

Behind him, J.B. moved to stand at Spencer’s back. “We’re outnumbered,” he whispered.

“Not a problem,” Spencer said.

“You’re not in the best condition to make that call,” J.B. added.

Miguel shifted his weight, and Spencer glanced at him. “¿Puedes pelear?”

“Yeah,” Miguel snorted. “I can fight. Can you?”

Spencer looked at the men again, analyzing their stances, their positions, their strengths and weaknesses.

Yes. For the first time since waking up in that burning building, he knew exactly what he was capable of.

They came at once, surging forward and rushing up the stairs. Bottlenecking themselves—they were the muscle, not the brains—Spencer moved unhurriedly down a step and dodged the first flying fist. With a jerk, he grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him in, propelling him up a step and leaving him for Miguel. He met the next attack with a block and a cross, knocking his opponent backwards and off balance, pushing him back into his companions. He had the high ground, and they hesitated.

That was all he needed.

He threw one over the railing and knocked the second down with a jab to the throat, and then J.B. was flashing past him to take the third. That left only Janish, who had stayed back to watch the fight unfold.

Spencer stalked down the last few steps, circling to put the other man’s back to the house. “Do I know you?”

“Serbia, ‘06,” Janish growled. “You beat me to the Mestrovic collection and cost me my finder’s fee. I owe you for that.”

Spencer shrugged. “Guess you’re not all that memorable.”

“You’ll remember it before we’re done,” he snapped. “I promise you that.”

He lunged, but Spencer side stepped and caught him in the jaw with a right hook. When he staggered, Spencer followed up with another blow before he could recover. “Walk away,” he said again, his voice low.

Janish flew at him. A punch, a dodge, another—block—counter—Spencer moved without thinking, letting his reflexes do the work. He recognized the technique Janish was using, even if he couldn’t remember the name, and it meant something—something in the back of his mind, something he would have used if he could. If he could only—

A jab got through his guard, catching him on the right cheek and snapping his head back—

And he was in the room again. He’d gotten inside the new LanCast building, and there were three men, not one, not Janish—he’d expected Janish to be there, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t have time to worry about that because he had to find her, but there was no furniture, nothing he could use to put between him and the other men, and he didn’t have time to deal with them. He hit one, pushed him away, turned to face the second, stepped back to avoid a clawing hook that caught his chest instead. The man tried to grab his shirt but got only his necklace, and he felt the chain snap as he pulled away. He’d get it later; she was more important. He took a punch to the face—where had that come from?—and swung at the third, but he missed, so he went back to the first for another block, block, counter, another jab, a hit to the stomach—he tried to come back with a low punch, but hands grabbed his arms and held them behind his back, and then there was the sound of a rumble and a crash, and a blast of heat that knocked him into the window, through the window, and he was falling—

“Stand down,” a voice barked in his ear. “Stand down, soldier!”

Spencer’s body went rigid. His heels snapped together, his spine straight, his breath coming in ragged gasps that he fought to get under control without moving his shoulders. J.B. had both hands on his upper arms, his face so close their foreheads almost touched. His hands were wrenched behind his back, but the pressure on them eased when he stopped moving, and Miguel stepped into view with a wary frown.

“How did you know that would work?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows at J.B. “How did you know he was a soldier?”

“Maybe not a soldier,” J.B. said. He was studying Spencer’s face, his brows furrowed, his eyes sharp and clinical. “But ex-military for sure. You get a feel for that. Spencer? Are you with me?”

“What happened?” Spencer rasped.

J.B. gave a half-hearted smile. “You got into a fight with a concussion, and it didn’t go well. I tried to warn you.”

Moving hurt, but he turned his head to survey the empty yard. “Where are they?”

“They left. After seeing what you did to Janish—”

Spencer paled. “I—I killed…?”

“No.” J.B.’s grip on his arms tightened. “You scared him away. You made Ben Janish hesitate, and that was enough for the others.”

“It was enough for me,” Miguel grumbled, rubbing his jaw. “You went into a trance or something, man. You wouldn’t stop hitting Janish, and when I got close, you hit me, too.”

A wave of nausea hit him like a train, and he pulled free of J.B.’s grasp so he wouldn’t get sick on him. “Sorry,” he choked out, but his vision dimmed, and he had to reach out for J.B. again to keep upright.

“Come on,” J.B. said. “Let’s get you inside before you keel over on the lawn.”

To his surprise, Miguel moved to his other side and slipped Spencer’s arm over his shoulders, and the three of them hobbled back up to the house without speaking. Sunny was still standing on the top step, her face set in a frown, but she moved aside when they approached.

“Get him up to bed,” Sunny said. “We’ll talk when he’s had some rest.”

Spencer passed out before he could argue.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Four

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Three bodies had been recovered from the destroyed LanCast building.

It took several hours to discover that much. Nate had insisted they leave the hotel as Eliot instructed, falling back on one of the contingency plans the two of them probably talked about when they were alone in the bar. Parker didn’t ask. She didn’t want to think about worst-case scenarios.

Once secured in a new hotel across town, Hardison had done whatever he usually did to get their information, and came up with a police report of the accident.

Three bodies. No identification. Awaiting coroner’s report.

They took the news in silence. They climbed into Lucille in silence, they drove to the morgue in silence, and they entered the cold building in silence. Hardison and Parker donned their FBI disguises, with Nate and Sophie wearing the appropriately stricken expressions of worried loved ones. It was late, but the badges got them in, and an assistant met them at the door and led them to the lab where the autopsies were being performed.

“Special Agent Thomas,” Hardison said, flashing his badge to the medical examiner. “This is Special Agent Hagen. We’re invistigating the incident at the LanCast building.”

The medical examiner, whose nametag identified her as “Dr. M. Morton”, glanced at Nate and Sophie. “We haven’t been able to identify the victims yet. Are you hoping to find someone? I can only speak with immediate family.”

“Our son,” Sophie said in an unsteady voice. “He may have been inside the building when it—when it…”

Nate put a hand on her arm, and Hardison cleared his throat to bring the doctor’s attention back to him.

“What can you tell us about the victims?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” She gestured at the three bodies, which her assistant had hastily covered in white cloths. “The remains were badly damaged by the fire. They were all male, all aged late-twenties to mid-thirties.”

“Anything else?” Parker asked, her stomach dropping. “Height? Clothes? Anything they may have had on them?”

“These two are around 6’2”, 6’3”. This one is shorter, maybe 5’7”.” Dr. Morton indicated the body in the middle and frowned when Sophie gave a little gasp of dismay. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Does that match the description of your son?”

Sophie nodded, pale-faced and trembling.

Dr. Morton gave her a sympathetic look and lifted an evidence bag from the tray at the body’s feet. “We found this on him,” she said, holding it out to Sophie. “Do you recognize it?”

They all leaned in, and Parker felt the heat leave her body in a rush.

Eliot’s necklace.

Sophie’s knees gave out. Nate caught her as she fell, but she sank to the ground with her face in her hands, shaking. “It’s him,” she sobbed, her voice muffled. “He’s ours. It’s Eliot.”

A strange, distant buzzing sound filled Parker’s ears, and for a moment, it was all she could hear. Hardison spoke beside her, and Sophie went on crying, but the words were lost to the static hum inside her head. The doctor asked them something, and Nate stared straight through her as if she didn’t exist. He wasn’t old enough to be Eliot’s dad, but suddenly he looked it.

They can’t handle it, said a cold, detached voice in her brain. They’re falling apart. Who’s going to hold them together?

Eliot. But Eliot was gone, and Eliot couldn’t be gone, and it didn’t matter whether he was gone or not, because he wasn’t here.

Parker was.

She blinked, and all the noise slammed back into her, and her brain caught up to what Dr. Morton was saying.

“—so sorry I have to ask, but it would help if we could get a DNA sample to verify his identity.”

“Yes,” Parker said. “A DNA sample. I’ll just—this is a shock for them. I’m going to take them out and give them a moment.”

Dr. Morton nodded. “Of course. Take all the time you need.”

Parker glanced at Hardison, who was blinking at the body under the sheet, his eyes wide and wet. She put her hand on his shoulder to turn him away. “Sir,” she said to Nate. “Ma’am. Let’s go. We can talk outside.”

Nate looked at her, but there was a strange emptiness in his eyes that made her feel tiny and hopeless. “Sir,” she repeated. “Please come with me.”

“Sophie,” he murmured, breaking eye contact with Parker to crouch at Sophie’s side. “Come on, honey. Stand up.”

“I don’t want to leave him,” Sophie said, her voice thick and broken. “Please, he can’t stay here, not with these men. Please, can’t we—?”

Parker took Sophie’s elbow and pulled her gently to her feet, guiding her toward the door. Nate and Hardison followed, but Parker didn’t look back. She had to get them out.

Eliot would get them out.

She brought them to the van, and took the driver’s seat after getting them safely inside. Hardison was crying now, too, but Nate sat in absolute, unmoving silence. She drove to the hotel, parked, waited for someone to open the door.

No one did.

“We don’t know,” Hardison said after a few minutes. His face was dry, but his voice still sounded uneven. “He could have lost the necklace. It doesn’t prove anything.”

Sophie shook her head, but had to try twice before she could get her words out. “He would have called. He would have found us if he wasn’t…”

Dead. The word slammed itself against the inside of Parker’s skull, over and over again like a security alarm she hadn’t accounted for.

Dead, dead, dead.

Adapt to the situation, the voice in her head said. First things first. Take care of your team.

She opened her door. Hardison followed her, helping Sophie from the back, but Nate stayed where we was in the passenger seat. Parker moved around the van to open his door, but he didn’t look at her.

“Go inside,” she said, her voice low and steady. “We’re not done.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Lancaster knew about us,” she said. “He set a trap for Eliot and me. We have to finish this, or he’ll keep coming after us. After Hardison and Sophie.”

He looked up then, his eyes still hollow, his hands loose in his lap.

“This is what Eliot would do,” Parker said.

Nate lifted one hand and set it over his face. He took a breath, two, and exhaled so heavily that his shoulders shook.

“What would Eliot say if it was one of us?” he asked.

Parker shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been anyone else.”

“What does it say about me that I couldn’t stop this?” Nate asked, and Parker heard the unspoken again in the way his voice hitched at the end.

“I don’t know,” Parker whispered. “But we need you. Lancaster is going to try again, and we need you.”

Nate nodded, dropping his hand once more. He stood unsteadily and followed the others across the parking lot toward the door.

Parker watched them go, slipping her hand into her pocket to remove the evidence bag she’d taken when Dr. Morton's back was turned. She opened it, picked out the necklace, and clasped it around her neck, tucking the cold metal charm under her shirt so it laid flat against her skin.

Then she followed what was left of her team inside the hotel.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

Text

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Three

Chapter One Chapter Two

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

“You sure you’re all right?” J.B. asked for the third time.

Spencer took a deep breath, closing his eyes and concentrating on staying upright. “Fine,” he grunted. The lie came easily, and it brought back the question he’d been trying to avoid.

What sort of a man was he?

He’d known exactly what to do to escape the parking garage, and he hadn’t balked at being shot at or waking up beside a dead body. He’d almost certainly killed before. He lied without remorse. He’d even found himself noting various pickpocketing targets as he followed J.B. through the streets. Worst of all, he’d left something behind in that garage—something important, something worth more than his life—and he couldn’t remember what.

He was a criminal, that much was clear.

Maybe the men who’d been after him had a good reason to want him dead.

They walked just over a mile, and Spencer felt every step in his pounding head and aching bones. He definitely had a concussion, and his various other injuries were growing harder to ignore. The obvious solution would be to go to a hospital, but instinct warned him against that. He had no idea who his enemies were or where they might be. Hospitals meant reports and questions and paper trails.

He’d had worse. Probably. No hospitals.

He was shaking by the time J.B. led the way up the front steps of a tall, thin building squashed between a liquor store and an office for rent. “This isn’t an official shelter,” J.B. explained, puffing up the stairs and throwing a gap-toothed smile over his shoulder at Spencer. “Nothing run by the city, anyway. Miss Sunny June lets a few of us stay in her extra rooms, ‘s long as we help out around the place. Jim seems to have gotten himself on his feet again, so there’ll be an opening.”

Spencer hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the railing with his bloody hand, his breath coming in pathetic little pants. After a few steps, J.B. paused and gave an encouraging wave toward the door. “Almost there.”

“Why are you helping me?” Spencer blurted.

J.B. lifted his eyebrows. “You need help.”

He smiled, and when Spencer only stared in response, he turned and went on. Spencer stayed where he was. He couldn’t afford to trust random men he’d met on the street, not with so many others looking for him, but what choice did he have? He needed rest, a chance to clean up and assess his injuries, to try to remember something about his situation. He’d found J.B. by accident—his enemies couldn’t have anticipated him going down that exact street at that exact moment—but still, he was uncertain. That feeling still pulled at him, the certainty that he was leaving something behind, that he needed to go back.

“Come on,” J.B. called gently. “You can leave tomorrow if you want, but you need a place for tonight.”

Rest when you can. Regain your strength, then get back to the job.

Spencer leaned his weight on the railing and started up the stairs.

“Sunny’ll want a full name,” J.B. said casually. “She doesn’t keep records, but she likes to know who’s staying with her.”

Another name. Spencer closed his eyes, casting through the darkness for some fragment of identity. Nothing came to mind. He dug through his recent memories, billboards and posters they’d passed on their walk through the city, and settled on the name of an oil company that had advertised a job opening in the window of a career center.

“Ready?” J.B. asked. Without waiting for an answer, he knocked on the door and stepped back to stand beside Spencer. He straightened, trying to make himself look as presentable as possible, but he winced when a light came on over the door a second before it opened.

A large, round woman stood in the doorway in a cotton nightgown, her gray hair done up in curlers, a baseball bat in one hand. She adjusted a pair of cat eye glasses over her nose and studied them before breaking into a grin. “J.B.! I was wondering if you were going to come by tonight!”

“Miss Sunny June,” J.B. said, stepping foward to give the woman a hug. She lowered her bat, but kept it in her hand as she looked over J.B.’s head at Spencer.

“I see you brought a friend.”

“He needs a place,” J.B. said, stepping back and setting his hand on Spencer’s shoulder.

Sunny June gave him a long, appraising look. She was several inches taller than him, and somehow managed to look intimidating in her nightclothes. “What’s your name?”

“Spencer Stone.”

“I got no tolerance for drugs or alcohol in my home,” she said sternly.

Spencer tried not to squint through the light as he nodded. “No, ma’am. Won’t be a problem.”

He fell into a southern drawl as he spoke, which somehow felt both natural and affected. She studied him a moment longer, a slight frown settling over a mouth marked with laugh lines, before finally leaning the bat against the wall by the door.

“All right then. If J.B. vouches for you, we can give it a try. There’s a room upstairs you can use, but you’ll be sharing a bathroom with J.B. and Tomás. That a problem?”

“No, ma’am.”

She continued to watch him, but her expression was turning curious. “Get yourself cleaned up. I have some supper left you boys can share.”

J.B. gave her another hug, and Spencer dipped his head and murmured, “Thank you, ma’am,” as he ducked inside. He followed J.B. up the stairs and into the tiny room he was to use, furnished with a twin bed pushed against one wall, a dresser, and a small desk. It was simple, but the smell of fresh soap wafted up from the sheets, and a few old paintings and bright curtains gave the room a homey feel. Spencer stood in the doorway and inhaled, sinking into a flash of memory: he was small, running between dangling clothes on a laundry line, laughing as he chased after a girl in a yellow dress.

“You can use the bathroom first,” J.B. said behind him. “There are soap and towels in the cabinet. Sunny usually keeps some extra clothes in the dressers. Take a look, see if anything’ll fit.”

He opened his eyes, forcing down the hollow feeling burning through his chest. He should thank J.B., he knew he should, but he wasn’t sure how to say it. Thanks for not leaving me to die on the street. I can’t pay you back. I don’t know if I trust you.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” J.B. said, backing into the hallway, and then it was too late.

So he was a coward as well as a criminal.

He considered just going to sleep, but his stomach was empty and there was blood in his hair, and he didn’t want to ruin Sunny’s sheets. With brisk, mechanical movements, he searched the dresser drawers until he found some clothes that looked like they might fit, then shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the shower without looking in the mirror, afraid of what he wouldn’t recognize. His clothes were torn and stained and singed, the pockets empty except for a little cash. Still, they were his only clue to himself, so he folded them as nicely as he could and left them on the floor. Undressing only gave him more questions: bruises across his forearms, defensive wounds to go with the swollen knuckles earned from punches; scraped skin on his shoulders and back, probably from his fall; a shallow cut across his thigh, and a turned ankle that throbbed without the support of his boot. Then there were the scars crisscrossing his body, more stories he couldn’t remember. He ran the washcloth over them quickly, not wanting to linger over the feeling of calloused and pitted skin. He gritted his teeth as he washed the blood from his hair, feeling gingerly along the cut in his scalp. It wasn’t large, and had mostly stopped bleeding already, though he stood under the water until he was sure he wouldn’t get blood on anything else.

When he could procrastinate no longer, he turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and cleared a circle of steam from the mirror.

Apparently he had blue eyes. There were tiny cuts along his right cheek and ear where the window glass had flown up in his face, and his bottom lip was split. He stared into his blank expression, waiting for the moment of recognition.

It didn’t come.

He sighed and pulled on his borrowed sweatpants and dark blue hoodie, both a size too big, and toweled off his wet hair. He still looked like hell, but at least he wouldn’t make a mess of Sunny’s house by walking through it.

J.B. was waiting for him in the kitchen, a small room with yellow wallpaper and dated cupboards. He sat with Sunny at a round table barely large enough for the two cups of coffee and the plate full of leftovers it held, and he smiled when Spencer walked in. “How you feeling?”

Spencer ducked his head, self-conscious of the bruises and cuts visible in the uncompromising light. “Good. Thanks.”

“You’re not a good liar,” Sunny said. “C’mere, let me take a look at you.”

Something in him warmed at the words not a good liar, but he shook his head when she reached out to guide him toward an empty chair. “That’s all right, I just came down to thank you for—”

Sunny scooted her chair back and stood, pulling a plate out of the cupboard as she spoke. “Let’s get this straight, boy: I don’t like repeating myself. Now you sit down and eat, and let me fix up those cuts before you pick up an infection. Then you can go on up to bed.”

Spencer sat. He accepted a plate of chicken and rice casserole and ate in silence while she took a first aid kit from beneath the sink and moved a chair between him and J.B. She waited until he’d taken a few bites before opening the kit. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Car accident?”

“Yes,” Spencer said.

She swatted his leg. “I told you you’re no good at lying. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to, but don’t lie to me.”

He looked at her, studying her sharp brown eyes and feeling like a bug underneath her microscope. She’d given him an out—you don’t have to say if you don’t want to—and that, more than anything else, compelled him toward the truth.

“I fell,” he said, simply, finally.

Sunny held his gaze a moment longer and nodded. “All right. Eat.”

The kit was well stocked; while Spencer chewed with his sore jaw, Sunny dabbed ointment on his various cuts and bruises and bandaged the larger injuries. She started with his hand, working her way up his arm and neck before gently turning his face to reach his cheek. He kept his eyes on his plate, trying to relax his tensed muscles. The casserole was good. The chicken was canned, but well seasoned, and the rice had been boiled in chicken stock instead of water. Simple ingredients, strong flavor.

He found he liked her.

“I’m gonna take a look at your head,” Sunny said, tilting his chin up with one careful finger. “You might need to go in for stitches.”

Spencer pulled away. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You couldn’t reach. Now come back here and don’t move.”

“I can do it,” J.B. offered, speaking for the first time since Spencer had joined them. He’d watched Sunny’s ministrations in silence, sipping his coffee while Spencer tried not to feel like a county fair exhibit.

Sunny leaned back in her chair to look at J.B. “How do you know a thing like that?”

“Picked it up a ways back,” J.B. said. “You know how it is.”

Sunny shrugged and turned her attention back to Spencer’s head. He’d stopped eating, and was keeping as still as possible while her careful fingers parted his hair. His breath hitched when she touched the edge of the wound, and rush of nausea made him clench his jaw shut.

“All right,” she soothed. “J.B., come here and hold his hair back. There, that’s better. Okay. It’s not as bad as I thought.”

Spencer took a shaking breath through his nose and waited out the pain. He had a feeling he’d done that before.

“The cut itself isn’t bad,” Sunny went on. “Though it’s looking pretty swollen. I’ll get you something to put on it, but you really should go in. You’ve probably got a concussion.”

“They’ll just tell me to rest,” Spencer said.

The fingers withdrew, and Spencer exhaled in relief. “You don’t need to be stubborn about it,” Sunny said, wiping her hands on a napkin.

Spencer looked up at her and tried for a smile. “Supper is delicious, ma’am. Thank you.”

“That’s all you got to say?”

Her expression wasn’t quite irritated, so he eased a bite of casserole onto his fork and lifted it between them. “If you buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself, it’ll melt more evenly. The pre-shredded stuff has starches to prevent clumping, which affects how it melts.”

She laughed, and the sound almost made the pain worth it. “Fine then. I’ll get you some acetaminophen and a cool cloth, but I’m going to be checking in on you in the morning. Don’t think you can get out of that.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“And that’s enough of that ‘yes, ma’am, no, ma’am’ nonsense. You call me Sunny or Sunny June, or you get yourself back out onto the street.”

Spencer stood, moving slowly to make sure he didn’t lose his balance, and took his and J.B.’s empty plates to the sink. There was a dishwasher tucked under the counter, so he put the rinsed dishes inside and returned to the table just long enough to take Sunny’s hand. “Thank you, Sunny June,” he said quietly, and nodded to J.B. before making his way back up the stairs to bed.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

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The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Two

Chapter One

The building wasn’t supposed to explode.

Well, it was, but it wasn’t supposed to explode yet.

Parker had the C4 charges in her bag, ready for her to plant them against the support beams in the basement at the half-constructed LanCast offices. The blast wouldn’t take down the building, just shake the foundation enough that the resulting investigation would find the cheap ash mixture in the concrete, and they’d be able to prove that Stephen Lancaster had embezzled the city grant money that was supposed to go into his new high-rise company building.

The plan had been for her to place the charges an hour ago, but she’d gotten distracted by the candy store down the road and had been late. Now, she stood on the sidewalk across from the burning office, watching their evidence literally go up in flames, listening to the firefighters yell directions as they fought to control the destruction. Normally she enjoyed a good explosion, but this one made her feel the way Hardison said he felt when he jumped off buildings.

She was supposed to be inside.

“Guys?” she tried again, holding her finger to her earbud. “Can anybody hear me?”

The coms had been silent all afternoon, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Hardison had pulled an all-nighter getting their paperwork together and was napping back at the hotel, and Nate and Sophie were across town distracting Lancaster so Parker could break into his building. Eliot was probably out shopping for organic groceries at the nearest vegan market. She’d asked him to make her brownies to celebrate the her birthday (which wasn’t for another two months, but Eliot never asked), and he’d only agreed after she promised to eat some vegetables first. He’d said something about a vegetarian bourguignon, but she’d tuned him out when he started listing ingredients.

She’d give the Centenary Diamond to hear him ramble about beans and onions now.

More sirens cut through the air, and Parker drew back as a police car and a black SUV joined the dozen law enforcement and first responder vehicles already parked on the street. The back door of the SUV opened, and Lancaster threw himself out of the car with a cry of dismay.

A police officer stopped him as he ran for the building, and Parker slipped across the street to join the crowd gathered outside the ring of cones and police tape.

“Mr. Lancaster,” the officer said. “We need you to confirm that no one was inside the building.”

“I don’t know,” Lancaster answered breathlessly. “The foreman said he might stop by to check on something. How did this happen?”

The officer guided Lancaster toward a group of firefighters, and Parker followed in the crowd. “We’re not sure yet. Captain Stanley should be able to give you more information.”

They moved out of earshot, but it only took a few minutes for Parker to duck the tape, find an unattended coat and helmet, and move to the side of a firetruck behind Lancaster and the captain. “—can’t believe this happened,” Lancaster was saying. “I never imagined the threats were real.”

“What threats?” the officer said.

Lancaster put a hand in his pocket and handed over a folded envelop. “This showed up in my downtown office yesterday morning. It says there’s a group of thieves targeting me, and that they were planning to blow up my building. I get so many threats each week, I never thought anything of it.”

Parker glanced over her shoulder. “Nate,” she hissed. “I really need you to hear me now. We have problems.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come in to the station to give a statement,” the officer said. “Anything you can give us about this group of thieves will help us...”

He kept talking, but a shout from the crowd pulled her attention away. Hardison. She started toward him, relief washing through her, but let out another cry that cut through her chest like a bullet. “Parker! Move, please, I have to—”

He tore through the police tape and broke toward the building, but two other officers blocked his way and dragged him back from the fire. “Let me go, she’s inside—please, let me go. Let me—”

“I got him,” Parker said, pushing between the officers and setting her hand on Hardison’s arm. “Come on, sir, this way.”

He fought her for a moment, still intent on forcing his way through the barricade, until she put her hand against his cheek to turn his face from the fire.

“Please,” he whispered, already sagging against her.

She held him up, moving to block his view of the building. “Hardison,” she said firmly, hating the way the flashing lights highlighted the anguish on his face.

He blinked at her, opened his mouth, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Parker?”

“Yes,” she said.

He threw his arms around her, crushing her against his chest and burying his face in her neck. “Thank God,” he sobbed. “Girl, I thought—I saw the news, and I couldn’t get you on the coms, and I thought—”

Guilt prickled through her. Hardison was always so careful about the way he touched her, making sure she had space and choice and an escape route. But his shoulders shook against her cheek, and she pressed back into his hug as a silent apology. “I hadn’t gone in yet,” she murmured.

He pulled away, but kept his hands on her shoulders. “What happened?”

“I think we’re blown,” Parker said, frowning at the building. “Lancaster just showed up and said he received a warning that a bunch of thieves were going to blow up his office.”

“But you didn’t...?”

Parker shook her head. “It was already burning when I got here. What’s going on with the coms?”

“I don’t know.” Hardison’s eyes were on the fire now, too, and he let go with one hand to fish in his pocket for his phone. “I woke up and saw this all on the news, and when no one answered their phones, I thought...”

Right, phones. Hardison kept saying she should carry one of those with her, but it never made sense when they had the earbuds. Who else was she going to talk to?

“Where are the others?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Hardison said. He showed her his screen, which flashed no service across the top. “I can’t get ahold of anyone.”

Parker shivered as a pulse of worry worked its way down her spine. No coms? No phones? Lancaster's warning, and now the building? Something was wrong.

“Eliot said to go back to base if the coms ever failed,” Hardison said, breaking through her spiral. “I guess that’s the hotel.”

Parker nodded. He’d walked them all through it—how to take winding routes that changed direction without warning, how to spot a tail, how to get rid of it. How to approach the base carefully in case it had been compromised. Unease fluttered in her stomach, but she pushed it down and gave Hardison a small smile.

“Can I drive?”

Hardison groaned, sighed, and handed over his keys.

Nate and Sophie were waiting for them at the hotel.

Eliot was not.

They’d made it back without trouble, even if the extra turns and backtracking had cost them extra time. Sophie met them at the door and ushered them into the room, where Nate was planted pensively in front of the window. He spoke without looking at them.

“Lancaster ducked us. We lost him. What’s going on with the coms?”

Hardison dropped onto the couch and dragged his laptop across the coffee table. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look into it.”

“Do you think it was Lancaster?” Sophie asked. She had closed the door behind them and was pacing before it, her shawl clutched tight around her shoulders.

Parker sat on the arm of the couch. “Or whoever warned him?”

“Yeah, about that,” Hardison said, without looking up from his laptop. “Who the hell could have warned him? Our aliases are air-tight, a’ight, didn’t nobody see through those. Maybe someone on his staff recognized one of us?”

“We would have recognized them, too,” Sophie said.

Hardison shrugged and opened his mouth, but Nate cut him off. “The phones aren’t working, either. Have either of you heard from Eliot?”

Parker shook her head, and Hardison scooted closer to his laptop.

“I might be able to track him. Give me a sec.”

Nate waited. They all did, tense under the weight of anxiety and silence. Hardison tapped his keyboard, Sophie rubbed her forefinger over her thumbnail, and Nate stared out the window. Parker tried to remember what kinds of vegetables Eliot said he was going to make her eat that night. She liked it when he picked the weird ones—black carrots and watermelon radish and fiddleheads. She liked to stand behind him and sneak the pieces he’d chopped up and smile when he stuttered at her to stop. She liked to share the space with him while he created.

She did not like the way Hardison’s eyes squinted up as he read his screen, or the way he covered his mouth and took out his phone. “Does anyone have service?”

One by one, the others shook their heads.

Hardison glanced at Parker. “Okay. We’re looking for a signal jammer—a walkie-talkie, or another phone, maybe even a router. Something that’s not supposed to be there.”

She bounded to her feet and threw herself into searching/destroying the room, upending chairs, de-shading lamps, ripping down curtains. The others took slightly more reserved approaches, but Parker was the one who found the cellphone taped to the back of the register.

Hardison held it in his palm and frowned. “Uh-oh.”

The balloon of hope that had been inflating in Parker’s chest popped. She couldn’t voice the question, but Hardison answered anyway.

“This isn’t a jammer… it’s more like my EMP emitter. This is what knocked out our coms, and our phones. It sends out a small, targeted signal, probably only has power in this room, but when we were all here yesterday, it would have been enough.”

“Can you reverse it?” Nate asked.

Hardison shook his head. “I can turn it off, but we have to wait for our devices to come back online. What I can do, though, is transfer the info on our phones over to new ones, so we’ll know if Eliot tries to call.”

Nate spoke to the window. “Do it.”

Parker frowned at Nate as Hardison went back to work, but Nate was busy with his own phone. This was taking too long. If they’d been found out, if someone had gotten to Eliot—

“Okay,” Hardison said. “I need new phones. Parker, can you—?”

She was out of the room and halfway down the hall before he finished talking. Nate didn’t like it when she stole from non-marks, but she didn’t have time to find a phone store, and she’d return them all before this was over. There were plenty of people in the lobby, and it only took a few moments to lift four shiny new-to-her phones from their pockets, bags, and purses.

She took the stairs back up to the room, keeping an eye on the other hotel guests the way Eliot had taught her. Remember the faces you see. Find details that stand out and hold on to them. Facial features, voices, walks. Things that are harder to change.

She noticed those things easily enough, but she’d never understand how he could remember so much about the people in the background.

How much he saw. What he thought was important.

She ran faster.

“Got them,” she said, slipping into the room and dropping the phones on the couch beside Hardison. He lifted one and pried the back off, then pulled a chip out of Nate’s already half-dissembled phone and stuck it into the new one. He snapped the back closed and turned it on, then held it up with a nod. “There. Eliot called two hours ago, and he left a voicemail.”

He tapped the screen and held it out so they could listen on speaker.

“Nate.”

Parker swallowed. Eliot’s voice on the message was cold and flat—she’d never heard him like that before.

“We’re burned. Get Sophie and Hardison and go to another hotel—new names, new cards, everything. Get rid of your phones. Don’t leave a trail—I’ll find you. I just got a text from an unknown number with a picture of Parker on her way to the LanCast building, and then a message saying they had her.” There was a pause, the crash of a slamming door through the speaker. “I’m on my way to her now. Be ready.”

The message ended. All eyes went to Parker, who could only stare back as her body went cold. “They didn’t have me,” she whispered.

Nate swore. “They set a trap. Hardison, can you get a track on him?”

Hardison’s eyes were wide, and filled with all the terror coursing through Parker’s veins.

“Last location was the LanCast office,” he whispered. “But the signal went dead an hour ago, when...”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to.

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kimberkingrivers · 2 days ago

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The Bushwhack Job: Chapter One

I haven't gotten far enough to post this on AO3 yet, but I'm really excited about it, so... here's the first chapter!

He woke to the feeling of heat on his face and pressure on his chest. A groan built in his throat, but he didn’t voice it. Quiet, always quiet, and still. Don’t move until you know what you’re moving into. Make no sound until you know who’s there to hear you. He breathed in scorched air and opened his eyes.

His vision blurred the flames leaping out of the window above him, but the thick smell of smoke shot him through with enough alarm to move his aching body. Something heavy slipped off his stomach as he sat up, and he blinked to focus on the object beside him.

An arm, limp, connected to a bloody shoulder. Glassy eyes stared from a face he didn’t know, mouth open, cheek pressed into the concrete.

They’d fallen together, this man beside him, when something like a horse’s kick forced them through the window. Fragments of broken glass glittered across his shirt, and the back of his right hand was torn and bloody. The dead man was sprawled across his legs, and he extricated himself with careful movements, trying not to aggravate his throbbing head and burning chest.

Voices came to him through the crackle of the fire, and he covered his face with an arm as he eased himself free. “Where is he?” a man yelled from somewhere to his right. “Where’s Spencer? Find him!”

He staggered to his feet, squeezing his eyes shut as the room swayed around him, and pushed long hair—impractically long, and sticky with blood—out of his face. Pain shot up his leg, but there were more voices now, and instinct drove him toward the door at the far end of what looked like a parking garage.

A handful of cars blocked his route; he ducked behind a black sedan and squinted through the smoke at the partially open door.

He hesitated. There was something he was supposed to do, to find. He couldn’t leave without it.

“I found a body!” a new voice yelled.

“Who is it?” asked another.

“It’s Vinny. Call it in—tell Lancaster Vinny’s dead. Who’s got eyes on Spencer?”

Can’t make a recovery if you’re dead. Escape now, return later.

He suppressed a cough and darted toward the door, running in a low crouch. The flames were high behind him now, hot against the back of his jacket, and he hoped it would give him cover.

“There! There, the door—stop him!”

The crack of a rifle split the smoke behind him, and he threw himself through the doorway and ran on without bothering to shut it. No time. He had to find a place to defend himself, something to put his back against without getting himself cornered. Another shot, a curse, an order: “Find him! Find him!” He kept running.

It was dark. He ran in the shadows, sticking to the side of the building as he turned the corner, his ears straining into the night.

“He’s heading south,” called a low voice.

A hedge cut along the sidewalk beside the building, and he gathered his strength and vaulted over it, placing his hand on the thickest branch he could find. The overlapping sticks ripped at his already-bloody hand, but he pushed the pain from his mind and held himself still as two figures hurried past.

He was behind them now, in position to take them out. Adrenaline pounded through him, and he pictured the way the fight would go: he would trail them until he got close enough to slip his hands over their throats, and then a twist—

His body went cold. The feeling of bones snapping under his palms was so strong, so real, that nausea churned his stomach.

He’d done it before.

A siren wailed in the distance. He put his back to the burning building and headed toward the sounds of traffic.

He didn’t know where he was.

The blare of car horns and engines and voices and music pounded in his head, and he squinted through the traffic lights and storefront signs as he stumbled onto the street. Exhaust mingled with the smoke still in his lungs, and he staggered into an alley and coughed until he retched.

“You sound like you’re in bad shape,” said a voice.

He looked up, rubbing a hand over his eyes until they focused on a man sitting against the wall a few feet away. “Sorry,” he rasped, wincing when the word dragged over his raw throat.

The man studied him. “What’s your name?”

He blinked. His name?

What was his name?

The throbbing in his head intensified, and he swallowed a moan and pressed his forehead against the hand resting on the wall.

“Don’t have to be your real name,” the man prompted. “Folks call me J.B.”

Any name… What was it the men had shouted at the parking garage?

He lifted his head. “Spencer.”

“Spencer,” the man echoed. “All right. You need a place to stay?”

He glanced away, shaking his head. “I’m… I’m not…”

“No need to be shy,” J.B. said. “There’s a place over on 5th. I was gonna head there myself, once I got myself moving. You been there before?”

He didn’t know. Now that his mind was free to contemplate more than escaping the fire and the men, there was a disturbing lack of information to draw from. He’d run from the parking garage, where he’d woken up beside the dead man after falling from the window.

Before that… nothing.

J.B. waited in silence, but it was too dark to read his expression. “Come on,” he said finally, working himself to his feet. “The house closes in an hour. We have to get there before they lock up for the night.”

It was tempting to let him go, to collapse against the concrete and let the darkness have him, but the thought of giving up didn’t sit well in his stomach. He rolled his sore shoulders and closed his eyes, gathering the strength to follow J.B. out into the street, and tested the name he’d given in a whisper.

“Spencer.”

Nothing. There was no flash of insight, no connection beyond having heard it as he fled the garage. Still, he had to call himself something.

“You coming?” J.B. said.

Spencer let out a long breath and went after him.

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