I moved a black queen onto a red king. The card under the queen turned to reveal an ace. Yes! I might actually win this game.
“There’s one more thing.” Tobias set his hand over the screen. “Ask the datapad what you’re supposed to do if you’re in trouble?”
“Trouble? Like Pascel?”
But Pascel wasn’t in trouble; he was dead. My predecessor had been killed and I might be next. Games could wait.
“Yes.”
“Help! I’m in trouble.” Instead of nifty rainbows and beams of blue light, I got a gaming icon. King’s Lair. That hardly sounded scary or full of weapons. Still… I opened the file. Pictures of women stared back at me.
“I don’t understand.” I thumped on the image of a blond haired-blue eyed woman called Vixen. My skin tingled but no weapons appeared. None. Unless you counted her long nails and doubleDs. “They’re just gaming characters.”
“They’re disguises. The CeeBees can alter you enough so it appears as if you’re another person.” Tobias grabbed a mustard streaked knife off the table and wiped it on his pants before holding it up to me.
My reflection’s blue eyes stared back at me. Blue. I had brown eyes. I grabbed the knife and turned it. My nose looked skinnier and… “Holy shit!”
Coins jingled.
I glanced up in time to see Tobias add something to my swear jar.
“That one’s on me.”
Ignoring him, I stared at my pouty lips before glancing at my chest. Double D’s! Whoa!
This will come in so handy if I went trawling for guys at the clubs. I backed up and eyed my choices. Some knocked off years, others added decades and pounds. Holy Toledo! Now I knew what I’d look like if I weighed two-hundred-fifty. But a few had possibilities. Oohh and I could have tan skin without the melanoma side dish. “How long would it take me to go from one to the other?”
“Seconds.”
“Wow.” I tapped the sloe-eyed black haired woman named Temptation. My pants hung looser off my hips. “I don’t have to diet anymore. What do you think?”
I batted my black eyes and opened my lips just a bit.
“I think you should keep yourself in good physical condition.” Tobias the buzz-kill cleared his throat. “If the enemy discovers your Cee-Bee frequency, you won’t be able to hide.”
Hide. Flee. Those things I knew how to do before the Spam dots came into my life. I wanted to wrap someone in bands of light or suspend them in the air. Changing back to my normal self, I scrolled through the images. “I don’t see any weapons. Shouldn’t there weapons?”
No new apps appeared on the phone. Drat.
“No. Don’t worry; I won’t be far from your side.”
“What about after this mission?” Provided I was still alive. I hoped to be still alive, but hiding hardly seemed enough to get me there.
“If you get into trouble, send for help and hide.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I will find you.”
That sounded like a sucky plan. I snatched my keys off the table and palmed the cylinder at the end. “Can I use my pepper spray?”
“Yes.”
I dismissed the knives in the kitchen. I would need something small that packed a wallop. “What about brass knuckles?”
“No.”
Just as well. I didn’t have any.
“What—” Scratching came from the dark bedrooms. Fear dried my mouth. “Did you hear something?”
Say no, say no. I repeated my mantra as he cocked his head. One heart beat. Two. Maybe I’d imagined it. Maybe… The scratching came again. Louder. Son of a monkey’s butt!
Spinning about to face the hallway, Tobias drew his key fob. “Wait here.”
That was not going to happen. With my heart racing, I tiptoed after him. He paused at my home office before continuing on to my bedroom.
Yeah, I knew that magic alarm clock wouldn’t keep everything out. Maybe it wouldn’t keep anything out. A bad guy could already be in the room. He could shoot Tobias. He could shoot me.
At the threshold to my room, Tobias reached behind him and set his hand on my hip. “Stay.”
“Be careful.” Cowering in the doorway, I set my thumb on the pepper spray’s trigger.
Tobias aimed his key fob at the window.
A humped silhouette stretched across my bed. I blinked as recognition slid through me. Oh my God! Laughter bubbled up. For taking years off my life, that stupid feline deserved to be deprived of a year’s supply of catnip. “It’s Oscar.”
Meowing, the cat scratched the window pane. The amusement caught in my throat when the streetlamp highlighted his bloody paw prints.
“Oscar’s hurt.” Light filtered through the blood smeared on the window by the cat’s paws and cast crimson patches on my bedroom’s beige carpet. Biting my lip, I pushed off the door jamb and rushed toward the corner window where the cat stood.
Standing at the bottom of my king-sized bed, Tobias caught me about the waist.
My bare feet left the floor and I kicked him in the shins. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving you from yourself.” His warm breath stirred the hair around my ears.
Tingles radiated from my belly outward. I plucked at the fingers splayed across my ribcage. Did he have to hold me so tight? I could barely breathe. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t pry myself loose. Crap on a cracker! The man was stubborn.
Crossing my arms, I dangled from his grasp—useless as a stupid ragdoll. My cheeks heated. Surely, I would reach my quota of daily humiliation soon. “Can you put me down now?”
“Why don’t you tell me where you were going?” His bent knees bracketed my legs.
“To the window, duh.” Man, the guy had a thing about bondage. My toes skimmed the carpet, then the pads of my feet touched down, and finally my heels. I stepped forward, and then slammed back against his rock hard chest. I set my hands over his. “Stop acting like a human seat belt and let me get the cat.”
“No.”
“No? What kind of answer is that?” I wiggled and squirmed doing a fair imitation of washing machine agitator. Sweat trickled in my eyes before I twisted and dropped to the floor. Or tried to drop.
Tobias tightened his grip, propping up my breasts on his forearm before lifting me so my legs straightened.
After a couple of minutes, I rested against his chest. He wasn’t even breathing hard. What a douche.
“Oscar has blood on his paws.” I flopped my arm in the cat’s general direction. “I’ve got to help him.”
“We don’t know that it’s his blood.” Tobias pressed me tighter against him. “Ask yourself this Rae, how did the cat get out of the condo?”
I stiffened. How indeed? All the doors and windows had been shut and locked when we left.
Oscar meowed again. His white teeth shone brightly as lightning flashed. A second later, thunder rumbled. The monsoon was almost upon us. The cat reached high upon the window pane. His protruding claws scratched the glass and blood marked his path as he lowered his paws. Rain pattered against the pane and snaked through the crimson smear. The cat blinked then yowled.
Aw snap! I’d never heard him make that sound before. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something must be horribly wrong. I patted Tobias’s forearms in encouragement. “I have to help him.”
“I don’t like it.”
His muscles flexed and relaxed under my palms. At least they no longer felt like iron bands. “I don’t care what you like and I’m not asking permission. Now please let me go.”
Instead of releasing me, Tobias lifted me up and carried me back to the doorway. What was I—a posable doll?
He freed my waist.
I spun around and faced him.
Setting one hand on my shoulder, he pinned me against the door jamb. “Stay put. I’ll get him.”
After spearing me with one last glance, Tobias padded silently across the floor. The tip of his silver key fob flashed in a burst of lightning. Thunder rattled the window just as sheets of rain sluiced down the pane.
When the air conditioning clicked on, I jumped. It’s nothing, Rae. Nothing. My internal cheerleaders fell silent. Yeah, you couldn’t preach what you hadn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades believing. Shivering in the draft of cold air, I rubbed the goosebumps from my arms.
Across the room, Tobias flattened himself against the patch of wall between the bed and the window. He moved the curtain and peered into the gloom.
Was someone out there? I rose on tiptoe to get a better view. How the heck could I tell? The downpour reduced most of the view to shadowy hulks that swayed and scraped in the intermittent gusts.
Oscar hunkered down on the sill. His eyes narrowed to slits and the rain cut rivulets in his long, spiky fur.
“Get ready,” Tobias rasped in the darkness. He aimed his key fob and pressed the opal, unlocking first one window latch then the other.
Now I knew how he’d gotten into Vivian’s house.
He glanced my way. His green eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.
I nodded. Idiot! He couldn’t see that.
“I’m ready,” I whispered back.
In one smooth motion, he shoved open the window then swung around and slapped the screen with the palm of his hand. The metal popped out and the wind whisked it away.
Oscar howled and dashed inside.
Tobias caught the cat mid-air before throwing the window closed and securing the locks.
Hanging by his scruff, the feline drew his legs close to his body and uttered a pitiful meow.
“Here.” With outstretched arms, I rushed into the bedroom. “I’ll take him.”
Tobias raised the cat out of my reach. “Just a minute. I need to make sure he’s not wired to explode.”
I skidded to a halt. “Who the hell would wire a cat to explode?”
“You owe your swear jar a dollar.” Tobias aimed his key fob at the dangling cat. Soon after he pressed the opal trigger, a blue cone of light sprayed from the tip and scanned the feline from flattened ears to swishing tail. A minute later, he shoved Oscar in my direction. “He’s clean.”
“Thank God.” I grabbed Oscar and buried my nose into his coat. Ack! Wet fur. I sneezed.
Oscar blinked and turned his head.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and see where you’re hurt.” I jogged into the bathroom and used my elbow to flip on the lights. My feet slapped the tile before I propped the cat’s butt on the marble vanity.
Oscar hissed at his reflection in the mirror.
A cabinet hinge creaked behind me.
I turned toward the sound.
Tobias stepped from the darkness carrying a towel.
“Thanks.” I snatched it from his hands and started drying the cat’s front paws. The pink pads didn’t appear to be cut. Where had the blood come from?
“I don’t think the cat is injured.” Tobias crowded into the bathroom.
“It’s too soon to tell. He’s not completely clean.” I twisted the faucet’s handle and water shot out.
Oscar squirmed and tried to squeeze between me and the vanity.
I tightened my grip.
The cat dug his front claws into my arm and kicked with his hind legs. Pain burned up my arms. I released the demon cat as his back claws braced for another pass.
“Son of a monkey’s butt!” I cupped my hand over the scratches.
The feline leapt from the vanity and landed with a thud on the tile. With an indignant toss of his tail, he sat down and began grooming his paws.
“Ungrateful cat!”
Tobias leaned around me and opened the corner medicine cabinet. Shaking his head, he plunked a bottle of rubbing alcohol and box of Band-Aids onto the counter. “In all the incarnations of man, cats have always viewed themselves as the superior species.”
I stuck my tongue out at Oscar.
He ignored me and used his teeth to clean his front claws.
The click provided a soundtrack as I fished a cotton ball out of the bag in the drawer. “I don’t think he’s injured either.”
So where had the blood come from? My mind returned a blank.
Shutting the door behind him, Tobias withdrew into the shadowy hall.
His strong, silent act was beginning to grate. With one hand, I held the cotton ball over the container’s opening and tilted the bottle. Alcohol plopped into the sink and dribbled down my arm. I blinked the stinging fumes from my eyes. The cat would have to focus his attack on my right arm.
Holding my breath, I daubed the saturated ball on my cut. Blood quickly turned the white cotton to pink. And then pain rocketed up my arm to explode inside my skull. “Holy mother-frickin’-frackin’-ball-blasting-piss-ant!”
Over the pouring rain, I heard chuckles. My reflection narrowed her eyes as she stared over my shoulder at the closed door.
Laugh it up, douche bag, but one day you’ll be on the other end of the cotton ball
. I hissed and panted through cleaning the other scratches then shook loose a handful of Band-Aids.
Oscar’s ears perked up at the rattle. Tongue out, he stopped mid-groom and eyed the box.
“Stay.” I wagged my finger at him.
His attention remained fixed on the box.
I stowed it in the medicine cabinet. Oscar returned to cleaning his fur. Score one for the human. Using my teeth and fingers, I opened the bandages then placed them over the worst of the weeping gouges.
The lights flickered as thunder and lightning duked it out overhead. How had the cat gotten out of Vivian’s apartment?
Oh no!
Vivian.
My breath caught in my lungs. Holding the bandages against my skin, I switched off the light, opened the door and tiptoed into the bedroom. Lead filled my stomach. My attention zeroed in on Tobias while this morning’s conversation replayed inside my skull. “You killed her when I was sleeping!”
Tobias dropped the curtain to stare at me. “I didn’t leave your side.”
Anger propelled me forward. I didn’t care if the man was a cold-blooded killer. So what if provoking him was a bad idea? He could threaten me all he wanted, but I drew the line at hurting my friends.
Especially, when it had been my loud mouth that had gotten her in trouble in the first place. I stopped a foot short of Tobias and glared up at him, before drilling his shoulder with my finger. “You said she would never make her plane. You said—”
“I arranged for Vivian to miss her plane connection, not her death.” Watery light illuminated half his face. He held my stare, not once looking away.