“Ransom,” she said, cell phone to her ear as she walked, just like every other New Yorker on the street, “the pro. Redhead with long legs?” Curving around a businessman engrossed in his miniature tablet, she heard a crash and turned to find him staring openmouthed at her, his expensive gadget on the ground.
“Tourist,” sniffed a passing black-suited executive, her hair a sleek blonde bob and a cup of take-out coffee in her hand.
The acerbic comment made Elena grin, then they’d moved past one another.
“Wait,” Ransom said. “I was just looking up her photo—yes, that’s her. Double D chest, too.”
“Should’ve known you’d notice.”
“I’d have to be dead not to notice that. I got a nibble about a bar on—”
“I can see your bike.” Hanging up, she jerked up her head. “Bar staff know anything?”
“They saw him three days ago, that’s it.”
Crossing the street without a word, they made it to the pro’s apartment building in under a minute. Her doorman, his eyes bugging out at the weapons bristling from their bodies, didn’t put up a fight at their questions, divulging that the woman hadn’t left her apartment for forty-eight hours and counting.
“And Honey, she never misses her book club. That was last night.”
Elena’s eyes met Ransom’s at the doorman’s coda, the acrid taste of fear on her tongue. There was a very good chance that Honey Smith was no longer able to read a book, able to do anything, her decomposing body lying irreparably broken in her apartment.
Elena was so sick of being too late.
9
Having taken the stairs to the roof, Elena swept down, intending to look through the windows of the apartment, only to find the blinds shut. She returned to meet a gun-toting Ransom in front of one of the doors that lined the stylishly decorated and dimly lit penthouse floor. Her own gun out of its holster, she moved quietly to the other side of the door wide enough that her wings wouldn’t be a hindrance in a fight.
“I don’t smell decomp.” It was a bare whisper.
Elena didn’t either, but what if their quarry had been smart and changed the temperature inside? “Air-con,” she mouthed and saw Ransom’s lips flatten into a thin line.
“Ask or go?”
“Go soon as we have an in.” Ransom slid away his weapon. “Can’t take the risk he has a gun to her head if she isn’t already dead, and he’s in there with her.”
Motioning for her to keep out of sight, he put on his shades and pounded on the door. “Hey, sweetheart.” It was just loud enough that the resident, if she was alive, would worry about her neighbors. “Open up. We had a date and I paid in advance!”
Hearing rustling sounds from inside the apartment, Elena scowled at Ransom to pull away from the door in case Darrell shot through it. When he stayed put, she gritted her teeth and prepared to shove him out of the way the instant she picked up anything that sounded even vaguely like a weapon.
Except the next thing she heard was the door being unlocked and pulled open, the security chain jerking it to a stop. “Shut up, you drunk moron,” hissed a clearly irate woman. “You’ve got the wrong apartment.”
“You Honey Smith? I made the appointment through your website.”
“I’m not taking new bookings.” Unhidden frustration. “You must’ve made a mistake.”
“I have a f**king confirmation number.”
“Show me.”
“Here.” Lowering his hand into a pocket, Ransom slammed out with some kind of a metal tool and the security chain was gone.
The redhead screamed as they came in, guns out . . . to find themselves facing the wrong end of a Glock semiautomatic held by a tall, lean man in jeans that hung low on his h*ps and at least three days of beard growth on his face. “Honey.” The black-satin-robe-clad woman slid behind him at the curt order.
Ransom was the first to lower his gun. “Shit. We thought you f**king lost it, man.”
Darrell didn’t lower his own gun an inch until Elena slid hers back into the holster.
“The Guild,” she said to Honey, in an effort to defuse the tension, “will pay for the damage.”
The other woman rolled pretty hazel eyes set in a Botticelli face. “I’ll send them a bill. Now shut the damn door and come in before you get me kicked out of my apartment. I’ll make coffee.”
“Ellie found out about the weapons,” Ransom said to Darrell after the redhead disappeared down the hallway. “We were afraid you were planning to go on a rampage.”
“I thought about it.” A flat statement, his skin several shades lighter than his grandmother’s, eyes a dark gray. “It was when I started working out the best vantage points for a sniper that I locked all weapons except this one in my gun safe, changed the combination blind so I couldn’t open it without a blowtorch, and came here.”
“Whatever your excuse,” Elena said, tone hard because Darrell needed it to be hard, “you should’ve checked in with the Guild—and your gran.”
It was her final statement that got his attention, his eyes tortured. “I knew she’d be able to tell I was in trouble, and she’s so sick. I didn’t want to worry her.”
Elena threw him her phone, unable to forget the trembling of Ms. Flaherty’s hands. “Do it now.”
The smell of coffee filtered into the air just as he finished the call, and Honey padded back to the entranceway. “Y’all planning to come in and visit, or just stand around looking badass?”