couldn't see anything except the faintest grid of the scaffolding, but that was because she was right on top of it. She didn't know how he could see anything. As a matter of fact, she doubted if he
could
see anything, which meant he was swinging her blind, and he was going to drop her blind, and she was going to die—die like a homeless dog.
At the apex of her arc, her stomach flipped, and she thought
Oh, God, I'm going to be sick,
which was going to be the absolute worst thing.
But then the real absolute worst thing happened, and she realized being sick was way off base.
He let go of her.
Just let go and sent her flying through the air.
C
HAPTER
7
T HIS IS BAD, Skeeter thought. As a matter of fact, from where she was sitting in the elegantly appointed office on the seventh floor of SDF headquarters on Steele Street in Denver's lower downtown, the situation was worse than bad. It was skirting on disaster.
Three CIA agents were milling around the Scandinavian-designed furniture and a million dollars' worth of SDF's high-tech office equipment, and the one thing they were looking for wasn't anywhere in sight: Creed Rivera.
They wanted his ass, and if Dylan Hart, SDF's head honcho, didn't show up pretty damn quick, she was afraid they might just get it. She'd tried to call Creed and warn him not to come home, but—typically—his phone was turned off, and he hadn't bothered to check in. In truth, he hadn't really checked in since his partner, J.T. Chronopolous, had been killed in Colombia last summer. He was checked out, way out, and in Skeeter's opinion, Dylan had been crazy to put him on tonight's stakeout of Dominika Starkova.
She'd offered to go herself. Hell, she could do a stakeout or track somebody as well as the SDF operators, and she was a helluva lot more stable than Creed right now, which was a pretty scary turn of events as far as she was concerned. The guys were supposed to be rock-solid, and she was supposed to be the loose cannon, the spooky little wallbanger Hawkins had dragged in off the street. But she wasn't the one who woke up in a cold sweat every night, and she wasn't the one rebuilding a 1969 Chevy Nova into a 427-cubic-inch quarter-mile death machine.
She shifted her gaze out the window overlooking the seventh-floor garage. The damn Nova was parked in the first bay, taking up a piece of prime real estate. The paint on her was so black it looked blue. Her Rally wheels gleamed in the low light. She was wicked, absolutely lethal with a zero-to-sixty mph in under four seconds—and her name was Mercy, of which she had none.
Skeeter swore under her breath and forced herself to focus on what the head CIA agent, a man named Tony Royce, was saying.
“If you know where he is, Ms. Bang, it would be to your advantage to quit wasting our time and just tell us.” Royce had short brown hair, pale blue eyes, and a serious personality deficit, and by her count, that was his fourth not-so-veiled threat, each and every one of them delivered in a flat monotone voice that was really starting to grate on her nerves. Of the three agents, Royce was the one playing “bad cop,” but she didn't doubt for a second that the other two had it in them. “Believe me when I tell you I am
not
in a mood to be screwed with tonight.”
Yeah, she believed him all right.
“Creed Rivera is a danger to himself and to others,” Royce gritted the words out between his teeth, standing not two feet from where she was sitting, looming over her in what she was sure he thought was an intimidating posture.
Well, she wasn't intimidated, not in the least, but he didn't have to know that.
She tugged on her ball cap, pulling the bill down a little lower, until it almost rested on the rims of her sunglasses. Yeah, it was dark outside, but she never went without her shades, a fact which seemed to bug the hell out of Royce. He'd asked her to remove them—twice. She shifted in her chair, crossed her legs, and noticed that while Royce
could
see anything, which meant he was swinging her blind, and he was going to drop her blind, and she was going to die—die like a homeless dog.
At the apex of her arc, her stomach flipped, and she thought
Oh, God, I'm going to be sick,
which was going to be the absolute worst thing.
But then the real absolute worst thing happened, and she realized being sick was way off base.
He let go of her.
Just let go and sent her flying through the air.
C
HAPTER
7
T HIS IS BAD, Skeeter thought. As a matter of fact, from where she was sitting in the elegantly appointed office on the seventh floor of SDF headquarters on Steele Street in Denver's lower downtown, the situation was worse than bad. It was skirting on disaster.
Three CIA agents were milling around the Scandinavian-designed furniture and a million dollars' worth of SDF's high-tech office equipment, and the one thing they were looking for wasn't anywhere in sight: Creed Rivera.
They wanted his ass, and if Dylan Hart, SDF's head honcho, didn't show up pretty damn quick, she was afraid they might just get it. She'd tried to call Creed and warn him not to come home, but—typically—his phone was turned off, and he hadn't bothered to check in. In truth, he hadn't really checked in since his partner, J.T. Chronopolous, had been killed in Colombia last summer. He was checked out, way out, and in Skeeter's opinion, Dylan had been crazy to put him on tonight's stakeout of Dominika Starkova.
She'd offered to go herself. Hell, she could do a stakeout or track somebody as well as the SDF operators, and she was a helluva lot more stable than Creed right now, which was a pretty scary turn of events as far as she was concerned. The guys were supposed to be rock-solid, and she was supposed to be the loose cannon, the spooky little wallbanger Hawkins had dragged in off the street. But she wasn't the one who woke up in a cold sweat every night, and she wasn't the one rebuilding a 1969 Chevy Nova into a 427-cubic-inch quarter-mile death machine.
She shifted her gaze out the window overlooking the seventh-floor garage. The damn Nova was parked in the first bay, taking up a piece of prime real estate. The paint on her was so black it looked blue. Her Rally wheels gleamed in the low light. She was wicked, absolutely lethal with a zero-to-sixty mph in under four seconds—and her name was Mercy, of which she had none.
Skeeter swore under her breath and forced herself to focus on what the head CIA agent, a man named Tony Royce, was saying.
“If you know where he is, Ms. Bang, it would be to your advantage to quit wasting our time and just tell us.” Royce had short brown hair, pale blue eyes, and a serious personality deficit, and by her count, that was his fourth not-so-veiled threat, each and every one of them delivered in a flat monotone voice that was really starting to grate on her nerves. Of the three agents, Royce was the one playing “bad cop,” but she didn't doubt for a second that the other two had it in them. “Believe me when I tell you I am
not
in a mood to be screwed with tonight.”
Yeah, she believed him all right.
“Creed Rivera is a danger to himself and to others,” Royce gritted the words out between his teeth, standing not two feet from where she was sitting, looming over her in what she was sure he thought was an intimidating posture.
Well, she wasn't intimidated, not in the least, but he didn't have to know that.
She tugged on her ball cap, pulling the bill down a little lower, until it almost rested on the rims of her sunglasses. Yeah, it was dark outside, but she never went without her shades, a fact which seemed to bug the hell out of Royce. He'd asked her to remove them—twice. She shifted in her chair, crossed her legs, and noticed that while Royce
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