Clint and Mitch had recovered from their gas intoxication and had insisted on coming. They were both embarrassed at being brought low by that asshole. They were circling the woods while he, Fiona and Jim Wong took the house.
So far, nothing and no one. Whatever happened here, they missed it.
Now all that was left was to hope to God that Nate and Elisa hadn’t gotten caught in this clusterfuck. He braced himself each time he looked more closely at each of the bodies.
Hard to imagine how anyone could have escaped. Bodies were everywhere. Every wall blood-splattered. Every pane of glass shattered. Walls and furniture torn up. Shredded with bullet holes.
No sound but the whistling of the wind against the eaves and the tossing and sighing of tree boughs outside. Stray snowflakes gusted through the broken window as he crept inside. Fiona followed. Jim Wong had gone around to the other side.
He met Fiona’s eyes and signaled that he’d take the living room. She gestured toward the kitchen, moving like a shadow. She’d insisted on coming, and Anton had thrown a shit fit and tried to come, too, but Fiona had put her foot down and told him he wasn’t strong enough. An argument for the ages. Fi was a total hell-cat.
In this room alone, there were four more bodies. The furniture had been chewed up by bullets. He’d seen at least twelve corpses outside, some shot, some burned, and he hadn’t even been doing a formal tally. Just casually keeping count.
Hard to say which were Kimball’s crew and which might have worked for Clemens. He put his money on Kimball in terms of the ultimate outcome, but luckily that wasn’t for him to determine. The cops could sort through this smoking mess and figure out who these guys were. In fact, they were already on their way.
Lying in the middle of a pale, blood-soaked carpet was a body that had not been shot or burned. It had been worked over in a way that had been far slower, more deliberate and vicious. What was left was barely recognizable as human, but he could tell that it was male, and not Nate. And this one wasn’t dressed in fighting gear like the others. This dude wore dress pants. A dress shirt. Expensive shoes.
So Kimball had mistaken Gilbert Clemens for the buyer of his virus, and had treated him accordingly. The suitcase that Nate had taken from Clint’s car was open, and empty. Clint’s dirty socks and underwear were scattered over Clemens’ corpse.
He ran his eyes over what had once been Clemens, his gorge rising. He might almost have found it in his heart to feel sorry for the man, but after talking to Elisa’s brother Josh…nah. Not really.
Clemens had gotten exactly what was coming to him. But fuck, had he ever gotten a stiff dose of it. It was hard to look at.
What Kimball had done to Clemens was exactly what Kimball would have done to Mace’s brothers, and Fi and Demi. And Mace himself, for that matter. But he wasn’t losing sleep over that. It was the specter of losing the others that haunted him.
Fiona appeared in the entrance between the living room and the kitchen. She shook her head. No one alive in there. Just corpses, and ruin.
Mace pulled out his phone. “There’s no one around to hear the ringtone,” he said. “I’m calling them.”
Fiona nodded in agreement. Yet another billowing drift of snowflakes came in. The drapes that had hung in front of the picture window billowed inwardly. They were filled with ragged bullet holes that were lit from behind, like little stars.
The phone rang. No one answered. It went to voicemail, and the recorded voice invited him to leave a message. Dread congealed inside him.
He closed the call after six rings, still paranoid about exposing them to Kimball’s wrath, and then they both heard it. He and Fiona looked at each other as they heard the creak of a floorboard, and instantly shifted back into defensive positions. Crouched behind the doorways. Guns at the ready.
In the back of the room, there was metal spiral staircase. The metal groaned under the weight of a person climbing the steps.
“Mace.” Nate’s low voice from inside the stairwell made Mace’s body sag with relief. “It’s me. We’re coming up the stairs right now, so don’t shoot us, okay?”
“Oh, Jesus. Nate.” Mace let the gun drop. His hands shook.
Fuck. Too soon. He could not crash while he was still right here, in this slaughterhouse. He had to stay sharp. Anything could happen here. Still.
Nate’s head emerged from the stairwell. His arm was soaked with blood, and his face was colorless, but his eyes were clear. He scanned the room before looking back at Mace. “You didn’t see Kimball’s crew leave?”
Mace shook his head. “They’re gone. We waited, as per your direction. We heard some police chatter on the radio. They’re on their way right now.”
“Yeah, Kimball must have heard that, too,” Nate said. “That’s why he left.”
“We missed the party,” Mace said.
“Thank God,” Nate said emphatically. “We couldn’t have taken him. Not without the others. Maybe not even then. He would have flattened us with those armed drones. How the fuck is a person supposed to fight those things?”
“Never mind that. We’ll worry about it later,” Mace told him, as Elisa’s head emerged from the stairwell. Her hair hung loose and wild around the pale oval of her face, and her eyes looked enormous and shadowy. Her crimson sweater was the only spot of color in the place. Other than all the blood, of course.
“You shot?” Mace asked, focusing on Nate’s blood-soaked arm.
“Just a flesh wound,” Nate said. “I’ll be fine until we get to a doctor.”
Elisa was moving toward the body of her ex, and Mace stepped in front of her, holding up his hands. “You don’t want to look at him,” he told her. “Trust me.”
Elisa shook her head and pushed past him. “I have to,” she said, looking down at what was left of her former husband. Her face was a mask of self-control.
She crouched down, and Mace was startled to see her reach into the pocket of his trousers, fishing until she pulled out a small flash drive. It was sticky with blood.
She stood up and held it out. “This was the cause,” she said. “Nate said Eric could probably decrypt it. We need to do that as soon as possible, and get what’s on this all over the press before Sinclair sends another army to get it back. Josh could help. He’s great at that kind of stuff.”
Mace took the flash drive gingerly. “We’re on it,” he said, with renewed respect. “And yeah, we’ll use Josh. That kid is a serious bad-ass. Tough as rawhide.”
That earned him a wan smile. It vanished as she looked back at Gil’s body.
Nate joined her. He took her hand, and met Mace’s eyes. “I’m sorry I burned the counter-surveillance plan,” he said. “I didn’t even think it would work. I figured that any kind of disruption at all might give me my opening. I had to try.”
“I understand,” Mace said. “So do the others. It was crazy, but you’re still alive, so what the fuck. It’s all good.” He pounded Nate on the back, stopping short when he saw the look on his friend’s face. “Took some rounds to the vest, did you?”
“A few,” Nate said, wincing. “Ribs probably cracked.”
“Shit. I hate it when that happens. Come on. Let’s get you guys out of this hellhole and get you taped up.”