He scoffed, then sucked his fingers in an overly sexual way. "Hell no," he purred. "Go get your Gumdrop. I want this meeting with Timber over with as fast as possible."
Lucas was already jogging down the front steps, though, and climbed into the backseat with a grin that quickly morphed into a suspicious scowl.
"You guys, it totally smells like sex in here." His eyes flicked between Zed and me accusingly, and Zed snickered.
"Don't look at me," he replied, innocent as a damn nun. "I was driving the whole time."
I whacked him with the back of my hand as he laughed. "Shut up and get us over to Timber. We're going to be late at this stage, and I still want to know what the hell Alexi is doing there."
"Alexi's at Timber?" Lucas asked. "Why?"
Zed gave him a droll look in the mirror as he backed out into the street once more. "That's what we want to know."
Changing the subject, I shifted in my seat to look at Lucas as I asked how his mom was doing. He took the hint, spending the drive over to Timber filling us in on Sandra's health and how badly her mind was slipping. He'd apparently discussed it with Claudette at length today, and the nurse agreed that it didn't seem like that was from Sandra's MS. All the tests at Sunshine Estate had come back inconclusive, but maybe it was worth running them again through our own pathology lab.
We parked directly in front of the main entrance to Timber and headed up the steps. My phone buzzed in my hand, and I took the call as Zed unlocked the door.
"Hades, it's Nadia," Cass's grandmother said, unnecessarily. "I want to let you know that the little girl from the Anarchy basement passed away this morning in hospital. Feds were there, and someone heard your name mentioned. Figured you should know."
My stomach dropped, and I sighed. "Thanks, Nadia. I'll keep my eyes open."
Yet more bullshit setups. I'd bet Chase was somehow salvaging his sex trafficking frame-up to pin me for that little girl’s death. I just needed to stay alert and ahead of him.
"Door was already unlocked," Zed told me as I joined him.
I grimaced. "The building crew are probably madly trying to finish everything in time for this meeting."
We headed inside, but instead of our building crew, I spotted a blonde woman standing in the middle of the room speaking with a salt-and-pepper-haired man. Something about her seemed so familiar, even though her back was to me. It wasn't until she turned around that it clicked.
"Jeanette?" I asked, coming closer. She'd been one of my downstairs neighbors in the building that blew up, the woman with the dog that peed a lot. "This is unexpected." I arched a brow at her and glanced at the man she was with. He didn't strike any notes of familiarity, so I shifted my attention back to my former neighbor.
Her smile was cold as I approached. "I'm aware," she replied. "That's usually how these things go."
Seemingly from nowhere, the room suddenly filled with armed officers, all of them with their guns pointed straight at me. This had been a setup. But by whom? Alexi? Or Hannah when she told us Alexi was here?
"You're going to want those hands in the air, Hades," my sweet, cheery neighbor Jeanette sneered. "You have no idea how long I've looked forward to this moment."
"What moment is that, Jeanette?" I asked, keeping my tone calm as I eyed her. Now that I was paying attention, her whole demeanor had shifted slightly. Motherfucker. Jeanette had been undercover FBI the whole time she lived downstairs from me.
Her eyes flashed with anger. "Put your fucking hands in the air," she barked. Slowly, because we were surrounded by a solid fifteen to twenty armed officers, I did as I was told.
Jeanette nodded to the man beside her, and he quickly disarmed me. I could only imagine they were doing the same to Zed and Lucas behind me, but I wasn't turning to look. My eyes were locked on Jeanette.
Her smile was wide and slightly feral as she pulled a pair of handcuffs from the pocket of her ugly pants. That should have been my first giveaway. The Jeanette I knew wouldn't have been caught dead in boxy man-pants and flat shoes.
"Hayden Darling Timber," she recited, practically dancing over to me with her handcuffs ready. "You're under arrest for so, so many things. Let's start with the murders, shall we?" She started listing names that she'd clearly memorized. Some of them I recognized and was guilty for, some I wasn’t sure about, and some were definitely not me. Like Maryanne Green—Zed's ex.
"Brant Wilson?" Lucas repeated, interrupting Jeanette as she grabbed my wrists and hooked them together behind my back with the cuffs. "Did you just say Brant Wilson?"
Jeanette paused, looking over at Lucas, who was not handcuffed but did have his hands up nonetheless. "Yeah, former FBI director Brant Wilson was tortured and killed by your sugar mama."
Lucas's stricken gaze met mine, and I died inside.
"Tell me that's a setup," he croaked.
My heart screaming in pain, I couldn't lie to him. Not like this. Not when he was asking whether I was responsible for killing his bio-dad before he’d even met him. Not even my Hades armor, dented, cracked, and slow to form, could bear it. So I took the coward’s route and just closed my eyes against the agony in his glare.
Jeanette snickered a nasty laugh, then continued her list of crimes I was supposedly responsible for. Only one made me jerk in shock.
"You're under arrest for the attempted murder of Maxine Hazelford—"
"Wait, what?" I blurted, outraged. "I never hurt Maxine." There were a great many deaths I was responsible for, but Maxine's wasn't one of them.
Jeanette smirked. "No? So you didn't threaten to bludgeon her to death with a stripper shoe? The exact same weapon used to put her in the hospital last night?"
My heart stopped dead in my chest, and my eyes flew to Zed. I'd been joking with Maxine when I said that... and he’d been the only other person present.
His expression was tight and shuttered, betraying nothing, and that struck me as deep as a knife through the chest. Only then did I realize that he wasn't being arrested with me. Nor did he have any guns pointed at him.
"That was really useful evidence that Agent De Rosa collected for us, I gotta say," Jeanette continued, her voice threaded with malice. "Without that little soundbite, I doubt we'd have been able to make this all stick."
Agent De Rosa.
He wouldn't even look at me. His cold gaze just fixed on a point past my shoulder as Jeanette marched me out of Timber with my hands cuffed behind me. Outside, official cars were clustered around where Zed had parked.
Jeanette confidently pushed me toward a black sedan that must have been her own but paused briefly to open the door. Then she spotted someone coming down the street and gave a grunt of surprise.
"Huh, look at that. The new FBI Director is here to witness this monumental arrest. I bet I get a juicy promotion for this." She gave a sneering grin, and I looked in the direction she'd been facing.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, Chase motherfucking Lockhart dressed in a sharp suit strode along the sidewalk and gave me a sarcastic little finger wave.
"You've got to be kidding me," I whispered as Jeanette shoved me into the backseat of her car and slammed the door. I was helpless to do anything but stare in horror, my heart and soul shriveling up to die as Chase walked up to Zed and clapped him on the shoulder.