“Yup,” Stirling murmured. He was minding his monitor in a coffee shop across from the hotel. “It’s currently still on location.”
“You guys,” Hunter growled, “I’m not kid—”
“They’re heading for the elevators,” Josh said harshly. “Molly and I are behind them. Stirling, I’m going to need an empty hotel room close to where they are.”
“Have your master ready,” Stirling told him. “And your master maker.”
It was a small handheld device that Josh was carrying in his backpack. Stirling had already hacked into the hotel’s database to see which rooms they had booked and which ones were vacant. All Josh had to do was give him the floor their two marks were on and Stirling could position them near the room they needed to burgle.
And then he could give them a key to the room.
“But you guys—”
“Nearing the elevators,” Molly murmured, and she’d pitched her voice so it sounded like she was saying something intimate to Josh. Ah, a young, happy couple.
“Pick the floor before theirs,” Hunter ordered. “See where they’re going, then hit the button for the floor below. We’ve got the tracker. We just need access to their room. That way, they won’t be suspicious.”
“Understood,” Josh said. “Grace, we don’t want them to see you. Wait five minutes and then hit the elevators.”
“I’m sorry, I’m on the stairwell. Where are we going again?”
Hunter took two deep breaths and couldn’t feel the oxygen. “I’m sorry?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“Just tell me where I’m going. I’m on the stairwell. Hurts like a bitch, by the way. Tell me if we’re going higher than ten floors ’cause I’ll come out and use the elevator—”
“It’s key card only,” Molly said. “Honey, do you have your key card?”
“Yeah, hold up,” Josh muttered in what was obviously a play for time.
“Got it!” Stirling chimed in, but he needn’t have bothered.
From a few steps away, they could hear a voice saying, “Go ahead, step in. Which floor do you need?”
“Fifteenth,” Josh said easily. “Thank you.”
“I’m on my way to the sixteenth,” Hunter told them. “After these elevators go.” He pulled out his own master key and resolved to wait an eternity, maybe three, before he took the elevator up.
“Really, hon,” Molly murmured, “you want to do that?” Oh—cover story. It took a second to figure out what she was talking about.
Josh said, “You know, you’re right, I think the timing is too close.”
“What?” came the voice—and Hunter recognized it. Tazo. It gave him chills.
“Well,” Josh said, “we wanted to go to Grouse Mountain tomorrow, but we’re not sure if we can get back in time to see the ballet we have tickets for,” Josh told him, apparently pulling a tourist trap out of a hat.
“You’re thinking about going on the Grouse Mountain tour?” Tazo said. “’Cause I’ve done that. It was amazing. Walking on the catwalks, seeing the lumberjack games. Good fun. Worth squeezing it in.”
“Thank you so much!” Molly burbled. “The buses do get us back in time—it says so on the schedule!”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Josh had spent a lot of his young life in theater, and it showed. “Thank you,” he said charmingly. “This is our floor!”
They got out of the elevator just as Hunter got on his, and he heard Molly ask over his com, “Did you really want to go to Grouse Mountain? Because I’m totally down with that if nothing’s doing otherwise.”
“Yeah. They’ve got a whole thing with indigenous species and plants—and people!”
“Fascinating! And maybe we can fit the Butchart Gardens in on Sunday, since our plane isn’t until the evening.”
“Oh my God,” Hunter muttered at the same time Grace snapped, “Fine! Plan things for me that I can’t go to. I don’t mind!”
“You’re running up a staircase when you could have waited for the elevator,” Josh told him irritably. “You can take a bus to a tourist attraction.”
“So I’m invited?” Grace sounded mildly out of breath, and a part of Hunter was reassured—he hadn’t been bullshitting about being hurt. “As long as I can walk?”
Josh’s sigh on the other end was pronounced. “If your feet hurt, I’ll hang out in the hotel with you, and as long as nothing’s doing, Molly can go with Julia.”
“What about me?” Stirling asked. “I like mountains.”
“Anybody but me and Grace can go to Grouse Mountain,” Josh said with a certain amount of grim humor. “We’re in room 1518.”
“And we’re in luck,” Stirling muttered. “Because your friends are in 1617, and there’s a connecting door between 17 and 18 on all the floors. Grace, you can rest for a while and totally check out the ventilation system—I’m pretty sure you can get into their room easy. But we need to know when those two guys are leaving.”
“Don’t worry,” Hunter said. “I’ve got that covered.”
“Wait a minute,” Josh said.
“Wait a minute,” Stirling and Molly murmured.
“Great!” Grace said. “I’ll take the stairwell to the sixteenth floor and wait until they hit the elevators.”
“No!” Hunter barked, right as his elevator door opened and he found himself looking down a hallway to where Tazo and his companion had just rounded a corner.
“Hunter Rutledge,” Tazo exclaimed. “Is that you?”
“Stirling, is the package in the room?” Hunter murmured through his teeth even as he smiled at Tazo and waved.
“As far as I can tell,” Stirling said. “We have no way of knowing if they took the gem out of the box or not.”
“We’re going to guess not.” Tazo was a hired gun—a mercenary. He and Hunter had worked jobs together, and while Tazo had followed orders to do the killing when he’d screwed up, he’d never made the decisions himself. You did what you were paid to do. And Hunter needed him out of the way—and nowhere around Grace.
“Tarkasian!” Hunter said out loud, turning fully to Tazo as he approached. “Who’d you kill to end up in Vancouver?”
Tarkasian—slick, pale-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with impeccably sculpted caterpillars above his eyes—gave a thin, thin smile from ripe, full lips. Hunter had never found him the least bit attractive, but God, had the guy been able to get laid. Mostly by women, but he didn’t discriminate. He gave his companion a smirk. Tarkasian’s companion—same coloring but thinner, slighter, wiry as a spider with thin lips and a knife-blade nose—smirked back.
“I’m Tazo here,” he said, and Hunter nodded because that happened.
“Body count wasn’t too high, this time,” the companion said. “Doing a few favors for a friend is all.”
“Friend got a name?” Hunter asked, all professional. That was standard with mercs—shoptalk.