Tag, You're It! by Penny Mccall

Author:Penny Mccall [Mccall, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-02-28T23:00:00+00:00

chapter 14

ALEX WAS UP HALF THE NIGHT. SO WAS TAG. TOO bad it was for different reasons. And in different ways. Alex spent some time pacing, some more time poring over the maps and muttering to herself. She finally collapsed facedown on the bed, forgetting she’d intended to sleep in the chair.

Tag never got to sleep.

About the time dawn began to show through the curtains he pulled on his clothes and skulked out of the room, staying quiet more to keep in practice than anything else. He could have ridden an elephant around the place and not roused Alex.

He exited the hotel and made a beeline for the nearest drug store. He wasn’t spending another night like the last one; if Alex got within a foot of chocolate again, he intended to be prepared.

He should have brought his Ruger instead. Condoms weren’t a whole lot of protection against the occupants of the long black car that pulled up to the curb just as he was getting back to the hotel. The rear door of the car opened from the inside; the man in the backseat was hired muscle, from the shoulder holster under his cheap suit coat to the clutch piece strapped to his ankle.

“Hey, Mick,” Tag said, showing the small of his back and both ankles to save himself the public pat-down. He didn’t want to give the Gold Rush attendees the wrong idea about his personal preferences. Not getting shot by Mick was a pretty strong inducement, too.

When Mick nodded, Tag ducked into the back and closed the door behind him. “Where’s Franky?”

“Franky still ain’t walking too good.”

Alex didn’t do anything halfway, even by accident. Tag would have been amused, if they’d left it at that. “That why you pulled a knife on her? Getting even?”

“Knife?” Mick looked over at him, expression flat. “Nobody pulled a knife. We just threatened her, like we was told. So you could save her.”

“I got held up by some old man with a thousand questions about the treasure. Lost sight of her.”

Mick snorted, turned forward again. “She did a pretty good job of saving herself.”

“She has a habit of doing that,” Tag muttered, mostly because his mind was racing, trying to make sense of this new information. Since there wasn’t a lot to go on, he came up woefully short.

Somebody had attacked Alex; he’d been expecting that, which was why he’d been following her. But apparently he’d missed the fake attack and stumbled onto a real one. “You don’t know who the other guy was?” he asked Mick.

“Nope.”

“Any guesses?”

“Nope.”

Shit. This just got better and better. The logical culprit was Junior. When Alex had refused to throw in with him that first morning in town, he must’ve decided to take her out. But how far out, Tag wondered? Would he have been satisfied with Alex hurt and out of commission so she couldn’t guide anyone else? Or had he wanted her dead?

Tag unclenched his fists, fought to think through the need to feel Junior’s scrawny little throat between his hands.

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