Page 98 of Double Shot
“Keep your secrets then, Mister Roan.” She returned my smile.
“You wanted to know where she was?” Sadie immediately stiffened and came to stand behind me, looking at the screen. “The Powhattan, room 216, facing the water.”
“That fucking bitch,” she hissed between her teeth.
“I shut down a lot of their funding yesterday, from their own panic room.” I took a sip of coffee. “She tried to leave the country, couldn’t get a plane ticket or a latte.”
“But she got a hotel room?”
“International account. I wasn’t able to hit anything on their European side. They were dumb, but not quitethatdumb.”
“So, she’s holed up in a suite less than an hour from us, with no bodyguards, no security system, no machine guns, nothing?” There was a hint of excitement in her voice.
“Possibly,” I cautioned. “Sheisarmed, and we don’t know that she’s alone. Check-in info doesn’t list the number of occupants, and the room can technically sleep eight.”
“That’s a damn big suite,” she said offhandedly.
“It is, and expensive,” I added. I thought about it and finished with, “And very public.” Sadie wilted a little at the last.
“So, what is our plan?” she asked.
“I was thinking we wait for Kyle to wake up, then breakfast, and then cruise over to the Powhattan and case the hotel, see if we can find the car she took yesterday.”
“I’ll go wake him up, we can go right now,” she said.
“Ease it down a notch, I’ve not even checked your bandage. She’s on the run, has nowhere to go, and about the only safe place for her to go, the French Embassy, would extradite her back to France in chains, they know who she is.”
“I want her, and I want her now.” Her voice was hard.
“You’re not alone there, lass,” I agreed. “But revenge is best served cold.”
“Is this really the time for those lines?”
“For this once, we have the luxury of time, and we are going to move, but not this very instant. Let me check your shoulder and see if you need any more antibiotics. Being bit by a person is almost as bad as being bit by a monitor.” She made a face, but we both went to the main bathroom.
Under the bandage, the bite looked both better and worse. The discoloration and bruising were certainly more prominent and looked terrible. The swelling was still present, but not as pronounced as it had been, and the stitches were holding. I gave it a light cleaning, applied another dose of topical pain killer, and applied a new bandage to it.
She looked away the entire time, her face as soft as a presidential profile on a coin. There was more here than torn skin and bruised muscle. Kaijin had attacked her beauty, the reflection she would see in the morning, every day. This was a scar that even the best cosmetic surgery could only reduce, never erase.
I made a mental note to suggest a tattoo later. That was a trendy thing that some women did to either conceal or make their scars into centerpieces.
But not right now.
Lach wouldn’t like that suggestion at all, but that too was a problem for another day.
“You’ll need to keep taking the antibiotics; can’t let this get infected or fester.” She nodded wordlessly, and when the dressing was done, she pulled her shirt back on.
“Last night—” she started.
“Was your comedown, and perfectly normal,” I finished.
“I was going to say intense, but yeah.”
“That is how the job goes, once it’s over, all that energy has to go somewhere.”
“I like where it went.” She smiled.
“You assholes let me sleep while you’re down here having coffee like secret confidants?” Lach reached the bottom of the stairs, clad only in a pair of lounge pants.
