Page 88 of Talk to Me
“To do all of that,” Remy said, “we need a plan that gets us access, identifies all the players, and lets us build the right approach. Some of it we can steal. Some of them will need to be scratched off the board entirely. That will take time, resources, and research.”
That pulled all of their attention in my direction. McQuade stared at me steadily, Locke twisted in his seat, but Remy just lifted his chin as though he flicked a look at the rearview mirror.
“You’re going to need an operator.”
They needed me.
“You up for it, Sugar Bear?”
I leaned my head back against the seat.
“I have to be,” I said quietly. “If you are going to fight this war for me, you are not doing it without me.”
I was their operator dammit.
“You need to sleep,” McQuade said and he lifted his arm. “We’re going to be on the road for a while yet. This doesn’t work if you don’t heal.” The invitation was right there.
I should refuse. I should keep my distance. There were a lot of “shoulds” I could list. I chose none of those. Instead, I just eased over and curled up next to him and when he draped the arm around me, I closed my eyes.
Warmth wrapped me up tight, but it was more than body heat and the smell of pine, smoke, and gunpowder. It was three men who walked right into the unknown to get me free, and who kept standing between me and danger.
It was the fact someone was holding me. Human contact. More—friendly human contact.
Who knew how long it would last?
My eyes grew heavy.
“Sleep, Sugar Bear,” McQuade said. The roughness in his voice every bit as soothing as Locke’s sly sass and Remy’s precise intonations given his accent.
Sleep should have been impossible, but it rushed up to meet me, bundling me up as gently as McQuade did with the blanket.
“We need to talk,” Locke said.
“We will,” McQuade answered. “Let’s get her to sleep first.”
“Agreed.”
They needed to talk without me? A yawn stretched my jaw. I really needed to object but I really wanted the security of sleeping without fear for a little while.
Just a little while.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
LOCKE
A WEEK LATER…
Ichecked my watch after loading the last item into the back of the Jeep I’d acquired. I preferred more luxury vehicles, but this one fit the area and blended in. Not standing out was ideal for the operation. The fact temperatures had been on a steady decline meant I could wear bulkier clothes too.
McQuade had taken care of sourcing a location. Remy had transferred funds so we could work with cash and reduce the traceability. That left me on supply duty. The only protest Patch had made was when we wanted her to rest.
While the operation would require all four of us, she needed to heal, no exceptions. Period. The cabin was a quaint name for a huge five bedroom place with its own security systems. Located in far north Michigan, it was almost in Canada, if you didn’t mind traveling by boat. The address didn’t exist beyond a route number and as far as we could tell, it didn’t have a post box. Fine by us.
Snow had been a suggestion in the forecast for three days. Today, frost was in the air and flakes had begun falling steadily while I was in the store. While we didn’t dare risk returning to her place in Colorado, not until we exterminated the issues, I’d found nearly every item she’d put on a shopping list from motherboards to video cards to processor chips and memory.
The monitors had actually been the easiest. But I’d made a point of picking up the pieces from multiple locations, including having a few pieces shipped to different locker locations.