Page 62 of Flesh and Fury
“Lordy, woman, you had us worried as hell,” he exclaimed.
She grinned and looked down at her clothing, which was a far cry from her standards of professional business attire and conservative length skirts. Today, her hair was pulled back into a long braid, and she sported well-worn black Doc Martens with two thigh holsters—both of which held twin Glocks. On her low-slung belt, she wore a black, leather knife sheath and Eoghan knew the nine-inch blade snugged inside would be sharp enough to carve up a few bad guys like butter.
“How’s it going, Laura Croft?” Eoghan asked.
“Holy crap, youdolook the part,” Ari said with a grin.
She chuckled.
He dropped his hands from her shoulders as Eoghan spotted Bear in the kitchen making coffee, thankfully in human form and thankfully clothed. “We’ve been looking for you.”
Eoghan quickly shushed him, putting his finger to his lips before mouthing “bugs” as he remembered what he’d been thinking on the way home.
“It’s fine. I swept the place. It’s clean, Eoghan,” Priest said.
He breathed a sigh of relief. “What the hell happened? We’ve been trying to reach you since last night. The doc and Kellen McGillis are at your place right now. It’s been tossed.”
She sighed. “I know. I tossed it.”
“What?” Eoghan asked, perplexed.
“Yeah, I had to make it look like I was taken. I had to know who I could trust, and it was the only way. Unfortunately, McGillis is one of the spies we’ve been hunting. He’s been working with the mole at the Agency and until last night, I didn’t even know who that was. Him being the one to respond to your call for a forensic team, simply confirms my suspicions…I mean, I knew it was him. But the fact that he’s there to make sure he collected anything I might have accidentally left behind, speaks volumes. Doc Patterson is there supervising everything, I presume?”
“Yeah,” Eoghan said, suddenly frowning as he thought of something. “Please tell me she’s not a spy as well.
“She’s not. I know who is and who isn’t,” Priest said.
“You have some ‘splainin’ to do, lady,” Ari said, doing his best Ricky Ricardo imitation.
“I know and I’ll tell you all about it.” She glanced at her watch as Bear came into the room carrying a tray of coffee mugs. She looked up at him and smiled. “Coffee. Thank God.” She picked up a cup and took a long drink. “Thank you so much, Bear. That’s great.”
“My pleasure,” the cat said, setting the tray down on the coffee table before bending and picking up Eoghan’s favorite “I pooped today” mug, and handing it to him.
“Thanks, Bear,” Eoghan said as Ari picked up another mug and they all sat. Bear went back to the kitchen and brought out a tray of scones they’d picked up from Trader Joes’ and set them on the table before excusing himself and walking down the hall. Eoghan turned to the chief. “Please tell us what’s going on.”
“We’ve got twenty minutes and then we need to leave,” she said, “but I’ll get you caught up…at least as much as I can before we have to leave to meet the others.”
“Others?” Eoghan asked.
Ari reached over and set a hand on his thigh. “Let her explain or we’ll be here all day.”
Eoghan nodded at him before turning back to her. “Sorry. Please, go on. Tell us, Chief.”
“You were already on the plane headed back here or I would have caught you up yesterday,” she said, wrapping both hands around her mug as if warming them. She took a deep breath. “Just after you flew out to Colorado, I got an urgent message from King John. He said that he’d had to move and was headed down south because his position was compromised. As you know, he moves at half the speed we do because he can only travel at night. He decided that hitching a ride would be the best way to travel since he didn’t trust that he wasn’t being followed.”
“When was this?” Eoghan asked.
“Three days ago. I expect he’s here by now.”
“He’s one of the others you talked about?” Ari asked.
She nodded, sipping her coffee. “Yes, Townsend, the dragons, the werewolf clans, and some others.”
“Where are we meeting them?” Eoghan asked.
“In a warehouse in Sun Valley. Severin and Invictus found it for us and then they notified the rest of the clans you’ve been talking to. The grizzlies would have received a message from them when they got home from Colorado too,” she said. “By the way, Rana is coming along with Andy Red Crow. They’re bringing another thirty from their two tribes and they should be arriving in the next twelve hours. They booked flights out of Colorado Springs, Kansas City, Denver, and Salt Lake City. Just in case the Agency mole is watching,they won’t see tons of clan members boarding planes all at once. They’re staggering all their flights at those individual airports and arranging their own transportation to Sun Valley from LAX, Ontario, and Burbank where they’re scheduled to land.”
“Smart. You split up the arrival airports as well as the departures,” Ari said.