Page 76 of Jack
The man stiffened, turned, his hands up.
And her heart nearly punched through her chest.
Of course. Steinbeck Kingston. She must have left the door open.
He held his hand out in front of him. “Hey. Sorry—I saw someone come in here, and I thought maybe . . . Never mind. I can see I was wrong.”
She nodded. “Are you a guest here?”
“Yeah. But . . . sometimes catering crews can be a front for a different kind of crew—anyway.” He gestured to her weapon, obscured by the dark. “Clearly that was a leap.”
“Clearly.”
It wasn’t lost on her that the longer she stood here, the greater the chance thatrealsecurity might roll up, and with them, Stone.
Who probably didn’t know who she might be, and if she hoped to get that phone, she needed to keep it that way.
“Okay.” She sheathed the Taser. “Thank you, Mr.—”
“Kingston. Steinbeck Kingston.” He lowered his hand and held it out to her.
Oh no,she wasn’t that stupid. “You can just go back to where you came from. I’ll finish up here.”
He lowered his hand, then nodded, backed away. “I trust Stone is in good hands.”
With friends like Stein, yes.
Except, cold thought slithered through her as he took the stairs down.
Stein wasn’t . . .workingfor Declan Stone, was he?
Please don’t let him be a terrorist too.She just might give up on humankind. Because she remembered the man he’d been. Or she’dthoughthe’d been.
She followed him down, closing the door.
Only when she turned did she see that he’d paused at the end of the landing, near the other stairway, watching her.
Then he lifted his chin and headed down.
And as she strode down the hall, descended the far stairs all the way to the main floor, as she got into the rental truck and drove through the gates, it occurred to her.
Steinbeck Kingston was going to be a problem.
* * *
As she sat in a padded chair while a pedicurist filed her toenails, Harper couldn’t shake away the memory of Penelope’s scream through the phone.
Crazy.
Worse, she sat in a puffy white bathrobe, with mud drying on her face and her hair wrapped up, so it wasn’t like she could suddenly jump up and run from the room.
Besides, she had no transportation, Jack having dropped her off at Serenity Spa.
The place smelled of lavender, a waterfall rushing down a half wall that cordoned off the massage rooms. Her skin smelled of lemongrass and eucalyptus, and if it weren’t for the knot in her gut, she might have actually enjoyed the one-hour working of her tense muscles.
Except . . .Penny.
Brontë had asked whether she’d heard from her and . . .