us already.
“Hey,” I said to Checker. “I know you’ll work faster from here, but if you want us all to go over to Diego’s house together, it might be safer—”
He didn’t stop moving, pushing out through the back door into the twilit dawn and heading back to his computer cluster. “Is Pilar armed?”
Holy shit. Checker hated guns.
“Yes,” I admitted. Not only did Pilar have her CZ at the hotel with her, but it turned out she’d been carrying more ammo to reload with in her trunk. I’d heartily approved, but I hadn’t thought Checker would have.
“Good. We’ll work from here. Like you said, it’ll be faster.”
“Checker—” I started.
But I didn’t know what to say. We’d reached the Hole; Checker beelined inside and immediately buried himself in scrolling screens again. “Take some laptops and go, Cas. You’re right, you should be with Diego and the kids, just in case. Tell Diego—”
He stopped, the movement on his monitors pausing with him. I waited.
“Tell Diego I’ll fix this,” he finished finally, his hands moving on the keys again.
We’ll fix it, I wanted to say, but the words stuck in my throat.
thirteen
WHEN I got to Arthur’s family’s house, the morning already had that sort of hazy, scorching sunlight that made everything too bright and hard to see. I squeezed into a parking spot pointing back toward the freeway—just in case—and hiked to the bungalow with my bag of laptops.
All the blinds were drawn. At Rio’s direction, I was sure.
I knocked and called, “It’s Cas.”
Knowing Rio, he’d probably been monitoring my approach since before I was within a stone’s throw of the house. The deadbolt drew back almost immediately, and he pulled the door open. “Come in, Cas.”
I stepped into a tiny, crooked foyer with dark hardwood floors. The house had one of those bizarre, slightly haphazard architectures that happened when places were old enough to have survived several remodels. A hallway led in front of me at a slight angle, with stairs tucked against it to the right, and doorways popping off in three directions. Picture frames lined the walls—some holding photographs, presumably of the kids as they grew up, and some holding drawings or art projects or other displays of familial sentimentality.
It was a homey, cozy place. One that needed a lot more escape routes.
Rio led the way through the doorway to the right, which turned out to be a room in a slightly smashed L shape that held living room furniture in the longer part of it and a dining table back closer to the kitchen. Spread out on the table were several weapons, with a KRISS Vector half field-stripped over newspaper next to some patches and oil. I noted the Vector with approval—I loved the things; they had all the elegance and compactness of an MP5 but in .45 caliber. Speaking of, I’d have to grab some .45 from Rio for my Colt. Pilar had only had nine-mil.
Rio sat at the table and went back to cleaning his guns. “I have some security measures I would like to review with you, Cas,” he said, his hands moving deftly on the cleaning rod, “but I believe it is something we should discuss without an audience.”
I needed to discuss everything with him, from our conclusions about Teplova to the weapons and security on down, but I’d also noticed the eyes peeking through the hinges of the open kitchen door. “What’s going on with them?”
“They are playing a game,” Rio answered.
Both pairs of eyes got huge and then vanished. I’d recognized one of them as Tabitha already.
“I don’t think they realized you knew they were there,” I said to Rio. I pulled out the chair across from him and sat. “How many liabilities right now?”
“Three at the moment—the father and one son and daughter. I have been informed there are five children total, and that two more will join us today and another tomorrow.”
“You can introduce yourself, you know,” Diego said. I looked around. He’d come to the doorway of the cheery kitchen. “Juwon and Tabitha are home now. The twins are Matthias and Roy—they’re both USC students, and they’re taking summer session. They were staying over with friends last night, but I called and asked them to come home today so they could talk to you about how to stay safe. Elisa is our eldest. She’s a lawyer down in Inglewood. She’s on a business trip today, but she’ll be back tomorrow, and she has agreed to stay here until this is over.