the mouse to watch the living room.
They saw Kimball and his man, finding Gil on the floor. They pulled him up, and began to question him.
Soon, the screaming began.
25
Mace scanned the woods around the wrecked luxury home with the thermal imager as he gave a still-smoking minivan a wide berth, trying not to breathe in the stink of burning plastic and scorched metal. No one there that he could see.
He skirted a half burned corpse, blood mixed with snow and shattered glass as he made his way up the steps to the wraparound deck. He peered inside the house, then around the corner of the side deck. No one. At least no one living.
He signaled an all-clear to Jim Wong and to Fiona. Nothing here but blood-drenched bodies. But not Nate’s body, or Elisa’s. Not yet. Please, God.
Clint and Mitch had recovered from their gas intoxication and had insisted on coming. They were both embarrassed at being brought low by that asshole. They were circling the woods while he, Fiona and Jim Wong took the house.
So far, nothing and no one. Whatever happened here, they missed it.
Now all that was left was to hope to God that Nate and Elisa hadn’t gotten caught in this clusterfuck. He braced himself each time he looked more closely at each of the bodies.
Hard to imagine how anyone could have escaped. Bodies were everywhere. Every wall blood-splattered. Every pane of glass shattered. Walls and furniture torn up. Shredded with bullet holes.
No sound but the whistling of the wind against the eaves and the tossing and sighing of tree boughs outside. Stray snowflakes gusted through the broken window as he crept inside. Fiona followed. Jim Wong had gone around to the other side.
He met Fiona’s eyes and signaled that he’d take the living room. She gestured toward the kitchen, moving like a shadow. She’d insisted on coming, and Anton had thrown a shit fit and tried to come, too, but Fiona had put her foot down and told him he wasn’t strong enough. An argument for the ages. Fi was a total hell-cat.
In this room alone, there were four more bodies. The furniture had been chewed up by bullets. He’d seen at least twelve corpses outside, some shot, some burned, and he hadn’t even been doing a formal tally. Just casually keeping count.
Hard to say which were Kimball’s crew and which might have worked for Clemens. He put his money on Kimball in terms of the ultimate outcome, but luckily that wasn’t for him to determine. The cops could sort through this smoking mess and figure out who these guys were. In fact, they were already on their way.
Lying in the middle of a pale, blood-soaked carpet was a body that had not been shot or burned. It had been worked over in a way that had been far slower, more deliberate and vicious. What was left was barely recognizable as human, but he could tell that it was male, and not Nate. And this one wasn’t dressed in fighting gear like the others. This dude wore dress pants. A dress shirt. Expensive shoes.
So Kimball had mistaken Gilbert Clemens for the buyer of his virus, and had treated him accordingly. The suitcase that Nate had taken from Clint’s car was open, and empty. Clint’s dirty socks and underwear were scattered over Clemens’ corpse.
He ran his eyes over what had once been Clemens, his gorge rising. He might almost have found it in his heart to feel sorry for the man, but after talking to Elisa’s brother Josh…nah. Not really.
Clemens had gotten exactly what was coming to him. But fuck, had he ever gotten a stiff dose of it. It was hard to look at.
What Kimball had done to Clemens was exactly what Kimball would have done to Mace’s brothers, and Fi and Demi. And Mace himself, for that matter. But he wasn’t losing sleep over that. It was the specter of losing the others that haunted him.
Fiona appeared in the entrance between the living room and the kitchen. She shook her head. No one alive in there. Just corpses, and ruin.
Mace pulled out his phone. “There’s no one around to hear the ringtone,” he said. “I’m calling them.”
Fiona nodded in agreement. Yet another billowing drift of snowflakes came in. The drapes that had hung in front of the picture window billowed inwardly. They were filled with ragged bullet holes that were lit from behind, like little stars.
The phone rang. No one answered. It went to