Hello My Angel - Sue Brown Page 0,28

looked as if they wanted to run away.

“The sender’s address is Waterslea.”

Josh furrowed his brow. “Lillian didn’t say anything about sending a parcel.”

“That’s because she didn’t. Dave called to check.”

“Then who sent it?” Josh was too tired to play guessing games.

“Take a look.” Rick pointed to the parcel.

Josh went over and read the neat script on the parcel. Even if he hadn’t seen the name, he would have recognized the handwriting.

Lucinda Weatherly

Waterslea

Waterford

Hertfordshire

“She couldn’t have written it,” Rick muttered.

“No,” Josh said flatly.

“It’s Moles’s handwriting,” Max said.

“Yes.”

Ice-cold anger extended through Josh’s veins.

“The fucking bitch is playing us,” Dave burst out.

“Yes,” Josh agreed.

He didn’t want to open the box, but they had to know, had to see.

“I checked. I don’t think it’s a bomb,” Max said.

It was a fair point. Chyna wasn’t afraid of explosions.

Josh shook his head. “Not this time. She doesn’t want to kill us—yet. She wants to make us dance on her chain.”

“You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Gil said cheerfully, breaking the silence as he walked in with Cal, both of them laden with bags.

They all turned to look at the two men, who stopped.

The smile slid off Gil’s face. “What happened?”

Josh pointed at the box. “Go read the top.”

Cal put his bags down and walked over to the table, Gil following him.

Josh watched the same anger flowing through his veins darken Cal’s and Gil’s faces.

Cal looked up. “You know what this could be?”

They nodded.

“I’m going to open it.”

Josh prepared himself as Cal carefully peeled back the tape to reveal the contents.

Cal swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He reached in and pulled out a note.

“Next time it’s her head.”

He crunched the note into a tight ball and threw it into the corner. “Fucking bitch.”

Josh peered into the box and gagged before he could stop himself. Nothing could have prepared him for the shrunken hand nestled in tissue paper. He swallowed convulsively, anything to quell the rising nausea. Cal enfolded Josh in his arms. Josh held himself tight for a moment, not wanting to appear weak, but Cal didn’t let him go and he subsided, needing the comfort.

Max looked in the box and fled to the bathroom, a hand over his mouth. After a second, Gil went after him. Rick and Dave, their faces stony, turned to Cal.

“What do we do now?” Rick demanded. “Weatherly’s dead or near to it. She isn’t going to last much longer. We can’t go on like this.”

Cal’s expression was bleak. “We have to bring in the agency.”

“Fuck no,” Josh exploded, pushing out of Cal’s arms. He turned to face him, glad of an outlet for his anger. “We bring them in and we’re out. They won’t let us investigate any further.”

“They have more resources,” Cal said.

“We have CDR,” Josh pointed out.

Cal shook his head. “CDR is security, not spooks. They protect, not investigate.”

“I know that’s bullcrap.”

Josh knew he was right when Cal didn’t respond. He’d suspected for a long time that CDR had another side to its operations.

“I don’t care who you have to pull in,” he said bluntly. “We need help and we need it now.”

Rick and Dave nodded in unison.

“The princess is right,” Rick said. “This is beyond our scope. We can’t keep playing James Bond.”

For once, Josh didn’t object to the name.

Gil and Max walked back in. Max looked pale but resolute. Gil was as grim as Josh had ever seen him, his hand on Max’s shoulder.

Cal pointed to the box. “Put that in the kitchen,” he said to Rick, “and come back here. It’s time we escalated things to the next level.”

Chapter 8

“No fucking way!” Dominic yelled.

His face was almost as red as his hair. He’d been yelling for ten minutes. Max had listened for two and vanished somewhere. Gil stuck his headphones in his ears. Dave and Rick stoically endured the explosion with Josh who rolled his eyes and again when Cal nudged him in the side.

They were using the smartboard to talk to him which meant Dominic’s voice projected around the office. Since his arrival in London, Josh had been involved in explosions and gunshots at close quarters, one of which ended in a visit to the emergency room for Cal. All of them had made his ears ring, but he was convinced nothing was as loud as Dominic in a temper.

Cal tried again. “Dominic—”

“Don’t you Dominic me, you stupid, idiotic, reckless—”

“Do you think he’ll run out of adjectives soon?” Rick asked.

“Probably not,” Josh said.

“I can hear you,” Dominic bellowed.

“I’m surprised over