me park,” he told Grace. “I’ll be right in.”
Grace bobbed his blue-and-purple-streaked head and turned to scamper up the lawn toward Josh and Chuck while Hunter headed for the separate garage.
JOSH WAS too sick to come down for dinner that night, so Danny led the planning session in the basement afterward.
They were all given maps to the Institute, full of nooks, crannies, and hidden rooms where the illicit auction might happen, along with the plans for the sewers underneath the complex and a blueprint of all the rooms that would be open to the public that night for the debut of the showing.
“Our homework is to figure out where we can plant personnel, and how we can get the people tailing our jewel delivery boys through all the hoops to get into the show as quickly as possible so we have everybody where we need them. I’ll be slightly preoccupied as MC, but that means I’ll be hooked up to security, so I can help you all avoid them. And I can cue Felix and Julia in so they can smooth your way when I can’t. I’ve uploaded a virtual museum tour. See how the rooms are labeled in the schematic up here?” Everybody nodded.
“So, you all need to divvy up the schematic and start looking for places you think they’ll meet. We can be ready for anything, but there will be a few rooms that will call your names, so we can concentrate our focus on those. I’m going to leave you to your studies here and go check on Josh, yes?”
They all nodded, and Danny disappeared, leaving the group to work in an uneasy silence.
“Is it food poisoning?” Molly asked unexpectedly.
“There was blood,” Grace said, surprising them all.
Hunter looked at him. “Ulcer?” Josh’s pallor, the tiredness of the last few weeks, the getting sick—he wasn’t sure what he suspected, but it had been coming for a while.
Grace shrugged. “You all know Josh. He puts too much pressure on himself.”
There was some general murmuring, and then Stirling said, “We can take more of this on.”
“He loves running the show,” Chuck said. “I don’t think it’s an ulcer. He does work too hard—but he loves this. Maybe he just got a bad chicken sandwich.”
“Well, let’s not give him anything to worry about,” Molly said. “Squad goals—we all have a suggestion for where we think the meet will happen before we go to bed tonight. Who’s with me?”
Hunter grinned at her. The girl had management skills. “I’m in,” he said.
“Excellent! Any opposed?”
They shook their heads, bemused, and Molly said, “Break!”
And Hunter didn’t think about Josh again until they’d all figured out a possible room for a group of thieves to break into that wouldn’t get busted by security but wouldn’t be too far off the beaten path.
It was actually his favorite kind of brainwork—and the company made it better.
BUT THAT night as he and Grace crawled into bed, Grace’s preoccupation told him something was up.
“You okay?” he asked, thinking he’d never had a lover who’d fit so sweetly into his arms before. Not that he’d done a lot of sleeping with most of his other lovers, but Grace was so lithe. And when he slept, it was complete. Even his murmurings added to the comfort of his body in Hunter’s arms.
“Gabriel was sad,” Grace said softly. “I thought he might still be an asshole or a junkie or a thug. But he was just sad. And I’d always looked up to him. But as weird as I am, I’m not sad. And I’m… I’m being held by a good person.” Grace chuckled. “Not that anybody would offer ransom—except Josh.”
“Yeah,” Hunter said, and he heard the note in Grace’s voice. “Josh would break you out of hell if he had to. He’d bitch at you for it, but he’d do it.”
Grace hmmd. “I’m… I’m glad you’re here. The world is random and frightening to me. I don’t understand how one thing happens and another doesn’t. How I overdose and end up having a family and Gabe doesn’t and ends up dying of hepatitis. I can’t make any sense of it. It’s always been that weird. But you—you have always kept things in order. Even me. Don’t leave me, okay?”
Hunter’s breath caught. “You neither,” he said gruffly. “Don’t leave me. Don’t get into any cars without me. Don’t go on any jobs when I’m not there to have your back. Don’t wander away one day and forget that I’m here and I need