You can have the dead guys, though. And the list of very confused live guys waiting to buy something from the very dead guys.”
“What are you going to do?” Liam asked curiously.
“Apparently I’m calling the bomb squad,” he said definitively, but even as he pulled his radio from his belt, Felix intervened.
“That would be lovely, sir, but if you don’t mind waiting until we’re all gone, we would be much obliged.”
“But….” Nick flailed. “Who even is that guy, and why is he trying to disarm an explosive device?”
“I’m a munitions expert,” Chuck said. “And I’m only trying because I need tools. If I had tools, I’d be succeeding. Anybody got a little screwdriver, a file, a mini wrench, and some clippers on them?”
Grace was there first with his lockpicking kit, but Danny followed up with one of his own. Felix produced a tiny wrench, Julia pulled a stiletto from a sheath at her thigh, Hunter started unloading an entire toolbox from his pockets and dorky little leather fanny pack, and Molly ran up from traffic duty to hand Chuck a thumb-sized power drill with tiny bits in assorted sizes and shapes.
Chuck stared at her in appreciation. “This is great, Molly-girl, but where were you keeping it?”
Molly shrugged and pushed up her cleavage. “The tits have got to be good for something with the lot of you. I’m serious.” She stared at Liam and Nick. “Let me guess. Gay.”
Liam shrugged. “Guilty?”
“Married,” Nick said, holding his hands up.
“No law says you can’t be both,” she told him acidly, “but you see my point. I’m going to go flag down pedestrians and beg for anonymous sex now. If we blow up, I’ll see you then.”
“Got everything you need?” Danny asked anxiously.
“I wasn’t this well-equipped in the army,” Chuck muttered. “Julia, that stiletto is something special.” He wielded it carefully before using Molly’s little electric whizbang to do something complicated afterward.
“Danny gave it to me for my birthday one year,” she said. “The emeralds in the hilt are rather famous.”
“The bomb squad is waiting at the entrance of the parking garage. You all should clear out of here,” Nick said, lowering his radio from his mouth. Molly looked at him behind her shoulder as she searched for pedestrians to warn away.
“My brother is in there, dickweed. If he goes, I go.”
In his ear, Grace heard Stirling’s tense little sob. “You should go,” he rasped.
“Fuck off, little brother,” Molly said gently. “And have some faith. I mean, his name is Good Luck Chuck—gotta stand for something.”
“The rest of you, then!” Nick tried to insist.
“Sure,” Danny said. “You first.”
Nick sent him an anguished look, and in Grace’s ear, Josh said, “Somebody make Nick go. He’s got a wife and a kid at home.”
Grace swallowed and disengaged himself from Hunter’s hand. He hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding it until that moment.
“Nick,” he said, trying for his most grown-up voice. “Josh needs you to go. You’ve got a baby. We’re here….” Grace swallowed and tried to imagine his life without Josh. It would be as meaningless as life without Hunter. “We’re here because he’s our heart. Your heart needs to be somewhere else. Go sit with the bomb squad.”
He looked behind him, where Chuck was humming—he was actually humming—as he got into his work.
“We’ll disappear shortly,” Grace reassured him. “We always do.”
“But what about the murderers!” Nick protested, looking at the two men at Grace and Hunter’s feet.
“Well,” Grace said, kicking one of them in the ribs and wincing. He’d done something to his foot when he’d kicked this same guy in the back of the head. Something not good. “If we’re still alive, they’ll still be here. If we’re not, these assholes set the fucking bomb.”
Nick grunted. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fine.”
Hunter bent down with his waiter’s tie in his hand and rummaged under the red sports car, which had stopped blaring a couple of minutes before. He came up with the Beretta that had skittered under the car next to it, held gingerly by the trigger guard.
“Got an evidence bag?” he asked.
Nick rummaged in his pocket and produced one, taking the gun using a folded poly glove to keep his own fingerprints off it. “Fantastic,” he muttered. “Let me go hold my guys off. Don’t get dead.” He gave Grace a last searching look. “And take care of Josh,” he said helplessly.
Grace—who had been pretty sure he could feel empathy for nobody outside his very tight little circle—was dismayed to find a slight pain in