no. Pinter had been a mistake, but he’d been ready to walk away at any time. He’d just hoped Paulie would come with him.
Then Paulie had died, and Hunter had been adrift. Not destroyed—hurt, but not broken. It had taken Josh Salinger to show him that.
“So what does this have to do with Chicago?” Josh asked, taking a thoughtful sip of coffee.
“During my job with Pinter, he took a trip to Chicago. I was the driver, but we went to some sort of social event downtown. Paulie and I stayed with the car”—and got laid—“but Chancellor and Creighton were the ones at Pinter’s elbow the entire time. They said it was some sort of auction. Then we got back to Arizona, and two weeks later, Chancellor and Creighton went down to Guadalajara with Pinter, got laid, and came back. Again, they had no idea what they were doing, or so they claimed. All they did was pick the package up and party. Two weeks after that, Pinter’s brains were all but running out his nose, and Chancellor and Creighton took out the gate guy and blew town, leaving the car wired to blow on the assumption that me, Paulie, and Pinter would be in it when it blew. But Pinter wasn’t completely stupid—high, but not stupid—and for some reason he was like, ‘I gotta get outta here.’ And he was so panicked, I went to go check things out at the gatehouse before we left, which was where I was when the limo blew.”
He took a big breath and looked Josh in the eyes. “What does that sound like to you?”
Josh inhaled carefully, setting his coffee down. “That sounds like they figured out what Pinter had, stole it, and tried to take down anybody who might have known anything about it. So we need to look up Guadalajara a year ago?”
“Fourteen months,” Hunter said. “But those guys—they got what they wanted. The odds of them coming back for more—”
“Are pretty big,” Chuck said. “I helped plan bank jobs for years—and I sweartagod these assholes had nothing more going for them than walk in, wave the gun, and run out. Fact is, most bad guys don’t have that much imagination, Hunter. They got money stealing one of these things before, and probably a lot. If they blew up your boss last time, that means they’ll keep ki….”
Chuck trailed off, and the silence in the room was thick.
“What?” Grace asked. “Why aren’t we talking anymore? Chuck, are you dead? Your eyes are big. Is your brain about to run out of your nose?”
Chuck slow-blinked at him, his big green eyes almost dazed. “Hunter?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a brave man. Grace, buddy, you remember the guy who shot at you and then ended up dead?”
“Jenkins?” Grace sounded surprised. Then, “Jenkins?” A little more thoughtfully that time. Chuck, Josh, and Hunter all exchanged glances, and Josh held his hand up, counting down on his fingers.
Five, four, three, two—
“Jenkins!” Grace said excitedly. “Oh my God! He was working for your bad guys.”
“Which would explain why he was taping us,” Josh said. “If Chancellor and Creighton got a look at Hunter while he was nearby, they would have wanted to know how much he knows.”
“Which wasn’t much until I put it together right now,” Hunter said. He looked at Grace curiously. “You are a superfreaky genius. Why were you the last one in the room to get it?”
Grace shrugged. “You know what you need?” he asked. “Some of that raw sugar. Or some of those international creamers that aren’t real cream. They taste good. The kind with chocolate and toffee? Yum!”
Josh tried hard to put his eyes back in his head. “Because he had to go through three extra train stations, two stops, and a tunnel to get to the same place,” he said, and Hunter nodded in agreement.
“As long as he enjoyed the trip,” he said loyally. “We’ll get a few groceries this week, Grace. Mostly I see us staying at Josh’s, but this place will be good a couple nights a week.”
Grace grinned at Chuck and Hunter. “I’m loud,” he said. And there was so much pride in his voice, Hunter couldn’t even object.
“Sadly enough, I know that,” Josh said, and Hunter had to laugh to himself. Brothers—they would always be brothers.
“I coulda guessed,” Chuck said dryly. “But I also could have stood living my entire life without knowing.”
“So Chancellor and Creighton are probably going to be at the gem gala,” Hunter said.
“Yup,” Josh told him. “And