“What?” Zane blurted.
“I watched from across the street. Took all of them.”
“Would it be possible to dispense with some weaponry here?” Liam drawled. “My fingers are going numb.”
“Not a unicorn’s chance in Hell,” Owen grunted.
“Now, what would a unicorn be doing in Hell?” Liam asked.
“You can ask him when you get there.”
Zane slid his knife back into the sheath Liam had given him for it. “What else do we know? Why were they all taken?”
“I can only assume someone figured out who Ty was,” Owen answered grudgingly. “Someone fingered him for the murder.”
“What murder?” Liam asked. For the first time, he sounded genuinely confused.
“The one you committed,” Owen snarled. “Killed a girl, left a hoodoo curse bag behind. The same one you stuffed in Ty’s bed.”
“I’ve not stuffed anything in Ty’s bed in some years. And I didn’t kill anyone last night, certainly not some girl with a voodoo curse. Are you all still this insane? I thought that faded with time.”
Zane pointedly cleared his throat. “You think someone saw him and recognized him from when he was undercover?”
Owen nodded.
“Or someone’s setting him up,” Liam offered, turning to meet Zane’s eyes for emphasis. “Someone who knew he’d be here.”
Zane gritted his teeth. If that were the case, the cartel merely had to get to Ty in jail and he was done. They had him cornered already and Ty didn’t even know they were after him. “What do you know?”
Liam shrugged. “He went by the name Tyler Beaumont while here. Not exactly original, but one shouldn’t stray too far, am I right?” Liam winked at Owen.
“Oh God, I forgot how annoying you are,” Owen grumbled. He still had his gun up. Where had the man gotten it? Zane remembered someone saying Owen was a head of security at some big corporation, so he might carry all the time. But knowing what he did now, Zane could only assume Sidewinder carried all the time no matter what, in case they were called to action. The thought made Zane both sad and exceptionally angry.
Liam shrugged and finally lowered his hands. He edged toward the interior of the room and sat in one of the chairs, smirking at Owen as the man followed him with his gun.
“Garrett, what the f**k is going on?” Owen growled.
“Let’s just say, Mr. Bell was persuasive in getting an audience with me. There’s some stuff in play that’s going to get ugly.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Bloody stuff,” Liam answered.
“We need to get to Ty and the others,” Zane said. “I’ll go down there, identify myself. We’ll clear this up and get to work.”
Liam tutted and shook his head.
“What?” Zane demanded, already exasperated by the man.
“Identifying yourself will leave you wide open. The New Orleans Police Department is a sieve, it always has been. If the cartel lads don’t already know Ty’s there, when word gets out that a Fed was in there throwing weight around? You’ll be dead before Ty’s out of his cell and Ty will soon follow.”
“Why? What cartel guys? What the f**k are you talking about?” Owen asked. He was growing more agitated, and he was still holding the gun.
Zane took him by the shoulders so the gun was no longer trained on Liam, and he forced Owen to meet his eyes. “Listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once. Liam is with the NIA, but he’s undercover taking jobs as a paid assassin. He was hired by a cartel in Miami to come here and kill me and/or Ty, but he’s trying to help us.”
“Why?” Owen asked.
“I . . . I don’t really know.”
Owen glared at Liam. “So you’re really NIA like Ty said.” He slid his gun into the holster under his arm, but advanced on the man, pointing his finger. “You’re the one got us tossed?”
“That was not my intention,” Liam said, cool as ever as Owen seethed over him. “What the Marines did to you lot after was unconscionable and had nothing to do with me. I am sorry it happened, but I am no longer officially affiliated with the NIA.”
“You told me you were NIA,” Zane said in exasperation.
“I lied. I tend to do that. Sorry.”
Owen shook his head.
Zane waved a hand. “If you’re not really NIA, that just makes you a paid assassin!”
Liam shrugged.
Zane had to take a moment to calm his thoughts before he spoke again. “Ty thinks you’re here for revenge.”
Liam laughed. It was a deep, rich sound. “I suppose he would. Guilt does odd things to an already unstable mind. Now! Shall we discuss how we’re going to break him out of jail?”
“First we grab all our stuff,” Zane said, fighting back his misgivings. “We probably won’t be able to come back for it after this.”
Liam chuckled. “This should be fun!”
“Shut up,” Owen grumbled before turning away.
“I am a Boston Police Detective,” Nick hissed to the officer manning the front desk. He was sitting between Kelly and Digger, all of them handcuffed to a bench as they waited to be processed. It was humiliating, to say the least. “My name is Nicholas O’Flaherty, my badge is in my luggage. All you have to do is give my captain a call and we’ll clear this up!”
The woman at the desk continued to ignore him.
“Wasting your breath, man,” Digger grumbled.
Nick thumped his head against the wall. People came and went through the ornate lobby of the old building even though it was now after midnight. Tourists walked in off the street to buy T-shirts out of a vending machine. Some of them stopped to gawk at the three of them sitting there. Digger had taken to waving at them to show his handcuffs.
Kelly leaned against Nick, his head on Nick’s shoulder as he drowsed. “This is not the way I saw this weekend going.”
“Really?” Digger asked. “Because I figured it was sixty/forty we’d end up just like this. Again.”
Nick rolled his eyes.
The most frustrating part of it was knowing all three of them could have picked the locks on the handcuffs in the blink of an eye. But what were they supposed to do? Storm the police station and bust Ty out of some cell or interrogation room? Go on the lam in NOLA? And for what?
“Which one was the sixty?” Kelly asked after a few minutes.