Wild Justice (Nadia Stafford 3)

Silence.

After a couple of kilometers, Jack said, "You gonna suggest a way?"

"Nope."

"You have an idea."

"Yep, and it's the same idea you have, which is the only way of doing this fast. I'm just not going to be the one to suggest it. That ball is in your court."

"Fuck."

"Uh-huh."

The solution was, of course, the very one that set Jack off in a temper two days ago. I needed to meet with Koss.

I called and told him someone was trying to kill me. Hey, nothing works like the truth. Of course, if you are under threat of death, it's probably best not to run to your probable assassin for help. That may have explained the awkward pause after I finished explaining the situation. Koss recovered quickly, though, and offered to help.

Okay, I didn't actually say someone was trying to kill me. That would be crazy. I just said that I thought someone was following me and I knew it was silly, and it was probably only because he'd told me about getting that call warning him away from me, but I didn't know where else to turn and . . .

He understood my predicament. He also feared that I had gotten unknowingly involved in something, and, while he wasn't jumping to any conclusions, we really should speak, in person.

"While I don't think you're in any immediate danger, Nadia, I would suggest we not meet in a public place."

Of course not. It would be so much harder to kill me in a public place.

I agreed and he continued, "I have an idea. I've been looking at alternate office space. My kids are teenagers now and some days I feel like I'm running a youth shelter here. A very loud youth shelter." He laughed and I obligingly joined in.

"There's a place I've been considering," he said. "It's an old building that a developer is remodeling. He's given me access while I make my decision. It's mostly vacant and at this hour, I suspect we won't find anyone else there."

Meet you in a vacant building at night? What an awesome idea. Apparently, Koss didn't think much of my intelligence level. Which would be insulting if I wasn't already plenty insulted over the fact he was trying to kill me.

After I hung up, I joked about it to Jack, but he knew I was actually hurt. Not about Koss's assumptions regarding my intelligence. Not even so much that he was trying to kill me. I was hurt because, as Jack had said, I'd respected the man. A lot. Part of me had still hoped he'd do or say something to convince me he was innocent. Instead, he was inviting me to meet him in a vacant building.

Jack kept me from dwelling on that by keeping me planning. We discussed how I'd get Koss talking and the various contingencies if that failed. Meanwhile, Jack would take his place in the shadows.

I dropped Jack off a kilometer away. Then I took a circuitous route. The streets were almost empty, but even if Koss saw me driving around, it was easy enough to explain that I'd made some wrong turns looking for the place in the dark. Once Jack said he was at the building and had Koss in his sights, I parked. Koss had given me very specific instructions for that, citing concerns "in case" I was being followed. Or, you know, in case he decided to kill me and needed to find my car in order to move it . . . with my body in the trunk. As I expected, the spot he'd chosen was tucked away where it was unlikely to be noticed, lending further credence to the theory that Koss had no intention of letting me walk out of here alive.

I noticed Koss approaching, but I pretended I didn't, getting out of the car and fussing with the lock as I watched his reflection in the car window, ready to pull my gun if he made any move toward a weapon of his own. He didn't. Nor, however, did he make any noise on his approach. I turned and feigned jumping.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you." He looked around. "It's quieter than I expected." He smiled. "Which I will appreciate if I get an office here."

"Are you sure this is an okay place to leave my car?" I asked. "It's kind of . . . secluded."

"It's fine. There are better break-in pickings two blocks over. A very trendy nightclub. Or so my kids tell me, despite the fact neither of them is old enough to visit a nightclub."

"Right, you said you had teens. How old?"

"Shane is eighteen and Meg is fif-- No, she just turned sixteen. As you can tell, I'm trying to forget the fact that my baby is now old enough to drive."

He steered me toward the back of the building, murmuring there was a door there. What he didn't say was that going around the front would have taken us past a bank with a street-front ATM, complete with camera.

As we walked, he continued chatting about his kids. I wasn't sure how to take that. Obviously, having children does not make you a good person. But this guy was trying to kill me and willing to talk about his kids to throw me off guard. It was a depth of disturbing that I couldn't reconcile with what I thought I knew about Sebastian Koss.

Unless there was something else happening here. I tried to sneak looks at Koss. Did he seem nervous? Any sign that he was acting under duress? That there was someone else in the building, waiting for us?

I couldn't tell. He just kept talking. Or maybe that was the tipoff. Nervous chatter.

I wanted to ask Jack for his take on it, but there was no way to do that. If he was concerned by Koss's chattering, he gave no sign of it.