“Off the charts.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” He rubbed the back of his head where he’d been hit. “You wanna check this out for me, Special Agent Kilbourne?”
“It doesn’t look like you lost any blood along with your memory,” she told him after running her fingers over the bump.
“I like the feel of your fingers in my hair, Kilbourne.”
“Don’t push it, Dutch. I’m cutting you some slack because you’re suffering from amnesia, but don’t forget the part about our relationship being complicated bad.”
“Roger that, so who’s after me?”
“Our best guess is Zamed Safi.”
“Name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Are there any names that mean something to you?”
He thought about it for a minute. “Nope.”
“Where have you been for the last week?”
“It’s fuzzy, but I woke up in a hotel room, with…uh…a naked woman next to me—”
“Doesn’t sound out of the ordinary so far.”
“As I was saying, shortly after I woke up, some gun-toting guy and his armed posse stormed into the room.”
“What happened next?”
He was about to make a joke about offering him the naked woman, but something told him she wouldn’t appreciate his humor. “He wanted me to deliver someone called Mantis.”
“I see.”
“What do you see?”
“Your story pretty much confirms that it was Safi. How’d you end up wandering the streets?”
“Safi ain’t exactly a pro, if you know what I’m sayin’. The one guard he left on watch fell asleep, and no one even checked to see what weapons I had on me.”
“How were you able to free yourself.”
Dutch pulled a knife out of his boot.
“And the guard?”
“I guess I should’ve slit his throat.”
“But you didn’t?”
“Negative.”
She put a bowl of soup on the table along with bread and butter.
“Is this for me?”
She nodded and looked at something on her phone. “I need to check in and give an update on your whereabouts and condition.”
“I’m pretty beat. Is there a place where I can crash for a bit after I eat?”