Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ felt closer to him than anyone else in the universe, but at other times he was beyond annoying. What the hell was he doing? She’d known his work with the task force was winding down. Though his cover hadn’t been blown, he’d said he needed to get out while the getting was good, and besides, he’d gathered as much intel as he could, or so he’d told her.

      She knew Gretchen had hoped he would come back and partner up with her, but she’d gotten the feeling that would never happen. September suspected Gretchen had a little bit of a thing for him, but she kinda thought Gretchen wasn’t his type. As if she’d asked the question, September said aloud, “My brother tends to go for damsels in distress.”

      Gretchen made a retching sound. “Sounds like Olivia Dugan’s right up his alley.”

      “Yeah . . .”

      Detective August Rafferty was in a quandary. He’d managed to plug in his car charger for a few minutes while Liv was inside Hathaway House and text his lieutenant, but then Liv had come out and he’d scrambled to hide the evidence, to no avail. The wires had been in plain sight.

      She hadn’t said anything about it much, and he’d driven them both back to the “safe” house after filling the Jeep’s tank and now . . . what? What should he do next? He wanted to follow along the path of Liv’s zigzag investigation because this whole thing seemed to be morphing into something different than what it had first seemed. Did he think it was all about her? Not completely. But he did believe something was going on. Whether it was part of the massacre at Zuma Software, or something else entirely, he wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t truly the investigating officer on the Zuma case; D’Annibal had told him his sister and Gretchen Sandler were in charge.

      He was just an extra player. He wasn’t even really supposed to be working. This time was supposed to be his own, a decompressing period after the infiltration of Cordova’s gang. In a perfect world he’d be back at his duplex, getting ready for football season and evicting his aggravating next-door tenants.

      But instead . . .

      He glanced at Liv, who was sitting at the kitchen table. He’d asked her if she’d like a sandwich, but she’d shaken her head and was just staring straight ahead, involved in some inner pathos. He’d made a sandwich for himself and felt like he’d been eating them forever, even though it had only been a few days. Even this morning’s Egg McMuffin hadn’t been much of a break.

      “Maybe I’m wrong and it doesn’t have anything to do with me,” Liv said as Auggie grabbed the seat across from her and bit into a mouthful of turkey and mustard. “Maybe Kurt Upjohn’s involved with military games, or his company’s in debt, or he’s a gambler or a thief, or something. Or, maybe they were after someone else there. Paul de Fore, or Aaron . . .” Her throat closed. “Or Jessica, or one of the computer wizards. Or Phillip Berelli.”

      “Phillip Berelli?” Auggie mumbled, reached for a napkin to wipe his mouth. “There’s a name you haven’t mentioned.”

      “He’s the firm’s accountant.” She waved an arm. “Oh, yeah. It’s definitely him. He’s probably laundering money and hiding it in the Cayman Islands, or something.”

      He fought a smile and took a couple more bites, making short work of the sandwich half. Then he wiped his fingers and looked squarely into her hazel eyes. There was mistrust there, and a kind of simmering rebellion, as if she felt he were going to school her for her actions.

      “Okay, let’s say it is about you. For argument’s sake,” he added quickly when she looked about to protest his sudden change of tactics. “You think someone’s after you and you ran from Zuma because you think this someone—the shooter—found you and your place of work.”

      “The lawyers found me. They called me on the phone,” she reminded him. “I don’t know how the shooter found me, exactly.”

      “Well, how did the lawyers find you?”

      She spread her palms upward. “Trial and error. They were looking for Olivia Margaux Dugan and they got my home number. It probably wouldn’t be that hard. I mean, I have a phone . . . electricity . . .”

      “Did the package come to your apartment?”

      “No, I asked them to send it to the office. The lawyers messengered it to Zuma.”

      He thought about that a moment. “And you’re pretty convinced the package set off the massacre.”

      “I . . .” She exhaled, thought a moment, then said, “Convinced . . . I don’t know. But it’s the one thing that’s different in my life.”

      “What was in the package that would have threatened the killer?” He could hear how carefully he was choosing his words and hoped she wouldn’t think he was simply humoring her. He wasn’t. Not really. But he also wanted to lead her down a logical path. Maybe there was some truth buried in what she was saying. If so, he wanted to mine it.

      “Nothing, really. There were just some things there that my mom apparently wanted me to have when I turned twenty-five.” She made a sound of impatience. “The more I talk about it, the more I realize how crazy it was to run. I was just—scared.”

      “I know you don’t think so, but the police will get that.”

      “I’m not ready to go yet,” she said firmly.

      He picked up the other half of his sandwich. “Back to the package. Your mother put it together and set it up so that you’d receive it when you turned twenty-five. That’s a lot of foresight . . .”

      “Yeah.” She half-laughed. “What was she trying to tell me? What was happening in her life, that she felt the need to put the package together? I’ve asked myself these questions, believe me.”

      “What was in the package, specifically?”

      “Pictures. A personal note from my mother. My birth certificate with the names of my birth parents.”

      “You were adopted.” She nodded, and he added, “You knew you were adopted. It wasn’t a secret.”

      “It wasn’t a secret,” she agreed.

      “What were the pictures of?”

      “People. My mother. And my father. And some other strangers who looked like maybe they were my parents’ friends? There’s one man who was stalking angrily toward the camera who I think is the doctor my brother was remembering. I showed the photos to Hague, and he said the man in the picture was the zombie.”

      “Zombie?”

      “It’s what he called him when he was two. He talked about the zombie. And then . . . last night, when he saw that picture, he said he was the zombie. Maybe this guy is a doctor, who either treated him, or me. I went to Hathaway House this morning to see if I could talk to my old doctor, Dr. Yancy, but she’s no longer there and Dr. Knudson, the director, won’t be in till Monday.”

      He munched on the second half of the sandwich and asked, “You sure you don’t want one?”

      “No, thanks.”

      “Something to drink?”

      For an answer she got up to pour herself a glass of water. “I can get СКАЧАТЬ