Nathan wouldn't have allowed anyone snooping around where he didn't want them to live to tell what they'd seen. Maybe that was just him. Maybe the one playing Marco Polo with him was just out here doing the same thing Nathan thought he was doing: Keeping the other one busy while the partner finished the job inside.
For all he knew, Lonnie was lying in there deader than a doornail with Drew right beside him while Nathan was hiding out in the fucking woods like some coward.
Another gunshot. Glass shattered this time. The sound echoing through the dark.
Dammit, Quinn.
He held his breath, listening for footsteps. Nothing. It was like the world had swallowed every living thing in existence.
Or he'd gone deaf.
The glow of the neon went black. The hum of power to the building suddenly silent.
There was no fucking way Quinn could have found the breaker box that fast.
The second psycho was still in the building.
The other one who'd been sent to keep Nathan occupied was very quiet. Too quiet.
While he'd been watching Quinn do something stupid, the other one had slipped silently away. No doubt to head back inside.
With Quinn. And Drew. And Lonnie. While Nathan was the fool in the woods waiting for the goddamned cavalry.
The cavalry that would likely shoot him before asking one goddamned question.
Nathan slowed his breathing. There was only one thing left to do.
He had no idea how long it would take for Natalie to get into cell range. Or how long it would take to get one of his people on the phone. How long ago had she left? Five minutes? If that long. Twenty minutes back to town. Or from town to the gas station.
Twenty-five minutes to wait for backup … twenty-five minutes was enough time for the world to come to an end.
God help them all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
"May as well come on out, sugar," the woman with the big fucking gun said in the fakest southern belle voice Quinn had ever heard. "I don't bite."
Drew went rigid against him. Not from pain or fear. The lawman in him was waking up. Or the Marine. There was a distinct difference between gregarious cop and pissed-off fucking Marine. He'd witnessed the personality switch up close several times over the past few years. Just not this up close and personal.
"Okay, I do bite," the fake voice said when he didn't reply, distracting him. "But I think maybe you might not find that objectionable in the slightest. Considering what I've read about your baby mama … you'd have to be as twisted as I am to get with something like her … considering."
Quinn blinked as the emergency lighting came on giving him his first clear look at the woman. She was beautiful. Or she had been once upon a time. Her hair and makeup were perfect, he supposed. But what were the fashionable serial killers wearing these days?
Her long, blonde hair was artfully styled in that suburban soccer-mom helmet the ladies all wore. Her perfectly pink glossed lips matched her pink pleated skirt that wasn't too long to be virginal or so short that it screamed slut. And the sweet floral sleeveless blouse fit her body like a glove, showing enough of her ample bosom to distract from the age lines forming around her big blue eyes.
Her clothes were last year's boutique. Her shoes, three-inch sandals that were at least three years out of style, but she wouldn't care about that. Women like her only cared about the label attached to the red soles of their shoes.
"You're judging me." She cocked her head to the side, a bemused smile on her face. Shrewd eyes swept over him. They were indeed blue, a murky shade of blue that came from colored contacts over darker eyes. Her dark roots needed touching up. Everything about her was fake. "I must say that up close you're not much to look at. I mean you are a pale imitation of the original, but the rest is just industry airbrushing."
Drew didn't move or make a sound, but Quinn knew they were no longer facing just one obstacle. Quinn held on to him. He didn't want Drew to do something stupid like lunge for a lunatic while another one watched from the shadows.
"What's the matter, sugar, cat got your tongue? You do enough talking with a microphone in your face. Is that what it's going to take to get you to answer? Or are you waiting for the Auto-Tune to make you sound good?"
"Who the hell are you?" Quinn asked because, seriously, he had no idea what the woman was on. Good shit if she was tripping balls out of her mind.
She smiled again. Her pink lips pulling wide to show off her perfectly white capped teeth. She looked like she was on stage at some beauty pageant and he'd just asked her a question that could only be answered with "world peace".