Stone Cold Undercover Agent. Nicole Helm

smile. “Or do I have to make your life difficult?”

      Layne ground his teeth together, a sneer marring his features, but he gave a sharp nod.

      “Muy bueno,” Jaime said, pretending it was great news as he released the piece of garbage. “Let’s proceed, then.” He gestured grandly down the hall to the back door.

      Layne grumbled something, but Jaime was relieved to see concern and fear on the man’s face. He could only hope it would keep the man in line.

      They exited the house and Jaime waited while Layne chained everything up. The late summer sun shimmered in the green of the trees, and if Jaime didn’t know what lurked in the shed across the grass, he might have relaxed.

      As it was, relaxing wasn’t happening any time soon.

      Jaime let Layne lead the way to the shed. He preferred to touch as little as possible in that little house of horrors.

      Both men stepped in to find The Stallion pacing, hands clutched behind his back, and Wallace looking wary in the far corner.

      The Stallion looked up distractedly. “Good. Good. We’ve gotten news of Herman before Wallace even got anywhere.” The man’s hands shook as he brought them in front of him in fists, fury stamped across his face. The usual calm calculation in his eyes something darker and more frenzied. “With the Texas Rangers and a hypnotist.” The Stallion slammed a fist to the desk that made the creepy-ass dolls on the shelf above shake, their dead lifeless eyes fluttering at the vibration.

      Jaime forced himself to look away and stare flatly at his boss. Fake boss, he amended.

      “Luckily, Mr. Herman doesn’t know enough to give them much of a lead, but he certainly represents a loose end.” The Stallion took a deep breath, plucking one of the brunette dolls from the shelf. He cradled it like a child.

      It took every ounce of Jaime’s control and training to keep the horror off his face. Grown men capable of murder cradling a doll was not...comforting in the least.

      “I’ve sent a team to get rid of Herman. Scare the hypnotist. I don’t think I want to extinguish her yet. She might be valuable. But I want her scared.” He squeezed the doll so tight it was a wonder one of its plastic limbs didn’t break off.

      “There we are, pretty girl,” The Stallion cooed, resettling the doll on the shelf and brushing a hand over its fake hair.

      Jaime shuddered and looked away.

      “Until this mess is taken care of, you are all on lockdown. No one is leaving the premises until Herman is taken care of.”

      “Then, boss?” Layne asked a little too hopefully.

      The Stallion smiled pleasantly. “And then we’ll decide what to do about the hypnotist.”

      Lockdown and death threats. Jaime tried to breathe through the urgency, the failure, the impossibility of saving this man’s life.

      He’d try. Somehow, he’d try. But he had the sinking suspicion Herman was already gone.

       Chapter Five

      Gabby couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t an uncommon affliction. Even in the past two years, exercising herself to exhaustion, giving up on things ever being different, avoiding figuring out the pieces of The Stallion puzzle, insomnia still plagued her.

      Because no matter how she tried to accept her lot in life, she’d always known this wasn’t home.

      But what would be home? Her father was dead. Her sister would be an adult woman with a life of her own. Would Mom and Grandma still live in the little house on East Avenue or would they have moved?

      Did they assume she was dead? Would they have kept all her things or gotten rid of them? The blue teddy bear Daddy had given her on her sixth birthday. The bulletin board of pictures of friends and Ricky and her and Nattie.

      Her heart absolutely ached at the thought of her sister. Two years apart, they hadn’t always gotten along, but they had been friends. Sisters. They’d shared things, laughed together, cried together, fought together.

      Tears pricked Gabby’s eyes. She hadn’t had this kind of sad nostalgia swamp her in years, because it led nowhere good. She couldn’t change her circumstances. She was stuck in this prison and there was no way out.

      Except maybe Jaime.

      That was not an acceptable thought. She could work with him to take down The Stallion, and she would, but actually thinking she could get out of there was... It was another thing altogether.

      She froze completely at the telltale if faint sound of her door opening. And then closing. She closed her hands into fists, ready to fight. She couldn’t drown that reaction out of herself, no matter how often she wondered if giving in was simply easier.

      “Gabby.”

      A hushed whisper, but even if she didn’t remember people’s voices so easily, she would have known it was Jaime—Rodriguez—from a man calling her Gabby.

      Gabby. She swallowed against all of the fuzzy feelings inside her. Home and Gabby and what did either even mean anymore. She didn’t have a home. The Gabby she’d been was dead.

      It didn’t matter. Taking The Stallion down was the only thing that mattered. She sat up in the dark, watched Jaime’s shadow get closer.

      The initial fear hadn’t totally subsided. She wasn’t afraid of him per se or, maybe more accurately, she wasn’t afraid he would harm her. But that didn’t mean there weren’t other things to be afraid of.

      She had sat up on the bed, but he still loomed over her from his standing position. She banked the edgy nerves fluttering inside her chest.

      He kneeled, much like he had earlier today when they’d been putting together her map. Except she was on the bed instead of her makeshift markers.