When the Devil Comes to Call (A Lars and Shaine Novel Book 2) by Eric Beetner Page A

She could do it. Shaine Kenney, woman of action.
    The pain in her finger vanished as she pulled the knife from the sofa cushions. She couldn’t feel her legs move across the room. Her bare feet were silent across the marble floors of the foyer.
    As she turned to face the stairs again, from behind her the front door opened.
    Shaine spun, brandishing the knife toward the intruder.
    The thick man put his hands up. “Woah, woah there.”
    Shaine recognized him. Anthony, the man who made her a sandwich.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked.
    “Coming back to work.”
    Shaine kept the knife out at arms length, the point trembling in her hand. The tip of her finger throbbed again, making up for the time out in pain.
    “Where were you?”
    “They took me, kept me in some house. I don’t know where. Then some guy comes in and says I can go.”
    Shaine didn’t know why she still held the knife. This was one of Nikki’s men. It should be Lars’s replacement. They were free to head back to the islands. Nikki had his bodyguard back.
    Shaine let the knife down. “It’s been a stressful day around here,” she explained.
    “I bet.”
    “Nikki wanted us to stay. Be his bodyguards, y’know?”
    Anthony nodded toward the knife she held down by her leg now. “So I can see.”
    “Yeah, well, you’re here now.” Shaine was done talking. She walked to the kitchen, put the knife back in the drawer and went to her bedroom. Her hands shook. Her fingers slipped off the lock twice before she managed to turn it.
    She sat on the bed feeling hot tears held back by her eyelashes, defiantly not falling. She knew she wouldn’t have been able to do it. She knew she couldn’t have dragged a knife edge across another person’s throat.
    Shaine sat on the edge of her bed, angry at herself because even though she wasn’t able to do it, she knew she still wanted to. The gap between the two was narrow, but seemed impassable.

18
     
    Shaine eyed Nikki’s neck at breakfast. He hadn’t shaved and short white whiskers hid many of the wrinkles, but not the loose skin that waggled when he ate his eggs. She imagined him sitting back in a chair and letting her shave him. The warm shave cream coating his neck like frosting on a cake. White. Ready to stain if she nicked the skin. One slip and he’d be done for.
    Lars eyeballed Anthony. The big man cooked them breakfast, a good one too. He had a way with egg yolks exactly the way Lars liked them. Forty-nine years old and he still couldn’t flip an egg without breaking the yolk.
    The way he reappeared last night like an alien abductee suddenly dropped back into his own front yard. Life went on like nothing happened, until the day the hidden brain control device was triggered and he slaughtered everyone around him.
    Now Anthony sat alone in the kitchen, eating like a servant. Lars knew damn well cooking was not on the big man’s list of job duties. He guessed if the man wanted to eat at all, and he looked like he needed to eat a fair amount every day, he might as well make it himself. What inspired such loyalty? Lars knew there was a day when he would have done the same. He also knew that day had passed.
    “You gotta do me a favor,” Nikki said, catching a bit of egg yolk before it ran too far down his chin. “You gotta clear out for a little bit this morning, Lars. Take the girl with you.”
    “What for?”
    “I got a meeting. Nobody you’d want to see.” Nikki pushed his piece of toast around the plate, sopping up bacon grease and egg yolk.
    “You mean nobody I’d want to see me.”
    “Same difference.”
    Lars had a good idea who Nikki meant and he wasn’t keen on seeing anyone from the FBI on this or any other morning.
    “Maybe we should go ahead and clear out. Head to the airport. With Anthony back–”
    “I’d rather you stay,” Nikki said.
    Lars watched the old man. He’d never seen Nikki scared. Didn’t recognize it on him. He remembered the look from the few other men