He had a cabin? Maybe they could fix it up when all of this was over—if they survived and managed to stay together. So far, they’d fought more than kissed, although the kisses had been spectacular. Dana tried to hide a yawn behind her hand.

“I’ll walk you out to Mal’s rig.” Wolfe held out a hand, his back-to-business expression firmly in place.

She sighed and took it. Dating him sure took a lot of patience and energy.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Four

Wolfe loosened his arms, surprised at the tension coursing through him as he tugged down the brim of his baseball cap. He’d been on more ops than he could count, but he couldn’t let go of the dread in his gut on this one.

“Calm down, man.” Force walked beside him on the quiet residential street, his hands at his sides, a similar cap covering his head. “Mal will make sure nothing happens to Dana.”

“Rock, I mean Gary, might just blow up Mal’s house,” Wolfe growled.

Force shook his head, swerving around a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. “No. He won’t want to make that much of a splash yet. He’s going to pick your friends off one by one and prolong what he considers the game.” He kicked a couple of rocks out of his way, ducking beneath the boughs of a leafy tree. “From what he said to you, he’s got something else going on right now, and it’s probably the heroin. Once that’s taken care of, he will come.”

“You think he was buying himself some time?” Wolfe asked.

Force nodded. “Yeah. You spent all day fighting with Dana about protective custody, and if you’d succeeded, you would’ve spent at least the next day or two making sure the arrangements were up to snuff and getting her to cooperate.”

Yeah, that did make sense. “So you think she’s safe?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Rockcliff is crazy, and from the autopsy report on Candy Folks, he likes to kill. Gets off on it. That kind of a compulsion won’t be tamped down for long.”

Wolfe’s hand clenched into a fist. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“I wouldn’t. You need full truth, and I expect the same.” Force turned the corner onto a street that still had people mingling at this early hour. Closed businesses lined one side and apartment buildings the other. They were brick buildings with established trees; many held pots of flowers or plants on the wide balconies.

Wolfe scouted the area. “Brigid disengaged the cameras across the street?”