Reaching for the bookcase behind herself, she tossed a pair of handcuffs at him. “In front is fine.”

He caught the cuffs, his head spinning. “I’m not the threat, Administrator. What happened to Quan?”

She smiled then, and the world ground to a stop. Holy shit. Quan hadn’t been the threat, but his lover had? Could Angus raise his gun fast enough?

“You won’t make it, and believe me, you don’t want to die yet,” she said quietly, no emotion in her eyes. “The game is just getting interesting. I need you alive for now.”

The game? Lassiter’s last few quoted poems ran through Angus’s head. This was crazy. Insane, actually. “It’s your face haunting Lassiter?” Angus shook his head, trying to angle his body between the woman and the breakfast nook.

“I have a clear line on Quan’s head right now,” Opal said easily. “You take one more step and I’m blowing out his brains. What there is of them, that is.”

Angus stopped moving. “That last email. The one about maternal energy that brought me right here. That was from you.”

“Of course. Email is such a tacky way to correspond, but you were using a burner phone, so I didn’t have the number. More importantly, the blonde with the shovel hasn’t been found yet, so the note next to her body is useless right now. I was under a bit of a time crunch here, Angus.” She glanced down at her watch. “Cuff yourself or I shoot your girlfriend’s father. Now.”

Angus stared at her. If he leapt at her, she’d get a shot off first.

“Oh. Drop your gun.” She settled her stance and aimed at Quan’s head.

Angus set his gun on the arm of the sofa and quickly cuffed his wrists together. He could fight with his hands bound if necessary, but he had to get her away from Quan. “You’re gonna have to catch me up here, Administrator. You’re working with Lassiter?”

“I’d say working with is a misnomer,” she said.

None of this was making a damn lick of sense. Angus saw that Quan was beginning to stir. He had to distract her. “What’s your plan now?”

Her smile revealed the megalomania that lurked deep within her ambition. “Now? Oh, now we’re going to go visit an old friend of yours.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Nari finished some instant oatmeal she’d found in the back of Jethro’s cupboard while Roscoe slept near her barstool. She glanced at her watch again. Angus had been gone for nearly an hour and there had been no word so far. Was Opal safe? Was Quan safe? She set her spoon down in the empty bowl and swallowed rapidly.

There had to be something she could do.