Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games by Marion G. Harmon Read Free Book Online Page B

Tex-Mex, or whatever you call it.” They both looked at me.
     
    “I think I’ll stay in, guys. Besides—” I couldn’t help smiling. “You’ll have more fun without me. Just—don’t start the fun. Okay?”
     
    “Do you think anything will happen to them?” Shell asked when the door closed behind the two.
     
    I headed for the fridge. “Nope, I think they’re going to happen to someone else.” The fridge held two brands of sparkling water along with the fancy micro-brewery beer Riptide had found; I was pretty sure the multi-bedroom suites the Hollywood Knights had given to us had been designed specifically for visiting teams.
     
    Sitting back down, I considered calling Julie; staying in LA meant missing the shopping expedition the Bees had planned for tonight—nine high-end boutiques along and off Miracle Mile in one evening to update our wardrobes. (And take lots of notes; the Bees were still dedicated to their post-graduation assault on the fashion world, and the first step was their own boutique.)
     
    Lowering my bottle, I found two sets of green eyes staring at me. “What?”
     
    “They’re going to happen to someone—” Shell repeated incredulously.
     
    “—and you don’t care ?” Shelly finished.
     
    Didn’t I? I poked the spot in my head that usually exploded into panic at the thought of “negative public events,” and realized that I really didn’t. Grendel was level-headed when he wasn’t in full berserker mode, and after all of our training together he knew how to avoid it. And Riptide enjoyed his bad-boy street villain posing, but he knew just what he could and couldn’t do; he’d step right up to the line and sneer over it, but whatever happened he wouldn’t start it or escalate it. He’d just finish it.
     
    Not my circus, not my monkeys.
     
    Green eyes narrowed and Shelly opened her mouth to protest. “Hope,” Shell interrupted. “There’s a call for you. It’s Veritas .”
     
    ----
     
    “ I’m glad you could talk to me ,” Veritas said five minutes later. Taking one of the bedrooms, I had asked Shell to do a complete signals check to ensure we couldn’t be monitored and then route Veritas’ call through our quantum-link. I was talking to him inside the 21 st Century equivalent of the Cone of Silence, and anyone managing to overhear anyway would only get my side of the conversation.
     
    Paranoid? Just because the man who played Second Spook to the Spookmaster (Shell’s words) wanted to speak to me?
     
    Keep it light. “What can I do for you? Should I complain? You never call, you never write…”
     
    “ I’ll send a Christmas card. I understand you’re looking for someone? ”
     
    “Yes sir, I am.” Someone? So he didn’t trust his own secured line, or he was just that paranoid too. Should I be worried I was starting to act like him?
     
    “ Blackstone’s friends won’t find him, because his friend’s friends don’t want him found. They will tell him they’ll do their best, and they will. But nothing will happen .”
     
    My heart sank, even as I tried to figure that out. “Why?”
     
    He didn’t answer, and it was only my super-duper hearing that told me the line remained open. He was even calling from somewhere shielded for sound and I couldn’t hear anything but his breathing and his calm and steady heartbeat as I waited, feeling cold.
     
    “ Damn it, ” he finally said. “ Hope, how much do you know about what’s going on with Japan? ”
     
    “Japan’s our ally?”
     
    “ Wrong. Lesson one, there’s no such thing as Japan , outside of a geographic and cultural distinction. An island can’t be someone’s ally .”
     
    “Um, okay?”
     
    He blew out a breath. “ The same goes for us. The United States isn’t anyone’s ally. A country isn’t a person; people are allies or enemies. At best, a friendly country is one whose people don’t dislike us on principle and whose leaders consider cooperation beneficial. Our