Free Dance with the Devil by Cherry Adair Page A

Let’s—Someone’s coming again. Good God. This bedroom is like a railway station!”
    They heard soft footfalls outside the door and turned as one for the bathroom. The bathroom with an emergency escape route. Too late. As the door started to open, they zipped back into the closet, which was closer.
    Trapped again. In a tiny room that was starting to feel way too much like home.
    If this was another tryst, Mia didn’t want to hang around to see what acrobatics these two might have planned. She shot a glance at Jack, and almost laughed out loud at the expression on his face.
    Because two men had come into the bedroom.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    F ORTUNATELY , or unfortunately—depending on how one looked at it—these two weren’t lovers. There was no doubt that they were muscle, despite the formal black suits, white shirts and ties they wore. They spoke in rapid Afrikaans, and it was clear to Jack the latest arrivals were in the bedroom searching for someone.
    It wasn’t going to take the goons long to spring the closet door and find the two someones they were searching for standing there like hookers in church.
    Now, how to explain what the hell they were doing in the closet when there was a perfectly good bed not twenty feet away?
    Jack grabbed her hand, pushed open the closet door, and walked into the bedroom. “Come on, honey,” he told her in a coaxing voice. “Embarrassed or not, these guys were going to find us in there.”
    It was a toss-up as to who was more surprised by their sudden emergence from the nether regions of the closet—Mia or the two goons who spun around, weapons drawn.
    â€œWhoa!” Jack said, putting up his hands even as he took the step necessary to block Mia’s body. The fact that they weren’t already bleeding was a good sign. It showed that these guys either wanted information, or they were actually considering his lame excuse. Mia’s stunned expression was helping in that department.
    The other possibility, he quickly realized, was that they might want to avoid the messy evidence of two bleeding bodies. It couldn’t be because they were afraid of someone hearing the shots. There were silencers affixed to the muzzles ensuring that no one outside of this room would hear a thing if they did decide to use their weapons.
    â€œWhat’re you two doing in here?” the one on the left demanded in a thick accent. The unibrow was a nice touch for muscle. The Heckler & Kotch USP pistols gripped in their hamlike fists gave Jack pause. These two didn’t even have to be good shots to blow him and Mia to kingdom come.
    Jack’s own custom Smith & Wesson 1911 with its Hogue grip rested comfortably in the small of his back. Mia’s .22 was in the purse she held clutched in one hand. They wouldn’t even clear leather if these two decided to open fire.
    So, since he couldn’t shoot his way out of this mess, Jack did what he did best—talked. And hoped to hell Mia would chime in like she always had. They hadn’t been called the best team in the business for nothing.
    â€œCome on, guys. A little slap and tickle isn’t grounds for getting shot, is it?” he asked easily. The two men stood between them and the exit. Behind Jack and Mia were the three doors. The closet doors, and the one leading into the bathroom.
    â€œOh,” Mia moaned, leaning into Jack even as she pulled her purse, with the gun inside, closer to her shooting hand. She managed to look slightly embarrassed. “Can we get out of here now, Jack? I’m…not really in the mood anymore.” She shot him a fulminating glance. “I told you we’d get caught.”
    â€œRelax, honey. They won’t tell.”
    The second man, greasy yellow hair in a bouffant-on-top-long-on-the-bottom mullet, waved Mia away from Jack. “Stand over there, lady. Keep your hands where we can see them.”
    â€œGood grief,” Mia said