“Alice said she was in their safe keeping.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Jake, I’m going to Sydney. I’ll lay low for a month, and then I’ll be back in touch.”

He lifted my chin with his finger. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You have a nasty habit of eluding me.”

“I’ll reform.”

“Will you come to Oregon?”

“I have a house and job waiting there, don’t I?”

He smiled. “You bet.”

Someone banged on the door.

“Who is it?” I called through the door.

“Friends.”

“That must be my escort. Here we go,” I said. “Alice said she was sending someone to escort me to the airport.”

I opened the door a crack only to have it slam into me, forcing me backward into Jake. Two men in brown suits muscled their way into the room. One whacked Jake so hard with a hand chop he crashed to the floor. The other had his hand over my mouth and my arm up behind my back in an excruciating grip. He smelled of onions. He wasn’t tall but made up for it in width and grip. The other guy kicked the door closed.

“Listen good,” Onions said. “You will not make a fuss or we kill you. But that would be messy and hard to explain. Nod your head if you understand.”

I could barely move my head up and down.

“Good.” He eased his nasty smelling hand off my mouth and relaxed his grip. Of course, I couldn’t speak I was so scared. I looked at Jake who was crumpled on the floor. I was impressed with how fast they operated. Very impressed.

“Did you kill him?” I said, rubbing my maltreated arm. “You’ll be sorry if you did.” My brave self wanted to whack them with something, wanted to go out fighting.

Onions laughed. “Wow, I’m scared. Your boyfriend, he’ll be fine. Little headache, maybe.”

“What do you want with me?”

“We want to know what you know. We seen you at the Lodge place. We want all the information you have on Alice and Albert and Cody and their operation.”

“I’m an interior designer. I found Albert dead on the library floor and somehow got pulled into this ridiculous mess.”

Onions manhandled me into the room and shoved me down on the bed, which, unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten to use much. The other guy watched Jake.

“Girlie, you know a lot more. You been hanging with these people since Albert died.”

“Did you kill Albert?”

“We should have. Dumb bugger couldn’t do a job right if he wanted to.”

“Did he work for you?”

“We thought so, but then Alice muscled in.”

I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was sharing information with me because my life wasn’t worth much in the grand scheme of things. That was unnerving, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking more questions. Curiosity was my one weakness.

“Muscled in? What does that mean?”

“It means she wanted a cut, too.”

“Alice? She was Albert’s co-worker. She’s a good guy.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

“Nice try, girlie. She was his squeeze and the wife’s.”

“The wife? You mean Olivia?”

“I mean whoever was the broad living with Albert. Alice was doing them both. We got that on her. She was willing to pay money to keep that quiet. Trouble is she stopped paying us. You’re going to help us get our money.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “I know absolutely nothing.”

“I don’t believe you. We want to know where Cody has the rest of the rifles we paid for, and he hasn’t delivered. He shorted us.”

Missing rifles was bad enough but Alice’s convoluted involvement in this whole thing was making my head hurt. I kept glancing at Jake to see if he was coming to. I didn’t want to be in this alone, and I was worried they’d done him permanent damage.

“Don’t worry about him, girlie. He’ll be fine. But you won’t be if we don’t find them rifles and our silence money.”

It was now clear why Cody wanted our help. Why he had to talk to us. He hadn’t delivered on his part of the bargain. That’s why they wanted him. I wondered why he hadn’t delivered but now wasn’t the time to go through a bunch of scenarios, not with the ugly looking guy in front of me making menacing faces.

“You have a funny accent,” I said. “Where are you from?”

“What?” he said. “Don’t make fun of me, girlie.”

“My name is Fiona, it is not girlie.”

“I don’t care what your name is. It won’t really matter if you don’t level with me.”

“You know, I wish I knew where the rifles were. I would tell you. But I didn’t know about them until the day before the fire.”

“Are you the one who set the fire? You were trying to get rid of the evidence, so’s we can’t find the guns.”

“I thought you set the fire. Cody said you set the fire to get rid of the evidence.”

Onions rubbed his square chin. “You’re testing my patience. You’re making me crazy here, girlie. I may have to use a little persuasion if you don’t stop being cute.”

The other guy pulled something out of his suit pocket. With a click it snapped out into a blade. Shades of West Side Story. I didn’t like my part in the drama.

“If you don’t start talking,” said Onions, “we relieve your boyfriend of some of his body parts.”

I nearly fainted. Here I was in a luxury hotel, in an upscale neighborhood, with three nice incentive packages in the offing and these two have to show up. I should never have answered the door.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“What?” he said. “Ivan, take off that guy’s little finger.”

“No, wait. Stop.” Now I was getting mad because that weasel Alice had double-crossed me. She sent these guys to torture us. It was all a hoax to get us to talk.

“Talk.”

“I’ll talk if you let Jake go.” This was sounding very noble.

“You ain’t exactly in a position to make any deals, girlie.”

“I’m not kidding you. Jake doesn’t know anything. I was the one did all the deals with Cody. You let him go then I’ll talk. Where is Cody by the way?”

“We knew where Cody was we wouldn’t be here with you. We’d be frying his ass instead.”

I didn’t like the imagery of an ass frying.

There was another knock on the door. Maybe help was on the way.

“Who is it?” I called before Onions could answer.

“Your escort.”

Why couldn’t they have come first?

Onions pulled a knife and held it to my throat. “You tell them to come back later. Got it?”

I nodded cautiously against the tip of the blade. We did a twosome shuffle to the door.

“I don’t need any,” I said through the door.

“This is your airport transport. You’re expecting us.”

Alice wasn’t kidding. Bless her heart. Maybe she was still on the good guys’ side although the good-bad line was very blurred.

“Just a minute,” I called through the door.

I turned to Onions. “I better talk to these people. Alice sent them. If I just send them away, she’ll know something is wrong.”

“Pull the big guy away from the door,” said Onions.

Ivan tugged Jake to the end of the bed and dumped him on the floor.

“Now, girlie, first you put the chain on, open the door a little crack, and tell that guy you need more time, come back in an hour.”

I did as directed, thankful we had only an hour left of torture time, and looked to see who was there. Hudson was standing behind another man who I had never seen before. My eyes went wide. I wanted to throw open the door and hug and kiss Hudson into oblivion. But I, of course, couldn’t. I kept staring at him until I felt a little prick against my arm.

“I’m not ready,” I said. “I need about an hour yet. Could you come back?”

“Alice said we take you now,” said the first guy who had one of those 1960s buzz cuts. “Sorry but those are the orders. We can wait out here if you want but we aren’t leaving without you.”

Hudson gave me a reassuring smile. I motioned with my eyes toward the room. That’s all I could think to do.

Onions pulled me inside and pushed the door shut. “Did you recognize that man?”

Good, he didn’t catch on that there was more than one of them. “No, I don’t know who he is, but he isn’t leaving without me.”

I forgave Alice and silently thanked her for sending Hudson. He wasn’t wearing the butler attire, rather a black windbreaker. He looked very clandestine.

Onions shoved me to where Ivan stood over Jake.

“We got a problem. Alice sent a guy to take this broad to the airport. He won’t leave without her. We’re trapped in here with the two of them.”

Ivan said, “Shit. Let’s kill them now and battle our way out of the room.”

Onions seemed to consider that. “Messy. Ratko don’t like messes.”

Who was Ratko?

The house telephone rang. Onions said, “Don’t answer.”

It rang and rang and rang.

“Someone knows we’re in here,” I said. “They may come looking for us.”

“Who wants to talk to you?” said Onions.

“I’m supposed to talk to the police about the fire. I’m wanted for questioning.”

Onions frowned. That obviously had no part in his plans. “You mean the police might be phoning you?”

The phone kept ringing. The three of us studied it. I wasn’t sure who else might want something from us. Maybe it was Jake’s buddies. The police were a possibility. Alice said she was going to make it right with the local authorities, but I wasn’t sure how that would play.

A voice with tones from the bottom of a well said, “Hello? Somebody answer the phone.” Jake was coming to.

I sidestepped Ivan and Onions and knelt to try to help him.

“Jake, Jake, can you hear me?” I said, smoothing his rumpled clothes.