"Doranna Durgin - Heavy Metal Honey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Durgin Doranna)

during all that whamming. "He's running off to tattle тАФ to tell someone my little fib
about having the woman pinned down. They'll race to find her first. We'll have to be
there when they do."
Rio's look turned grim. "You just let one of the bomb boys go."
"I just did exactly that."
"If we don't play this right, we walk away with nothing. Again."
Kimmer moved close to him, standing at the edge of the streetlight's aura. "You
wanted to save the mule? This is our chance to do it. If we play our cards right, we
can end up in the same place at the same timeтАжand we can grab the bomb boys and
help the mule. Everyone's happy. But when you want it allтАжit doesn't come without
risk."
His expression shifted, rapid understanding and gratitude and then something
fierce and possessive. Finally his gaze went distant. Looking ahead. "If they reach
her before we doтАж"
Kimmer pushed away from the building, finding her legs steady again. "Then we
won't let it happen. Let's go talk to whoever's left at that whorehouse."
Rio nodded, trying to hide his worry and not succeeding.
"Hey," she said. "We can do this."
And they would, because they had to. Their bomb boy, escaped; the woman,
gone. They were running out of options.
 Chapter Seven


Kimmer walked into the adobe building as if she'd been there a dozen times
before. Not an airy building, this one. Old and small and close, smelling of old clay,
with cracks festooning the walls near the ceiling and rounded corners worn by time.
Several women lounged along the wall тАФ young and old, on the verge of being used
up; all Latina. One woman sat behind a rickety wooden desk, a simplistic ledger
open before her and a broken mug holding pencil stubs and battered pens.
The room darkened тАФ that was Rio, standing in the doorway behind her. The
women drew together, and Kimmer approached the desk, not making any effort to
hide her intensity. She and Rio had been seen, after all; their quarry had bolted from
this building. No point in being coy now. She started the conversation in Spanish.
"Where did she go?"
"You must be in the wrong place." The woman's resentment glimmered through
the bored look she'd pasted on her face. "This isn't for a woman."
Kimmer gave the occupants a pointed glance. "Then we're all in the wrong place.
Where did she go?"
The woman just snorted, leaned back in a chair that might give way at any
moment, and folded her arms across her chest. The following silence was a loud
one.
"Here's how it is," Kimmer said. "We know she's sick. She's dying, in fact. We'd
like to help her. We also know there are men in this town who want to finish her off,
and they're as close to finding her as we are."
A shrug greeted her words. She heard Rio shift in the doorway, as fidgety as he
ever got. And she knew why, too тАФ thanks to her, those men were hunting the
woman more fervently than ever.
She looked straight into those flat black-brown eyes. "Okay, this is also how it is.
I'm working with a bunch of fancy-pants investigators. They haven't found your
friend because they're more interested in the men. But they're the sort of people who