Page 66 of Mack's Horribly Hellacious Ghost Town
We hit up the market, bought all the drinks and a few snacks, then returned to our group. We met them at the theater doors, in fact, as everyone had walked across while waiting on us. Mack held out a hand to me. “Cher, we’ve got a battle plan.”
I took his hand, because of course, and made sure Gwyn stood right next to me. I did not trust this building. “Sure. What’s the plan?”
“This main floor seems to only have friendlies left,” Mack explained. “We cleared out all the baddies yesterday, so it’s just the trapped friendlies to deal with. So, we’re thinking, leave half down here to herd the friendlies and pass them along, while the heavy-hitting half goes up to the attic and deals with the not so friendly.”
Ah, so Eli’s earlier expression meantlet’s fuck shit up. Got it. “If it means getting out of this building faster, I’m all for it.”
“That’d be most efficient,” Booker noted. “Let’s do it.”
“Then should we start in—”
I cut myself off when Booker’s phone rang. He juggled it in his free hand, swiping Accept, then putting it on speaker. “Hi, Sylvia. I’ve got you on speaker and absolutely everyone can hear you.”
“Oh good,” she trilled. “For I have news~”
She was…chirpy?
My boss could get chirpy?
This wasn’t a sign of a breakdown, right? Maybe I should call someone to do a wellness check or something.
“I have found a chaos magician~”
Hope rose in my throat so fast I nearly choked on it. “Did you really?!”
“And!” She punctuated this with a very proud smirk audible in her voice. “He’s on his way to you.”
Mack summed up my feelings by saying, “Well, knock me down and steal my teeth.”
I was stunned she had somehow pulled this off, but at the same time so euphoric she had. This job went from borderline impossible to absolutely doable just with this one addition.
“How soon? What’s his name?” Hannah demanded.
“His name is Seiji Ito. He’s freelance with us, and the only reason why he’s not FBI is because I don’t have the budget to pay for this man. He’sverygood and usually so busy he can’t rest between jobs. Somehow, he’s managed to clear the case he was working on overnight and he’s now flying to you. He’s promised to stick with this job until either it’s done or it’s down to something you can manage.”
If she’d been in front of me, I would have hugged her. “You seriously pulled off a miracle, Sylvia, thank you.”
“I’m glad you appreciate my suffering, ’cause that took too many phone calls to pull off. Now, you still have room at the Airbnb I rented for you, correct?”
“We do if Lachlan and Davina share,” Hannah assured her. “Does someone need to pick him up from the airport?”
“That was my question. I can get him a rental car, but if someone wants to pick him up and then brief him on the drive in?I didn’t have time to get him a full packet, just forwarded him the email reports you’ve been sending me, and he’ll need more information.”
I agreed with her one hundred percent.
Some kind of silent conversation was going on between Eli, Quinn, and Booker. They looked at each other before Booker shrugged and volunteered, “I can get him. Shoot me his flight details and his number, and I’ll leave here shortly.”
“Perfect. His one request was for you to not work the ghost town until he got there. But I told him you weren’t, you were working on Black Rock. Please do not make a liar of me.”
“We do not want to touch Miner’s Creek without him,” Mack promised her wryly. “We’re trying to clear out the movie theater completely today.”
“Yes, good. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“We’re set for now”—Quinn seemed pretty sure—“but we’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“Good. Keep me posted.” Click.
“Seiji Ito?” Gwyn muttered thoughtfully. “Sounds Japanese. I wonder if he’s Japanese American?”
