Read Games Girls Play for Free Online

and it had been an hour and a half.
    This whole fucking thing was a setup. Jane knew it. She just
didn’t know why.
    Rose was worried. Worried enough that money was transferred,
that emergency protocols were in place. That meant Jane was on edge, ready to
do an extraction. She wasn’t going to let her girl get burned.
    She’d met Rose in a nightclub in Marrakesh, her little Irish
bloom dressed like a trashy belly dancer, her job to distract the boys in the
VIP lounge while Jane, Marty and Ben worked the rest of the scene. It had been
the last time Jane had agreed to a team assignment. She was a solo. Always had
been, ever since she’d left the service.
    Even as much as they played, she and Rose had never really
stepped on each other’s toes.
    There wasn’t a reason to. Rose was way more up close and
personal.
    God damn it! She glared at the phone, willing it to ring.
She knew she couldn’t call. Rose was using a series of burn phones, carefully
procured from ten different retail locations in different states.
    Her phone rang and she looked at it, groaning when she saw
Aaron’s name show up. No. Not now. She was busy.
    She answered, though, knowing she had to play the game. “This
is Jennifer Clay,” she said, telling Aaron she was only available for
emergencies today.
    “Shelly Green was found shot and killed in the French
Quarter an hour ago.”
    “What?” If Aaron wasn’t bothering to code in, the shit had
really hit the proverbial fan.
    “You heard me. We know you’ve been in contact with her,
where is Irish?”
    “I don’t know.” No. Rose and her, their professional lives
only crossed as part of the games. They never mentioned one another to their
handlers. Never.
    “When you hear from her, you call me. We have questions for
her.” When, not if.
    Questions. Great.
    If they called her, they’d contact Marty, Ben and Wednesday.
Geoff, if he was reachable.
    Damn it.
    She hung up without another word. What the hell had Rosie
gotten into?
    “Come on, baby girl. Call me.”
    She logged onto her laptop, sliding into a secure server and
poking at an email account not even Rosie knew about, from back when Marty and
Ben and she were still in uniform. Sure enough, there was an email there from
Martin, just saying, “Clock, love. Friday. Midnight.”
    The Tick-Tock Coffee Shop was in Baltimore and she could be
there at noon, but three days? Three days was too long to wait.
    She didn’t want to push it with Marty, though. He was… He
was the best of them and the most broken. If he said Friday, there was a reason
for it.
    Jane sent an affirmative and logged off, not wanting to ring
any federal bells. She would do her own snooping between now and then, and keep
Aaron on a short leash.
    She paced, then went to disassemble her weapons, starting
with her Glock. Clean and ready, that was the way to go. The motion of her
hands became automatic, allowing her mind to race, allowing the plan to come
together.
    Jesus, Rose, what the fuck is going on? Why can’t you call
me?
    She oiled and wiped, deliberately unclenching her jaw.
Grinding her teeth would just give her cracked molars.
    This whole thing was going to make her lose her fucking
mind. She didn’t have a lot of it left, really. Hell, she knew better than to
get emotionally involved with anyone.
    Especially someone else in the business.
    Somehow, though, Rose had become as important as the job.
Maybe more so because she could imagine retiring, but she couldn’t imagine
doing it without her Rose.
    Stupid, but true.
    She stared at the phone again.
    Come on. Ring.

Chapter Six
     
    Wake up.
    Wake up.
    Come on, girl. Wake up.
    Part of Rose’s brain knew she didn’t want to find anything
remotely resembling consciousness. Part of Rose’s mind was actually reduced to
gibbering hysterical monkey noises, to be honest.
    The rest of her, though, the important part, was pissed off
and looking for a place to escape.
    And to escape she had to wake the fuck up, damn