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shot in my life. I don't know why I took that job, the hit
on your wife...but I had no intention of killing her. The thought
of it made me sick and that's the truth."
    "If you did anything to my sister–"
    "He didn't do anything to Megan." Mike
interjected, looking warily from Mark to Carl. "That's what I've
been trying to tell you, Claire. John tried to recruit him for
another hit on our family. There's a price on all our heads...but
there's fifty grand hanging over Megan."
    "Sweet Lord." Claire gasped.
    "Yeah." Mike's lips thinned. "Carl refused
the job but felt guilty over taking the job on you year before last
so he did some snooping around on his own."
    "Uh huh." Claire folded her arms across her
chest and began to lightly tap the flat edge of her knife against
her forearm. "Go on, I'm listening."
    "I made contact with Earl," Carl skirted
around Mike in order to face Claire and Mark and me. He addressed
himself to Claire. "I knew when he was planning to do the job on
your sister."
    "You mean when he was going to murder my
sister. My pregnant sister." The look she gave him and the emphasis
she placed on the word told him exactly what she thought of him and
his profession.
    "Yes." Carl nodded and kept his tone
even.
    "So, Earl not only admitted to you that he
was about to commit a murder but he told you when he was going to
do it?" Claire's brows snapped together.
    "Earl wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed."
Carl shrugged. "Anyway, I knew when he was planning to kill your
sister. I got to her house before he did; I was already waiting
inside when he tried to ambush her in the garage. I stopped
him."
    "You mean you killed him."
    "Yes." Carl sighed.
    The silence that followed was thick,
tense.
    Beside me, Claire drew in a breath. "Was
Megan...hurt? At all?"
    "No." Mike hastily reassured his sister.
"She's fine."
    "Yeah." Claire huffed out a breath. "She's
fine. Sure she is. She's only about to have a baby and survived an
attempt on her life–when? When did this happen?"
    "Two days before we left for Africa and
crossed the portal." Mike answered. "Carl stayed with her, and us,
the entire way. In fact, he never let Megan out of his sight."
    "Is that so?" Claire sized up the man again
and glanced at me with a raised brow and a thousand questions
lurking in the faint shadows beneath her eyes. I shrugged and
finally nodded. She sighed and leaned down to sheath her knife.
Straightening, she took a step forward, stuck out her hand and said
a very grudging “Thank you" to Carl.
    I thought he looked pretty shocked at
Claire's acceptance, or at least her willingness to hold off on
stabbing him. Under the circumstances, I thought it was best to
reserve judgment on Carl. The fact that he was a hit man didn't sit
well with me. Still, I didn't get the same ice creeping down my
spine feeling when I looked at Carl that I did whenever I'd been
face to face with Kahn's army of guards. Hell, whenever I so much
as thought of Kahn's guards. To be fair, the fact that Carl had
never been actively out to kill me probably had something to do
with it.
    "So," Claire rocked on her heels and reached
back to cover one of Mark's hands with her own. "You haven't left
my sister's side in four days? How's Juan taking that?" When no one
answered right away, she narrowed her eyes on her brother. "Mike.
What have you done with Juan?"
    "I didn't do anything to Juan."
    "Hey, don't look at me. He was already gone
by the time I got there." Carl insisted when Claire's eyes cut
immediately to him.
    "He left her." Mike said softly.
    "He what? What do you mean he left her?"
Claire sucked in a breath and shook her head. I shifted closer to
the left, until our arms were almost touching; she looked like she
wanted to draw her dagger again. "He can't leave her, she's having
his baby, for God's sake. She's due any day now. What was he
thinking?" she demanded. Her eyes were stricken as she stared up at
her brother.
    Mike looked pained as well. "He said it was
all too much