She threw herself down off the couch and scrambled over to the mustached dwarf whose guts I’d sliced open. She shoved aside his bloody suit jacket, plucked the gun out of the holster on his belt, whipped it up, and aimed it at Ken.

   “No!” I yelled. “Don’t!”

   Too late.

   Jade pulled the trigger three times, sending three bullets straight into the dwarf’s back. Ken yelled and arched back in shock. For a moment, I thought that he was going to fall right then and there, but he snarled, lunged forward, and lashed out with my knife, taking me by surprise and catching me across the stomach. I hissed at the sharp, stinging pain, whirled around, chopped the knife out of his hand, and shoved him away.

   This time, Ken did crumple to the floor, snarling and sputtering curses all the while, although his legs didn’t move along with the rest of his body. Jade’s aim had been true, and it looked like all three of the bullets had punched into his spine.

   “Why did you do that?” I yelled, dropping down beside Ken and rolling him over onto his back, hoping that he was still alive.

   “I was trying to help you!” Jade yelled back.

   “I wasn’t going to kill him. We needed him alive.” I bent down next to the dwarf. “Who sent you? Where is Elissa Daniels?”

   I kept shouting the questions at him over and over again, but he just grinned, showing me a mouthful of bloody teeth. I leaned down, grabbed hold of his suit jacket, and lifted his chest up off the floor.

   “Who sent you?” I yelled even louder, shaking him. “Where is the girl? Where is Elissa?”

   Ken grinned at me again. “Wouldn’t . . . you . . . like to . . . know . . . bitch . . .”

   He rasped out a final breath, blood bubbling up out of his lips, and a familiar glassy sheen coated his eyes. His head lolled to one side, and I dropped him. There was no point in questioning him anymore.

   Ken was gone—and so was any information he had about Elissa.

19

   I rocked back on my heels and sat down in the middle of the mess on the office floor. The motion made fresh pain zip through the cut across my stomach, and exhaustion flooded my body. Not so much from the fight as from the fact that I hadn’t gotten any information. The questions crowded into my mind about who had sent these men here and why. And once again, I had the nagging feeling that there was a lot more going on than just a kidnapped girl. But with all the men dead, no one was left to give me any answers.

   Jade lowered the gun and slumped down onto the floor too, staring at Ken’s body with a tight, strained face. “Why didn’t you want me to shoot him?”

   “Because we needed one of them alive. We needed to question someone about Elissa.”

   Anguish filled Jade’s eyes. “I—I didn’t think about that,” she whispered. “He hurt Ryan and me. I didn’t want him to hurt you too. I saw him holding that knife, and I just grabbed the closest gun and pulled the trigger.”

   “I know. And I’m sorry that I yelled at you. It’s okay. Really, it is. We still have their phones and wallets and their car outside. We’ll find something that will tell us who sent them after you.”

   Jade nodded and slowly set the gun down on the floor. She leaned over, holding out her still-bound hands to me, and I used my knife to slice through the thick ropes. Jade got up and went over to the couch where Ryan was still sitting.

   “Are you okay?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

   Despite his battered face, Ryan smiled at her. “We’re alive, and they’re not. That’s what matters, right?”

   Jade nodded and blinked back the tears in her eyes. I held out my knife, and she took it and used it to cut through Ryan’s bonds. He leaned forward, rubbing first one wrist, then the other.

   “So what happened?” I asked, still sitting on the floor.

   Jade and Ryan looked at each other, then at me.

   “Ryan was here in the office reviewing the files, and I was in the kitchen making some more coffee,” Jade said. “The next thing I knew, one of the dwarves was smashing his gun into one of the glass doors and storming into the kitchen.”

   “I heard the noise,” Ryan added. “So I called you. I ran into the kitchen to help Jade, but the men jumped me, and I dropped my phone before I could tell you what was going on. They hit me, dragged us in here, tied our hands, and started going through all the information on the Dollmaker.” He glared down at the dead men on the floor. “They knew exactly who he was. They were here to destroy the files, to protect him.”

   “Did they say anything about him?” I asked. “Did they ever mention any names? Anyone they might have been working for?”

   Jade and Ryan looked at each other again. Both of them shook their heads.

   “They just talked to each other,” Jade said. “They didn’t mention anyone else.”

   I stared at each one of the dead dwarves. I didn’t know Ken or the other two men. I was sure of that. But Henry, the last guy, the one with the scraggly mustache, looked familiar, although I still couldn’t place when or where I might have seen him before. The dwarf had lost his phone during the fight, although the device had landed next to his hand. Something about Henry and his phone rang a bell in the back of my mind, and I found myself staring at the device, trying to recall where I had seen it and him before . . .

   “Gin,” Jade said in a sharp voice. “Gin!”

   I must have zoned out for a second, because I blinked, and suddenly she was crouching down on the floor beside me, along with Ryan. I hadn’t seen either one of them move.

   “You’re bleeding,” she whispered.

   I looked down. Sure enough, blood soaked the front of my sweater. I raised the fabric to reveal an ugly gash running across my stomach. I gingerly pressed on the wound and hissed at the fresh pain that spiked through my body. More blood oozed out of the gash and trickled down onto my jeans. Ken had cut me deeper than I’d realized.