The Departed

a joint between his fingers. “I don’t want that shit stinking up my Mustang. That smell won’t ever come out and my folks will kill me if they smell it.”
    “Oh, kiss my ass,” Kyle snapped. “Like they’d ever notice. They’re too busy fucking everybody else in town to notice anything.”
    A dark, ugly look entered Beau’s eyes and his hands tightened on the wheel. “If you don’t want me to pound you into the fucking ground, you’ll just shut up, Kyle.”
    Kyle opened his mouth, but apparently something he saw in Beau’s face made him take those words seriously. Slumping in his seat, he mumbled, “Whatever.”
    “Fuck you.” Then Beau shot Brendan another look, his anger at Kyle bleeding back into nerves. His pupils were so huge, they all but swallowed his irises. “Nothing to worry about. You’re sure?”
    “Shit, you need to relax,” Kyle said from the backseat. He closed his eyes and tucked away his joint. “We’ve got to play it cool, remember? And would you quit being such a damn pussy? You got any idea what water will do to evidence? Any evidence there might have been? It’s gone now.”
    Mark was quiet, staring out the window.
    Casually, Brendan flipped the visor down, checked his hair, then shot Mark a look, noticed the sweat beading on the other guy’s brow, the signs of a sleepless night. Yeah, it was entirely possible Mark was just stressed, the way all of them were. But he wasn’t so sure.
    Out of all of them, Mark was the one he could see breaking the easiest. “What do you think, Mark? Any way they can link this back to us? Video shit, evidence? Anything?”
    Mark glanced at him in the visor’s mirror and then looked away. “I dunno. There’s no way I could recover anything and I got better equipment than anybody around here for miles, including the cops.” He shrugged. “But I’m not the forensics freak—that’s Kyle.”
    “Yeah.” Narrowing his eyes, he said, “You say you can’t recover anything. What about the feds? Like FBI or CIA shit?”
    Kyle sniggered. “This isn’t CIA territory, Brendan. FBI, maybe—
kidnapping and shit. But CIA? Not unless you been spying and shit on top of kidnapping girls and groping their tits.”
    Brendan looked back over his shoulder. Softly, he said, “I wasn’t the only one who took her, man. Remember that.”
    “You were the only one getting his rocks off groping her.” Kyle stared at him, smirking. “Hey, she’s got nice tits, what do I care?” He went back to staring out the window.
    Brendan decided he’d ignore the fucker for now. Ignore him, because Mark was a bigger problem. Looking into the mirror, he studied the pale, sweating prick.
    Mark stared right back.
    * * *
     
    NORMALLY, Mark would have felt like bolting. He saw something ugly and evil in Brendan’s eyes and it was more than just anger—he knew. Somehow Brendan was piecing things together and he was piecing them together in a way that involved Mark, even though Mark hadn’t really done much. Except stay out of the woman’s way.
    That was enough for Brendan, though—people who might fuck with his plans were to be stopped, period. Mark hadn’t stopped the woman, and if Brendan discovered Mark’s part in this? Then Mark was due to get royally fucked over.
    He could see the suspicion there, the wondering, the doubt…all of that simmering along with the rage. But Mark also saw something else.
    Brendan was afraid.
    For some reason that Mark wasn’t going to look at too closely, that gave him some strength—enough strength to meet Brendan’s gaze and not look away as Brendan asked, “So the FBI, then? Could they find anything?”
    His gut clenched even thinking about that. The fucking FBI? “FBI—shit.” He passed a hand over his mouth and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean, you don’t know ?” Beau shouted, slamming his fist into the steering wheel. “You’re the fucking hacker genius, aren’t you? Can they find the shit or not? What do you mean by I don’t know ?”
    “I mean I don’t know ,” Mark bit off. “It’s not like I’ve ever been into the fucking FBI headquarters. Contrary to what you might think, Sherlock, I really have no idea what they are capable of.” He collapsed back against the seat, all too aware that they were staring at him. Watching. All too aware of the doubt, the growing distrust and anger in their eyes.
    Fear was an ugly, rasping whisper in the back of his mind. Instinct