text: When 10:00 pm rolled around, Lisa and Johnny were fully ready to stop flipping through available cable channels on the hotel TV. She glanced at her watch and nodded. "It'll be time for me to head out soon. The Johnny Haters Anonymous meeting is in an hour."
  
  "Great. I'm comin' with you."
  
  "Johnny—"
  
  "I know. You're gonna tell me it's a bad idea. I'm gonna agree. Then I'll say I'm comin' anyway 'cause I ain't lettin' you head off all on your own into a den of shitbrained thugs who wanna see me hang. You'll try to stop me, which we've already proven ain't possible any way you try to sling it." He stood and sniffed. "So let's cut through all the formalities and get to the part where we make ready to head out together, all right?"
  
  The agent stared at him and pressed her lips together to hide a smile. "How long have you been rehearsing that one in your head?"
  
  "Since about halfway through Die Hard. Love the film, darlin', but I already know how it ends."
  
  "Okay. Fine. I don't have enough bandwidth right now to argue with your plan."
  
  Johnny smirked. "'Cause you know I'm right."
  
  She stood with a soft chuckle, shook her head, and pulled up her redheaded Stephanie illusion. That done, she took her cell phone from her pocket and placed it on the coffee table.
  
  "What are you doin'?"
  
  "Leaving my phone here if you're coming with me—and staying hidden the whole time. Let's be clear about that."
  
  "Yeah, yeah. I'll be a fly on the damn wall."
  
  "A fly who stays outside, Johnny."
  
  He grunted.
  
  "As long as you can do that, I don't have any reason to keep my phone on me. And honestly, I'd rather not. That service account isn't registered in Stephanie Wyndom's name, and I'm very sure anyone who can send me a private message like that over the dark web won't have any problem at all discovering that my phone belongs to someone else."
  
  "Well, now there's no way in hell I ain't joinin' ya."
  
  "But you stay outside—"
  
  "I get it, darlin'. I hear you loud ʼn clear."
  
  "Good." Lisa looked at both hounds curled up in front of the armchair and raised an eyebrow.
  
  "What?" Luther lifted his head to stare at her. "I didn't do anything."
  
  "Don't look at me." Rex sighed and closed his eyes. "It was probably Luther."
  
  Agent Breyer didn't have to say it out loud. Johnny had already had the same thought. "Lisa and I are headin' out, boys."
  
  Luther leapt to his feet, his tail wagging furiously. "All right! Yes! You know how hard it is to stay cooped up in the same room all day without a change of scenery?"
  
  Rex stared up at his master with wide eyes.
  
  "But no hounds on this particular outin'. Sorry."
  
  "What?" The smaller hound snorted and trotted after Johnny as the dwarf headed into the huge bedroom.
  
  Lisa glanced at Rex and shrugged. "It's better this way tonight."
  
  "Yeah, I know you know I can hear you, lady. But it's not fair when I can't argue."
  
  "What do you mean no hounds?" Luther whined. "Johnny, we're a team!"
  
  "I aim to stick to the outside where no one's gettin' a whiff of a dwarf spyin' in on their secret hate meetin'," Johnny muttered. "I ain't gonna risk the two of y'all gettin' found out too."
  
  "Aw, man. We can be quiet, Johnny."
  
  "Yeah, you already know that," Rex added from the living area. "We're great huntin' dogs."
  
  "That ain't the point this time, boys. No huntin' and no sniffin' out. Only watchin' and waitin', and that'll be hard enough for me." Johnny took his duffel bag from the closet and heaved it onto the bed to root through the gear he'd brought.
  
  "This sucks." Luther jumped up to settle both forepaws on the bed and sniffed at the black duffel bag. "You won't be gone forever, will you?"
  
  "Or we'll shrivel up and die in here, Johnny."
  
  The dwarf snorted. "Few hours tops. Y'all ain't got nothin' to worry about."
  
  "Except there's no grass in the hotel, Johnny. What if we have to…go?"
  
  He smirked at Luther, then crossed the bedroom and opened the bathroom door. "Do it in the shower." He turned to leave, then remembered the toilet and closed the lid with a loud clack. "And stay outta the john."
  
  "Johnny, did you tell them to do their business in the shower?" Lisa called from the living area.
  
  "Uh-huh."
  
  Rex chuckled. "She's getting very good at guessing the rest of the conversation when she can only hear half. Hey, lady. Try to read my mind. What am I thinking right now?"
  
  Lisa stepped toward the open bedroom doorway to watch Johnny rummaging through his bag.
  
  "Figures." Rex snorted and lay his head back down on his forepaws. "No one even wants to try."
  
  Leaning against the doorway, Lisa watched Luther sniffing around the opposite side of the bed. "We can take them out before we go, Johnny."
  
  "No, we can't." Johnny strapped the belt loaded with explosive disks around his waist, then pulled out the pistol he'd repurposed into a tranquilizer. "How much you wanna bet Phil and his damn crew put someone out in the hall to watch for either one of us leavin' this suite?"
  
  "What? They wouldn't do that."
  
  "Feel free to check, darlin'. I'm sure you'll find somethin'."
  
  "No…" With a frown, she turned hesitantly away from the bedroom doorway and hurried across the suite to check through the small peephole in the front door.
  
  Johnny smirked and took a six-inch square device from the bag.
  
  "Wow." Lisa reappeared in the doorway and ran a hand through her currently red curls. "I honestly didn't expect that."
  
  "Someone camped right outside the door?"
  
  "Yeah. Cody with his camera and the woman they have with them. The one with the bandana. What's her name?"
  
  "I have no idea." Tucking the tranquilizer into its holster which he'd slung over the belt of disks, Johnny carried the black device into the living room. "But we ain't getting' out that way without the whole damn team refusin' to let us go on our own."
  
  She wrinkled her nose. "If we told them what we were doing, though—"
  
  "Darlin', those idiots followed us into an active shootout at the senator's house. They ain't concerned about gettin' into a little danger—or startin' it—as long as they get their damn shot."
  
  "So we have to sneak out of our hotel. Is that what you're saying?"
  
  A dark chuckle escaped the dwarf as he slid the dining table away from the window. He jerked the window open as far as it would go and punched the screen out. "Sneakin' out. Sure. It's one thing I've always been good at."
  
  Lisa stared at the open window that allowed in a full, bay-air breeze with nothing in the way. "Seriously? We simply climb through the window like a couple of thieves?"
  
  "'Course not. Like a couple of professionals who need to go get a job done without the paparazzi makin' a mess of the whole damn thing." Johnny returned to the center of the living area and set the square black device on the floor in front of Rex. "And this is for y'all."
  
  Luther stepped up immediately to sniff at the device. "What is this, Johnny? Doesn't smell like treats."
  
  "Doesn't look like anything for hounds at all," Rex replied.
  
  "I got a job for y'all, boys. While you're stayin' here."
  
  Rex perked up at the idea of being more useful. "What's the job?"
  
  "We can do whatever you want, Johnny. We're your hounds."
  
  "It's a pedal." Johnny nodded at the device. "Anyone comes knockin' on this door lookin' for me, y'all make sure to press the damn thing, understand?"
  
  "Press?"
  
  "You mean paw?" Luther did exactly that and stepped on the black device.
  
  "I ain't interested."
  
  "Oh, shit!" The smaller hound sprang away from the pedal with a yelp. "Johnny! How the hell did you get inside that little box?"
  
  The dwarf chuckled. "It's only my voice. It's looped with a few Johnnyisms if you gotta use ʼem but make sure you keep the barkin' up real loud too, all right? It keeps most folks too confused to realize Johnny Walker's repeatin' himself with the same six lines."
  
  "Huh." Luther sniffed the pedal, then pawed it again.
  
  "Get outta here before I come throw you out."
  
  Rex tittered. "That's a good one, Johnny."
  
  "Yeah, definitely you."
  
  Lisa smiled at the dwarf in confusion. "You came to Baltimore prepared to use that, didn't you?"
  
  Johnny raised his eyebrows. "'Course I did. I used this all the damn time back when Nelson thought it was his inalienable right to knock on my door at any damn hour he pleased. Granted, that was before I had a couple of coonhounds to put the fear of Johnny Walker in him. It'll do fine for the film crew."
  
  "You can count on us, Johnny." Rex stood to sniff the device. "No one will know you guys snuck out. Promise."
  
  "Yeah, we won't say a thing," Luther added. "Not like anyone would hear it anyway. They won't get past us, Johnny."
  
  "All right. It's only a few hours, boys. Y'all be good."
  
  "You got it, Johnny."
  
  "We're on it like my paw on this—" Luther stepped on the pedal and backed away.
  
  "I ain't fixin' to repeat myself. Now git!"
  
  "Ha-ha. Johnny, that is you."
  
  The dwarf shooed his hound away from the pedal. "Not until we're gone, huh? I ain't tryin' to explain why I was havin' conversations with myself all night."
  
  Lisa glanced at her watch. "We need to get going."
  
  "Yeah, yeah. All right. Do you wanna take the lead out the window, or should I?"
  
  She glanced at the open window with Baltimore's cityscape lit up across the darkness outside and shrugged. "Be my guest."
  
  "Well it's my suite, so it's technically the other way round. But sure." Johnny crawled onto the windowsill and moved gingerly along the small ledge toward the first-story roof protruding from the back of the building.
  
  Lisa ducked through the window behind him and looked into the parking lot. "At least we're only on the fourth floor."