text: Lisa called Agent Nelson three different times in the next fifteen minutes, but the man didn't answer. "What is he doing?"
  
  "What's goin' on, darlin'?" Johnny turned his head toward her but kept his gaze firmly fixed on the unconscious Red Boar.
  
  "Tommy won't answer his phone. I have no idea why. He knows we're out here on a case."
  
  "Sure. He knows about both of ʼem too. Do you think the Department got wind of what we were doin' out here with the show?"
  
  "I have no idea."
  
  "Johnny, how about a little Q&A now," Phil said. "While the fight's still fresh in your mind?"
  
  "I let y'all stick around to catch whatever you want of this, pal. But I ain't takin' my attention off this scarred lump of meat until I've got him bagged up and shipped out in a SWAT van. Understand?"
  
  "Sure." The man inched toward Johnny with a hesitant smile. "But you can watch him and talk at the same time, can't you?"
  
  "Not gonna happen."
  
  The elevator doors opened at the end of the hall, and Howie demanded, "What the hell is going on here?"
  
  "He got ambushed," Evan said and hurried past the old man with the cane. Yards of rope and a few thick, looped feet of chains dangled around the half-wizard's arm. "And then we…ambushed the ambusher, I guess."
  
  "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, son. And what are you doing here in the first place? You were at that senator's house, weren't you? With the Kilomeas?"
  
  "Yeah…"
  
  Howie stopped in front of Johnny's suite and blinked at the damaged front door and what little wreckage he could see down the hall. "Johnny?"
  
  "We're in here, Howie. All's good."
  
  Evan moved clear of the old man and hurried into the living area. "I got as much as I could. Rope. Chains. Zip-ties. Duct tape."
  
  The plastic bag and coils of rope and chains thumped to the floor at Johnny's feet.
  
  "Thanks, Evan."
  
  "Sure. Here's your change too."
  
  Johnny looked up at him and shook his head. "Naw, you can keep that."
  
  "What? It's like…two hundred dollars."
  
  "Don't make no difference to me."
  
  "But—"
  
  "Hell, Ev. If you won't take it, I will." Percy reached toward the bill's in his friend's hand with a low chuckle.
  
  "Well, hold on. I didn't say that." Evan pocketed the cash and darted his friend a warning glance.
  
  Howie's cane thumped down the hallway. "This wasn't part of the plan, Johnny."
  
  "Plans change." The dwarf turned slowly to look at his old friend hobbling through the destroyed living area. "You know that."
  
  "Yeah, and I know you look like shit too. What happened?"
  
  "I got shot."
  
  "Jesus Christ. And who the hell's the big guy?"
  
  Johnny scowled at the Red Boar again and only had to say, "This is for Dawn."
  
  "Oh, shit."
  
  Luther walked sluggishly out of the kitchen and paused to sniff at the old man's cane. "Oof. You got some kinda stink on you, two-legs."
  
  "I think that's just what old smells like, bro." Rex licked his muzzle and sat in the kitchen. "I don't know. All I smell is doughnuts."
  
  "Boys!" Johnny snapped his fingers, and both hounds waddled toward him. The dwarf shook his head when he saw the powdered sugar coating Rex's muzzle and paws and the jelly filling that somehow made its way up the side of Luther's face. "Y'all had your breakfast, I see."
  
  "And it was delicious."
  
  "Best breakfast you've ever brought us, Johnny."
  
  Luther uttered a low whine and sat. "It doesn't sit well for very long, though. My belly hurts."
  
  "'Cause you ate the whole damn bag, didn't you?"
  
  Neither hound said a word.
  
  A loud knock came at the destroyed open door. "Baltimore PD. Anyone inside?"
  
  "Great." Lisa rolled her eyes and hurried toward the front of the suite. "I'll take care of this. And then Tommy better answer his damn phone."
  
  When she reached the front door, she couldn't hide a wry chuckle at the sight of Officers Brently and McCormick standing there with their hands on their holstered service weapons. "Officers."
  
  Brently pressed his lips together and tried to peer into the suite. "Agent Breyer. We got a disturbance call—"
  
  "Yeah, I bet you did, although I already knew there would be an attack here in this room."
  
  "Yeah." McCormick scratched the back of his bald head. "We had to take our due diligence with that. You understand."
  
  "I understand. It almost cost a few lives, but I get it. You were doing your jobs."
  
  "Is everything all right in there?"
  
  "It's taken care of, Officers. Thank you. Now I need you both to let me do my job and take care of this situation. Federal jurisdiction. You understand."
  
  The officers exchanged a dubious glance. "Sure. But…take my card in case you need anything. And sorry about the trouble," Brently said.
  
  "Well, I appreciate it." Lisa took his card and nodded. "Thanks for the concern."
  
  McCormick tried to peer past her into the suite. "You know, it wouldn't hurt for the FBI to reach out to the precinct when your people have an ongoing federal case in the city. It saves us all considerable time trying to run you through the system in a situation like before."
  
  "Sure. I'll bring it to my superiors' attention. Have a good day." Lisa took hold of the outside of the broken door and tried to swing it shut, but the hinges were bent and broken and it only moved an inch before it wobbled in its frame. Brently sniggered until his partner elbowed him in the side. Lisa gritted her teeth. "Now if you don't mind, I need to get back to handling my case."
  
  "Yeah, okay." The officers tried one more time to peer inside. Brently pointed past Agent Breyer. "You turning this into another one of those YouTube videos?"
  
  "What?" She turned and saw Todd with his smaller camera capturing the entire exchange. "Todd, get back in the living room. Now."
  
  He peered around his camera at her with wide eyes, then nodded and did as he was told.
  
  "It's part of the case," Lisa added grudgingly. "Feel free to see yourselves out."
  
  The officers frowned at the inside of the suite but eventually turned and headed back down the hall, casting her suspicious glances over their shoulders. Lisa stayed in the doorway and watched them to make sure they got on the elevators.
  
  That's the first and last time I take a two-day-old alias. I never thought I'd be in the back seat of a cop car in cuffs. Again.
  
  When she stepped into the living area again, Percy and Yarren were on the floor on either side of the Red Boar, shifting the hulking magical's massive weight between them to get the guy tied up with the rope and the chains. "Don't you think that might be a little excessive?"
  
  Johnny leaned forward over his lap, her service weapon still clenched in his hand. "Not for this piece of shit. I ain't fixin' to let him slip away again."
  
  "Okay. Well, you do have him unconscious…"
  
  "I don't know for how much longer, darlin', so we're workin' with what we got. It should hold until cleanup gets here."
  
  "Yeah, as soon as I can get hold of Tommy." Right on cue, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She yanked it out and immediately answered the call as she negotiated the wreckage-strewn room gingerly toward the bedroom. "Why the hell haven't you answered my calls, Tommy?"
  
  "I was in a meeting, okay? Why did you have to blow up my phone so many times?"
  
  Lisa stepped into the bedroom and closed the door with a bang when she saw Cody turning to catch her on film. Fortunately, the door handle had a lock, so she used it. "We got him."
  
  "The Kilomea? Great."
  
  "No, not Brork. Okay, we did find him, but that's a whole different story we'll have to go over when there's more time. I'm talking about the Red Boar." There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Tommy?"
  
  "No shit." Nelson sighed into the phone. "How'd you get that done?"
  
  "Well, the 'filming a new season' part of the plan worked out the way we wanted." She sat on the bed, frowned, and pulled Johnny's stupid voice-recording pedal out from under her thigh. "And he came for Johnny too, although sooner than we expected."
  
  "But you have him now."
  
  "Yeah. Johnny's tying him up in the living room right now."
  
  "Who's living room?"
  
  She took a deep breath. "He showed up in Johnny's hotel suite. Drugged the dogs—"
  
  Tommy snorted.
  
  "That's not funny."
  
  "No, I know. Sorry. You're right. Are they…are they okay?"
  
  "The dogs are fine. Johnny got shot."
  
  "And you let him tie up the bastard on his own with a bullet wound?"
  
  "No, we have…help. Everything's under control right now, Tommy, okay? What we need from you is a cleanup crew to collect this asshole and take him in."
  
  "Huh…" Nelson sighed heavily and cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I can make that happen for you this time."
  
  "What?"
  
  "Sorry."
  
  Lisa leapt from the bed, hurried into the bathroom, and shut the door behind her. "We have the Red Boar tied up in a hotel suite, Tommy. That's part of the job you agreed to help us with when we started this whole thing, and now we need you to come through. The same as every other case."
  
  "Yeah, but this isn't like every other case."
  
  "Why the hell isn't it?"
  
  Nelson cleared his throat again. "Because you and Johnny aren't officially on a case for the Red Boar. You're there for Yarren Brork. And by the way, I've heard some very strange things about a few calls Senator Hugh made to his contact in the Bureau."
  
  "Yeah, we can go over that later. Right now, we need a way to get this asshole out of Baltimore and behind bars."
  
  "Lisa, I'm sorry. I can't send anyone out right now. There's no record of going after the Red Boar. We all agreed to not make one. I can send something up the line that says otherwise, but it'll take me a few days."
  
  "We don't have a few days." She slapped a hand on the counter at the sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Honestly, I don't think Johnny will be able to hold back for much longer. I barely managed to keep him from slitting the guy's throat in front of me."
  
  "Don't you have a rental out there?"
  
  Lisa scoffed. "Oh, sure. Throw a five-hundred-pound magical into the bed of a rental truck and drive him to DC. What could possibly go wrong in that scenario?"
  
  "You'll think of something, Lisa. Sorry."
  
  "How did you not think far enough ahead so we had this covered?"
  
  Nelson paused for another long moment, then sighed. "Honestly, I wasn't sure this Dwarf the Bounty Hunter scheme would work."
  
  "You funded the entire thing on the Department's dime assuming it was a dud operation?"
  
  "Yeah. Basically. Look, I can try to put something together in twenty-four hours, but that's the best I can—"
  
  "Forget it." She hung up on him and thunked her phone on the counter. He was pandering to Johnny's revenge quest. I can't believe he let us think he was all the way on board.
  
  Staring into her own eyes in the mirror, Lisa took a deep breath. Pull it together. If the Department doesn't have our backs, at least we have each other's. We'll think of something.