Bryce was feeling rather petulant. He knew it was juvenile, and didn't care; he simply stalked out to his trailer, pretending not to see the invitation in Hillary's raised eyebrows. He was soaked when he arrived, and sat in front of his computers, toweling his hair off. He had toyed with the thought of getting some work done earlier in the evening, and had amended that to playing games when he left the manor, but once in the trailer, the steady drumming of rain and the relentless darkness outside made his small bed very tempting. He tossed the towel over the other chair, pulled off his shoes and trousers, and walked to the rear of the trailer. He had begun to sleep badly alone perhaps half a year ago, and was surprised to find himself drifting off to the sound of the steady hammer of rain on the metal roof as soon as he flopped in the bed in his T-shirt and boxers. He was fully asleep in short order.

He had no way of knowing what time it was when he woke up; it was still dark, but the rain had stopped pounding on the roof of his trailer. A large, meaty hand covered his mouth, and something cold was at his temple. He blinked, trying to clear his sleep-blurred vision, as a face shadowed by a cap and a turned-up collar leaned down. "Don't say a word," a hoarse, grating voice said.

Bryce opened his mouth and bit one chunky finger. The hand jerked back as the voice cursed, and the cold thing pushed harder at his temple. He rolled his head away from it.

"One more trick like that, boy, and I'll blow yer brains out," the voice grated.

Bryce shrugged. "I'm guessin' your boss didn't want ya to kill me without you gettin'... whatever you're lookin' for." He was astonished how nonchalant he was about the situation. Working for Lara for as long as he had changes a bloke, he thought ruefully. He had a fair idea what kind of game this was, which in turn gave him a decent idea about what he could get away with.

Another darkly-dressed, capped figure, shorter than Grating Voice but more broad-shouldered, entered the room. As Grating Voice stepped back, his gun still trained on Bryce, the shorter one pushed Bryce on his side and strapped his hands tightly together behind his back with gaffer tape. Grating Voice snapped a piece off with his free hand and slapped it over Bryce's mouth. He used that hand to yank him out of bed and half-lead, half-drag him out of the trailer.

He was dropped unceremoniously off to the side with his back to the trailer, next to Hillary. His hands were also behind his back, although he did not have tape over his mouth. He raised one eyebrow at Bryce, who shrugged.

They both turned towards the manor as two more heavies pulled a stubborn-looking Lara out of the house, yet another two walking behind with guns at the ready. Grating Voice walked over and started to talk to her, leaving Broad Shoulders to watch Hillary and Bryce. Whatever Grating Voice had to say, it had turned into a conversation with Lara, but they were far enough away that all Bryce could hear was that the conversation was not amicable, which was hardly a shock. Hillary apparently could not hear, either; he turned to Bryce and used his teeth to rip the tape off of Bryce's mouth. Broad Shoulders shifted, but did not interfere. Hillary spit the tape off to the side, after a few false starts of one of the sticky ends clinging to his lips.

"Whot are they on about?" Bryce muttered.

"I don't know," Hillary replied, quietly. "They came in through the window. They're very quick, you have to give them that."

Bryce did not think he had to give them anything, actually. He looked up at Broad Shoulders. "I have an idea," he said, more loudly. "I'll distract this one with me sexy legs, and you can sneak up behind him and hit him with your purse." A dull gleam of off-white showed as Broad Shoulders grinned. Hillary looked heavenward.

They both looked back to the manor as Lara's voice grew louder. She was walking towards them, prodded by Grating Voice and his four lackeys. "...told you, he is mistaken. It's terribly rude to break and enter on false pretenses." She looked icy, and somehow maintained a quiet dignity in spite of being in pajamas and having her hands taped behind her.

Grating Voice was not maintaining any kind of composure. What little could be glimpsed of his meaty face between the cap and upturned collar appeared irate, and his voice matched. "Look, I'm only going to ask this one more time. Where is it?" Lara looked upwards, affecting boredom.

A seventh figure, this one significantly smaller and slenderer than the others, jogged out from the manor. This figure, while dressed in black like the others, wore no cap; it was female, with a dark crewcut. "It was just sittin' on the bedside table," she piped, handing the black bag Bryce had seen earlier over to Grating Voice. Grating Voice opened it up and pulled out Lara's chunk of amber.

"That's mine," Lara growled, menace in her voice. Bryce had not been employed at the manor for this long to not note that Lara was rather possessive of the fruits of her labor; violently so, at times.

Grating Voice tossed it in his palm a few times. "Not big enough," he muttered, tossing it carelessly on the ground. Lara watched it fall, murder in her eyes. Grating Voice rooted through the bag more, grunted, shook it, and rooted through it again. The slight sound of cloth tearing was followed by him triumphantly pulling out a small black string-cinch bag, dark enough to be velvet. He opened it, and shook out a tennis-ball-sized chunky something that looked orangish-black in the dim moonlight. He tossed it from hand to hand, then chucked it back into the bag.

Lara had been watching this display with surprise replacing the anger on her face. Grating Voice slung the bag over his shoulder, then stepped closer to Lara. "That's what you get for wastin' our time, bitch," he hissed, slapping her across the face hard enough to send her stumbling onto her back. Bryce winced - partly because the slap sounded like it had, indeed, hurt rather a lot, and partly because he just knew that Hillary was about to do something stupid. He was not disappointed. Hillary ate the distance between himself and Grating Voice in two strides, and delivered a substantial kick to the man's groin. Grating Voice folded with a noise reminiscent of a squeeze dog toy that had been chewed too often. Crewcut Girl pulled out a gun and whacked Hillary across the forehead with it, practically leaping off of her tiptoes to reach that high. Hillary fell on top of Lara, knocking her to the ground as she was picking herself back up.

This all took place before Broad Shoulders could do much more than yell, "Hey!" Realizing that his moment to do anything useful had just passed, he settled for turning to Bryce and asking, "You going to try anything?" menacingly. Bryce shrugged. He was a sensible man. This seemed to frustrate Broad Shoulders, because he jerked towards Bryce abruptly in a feint as Grating Voice regained his composure enough to round up the small collection of dark-clad toughs. They all jogged in broken step out of the manor; the sound of an engine starting and tires squealing drifted over the broad expanse of lawn. Lara said a naughty word that Bryce did not think she knew (although she might have learned it from him, he reflected) as she kicked Hillary off of her. She rolled to her feet and dashed back into the manor, probably looking for something sharp to use on the gaffer tape that was holding her hands behind her. And on nothing else, Bryce hoped. He walked over to where Hillary was still trying to shake sense back into himself. "Nice move, what?" Bryce asked with a sigh.

A purplish bruise was visible on Lara's left cheek as she paced in the living room as if she were walking on the heads of the intruders, tossing her own chunk of amber from hand to hand. Bryce sucked on the end of a pen and watched her, somewhat nervously. Of all of the moods she could be in, the worst were when a friend had not been honest with her, or when she felt she had done something careless, and both were in play at the moment. "I should have checked," she seethed. "I knew it was too heavy! I didn't think."

Hillary sat on the couch, holding a handkerchief to his head and wincing as her stomping footfalls shook the floor. "You had no reason to suspect. Dr. Hamilton knew you trusted her."

"And you!" Lara whirled and pointed a finger at him. "If you ever do something like that again..."

Bryce pulled the pen out of his mouth. "Oi," he interrupted, "he was just scoutin'. Now we know the enemy has a weak spot in their groins."

Lara whirled again. Bryce was becoming dizzy from just watching her. "Don't you try to defuse this! I'm upset!" She returned to her pacing. "Diane, may she rot in Hades, is at a meeting in San Francisco. That's why her lackey delivered the bag. Bryce, did the cameras get her plate? I want an address."

Bryce tapped the keyboard to his left with his pen. The image was dark and blurry from the rain, but the plate was visible. "Right, just a mo."

Lara nodded at Hillary. "Get some skulking clothes on. We're going for a trip." She turned to Bryce. "You're holding the fort." She started to scamper up the stairs. "Well? Move!" she called over her shoulder. Hillary and Bryce shared a resigned look, then turned to their assigned tasks.

Bryce glowered at the computer screen. It grated on him, sometimes, the way Lara could peremptorily yank Hillary away for - well, anything, at any time. But she had him before Bryce, and Bryce just knew that it would be the same if Hillary were not officially in her employ; he was devoted to her. Bryce banged the keys with unnecessary force, leaning back once he had the address and saying nothing. He'd be buggered if he would go to the effort of running the address upstairs to Lara. She could haul her precious little bum down and get it herself.