Mine, page 8
The guard swiveled his head toward her, like he was remote-controlled. “You forget something outside?”
“Ah, no. Thanks.”
He nodded and resumed his forward-facing stance, his eyes staring into the middle distance. Standing there in that little alcove—which must have been built specifically for a statue—he was like part of a chessboard, the knight come to life.
Tracking the scent, she went down the hall toward her and Daniel’s bedroom, but thank God the blood wasn’t his—
The study was wide open, which wasn’t normal, and as Lydia closed in on the floor-to-ceiling aperture, the scent exploded in her nose.
Oh, God. C.P.
She spoke up. “Hello, is everything all right—”
Across the austere space, a door into a private half bath was thrown wide, and the red pool on the white marble floor gleamed in an evil way.
“No!”
She bolted across and swung around the doorjamb without entering because she didn’t want to step in the puddle. The toilet hadn’t been flushed, and the white bowl was bright—
“She’s okay.”
Lydia spun back. Daniel had entered the study, and the sight of him in his sweatshirt, with his jeans hanging off his hips, his feet bare, and his cane angled to support his weight, made her want to cry. As she ran to him, she was babbling all kinds of things, but then she was up against him and just trying not to faint.
“Is it the baby?” she mumbled into his shoulder.
“You knew?”
Lydia pulled back and nodded. “But it wasn’t my story to tell. I caught the change in her scent, and then I—I didn’t keep anything from you, I swear—”
“Shh. It’s okay.” He stroked her arms. “She’s medically stable. There was nothing anybody could—whoa, take a deep breath.”
Such good advice. That she tried to take. “She wanted that pregnancy. I am so sorry—where is she—”
“Upstairs.”
“Can I see her?”
“Yeah. No doubt she’d like that. It’s been… a helluva day.”
As his eyes searched her face, she knew what he was looking for, and shook her head. “He’s not going to help us. I saw him up there, and that asshole is not going to help us.”
Daniel’s jaw locked for a moment. “We’ll find another way. Somehow—”
“How can he be so cruel?” Releasing his shoulders, she tangled her fingers in her hair. “I don’t understand how anybody can be like that. He’s a monster, an absolute—”
Daniel urged her arms down. “Hey, hey, let’s move on from him. Just breathe with me, okay?”
Lydia nodded. Nodded some more. Then she replayed the exchange up on the mountain—and got stuck in a memory loop with the symphath’s sadistic detachment.
“You’re right,” she muttered. “We don’t ever need to see that man—male, whatever he is—again. But, God, I can’t get over how ruthless he is.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing that bears repeating,” she shot back with strength. “I just hope he rots in hell—and you’re right, we’re going to have to help Gus on our own. We can find that Kurtis Joel guy ourselves.”
“Yeah, well, that might be a problem.” Daniel ran his hand over his skull a couple of times, like he was trying to rub his brain so it worked better. “I have no idea who the guy is, where he is—why he’s in the file system. The name appeared twice in the old FBG database, and it stood out to me because it was the only entry in the whole goddamn thing with no larger context. No detailed biography. No company ties. No notes. There were just two words, each time—‘apparatus occisio.’ ”
Lydia frowned. “Is that Latin?”
“Yup. ‘Killing machine.’ ”
She thought back to when she had first met Blade—and that enemy soldier had come out of nowhere. The thing hadn’t been human at all. And then she went back further, to the spring… when she and Daniel had been tracked through the woods by what she thought was a man, but hadn’t been. At all.
“The scene at Gus’s was totally clean,” Daniel said. “No hair, no fibers—and the blood was Gus’s only. That’s what made me think of the entries. A killing machine. It has to be what broke into the condo, and that database was maintained by Blade. He made the notations and he knows something—I can feel it.”
“I agree, but working with him is not going to be an option.”
Daniel’s eyes flared with a nasty gleam. “What did he want in return.”
“Nothing I was willing to give him.”
“Fucking bastard—” Daniel walked off, relying on his cane, moving around in a circle. “I shouldn’t have sent you up there—”
“We had to try and we did. Now we move on to the next thing.”
She focused on that cane, and didn’t want to ask him why he was suddenly using it again. But maybe he’d helped with their hostess’s medical emergency.
Switching gears, she said, “I do have an idea. Are you strong enough to—”
“Yes.” He squared off at her. “Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”
* * *
No more than five minutes later, Daniel was back in the SUV, but considering he was sitting properly in the front passenger seat, instead of slumped like a drunk in the back, negotiating with his ability to stay conscious?
It proved the whole night wasn’t going to shit—even if that was the overwhelming trend.
He should have known what the outcome would be of telling Lydia to go see his old boss—but he’d been desperate, and desperate people did stupid things as they argued with reality.
And he could well guess what the sonofabitch had wanted in return.
As Lydia drove them off from the Phalen estate, night had come solidly, the darkness consuming the rural landscape. Courtesy of Walters being nothing but a little mill town, there were no other cars on the road, and the few houses that dotted the shoulder were set so far back that their lights seemed as distant as the stars overhead.
Glancing over at Lydia, he studied her face in the glow of the instrument panel. Her brows were down low and her lips were a tight line of intention—and goddamn, she was beautiful. Then again, she was always that way to him, no matter her mood, no matter the circumstance—which was a consequence of loving someone deeply, wasn’t it.
As his eyes drifted across her upper body, he thought of his dream.
“What are you looking at?” she murmured.
“Now isn’t the time.” He shifted in his seat and went back to looking out the window. “Where are we going, by the way?”
He hadn’t asked when they’d left. He’d just been determined not to sit on the sidelines of chaos for one fucking moment longer. And now, as she answered him, he found himself less interested in the words she was speaking, and more into how much he liked the way her mouth moved as she enunciated the syllables—
“You’re staring again.” She glanced away from the headlight-lit road. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Letting his head fall back on the rest, he muttered, “Knock knock.”
Lydia laughed in a short burst. “Who’s there?”
“Warrior.”
“Warrior who?”
“War’ya been all my life?” As she grinned like the joke had been any good at all, he shook his head. “I’m still not funny, and yet you giggle.”
“Ah, but you’re funny enough for me.” She hit the turn signal, then slowed them down. “And you know what I like about you?”
“Just one thing? I gotta do better.”
Lydia laughed some more. “See? You do have a sense of humor.”
“And you’re biased.”
“Completely biased.” Easing them off the county road and onto a long driveway, she glanced at him and got serious. “I like that you didn’t even ask where we’re going. You just jumped in right beside me.”
“Well, for one, your idea has to be better than mine,” he muttered. He was never going to forgive himself for sending her on that fucking goose chase. “And as long as we’re together? I’m good. I’m sooooo good.”
“Me, too.”
They leaned in over the center console at the same time, their lips meeting briefly, and as he closed his eyes, he cursed the destiny or fate—or whatever the hell it was—that doled out the good and the bad. Surely there had been a mistake when it came to the pair of them.
Too much on the—
Reopening his lids, a farmhouse was in view, and when he recognized its modest lines, what she’d told him decoded, the reply finally resonating, her idea crystallizing for him.
“Eastwind,” he said.
“He’s more than a sheriff. He just pretends… he’s normal.”
Daniel nodded, even though he wasn’t sure what she meant—or whether this was such a great idea. One thing that was clear? The guy could keep up a property. Everything from the black shutters to the white siding and the wraparound porch was freshly painted, and the yard was free of downed branches and dead bushes, the detached garage a satellite that was similarly spick-and-span’d. Likewise, the barn and the fenced-in meadow in the back were ready for animals to graze, although there didn’t seem to be any around.
Lydia brought them to a halt and put the Suburban in park. “Do you want to come in with me?”
“Hold up a sec.” He put his hand on her shoulder as she reached for her door latch. “Let’s think this through. Do we really want law enforcement involved? What happens if we figure out who took Gus? Do you want whoever’s responsible to go through the human legal system? No, you don’t. You want proper revenge. If you head down this path with Eastwind, solving things on our own could get complicated.”
“I’m not here because he’s a sheriff.”
Daniel frowned. “Then why—”
“We just need to find Kurtis Joel. Then we can take care of it our way.” As she looked over, the predator in her was out and about, even as she stayed in her human skin. “I’m very familiar with operating outside of normal channels. And so are you.”
“Exactly. Tipping them off to the problem begs for trouble. You know this.”
Lydia turned her head toward the house. After a moment, she shook her head. “Eastwind’s not normal channels, either, Daniel. You gotta trust me on this—”
“If you mean that he’s a small-town lawman who bends rules here and there inside his jurisdiction? I’m sure that’s true. But if you tell him Gus is missing—and there was plenty of blood at the scene? He’ll be required to notify the Plattsburgh police, and probably the New York Staties. Maybe even the FBI if there’s a concern that Gus has been taken over state lines.”
When she didn’t say anything, he cursed softly. “Hello? Did you hear me—”
A dim porch light flared to life, and a second later, the front door opened. Sheriff Eastwind stepped out onto his stoop while in the process of wrapping a navy bathrobe around himself. The way he tied the thing with a jab of his hand was the extent of any annoyance that a vehicle had shown up on his property at—
Absently, Daniel glanced at the dash. Midnight. Past midnight.
Lydia popped her door and looked back. “Trust me.”
Like his plan had been better? he reminded himself. “Roger that.”
Daniel got out as well, and he hated that he took his cane with him. Helping Phalen had cost him, but he refused to give in to the aching.
By way of distraction—and also because he now had a gun in the center pocket of his sweatshirt—he focused on Eastwind. The sheriff was standing calmly as his visitors approached, like people disturbing him at strange hours was something that happened often.
“Long time no see,” the man said as he moved his thick braid of black hair back over his shoulder.
“Sorry we’re here so late.” Lydia waited for Daniel to join her before walking up the steps. “But it couldn’t wait.”
“Okay.”
As they reached the porch, Eastwind stepped aside. “It’s cold out. C’mon in.”
“Thanks.” Lydia slipped by him. “We appreciate it.”
When Daniel went to step inside, Eastwind’s dark eyes did an up-and-down. “How we doin’?”
Daniel offered his hand for a shake. “Fine and dandy. You?”
There was a curt incline of the head, and then what was offered was shaken. Like the guy was perfectly prepared to drop the subject of exactly how not fine-and-dandy Daniel obviously was.
“Yup,” the sheriff said. “Good.”
And then they were in a living room that had almost no furniture, but an incredible collection of Native American blankets hanging on the walls. The handwoven masterpieces were secured at the tops with padded holders, and the saturated colors of red and blue and yellow, as well as the geometric patterns, were a feast for the eyes.
“So what’ve we got going on,” Eastwind said as he lumbered over to an easy chair and let himself fall into the thing like it was a baseball glove made specifically for the contours of his ass.
“Do you mind if I sit?” Daniel said as he glanced at the sofa.
“G’head.” Eastwind reached down and pulled a lever so that a padded leg support popped up under his calves. “Sorry, Lydia, you’re going to have to share with your man. I don’t have houseguests ever, so I don’t need any other chairs. Come to think of it, I don’t need that couch, either, but I guess I’m too cheap to throw it out.”
This was all said like he wished the pair of them had adhered to his no-houseguest rule, but he wasn’t going to be rude about it. And as Daniel lowered himself onto the sofa, the sheriff linked his hands, settled them over the lapels of his fleece robe, and let his head ease back against the rest. Like the guy could go to sleep in the chair perfectly happily.
Or maybe he was just wishing he was still upstairs in his bed.
“We need your help.” Lydia began pacing around the braided-rug area. “And before I tell you everything, I need you to—”
“I don’t know where your scientist is.”
She stopped dead. Pivoted slowly to the sheriff. “How did you know Gus was gone?” When Eastwind just shrugged, she cursed. “Not good enough. How?”
“Your grandfather ever teach you not to sass your elders? And I told you way before, nothing happens on the mountain without me knowing it.”
“You can help us,” she said urgently. “If you know he’s gone, you know even more—”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. C.P. Phalen’s house is a vault, and the abduction happened in Plattsburgh. If you know about it at all, you—”
“Maybe I just saw a lineup of SUVs with blacked-out windows speeding onto the Northway, one after the other, while I was sitting in the bushes looking for people going eighty in a sixty-five. Phalen’s Fleet is what we call them at HQ. And you’re right, they were headed to Plattsburgh, and that doctor of yours lives there. He told me himself when I was allowed to come see you, before the chemo crashed your man’s immunity and he couldn’t have any more visitors.”
“Maybe those Suburbans were driving to Montreal.”
“I followed them. They were going a hundred. I was going to get a bonus from our governor, you know. If I’d pulled them over.”
As Lydia and Eastwind went back and forth, Daniel studied the man, looking for his tells, falling back into an old, familiar role of lie detector machine. He didn’t get much of anything. Eastwind’s eyelids were low, like the conversation was boring him, but he was calmly focused on Lydia—his facial features, so bold, so carved, were neutral.
Then again, he was a professional. Professional what… though.
“I don’t buy that story,” Lydia said. “And we did not come here to argue with you.”
“What a relief,” Eastwind said dryly. “I’m also hoping you don’t expect food. I eat at the diner for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The only thing in my fridge is old ketchup and some milk that I’m sure is a solid now—”
“I’ve already been lied to once tonight,” Lydia announced in a grim voice. “It’s not happening again.”
“Aren’t you a force to be reckoned with.”
“I know the truth about you,” she cut in.
“Do you.”
The way she was standing there over the lounger, taking control of the conversation, aggression banked, but right under the surface, Daniel felt a flush of pride—and then an aching, bittersweet relief. When his wolven said she could handle things, it was very clear she could. She was going to be okay without him in the big bad world.
She really was.
“Back in the spring,” she said, “I had to go to the high school to use the computer lab. I went by the display of trophies, the one in front by the office. All those trophies on those shelves… lot of team pictures with them, going back for years. I know you know the ones. Don’t you.”
It was subtle, but Eastwind’s energy changed even as his body remained right where it was, his ankles crossed, his brown leather slippers knocking together in a rhythm that was like a heartbeat.
His vibe just was different.
“You know those images,” Lydia said, “because you’re in one. From nineteen eighty. And here’s the funny thing. You want to talk about magic? You look exactly the same as you do now.”
There was a stretch of silence.
“Plastic surgery is good these days.” Lydia shook her head slowly. “But it’s not that good. So no, I don’t think you were waiting in a speed trap, and I don’t think you saw those vehicles, and I do not believe you followed them to Plattsburgh. You know what kind of doctor, what kind of man, Gus St. Claire is. If you were in his position, he would help find you if he could. I expect you to do the same.”
Daniel passed a hand down his face as he remembered the hours Gus had spent talking with him, explaining symptoms and test results and drug therapies. And sometimes just shooting the shit, particularly when Daniel was getting infusions.
