Blood Dark (24 page)

E
den sat slouched
in the chair, his arms folded as he flipped the mint in his mouth. ‘I must attract suicide missions.’

‘Can you get in there or not?’ Kane asked.

‘They don’t bat an eyelid at CEOs wandering around.’

‘But?’ Kane asked, sensing there was a problem.

‘But I’d need my curfew enforcement uniform. Besides, that helmet could prove useful considering we don’t know if Sirius has put a call out for me. The problem is, my uniform is in my apartment in the CEO complex. The code to that changes every few days. It’s not exactly Fort Knox, but they take measures.’

‘Is there anyone you can trust to get you in there? Anyone you can call?’ Kane asked.

‘I have someone I’d trust with my life – a partner in crime so to speak. He knows I’m usually neck-deep in some kind of self-created shit. He’s bailed me out plenty. I can also find out from him if I have got a price on my head. I doubt Sirius wants the attention drawn to me, but we’d be better playing it safe.’

Kane sensed yet another “but”.

‘Even if I have got the uniform that only gets me through the main door to the processing area. Us CEO boys are just the hunter and delivery guys. If Caleb and Leila have already been through questioning, they’ll be in the detainment cells themselves. That area is well above my pay grade as far as access goes.’

‘Who
can
get in there?’ Jask asked.

But Kane already knew the answer. He knew from Eden’s glance in his direction.

‘Your girl can.’

As he felt both Eden and Jask’s eyes boring into him, Kane let out an exhale of unease.

‘Not even she can get into the cells without the guard’s say-so though,’ Eden tagged on. ‘They’re all individually coded too. And even if we got the codes, our biggest problem is time. I’d still have to talk to Leila, to take her to Caleb, to get her to do the deed – and get her and her sister back out again. Someone else can walk into that place at any time so we can’t take out the guard. One inkling of a breach and the game is over, especially as there’s only one way in and one way out.’

‘So you’re saying it’s impossible,’ Kane said.

‘Alone, yes. But if I had someone handling Caleb and Leila while I distracted the guard, it
could
be possible.’

‘We can’t risk you,’ Jask said, turning his attention to Kane.

‘Nor you,’ Kane said. ‘And I’m sure as hell not risking letting Sophia in the building.’

‘Nor Jessie,’ Eden said. ‘There’s no way I’m having her in the firing line. And we certainly can’t risk Sirius getting in hands on her. I’m telling you, Caitlin’s the prime person to help us. The guard won’t question it.’

‘Or she can raise the alarm,’ Jask said, turning his attention back to Kane. ‘If she hasn’t already.’

‘Does she know what we suspect about Caleb?’

‘No,’ Kane said.

‘Then can I throw into the mix that we still don’t know for sure that Caleb
is
the one? It could all be a waste of time. If you ask me, the smartest move is to get Caitlin to read Jessie before we go any further.’

Kane exchanged a knowing glance with Jask.

Eden rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. ‘The way I see it, either you take a punt on her or this district is in the shit even deeper than it already is. Get her to read Jessie – let her see for herself. She’s going to want to help. She’s going to have to help.’

Kane pushed back his chair and stepped over to the window. Bracing his arms on either side of it, he stared through the misted glass.

As the silence lingered, Eden broke it again. ‘Why are you both treating this like it’s more complicated than it is.’

‘Because it’s our fucking species on the line,’ Kane said.

‘In case you’re forgetting, we’re
all
on the fucking line with this one. That’s why I’m willing to take a chance on her.’

Eden’s fervency lacerated deep – the way he spoke as if it was that simple, as if trusting Caitlin was that straightforward. And he had to question if Eden was seeing something he wasn’t. Worse, if his own deeper issues were the problem, misting his vision as much as the glass he struggled to see out of and impeding progress as a result.

‘I get that her family’s got history,’ Eden added. ‘But take the cross off her back and give her a chance to stand up straight and show you what she’s made of. There are few I’d trust with my back out there – but her,
every
time. Not only is Caitlin a good agent, she works hard against the tide in that place to do what she can and it sure isn’t for an easy life. She knows her own mind. She knows her own convictions. And she
is
trying to some good out there. Look what she did for Arana, Kane. Do you think she did that for any reason other than it was the right thing?’

Kane turned to face him as Eden echoed his own thoughts from just a few days before.

‘She already knows about Sirius’s threat,’ Eden added. ‘Do you seriously think she’s going to jeopardise thousands, hundreds of thousands of her own? Because I sure don’t.’

He said it with such conviction – a conviction that, right then, Kane envied the simplicity of.

‘We need her on the team, Kane – and you know it. The way I look at it, we’re screwed if we don’t – especially if the heat turns to Leila in the meantime and she decides to squeal. I think you should be more worried about
her
disclosing who Caleb is more than Caitlin. Time is of the essence, guys, and I’m telling you that unless you want a full-on raid of that place, Caitlin is the best chance we’ve got of pulling this off.’

C
aitlin sat
in the small side-room. It was a tiny infirmary for emergencies only, on-site ones as a rule, when there wasn’t enough time, or need, to get to the hospital. She clutched her cooling coffee though she could barely feel it, her hands numb despite the heat blasting out from the wall-mounted heater.

As soon as Tyrell had told her, Caitlin had bounded down there like a ball in a pinball machine, avoiding the occasional blur of a body, using the walls to help support her and to keep her momentum going as she barged through doors, reverberating off others as she ploughed into them. The corridors had swayed around her, her legs leaden to the point she could have sworn she wasn’t moving anywhere near fast enough, like pummeling a treadmill with the goal forever a mile away.

She’d pelted around the corner to come to an abrupt standstill as she’d seen Morgan in the distance. Behind him, she’d seen the sheet over the body on the trolley, the two medical staff in somber conversation with Morgan as Caitlin trudged towards them.

Shaking, she’d reached out to grab Morgan as he closed the gap between them, only to feel if he was real, if any of it was real, if she was about to wake up from one of a multitude of nightmares that plagued her darkest hours.

But it
was
real. Morgan was real. The look in his eyes as he’d stepped in to be a barrier between her and the body was real.

‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said, his hand cupping her neck. ‘Caitlin, I’m so very sorry. Max has gone, Caitlin. He’s gone.’

Even now, half an hour later, her head still felt heavy, her body distant.

And there was that ache – that unmistakable ache of irretrievable loss.

The last of her family gone.

Not once had she been to see Max since the trial. Not once had she gone to hear his explanation or to allow him the chance to offload. Her own family and she had simply been carrying on with Kane, oblivious or uncaring of the clear sense of guilt, or even fear, her stepfather had been facing.

Outside were muffled voices, the door left only fractionally ajar. Twice she’d caught Morgan’s concerned glance inside. He’d insisted he was going to take her straight home as soon as he’d tied up the couple of obligatory aspects of red tape first.

Morgan who, right then, felt like the only friend she had. Who had brought her coffee and had held her when she’d needed to be held. Who had understood how utterly, utterly terrifying the fragility of the human condition was. And she’d held on to him as if he was her only hope in a desolate sea.

‘How did he do it?’ she’d asked.

Morgan had hesitated before answering. ‘He’d used the cutlery, the knife, from lunch.’

‘That wouldn’t have taken some determination.’ She’d barely been able to say it. ‘Some … hacking.’ She’d wetted her arid lips. ‘How long did it take?’

‘They’re saying less than three minutes.’

‘Three minutes is a long time feeling yourself die.’

‘He would have lost consciousness quickly.’

The plant in the corner of the room needed watering, that was all she could focus on now. It didn’t have much natural light in the room as it was, so lack of water wasn’t going to do it any favours, especially not under that heat. She couldn’t imagine being in there every day with that blasting out. She was already feeling claustrophobic. She was already struggling to breathe. Her chest was hurting. And that feeling was growing – the sensation of pain that was taking root.

She dropped her gaze to the small central table and the magazines that lay spread there. One lifestyle magazine displayed a house just like the ones in Midtown where she grew up. The grass was green, the house painted white – the type of house she could have been living in now if things hadn’t turned out the way they had with her parents, if she hadn’t joined the VCU, if she hadn’t dug her heels in and Rob had stuck around. They could have created their own home with the same kind of garden, the same kind of pleasant residential area, where the papers were delivered and sprinklers worked on hot days, and people had cars and, importantly, a purpose. People who acknowledged each other with polite smiles instead of suspicious stares.

And that alternative life was a simple life. A normal life with a husband and a job and a purpose and growing old together. Maybe even a family and all those normal things that went with being human.

The blessed side of being human.

A blissful life where she’d never found out the truth of what her family had done. Or a life where her family had never got involved with the Malloys in the first place.

Morgan pushed the door open. In his hand he held her jacket which someone had collected. ‘Let’s get you out of here.’

She didn’t remember much of the journey back to the car – just what felt like vaguely familiar corridors and doors as Morgan led her to the car park via the most discreet route.

Despite the chill as they exited into the concrete tomb, Caitlin still wasn’t tempted to pull her jacket on. As they took a left across the car park towards where he was parked, Caitlin stopped equidistant between both their vehicles. She had no intention of going home. She knew exactly where she needed to go.

She knew now, more than ever, that she needed to finish this.

For her own sanity, she needed to finish it.

‘Matt, I can sort myself from here,’ Caitlin said. ‘You need to get back in there.’

His eyes furrowed with concern. ‘And leave you alone? I don’t think so.’

‘I’m fine.
Really
. I just need a few hours to myself.’

‘Then you can have a few hours to yourself back at mine. I’ve already cleared everything here.’

She’d only been to his home once – for the funeral. She’d gone to pay her respects to her colleague’s wife. Phoebe had been ill for a number of months but no one had expected her to go so quickly.

Caitlin had spent most of the two hours stood awkwardly in the corner of the room, near the wall, her untouched plate in her hand. She was bad enough in any social environment, let alone that one. Worse, it had brought back memories of her father’s funeral … her mother’s.

The loss had felt all the more real stood in what she constituted a home – a
proper
home just like the one on the front of the magazine, unlike the shell she had resided in as she’d counted down the days until the soul ripper came for her. Morgan’s home had been invested in, thought about, cared for – even the furnishings had matched. The garden beyond had been scattered with various colourful creatures: fairies and frogs and odd-shaped pebbles, no doubt picked by the girls. The path had wound off to a summerhouse in the distance, a slide and swings on route as well as bikes left lying on the ground as in some suspended animation of a life that had once been good. And there were photos, so many family photos of the girls, of Matt, of Phoebe, of all of them together in a life brimming with laughter and normality. The perfect family.

Until Phoebe had been taken from them, leaving behind two little girls in their little black puffball dresses with pink sashes – their young mother’s favourite colour.

The eldest, seven-year-old Daisy, had cried profusely through most of the service. But it was the youngest that had worried Caitlin the most. Chloe had been silent the entire time. Some had said she was too young to understand but as she sat perched on the edge of the sofa with her legs not touching the floor, those big blue eyes had taken in everything. That little girl was troublingly a sponge of the emotion around her.

And Caitlin had nearly taken
both
her parents from her. That first moment with Kane in the corridor had nearly cost Morgan his life too. Her stupidity, her persistence for what now felt like nothing had almost further torn that little girl’s life apart.

Just like hers had been.

How many of them are you willing to take down with you?

She knew she should have secured the Dehains’ fate. She should have told Morgan about her suspicions and about the evidence she had gathered, but Caleb was going nowhere for at least the next twelve hours.

She
had
to do something else first.

‘You’ve had a horrendous shock,’ Morgan said, closing the gap to gently clutch her upper arms. ‘I know you, Caitlin – you coil in on yourself, but not this time.’ He sighed as he rubbed his hands down the full length of her arms. He wrapped his arm across her shoulders as he guided her towards his car again. ‘What you need is a warm blanket, a hot mug of sugary coffee, a few hours in front of the TV and your amazing boss for company.’

She couldn’t help but break a smile. ‘
Amazing
, huh?’

He glanced down at her with a playful frown. ‘You disagree?’

‘No, but if we’re introducing self-appraisals into the job, I’d like to include “capable of looking after herself” in mine,’ she declared, sending him a placating smile.

She stopped. Eased his arm from around her shoulder.

She took both his hands in hers. ‘I know you’re looking out for me, and I appreciate it.’

Just as she appreciated the warmth of his hands, the security of his hug; she’d appreciated that he’d done everything he could have possibly done in the passing hour or so.

She gazed up into his eyes that gazed back into hers.

He freed one hand to gently brush the wisps of hair back from her face, the breeze blowing in through the mesh gateway, the shards of rain pounding the tarmac of the road beyond. ‘Caitlin, you do know this isn’t your fault, don’t you?’

‘Considering I was the one who put Max in there?’

He shook his head. ‘You
mustn’t
blame yourself.’ He cupped her face in a way only Kane ever had. ‘Do you hear me? You are not responsible for his decisions. For anyone’s decisions. You carry too much on these shoulders.’

He slid his hands back down over her shoulders to her upper arms. But then he slid them back up again more slowly. This time, the touch was different. This time, it echoed a caress. This time, his gaze was warier as he looked back into her eyes.

She felt the heat rush to her cheeks, the awkwardness of the exchange prompting her to drop her gaze. She glanced around the car park. ‘Careful, you’ll get yourself into trouble fraternizing with your employees.’

‘Colleague,’ he said. ‘And I don’t really care what anyone else thinks. I’d be proud to be seen with you, Caitlin. Who wouldn’t be?’

Her gaze snapped back to his at the proclamation.

He edged closer.

And closer still until they were as close as they had been that very first she had waited outside the club to corner Kane, feigning a lover’s kiss with Morgan.

Close like he had been to her when he’d bravely pulled her back from the nilkim, putting his life on the line for her.

She was uncertain what the feeling in her chest intimated. Her first instinct was that she didn’t like it, to shrug him away. But her head pleaded to grant herself the moment.

It should have felt easy with someone she knew so well. Someone she trusted. Someone good. Someone uncomplicated.

Someone human.

A part of her yearned for the simplicity of it; the security of it.

Of no ulterior motives.

For a second, just a split second, the prospect of feeling his warmth felt enticingly normal, enticingly safe.

Morgan’s lips met hers a second later. Soft lips. Warm lips. He pulled away only to search her eyes to know if it was okay. And when she didn’t recoil, his hand slid around the back of her neck with a feather-light tenderness, his kiss smooth, tender, slow.

But it felt so
horribly
wrong.

So disconnected.

She flinched and broke from his kiss, turning her head away as if someone else had taken the helm of her senses.

For a moment he looked startled. Then his gaze dropped.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, retracting.

She shook her head, her heart pounding in regret – not at stopping him, but having even considered letting him kiss her in the first place. ‘No. No,
I’m
sorry. It’s been a long couple of days. We’re both tired.’

A frown masked his brow. ‘That’s not why I did it.’ His sigh was heavy. ‘But it was bad timing.
Really
bad timing.’ He glanced around the car park before looking back at her. ‘Especially with my lack of fangs, huh?’

Whether said in light-hearted jest or not, the jibe hit her deeper than she would have thought, the barrier between them re-forged. ‘That’s not what this is about.’

He exhaled tersely, his shoulders reflecting his despondency. ‘No?’

She frowned. ‘No.’

But it was. She knew it was. No matter the gut-wrenching disappointment she felt about Kane’s lack of contact, at the events exposed surrounding Bea, at the loss of her stepfather, she couldn’t even throw herself into the arms of the most logical choice.

Because there was no other choice but Kane.

And they most certainly had unfinished business now.

‘Your denial is as transparent as that kiss was, Caitlin. And that’s why I’m going to overstep the mark on our agreement by telling you one and for all that he’s
not
right for you. I’m no saint, far from it. I’ve had my moments over the years. That’s why I want you to know that not all relationships have to be like that.’

The back of her neck prickled. ‘Like
what
?’

‘Where it’s all about taking. You deserve better. The problem is, I don’t think you believe it anymore. Pretending it’s more than what it is doesn’t change the reality. You’re like a kid hiding under the covers, refusing to see the monster, because for as long as you’re in denial, you can convince yourself that you’re safe. Only
your
monster is right under the covers with you. At some point you’re going to have to roll over and face it.’

Caitlin frowned at the concern in his eyes. Queasiness spread deep in her gut. ‘Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?’

He shook his head as he dropped his gaze for a moment. ‘Caitlin, you don’t need all of this right now. I’m bang out of order. You’ve got enough to deal with. If you need some time to yourself, take it. I can call you in a little while.’