Chills & Thrills: Three Novel Box Set (13 page)

I took his hand and said, “No you’re not. Now draw me the map.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Hope knew that Orlenda and the other woman were coming for her. She had “heard” them talking about Kylie being close. She had heard them talking about an explosion, and she had heard what they really wanted her to find and where they wanted her to transfer to, to find it. She even thought she might know why they wanted what they did. Maybe. And, it was very scary.             

She had a bad sense that Kylie had been hurt. She felt it in her own leg. Hope wasn’t only an audial and a traveler, she was an empath, too, and she had heard the explosion and felt the searing pain that Kylie had. Hope had woken up gasping and sweating. In her dream, she had almost drowned.

It’s her,
she had thought at the time. Kylie had been hurt and almost died.

But she did not die. Hope had heard whisperings of a soothing man’s voice, helping her.

Could she still help her though? Hope knew that Kylie was walking into a trap. Orlenda was going to kill her and her friends.

She had to let Kylie know...but she wasn’t listening to her. She was talking to someone else. They were trying to draw a map.

The map was the problem, of course. The map was a trick. The scientist was a fake, too. He was a real scientist, but he had been planted there by Orlenda. As Hope had heard Orlenda say Echidna: “I am one step ahead of them. And one step is all I need to be.”

“Come on,” whispered Hope. But despite her pleads, Kylie wasn’t hearing her. That was the problem with audials. They needed quiet to hear. They also needed no distractions. And Kylie was very, very distracted by the man, who was now hovering over her.

Hope had to break their connection. She had to.

After all, Orlenda was coming for her.

Hope put all her focus into her reaching Kylie, to send her the image of a symbol she had seen on a towel in the bathroom, when Orlenda had allowed her to go pee and wash up. It was all she had to give and she crossed her fingers that it worked.

Chapter Twenty-nine

“There’s something wrong,” I said.

“What do you mean? You feeling okay?” Ayden asked.

We were driving a Buggati Galibier that had been conveniently parked in the garage. Ayden was actually driving and I was trying hard not to focus on the pain in my leg. Ayden had not wanted to move out tonight because of my injury, but we both agreed that we couldn’t waste any more time. “I’m fine. It’s the map. There’s something not right. Did you ever tune into Dr. Graves after he left the boat, or his source?”

“No. I trust the source that turned me onto him. Why?”

“Sources can be fooled, and my gut and something else that I am getting is telling me that something is all wrong.”

“Kylie, you’ve got to give me more than that.”

“Hang on. Just give me a few minutes.” I sensed that Hope was trying to reach me. Maybe that was hopeful on my part but I had to go with it. I closed my eyes and breathed into the feeling while Ayden continued driving through the night. There was a lot of movement. I could hear foot falls and clanging as if doors were shutting. Then I heard the ding of an elevator, and very softly I heard her whisper ‘Palais.’ After that I heard the slap of a hand and I winced when I could hear Hope yell out and Orlenda tell her to stop it. I had to try and stay with her, but also needed to let Ayden know the name Hope had just uttered. Palais?” I said. “Do you know what that means?” I looked over at Ayden who tightened his fists around the steering wheel.

“Yes. Palais Morocco. It’s a luxury hotel in the center of the city.”

“She’s there. Hope is there but they’re moving her right now.”

“You’re right that is not where the map was leading us.” Ayden flipped a fast u-turn in the middle of the road and began traveling in the other direction. The car accelerated as I recognized sheer determination on Ayden’s face. “Hang on.”

“I’m going to try and stay with her, okay?”

“Yep. I know how to get there,” he replied.

I closed my eyes again and tried to get back with Hope. It was fuzzy to say the least but I could hear the elevator door open and Hope ask where they were going.

“I told you to shut-up,” Orlenda said. “We are going somewhere where no one will ever find you.”

I swallowed hard at the sound of those words. If anyone could shelter the girl in a place where no one else could find her, I thought that it might be Orlenda. “We have to hurry,” I said.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Ayden replied taking turns at high speeds. We turned down a dirt road that Ayden continued driving at mach speed. “Short cut.”

He was right. Before long we were coming back into the city as I saw the glowering of the lights ahead. Three minutes later we were pulling into the hotel. It was posh and large. This was not going to be easy. But I did know this much about sounds after all of this time at tuning into things at an audial level. In a hotel like this, the elevators that lead to the rooms sound different than the service elevators. Don’t ask me why, but they do, and I had a sense that Hope had been taken down a service elevator. “Around the back. Where employees might be smoking.” It was a hunch. I figured that Orlenda would have to have taken more than one service elevator by the clanging that I had heard and I hoped that she hadn’t already left the building.

Ayden pulled out of the circular drive leaving the valet guy looking at us with startled distaste. Ayden didn’t whip around the back. He slowly turned down the back side of the hotel. We didn’t want to alert anyone. I did spot a couple of employees out back. Fortunately luck was on my side as I spotted a woman in a housekeeping uniform. “Cover that other door. Be ready for anything. If I were you, I’d start tuning in. Stop here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I got out of the car and walked nonchalantly up to the employees. In Arabic, I asked if a little girl had come out the back side. That she was my sister and I was supposed to pick her up.

“No,” the woman responded. The couple of men standing around didn’t look my way.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” I asked her.

She nodded. We walked off to the side. I pulled out two hundred dollar bills. Her eyes widened. “I will give you this money if you give me your uniform. You can have my clothes in exchange.”

She looked confused. “Why?” she finally asked.

“Do you want the money?”

“Yes. Okay.”

It didn’t take her long to understand that I was not going to provide her with any kind of explanation, and if she wanted the cash she needed not ask me again.

She opened the back door and we went on inside. There was a small room with some lockers that I presumed were for the staff. We quickly exchanged the clothing and I handed her the money. I didn’t know if Orlenda and Hope had been able to get out yet, and I didn’t know who was helping her, or where they might be stationed, but I was betting that it was all very covert and low key. Orlenda was not going to risk being spotted by anyone who might be able to provide information about her. She would be traveling with sparse protection until she got the kid in a car, and that was where I knew things could really go awry.

I started up the back stairs that I was sure would take me to a bank of service elevators. I was right, and just as I heard the ding of one reaching the bottom, I knew who would be coming out. I barely looked up, but I saw Hope who saw me, her hand tightly wound in Orlenda’s. I bumped heavily into Orlenda.

“What the hell?”

That was when she looked up and realized I wasn’t any ordinary housekeeper and she yelled out. “She’s here! They’re here!”

I remembered her well. In fact, I’d had nightmares of Orlenda. The bitch who’d not only kidnapped me at a young age, but had been directly involved in the death of my father.

The murder of my father.

As he tried to save me.

The synchronicity was too much to ignore. Hollywood couldn’t have written this any better.

I had a job to do.

I was here to save Hope.

Where and how Simms fit into all of this, or Noah, or anyone, I didn’t know. But I was here to get Hope. I knew Orlenda had security everywhere. I was risking everything by hanging around.

Except I couldn’t resist doing what I did next.

My fist shot out. I put as much weight behind it as I could, although my damaged leg kept me from using a lot of my lower body.

But I knew how to fight; in particular, I knew how to punch.

My knuckles caught the Russian just under her right eye. It had been a punch I’d been dreaming about most of my adult life. That Orlenda was still alive and well, was a surprise to me. Most of our intelligence had her disappearing off the face of the earth. Trust me, I had looked.

But she was back, obviously.

And back to her old ways.

The force of my blow sent her stumbling back into the hallway and as she stumbled, she reached for something on her hip. I knew what that something was. I stepped forward and lowered my body and delivered the hardest punch I could. It was an uppercut, and it sent the bitch stumbling backward, to lie flat on her ass. I was tempted to finish her. In fact, I should have. But I couldn’t. Not with Hope watching me.

Already I heard her security coming. Time to go. I grabbed Hope’s hand. “Come on, Sweetie. We have to go fast.”

My leg hurt like a mother, but I raced down the back stairwell with Hope. I had taken my service revolver with me, and it was drawn. I heard the back door swing open and I started to fire.

“Kylie! It’s me!”

I gasped. It was Noah. He had an automatic weapon. “I’ve got you covered. Now move!”

I didn’t have the time to process all of this. I just kept moving.

I heard the screeching of the tires before I saw the car. Ayden pulled up alongside of us and I ordered Hope to get in. I jumped in the front seat, and turned back to see Noah firing on what I could only presume were Orlenda’s people.

As Ayden sped away, my stomach sank.

How had Noah found us? Was he going to make it out of there alive? And, was he on our side, or someone else’s. I didn’t know. I did the only thing my mind and heart was telling me to do at that moment.

I turned to the little girl in the back seat. Her blue eyes wide with what I knew was fear. I also recognized something else in her eyes—they were like mine.

I wanted to tell her in that moment that I was her sister, but I knew she was already so overwhelmed that waiting for the right time was what I had to do. “It’s okay, Hope. I promise. You’re going to be okay. I’m Kylie. And I promise you that no one will ever be allowed to ever harm you again.”

Chapter Thirty

We had a plane fueled and ready to go. We knew we couldn’t travel via the PSI right now because Ayden and I both believed that Simms couldn’t be trusted. All I wanted to do was get Hope to a safe location; where that was I didn’t know yet, and after we found a place what were we going to do with her? I mean, I could be her sister, but this child needed a mother and the thing was, I had serious doubts about the woman who had “raised” her. First off, I knew that she was not her biological mother, and secondly, I was positive that the woman had ulterior motives in playing the role of her “mom.” It was disgusting and confusing, and I had not been able to make any sense of any of it.

I figured there were only two people who might have answers—Grant Simms and Orlenda Kobach. Neither of them could I even attempt to question. But when I had the opportunity, I sure in hell was going to do my best to tune and see what I could hear. At this point I even wondered if they were some way in cahoots together, although why Simms would have sent us out on this wild goose chase wouldn’t have made much sense if that were the case. Unless, of course, his ultimate goal was to have us dead and gone. I couldn’t discount that possibility. I hated thinking about it.

I looked out the window of the jet as the pilot started the engines, and spotted a car racing toward us. “Uh oh. We have company,” I said out loud.

I watched as Noah jumped out of the driver’s seat of the car and ran toward the plane. A black SUV squealed onto the tarmac and bullets were flying toward him.

“Let him in!” I screamed at Ayden.

“Are you kidding, Kylie? We can’t trust him.”

“I think we can! Let him in!” I remembered him covering me back at the hotel. There was no way I could leave him there to die, which surely he would. He was trapped. I jumped up and opened the door, letting down the stairs. I saw Noah get a shot off, blowing out a front tire in the SUV.

He ran up the stairs. We closed the door, and I yelled for the pilot to go.

Seconds later we were taxing down the runway and I could see the SUV trying to keep up with us, but they weren’t having any luck.

Noah sat across from me, and Hope next to me. She hadn’t uttered a word and her tiny face was pale. I looked at Noah and noticed blood coming from his shoulder.