Darkest Fire (19 page)
17
R
in hit the button on her cell, cutting off the call. Oh, God, what a relief! Lei was safe. The bloody shirt had been hers, but she hadn’t been kidnapped. She’d had an accident while jogging this morning, had sent a note with a teenage boy who’d witnessed it. Lei didn’t know how he’d ended up with the sweatshirt or what had happened to the note.
in hit the button on her cell, cutting off the call. Oh, God, what a relief! Lei was safe. The bloody shirt had been hers, but she hadn’t been kidnapped. She’d had an accident while jogging this morning, had sent a note with a teenage boy who’d witnessed it. Lei didn’t know how he’d ended up with the sweatshirt or what had happened to the note.
Didn’t matter. Lei was safe. Her injuries were minor. She’d just been released from a local emergency room and needed Rin to pick her up. She was waiting at a nearby coffee shop.
Rin galloped downstairs, headed straight for Drako’s home office. She knocked. No answer. She checked the kitchen, the den. Gone.
She tried calling him on his cell. No answer. She left a message, telling him she’d heard from Lei, grabbed her purse and keys, and jogged out to her car. The drive to the coffee shop was short, thankfully. She didn’t see Lei outside, so she cut off the engine and headed inside. Still no Lei? She pulled out her cell phone and hit the speed dial, calling her sister. No signal. Damn.
She went up to the counter and described her sister to the teenager taking orders.
He nodded. “Yeah, she was here a minute ago.” He pointed at a table up in front, adjacent to the wall of windows facing the parking lot. A few balled-up napkins were scattered over the table. “She was sitting there.”
Rin took another glance around. Where would Lei be? “Do you have a restroom?”
“Sure. It’s back there.” The teen pointed to a narrow corridor Rin hadn’t seen when she first came in.
That had to be it.
Rin rushed into the bathroom. It was a small space, dimly lit. Two stalls. One was occupied. Rin spotted a familiar pair of tennis shoes under the door.
She didn’t knock, respecting her sister’s privacy. Instead, catching her very scary reflection in the mirror, she went about trying to tame her messy hair. She was almost finished twisting the elastic ponytail holder she’d dug out of her purse when the stall door swung open. She turned to say something to Lei, but before she’d even seen her sister, something sharp jabbed her in the leg. Next thing she knew, her limbs felt too heavy to move and her head was spinning. What the hell?
“Lei . . . ?” Her knees buckled and the floor flew up, smacking her in the face. Stars glittered everywhere, obliterating her vision.
Tired. Woozy. Something was wrong.
Just before the darkness completely closed in around her, she heard the man say, “Let’s get her in the van.”
Oh, God, she’d drank too much last night. Sharp needles of light were pricking her eyes, and her eyelids weren’t even open yet. And her head . . . holy shit, what had she done to herself this time?
Wait. She hadn’t been drinking. What happened?
Oh. . .
Like a heavy fog lifting, the haze clogging her brain cleared and she remembered. She’d been at the coffee shop, in the bathroom. A strange man had said something about a van.
Had she been kidnapped?
With great effort, she somehow managed to lift her eyelids enough to snatch a quick peek at what was in front of her. But the pain allowed her to get only the tiniest glance. It was enough to let her know she was in a bed, in a house. That was it. The light blazing through the window blinds was enough to fry her retinas and scorch her brain to a crisp. There was absolutely no way she could bear it for any longer than a fraction of a second.
A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach, and she wrapped her arms around her waist and rolled to her other side, where the light wasn’t so bright.
“Tsk, tsk. I can’t let you sleep the whole day away.”
Rin hadn’t realized she had company. The hairs on her nape stiffened, and a chill buzzed up and down her spine. The voice, a man’s, had come from general direction of the foot of the bed.
More afraid than she’d ever been, because she felt so weak and powerless, she struggled to sit up. Her head spun, almost forcing her back into a horizontal position, but she clamped her eyelids closed and willed the spinning to stop. It did, by some miracle.
“That’s better,” her visitor—captor?—said.
“That depends upon what side of my skull you’re on. From this point of view, nothing’s looking ‘better.’ ” Grimacing, she tried opening her eyes again. She needed to see who was speaking. As of this moment, all she knew was it was a male.
She blinked a few times and concentrated on focusing.
He was a pretty good sized man, tall and solid, late fifties to early sixties. Something about his features seemed familiar. Had she met him somewhere before? “Not doing well?”
She gritted her teeth and pressed the heel of her hands into her eye sockets. “I feel like I’ve just come down from a month-long bender. Who are you? Where am I?”
“I can get you something for the pain.”
“That would be nice. Where am I?” she repeated.
“Someplace safe.”
“Safe?” Did Drako have something to do with this? Where was Lei? “What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later, after you’ve had some time to recover. I would’ve preferred to avoid the drugs, but there wasn’t another way to get you out of that shop without raising suspicion.”
“Whose?”
“Later.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’ll answer all your questions. But not now.” He headed for the door. “I’ll send up some breakfast. Something light.”
“Th-thanks.” Completely confused, Rin watched the man leave. Once the bedroom door was closed, she hefted herself out of bed and half walked, half stumbled across the room to the window. Between the slats of the blinds, she saw a row of pretty Cape Cod homes with well-tended lawns and bare-limbed oak and maple trees marching down the street like huge skeletons.
With the pack of children skateboarding up and down the street, the young couple walking a little white fluff ball of a dog, and a pair of women racewalking, ponytails swishing back and forth, this hardly looked like the kind of neighborhood a kidnapper would hold a victim against her will. It would be so easy to open the window and scream for help.
Rin tried it. The pane slid up with no effort, and a gust of cool air chilled her face. She looked down. Couldn’t be more than a ten- or fifteen-foot drop. Nowhere close to fatal. Clearly her host wasn’t expecting her to try to escape or call for help.
He’d told her she was safe. He had to be working with Drako.
Feeling a little less freaked out about the situation, even though she was far from over her drug-induced hangover, she headed back to the bed, sat, and buried her face in her hands. If only the excruciating pounding in her head would ease up.
Someone knocked.
“Yes?” she croaked.
“I have some breakfast for you.” Another male voice, this one different.
“Okay.” When the door didn’t open, she sighed, forced herself to her feet, and made the long journey to the door. This one was younger, barely out of high school, if she had to take a guess. He held a tray with some foam cartons, a rolled-up paper napkin, a carryout paper cup with a plastic lid, and a bottle of water. “Where am I?”
He gave her a guilty shrug as he handed her the tray. Without a single word, he turned around and headed back down the hallway, toward the stairs at the end. Rin shut the door with her foot, then carried her breakfast—which smelled delicious—to the bed. She flipped open the cartons, finding scrambled eggs and buttered toast. Not exactly what she’d call a light breakfast, but it would do. The cup had orange juice in it. Her stomach wasn’t ready for that. She cracked open the water first, took a few long chugs—she hadn’t realized how thirsty she was—and, finding a small bottle of over-the-counter painkiller, dosed out the maximum number of tablets. They went down with another mouthful of water.
She ate a little bit of the eggs. A slice of toast. By the time she’d swallowed the last bite of the toast, her head wasn’t thudding quite so painfully. Her stomach wasn’t feeling so bad either. Looked like she was going to survive.
After her meal, she was almost feeling human again. She located a full bathroom behind one of the two doors that didn’t lead out to the hall. There were fresh towels hanging on the rods and hotel-sized, packaged soaps and shampoos in the shower. She decided those were meant for her use and got herself cleaned up, but only after locking herself into the bathroom. When she came back out, she discovered a set of new clothes, in her size, lying on top of the freshly made bed.
Breakfast in bed. New clothes. Such service.
Not at all sad to give up the clothes she’d slept in, she took the new ones into the bathroom, locked the door, and changed. This time, when she came out, the man from earlier was waiting for her. Standing, arms crossed over his chest, shoulder leaning against the door frame.
“Okay, I’ve eaten, showered, and am feeling much better. Now, will you please explain to me what’s going on? Did my husband arrange this?”
“Not exactly.” The man with no name motioned for her to follow him. “This way.”
Together, they walked downstairs and into the living room. The space was furnished with a comfortable-looking couch and love seat, a couple of chairs, and a wall of bookshelves. It looked lived-in, the books on the wall of shelves opposite the couch well loved. Between the two bookcases hung a small widescreen plasma television. Under it were shorter bookshelves, stacked with volumes, paperback novels—mostly thrillers, from the look of it. A coffee table sat in front of the couch, the top completely empty except for a small remote control.
Her host waved her toward the couch. “Make yourself comfortable.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rin sat. There were a lot of questions bouncing around in her head, the most pressing being,
Why am I here?
and
Where is Lei?
Even though the man said Drako hadn’t arranged it, exactly, she still had to believe he had something to do with it.
Why am I here?
and
Where is Lei?
Even though the man said Drako hadn’t arranged it, exactly, she still had to believe he had something to do with it.
It was tough, but she could wait a minute or two for some answers—no longer than that though. Definitely no longer.
The man, still standing, asked, “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’d rather you sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
He nodded. Took a seat on the love seat, positioned next to the couch. “My name is Bob. I’m your husband’s uncle. His father was my brother. And I’m guessing there are a lot of things you don’t know about your husband.” He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers under a chin that looked enough like Drako’s for Rin to believe there was a genetic connection between them. “Drako and his brothers Talen and Malek are in trouble.”
Bullshit
. “What kind of trouble?”
. “What kind of trouble?”
“They stole something. From the U.S. government. Something extremely dangerous. It isn’t safe for you to be anywhere near any of them right now.”
Right. . .
“Stole something?” That sounded nothing like her husband, but she wasn’t going to let this man know she didn’t believe him. “What kind of something?”
“Stole something?” That sounded nothing like her husband, but she wasn’t going to let this man know she didn’t believe him. “What kind of something?”
“You’re skeptical. I don’t blame you.”
“Do you have proof?” She studied his features carefully. His mouth sure looked like Drako’s. And his eyes were the same shade. His hair, much of it gray now, was thick and wavy. It was easy enough to believe Bob was a relative of Drako’s. A close one.
Regardless, none of this made sense.
“I have some surveillance footage,” Bob said.
Some grainy video wasn’t going to convince her of anything. But she shrugged her shoulders. “Let’s see it.”
Bob scooped up the remote, hit the power button with his thumb. A little red indicator light on the TV started blinking. Rin studied him even closer as she waited for the television to power up. Deep groves cut into his forehead, and his once-firm jaw had softened. His mouth was a thinner, older version of Drako’s too. Yes, she’d say he was old enough to be Drako’s uncle.
The screen glowed blue. Bob hit another button, and a second later Rin was watching a black-and-white recording, filmed in some kind of building with white walls, white ceiling, and tiled floor. The date, displayed in red digital numbers in the upper left hand corner, suggested the video was more than ten years old. Drako, carrying some small tube-shaped canister in his hands, looked straight at the camera, then reached up. The picture went black, but the sound didn’t cut off right away. Rin heard one, two, three hollow pops; men’s voices; a name she couldn’t quite make out being shouted. Shuffling followed, the slam of a door. Then silence.
That didn’t tell her much, although the video didn’t exactly jive with Drako’s claim to be a jeweler. Of course, who was to say Drako hadn’t decided on a career change? A lot of people did that these days. Maybe once upon a time, Drako had been a security guard? Or . . . or . . . ?
“That tape was filmed in a highly secure government facility not far from here,” Bob explained.
“What’s in the canister?” Rin didn’t expect an honest answer.
“Something the government will do anything to get back.”
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