Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies (27 page)

Genie glared at him. “Why are we here?”

“You mean in your father’s barn? Because I figured it was the perfect place to wait for him to come back home. He’ll come because he’s not sure if both of his daughters are alive or dead. “I’d rather wait for him in the house, but it’s been bugged. Although—” he looked around “—the barn does have its advantages.”

“Why do you want my father?” Genie asked.

“Because he is going to pay for what he did to my family, and for what he did to yours.” He wrapped his arm around Becca’s shoulders.

Becca gave Genie a look of warning but Genie didn’t care. She was tired of people lying to her. Tired of people trying to manipulate her. Actually, she was just damned tired.

“Obviously you could have gotten to him any time you wanted, why the pretense? Why destroy
my
life in the process?”

“Because I want him to see how badly he’s lost. I want him to see that you are all going to be working with me—Becca, you, your sister, Cat. And that all his efforts to hide you, to hide the crimes he committed, were for nothing.”

“That’s quite an assumption,” Genie said. “Why would I want to work with you? And Cat is long gone.”

“Yes, she was able to make her escape after my Becca here
—
” he squeezed her tight. Too tight. “—sent the intel to Josh Cameron about where she was and what we were planning together.”

Becca stilled, her face losing some of its color.

“Oh, yes, sweetheart. I know about that. Very inventive of you. And it couldn’t have worked out better. Because of you, now our little Cat is exactly where I want her to be. Living in Senator Phillips’s home.”

“Leave her alone!” Becca warned, trying to pull away from him.

“Or what? What exactly are you going to do, sweetheart?”

He let her go and nodded to a large dark-haired man, with thick black brows and cheek bones sharp enough to slice paper, who was lurking in the shadows. “Put them in the cellar until their dear old dad arrives. I want them to ponder what will happen to their precious Cat if they don’t do exactly as I say.”

The dark-haired man grabbed them both by the arms.

“I will never work for you,” Genie ground out as she was dragged away, her scuffling feet scattering straw every which way.

“Oh, you’d be surprised what you will do when the safety of family members is involved,” Emerich said evenly.

“Let me go!” Becca cried as the dark-haired man pushed them to the far side of the barn. “Sean? What are you going to do? Help me!”

“You made a big miscalculation, Becca. You forgot that I have eyes and ears everywhere.” He stepped forward, bent down and yanked Genie’s gun out of the holster at her ankle. “Everywhere.”

The dark haired man pushed them toward a large trap door in the floor next to the far wall of the barn. He thrust a flashlight at them as they descended the rickety wooden stairs into the darkness, trying not to trip. The trap door above them slammed shut, and they heard the sound of the bolt sliding home. Hay and dirt sifted down through the cracks in and around the door. Genie felt Becca shiver in disgust. Her sister had always hated it down here.

Her heart thudding in her ears, Genie shone the light around the small storage space. It was just as she remembered. The cellar walls were lined with old wooden shelves filled with boxes and jars of jams and jellies and who knew what else. She’d come down here with Mary when she was a kid, so she knew there was a dirty old string hanging from a bare light bulb in the ceiling—assuming it hadn’t burned out. Becca found and pulled it, and filled the small room with dim light, and stood hugging herself in the middle of the floor.

“I hate this place,” Becca muttered, her gaze searching the dark corners of the floors and walls. “It’s a spider-haven and always has been.”

“Spiders are the least of our problems,” Genie muttered and stepped toward one of the shelves on the wall and peeked gingerly into the boxes looking for anything that might help them, while the smell of dank earth and rotting vegetables crinkled her nose. She picked up a wrench off a spiderweb-draped shelf, the only thing she could find that could be used as a weapon, and hit it against her palm. Maybe.

Becca took a step back, almost hit the wall and stepped forward again, holding herself even tighter.

“Becca, really? That man of yours is going to kill Daddy. You know that. Hell, he’ll probably kill us all.”

“Somehow I don’t think we’ll get that lucky,” Becca muttered. “If Sean has his way, neither one of us will ever see the light of day again. We’ll be buried somewhere in one of his overseas drug labs for the rest of our lives. You were right. My plan sucks.”

Genie shuddered, wishing she’d been wrong. “Kyle knows we didn’t die on that boat,” she reminded her. “He won’t stop looking for us.”

Becca shivered, though Genie couldn’t tell if it was from the idea of what Emerich had planned for them, or because of their surroundings. “I hope you’re right.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, thoughts churning through their heads.

“I wish there was some way to contact Kyle,” Genie muttered.

Becca cocked her head, her teeth gnawing at her lower lip. “Maybe there’s a way.”

“How?” Genie guessed, and rolled her eyes. “Your mental mini-cam?”

“Don’t make fun. You experienced it yourself,” Becca said with a hitch of indignation.

“I hallucinated, you mean.”

“You have a better idea?”

Now, there was another thing she was tired of. That phrase. “Fine. But I didn’t even see Kyle in my vision. I saw Johnny and Dad. And Dad’s the
last
person we should bring into this.”

“Exactly, because you were seeing through Kyle’s eyes. Now, we have to contact Cat,” Becca said.

Genie sighed in resignation. She couldn’t believe she was even considering this. Then again, most people would have the same reaction to her own abilities and she knew they were real.

“Together we can do it,” Becca urged at her hesitation. “All we have to do is focus on her and concentrate.”

“Like a Ouija board?”

Becca’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You felt me, didn’t you?” she snapped. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

Genie held up a hand in surrender. ”Okay, okay. Kind of. But I was just thinking about you, that’s all.”

Becca flicked her hand impatiently. “You’ll see. Together the energy push will be stronger. I know we can reach her. The question is for how long?” She pointed. “Take off Mother’s crystal necklace.”

Genie reached up and felt the crystal, smooth and warm against her skin. “Why?”

“We’ve all worn it, all touched it. It’s a part of all of us. It’ll help.”

Genie took it off and extended it toward Becca in the palm of her hand.

Becca laid her palm over the crystal, grasped Genie’s hand, and squeezed tight, then grabbed her other hand, too. “Think of Cat. Ask her to help us. Picture where we are, every little detail, and project that picture toward her.”

“This is crazy,” Genie murmured.

“Do it,” Becca demanded. “We don’t have much time. We’ve both had the drugs. They’ve enhanced our power. It’ll work. It has to, or we’ll both wish we were dead.”

Deciding it was better than the alternative, Genie closed her eyes and clutched the crystal and Becca’s hands tight, concentrating hard on Cat’s voice, her heart, and her smile. She thought about the way she had felt when she’d said goodbye to Cat at the airport. Thought about how badly she’d wanted to go with her. To spend time with her and get to know her again. Her kids. Her husband.

“Cat,” she whispered.

And then for the briefest of seconds, she saw a long table covered in white linen and Cat’s children sitting across from her. Little Annie with her head full of blond curls, and Mark smiling as he ate a cookie, his mouth full of baby teeth. It was working! She focused on her sister, trying even harder. Was she really looking through Cat’s eyes? Was it possible they really were in Cat’s head, like a mental mini-cam?

“Cat! Help us!”

Together they said the words over and over, concentrating hard on sending images of their prison. Genie saw a flash of a trembling hand knock a water glass over onto the white linen.

“Cat! Call Kyle!” Genie pleaded. Her head swam and her stomach heaved. But for a tiny second she felt her sister looking back at her in wonder.

And then she was gone, and so was the vision.

She and Becca both collapsed to the dirt floor of the cellar. “I saw her! I think. I saw her kids.”

“Me, too.”

“Yes! Do you really think it worked?” Genie asked, hearing the crazy hope in her own voice. Were her gifts really going to get them out of this, and back to Kyle—the same gifts she’d fought so hard to keep secret from him?

Becca turned in alarm at the muffled rev of a boat down by the dock. “I can’t say for certain, but I sure do hope so.”

…

Kyle and Cameron’s crew of agents waited in the converted fishing trawler five miles offshore from the Marsters estate, listening to their surveillance equipment for any sounds that would indicate he’d arrived back at the house. But so far, nothing.

“Shouldn’t he have made it back by now?” Kyle asked, tired of sitting, twiddling his thumbs.

Johnny’s cell phone rang, halting Cameron’s response. Johnny frowned in confusion at the number before saying, “Hello?” He looked up at Kyle. “Just a minute.” He handed him his phone. “It’s Cat.”

“Cat?” Cameron asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I gave her my number back in Reno when we were on our way to the airport. Told her if she got in any trouble or needed anything…”

“Hello, Cat?” Kyle said into the phone, clamping down on his anxiety.

“Where is Genie?” she asked without preamble.

“Wh-what?”

“Let me talk to her, Kyle.”

Kyle hesitated, but Cat deserved the truth, or at least some form of it. “Genie’s not here.”

“Where is she?” She sounded on the edge of panic.

Kyle took a deep breath and looked questioningly at Cameron. He wasn’t sure how much he should tell her.

“Dammit, Kyle! I know she’s in trouble. She and Becca, both.”

“Why would you say that?”

Cat huffed. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I talk to my sister. Now.”

“Honestly, I wish she were here. How do you know she and Becca are together? I mean that Becca—”

“I saw them. Heard them.” She made an impatient noise. “It’s hard to explain.”

Kyle glanced at Johnny and Cameron who were both gazing intently at him. “A triplet thing?” he asked, though he didn’t believe that’s what it was. Not for a second.

“Yes,” Cat said, grasping onto the idea. “A triplet thing.”

Yeah. Or maybe a psychic triplet thing. “Tell me what you saw.”

If she was surprised by his lack of skepticism, it didn’t show. She answered without missing a beat. “Just the two of them, calling for me. Asking me for help. They were in a dark place.”

“How dark?”

“Lightish dark. I don’t know.”

He kept his voice calm, though he felt anything but. “Yes, you do, Cat. Think.”

“Forget the dark. I felt fear. They’re scared, Kyle. And my sisters are never scared.”

Kyle took a deep breath, telling himself to deal with her as he would any other witness in a case, regardless of how surreal the conversation was. “And…”

“And nothing,” she said, quickly.

“Okay, sit down and close your eyes. Concentrate. Tell me everything from the beginning.”

He heard the sound of a chair moving. “All right.”

“Focus on what you see. Do you see Genie?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, look past her. What’s behind her?”

“Shelves. Shelves with jars on them. Jam. And pickles.”

He hiked his brows. “Pickles. Good. What else?”

“Cobwebs. A bare light bulb. Dirt. I smell dirt. And rot. I have this horrible feeling…”

“What?”

“It’s like they’re buried alive.”

Kyle’s gut clenched.

“But they weren’t lying down. They were standing.”

“That’s good. So they have room to move around.”

“Yes. It’s…it’s a room. But small.”

“Can you think of any place like that near your Dad’s house? Someplace on the island? A small enclosed place that is dark and smells of dank earth?”

Cat thought for a moment. “Gosh, there are lots of outbuildings on the estate. We weren’t allowed in most of them. Though we did play in some…”

“Any with an underground room? A basement or cellar, perhaps?”

“A cellar. Yes!” Cat said, excited. “Under the barn! There’s one of those pull-up doors in the floor!”

Kyle was already on his feet, motioning to the others. “The barn. We can be there in less than ten minutes.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Cat, no. That’s not a good idea.” He grabbed his gear bag and vest. He wanted to be prepared for anything.