Fade To Midnight (26 page)

Kev was taken aback. It seemed so improbable, that just asking somebody politely could actually yield answers that might help him. And this oversexed asswipe was the last person he'd have expected help from. Maybe he just had a negative attitude. God knows, hanging out with Edie's family would bring the latent negativity out in anybody.

Desmond Marr was nodding enthusiastically, a big grin all over his face. “I've already made some phone calls. My colleague Dr. Ava Cheung in research and development is looking forward to meeting you. She's not sure what she might find, since Helix didn't exist eighteen years ago, but she'll give it a shot. I hoped to catch up with you so we could get going on this. Give me your data, OK?” Marr pulled out his cell phone, punched open the address function and waited.

Strange, that this news didn't jangle his bells more. Or jangle them in a more pleasing way. Kev just wanted to smack this guy.

“So?” Marr prompted, a hint of impatience in his voice. “Tomorrow, then? Can I have your number? Or your card?”

Kev glanced at Edie. “Have you got his number?”

“Right here.” Edie reached into the bosom of her gown, and whipped a wilted business card out. Drawing Marr's interested gaze to her luscious cleavage in the process.

Kev snatched the card from her. It was warm, from being nestled against those firm, lovely tits. “We'll call you,” he said. “Depends on what's happening with Edie, and her dad. We'll be in touch.”

Marr's smile froze. The realest split second that Kev had sensed so far. Then the smile switched on, cheerful crinkled eyelids and overly bleached teeth. “Sure. That's great, then,” he enthused. “I'll wait for your call.” He made a move to kiss Edie, but Kev stepped in front of her.

“Nah,” he reminded the guy, smiling real big. “None of that.”

Marr's eyelids tightened. “I think you have the wrong idea. I—”

“Not at all,” Kev said smoothly. “It's just late, and Edie's had a really long day. So, then, ah…good night.”

Marr's smile faded away. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever. Call when your busy schedule permits.”

Kev waited for the guy to turn the corner, and scooped the sputtering Edie into the circle of his arm to hurry her the fuck up.

“Why were you so rude?” Edie demanded. “For God's sake, don't you want to look through those archives?”

The elevator to the parking garage pinged. He hustled her in and waited for the door to close. “You don't know why?” he asked. “You have no idea? Think about it for a minute. Search your memory for clues.”

She made an exasperated sound. “I am too tired for games. Tell me, or else take me straight home to my own apartment. Or better yet, I'll call a car.” She hesitated. “But I'll have to borrow your cell to call it.”

He snorted. “That guy wants to fuck you,” he said.

Edie stared up at him, her face blank. She really, truly was oblivious to all that testosterone whipping around. Granted, she was selective about who she tuned in to, but that was pretty clueless, for a psychic. And after being grabbed and kissed and groped, too.

The woman truly had no idea how gorgeous she was. The smudged makeup setting off those incredible eyes, lipstick worn off the soft pink of those cushiony, kissable lips. Tits spilling out of the dress. Any man with a goddamn pulse would want to mount right up.

He certainly wanted to, at his earliest opportunity. He dragged her out into the garage. No more interruptions, no more distractions.

She stumbled awkwardly beside him. “But he…but I…no way!” she protested. “You're way off base. I've known him since I was fourteen, and he's never…I just don't believe that—”

“Shhh.” He lifted her up, placing her against the concrete wall of the parking garage and wedging his thighs between hers, so that she straddled the aching bulge of his cock. “Believe it. That guy wants to fuck you. But he's not going to. Because you're mine.”

She stared into his face, her thighs tightening around him. Her cheeks were going pink, and the corners of her mouth were quivering.

“Actually. I'm not disputing that, Mr. Masterful,” she said demurely. “On the contrary.”

“That's fortunate,” he informed her.

“I didn't mean to make you jealous,” she went on. “I was just trying to help. In the search for your past. If you still care, that is.”

“I care plenty. It's just that my brain's on override. I think it's the dress. And since you're, ah, completely in my evil thrall, and all that—”

“Excuse me?” The quiver in the corners of her mouth was becoming a genuine uptilted curve. “In your evil thrall, am I?”

“Totally,” he assured her. “You're brainwashed, remember? Assface said so.”

Her giggling snort made his spirits soar. “You mean Paul?”

“Yeah. So I figured to take advantage of the situation,” he said. “Take you home. Show you my big bed. My big condom stash. Stake my claim, six or seven more times. Seal the deal. What do you say?”

“Oh. Mmm,” she murmured, her sooty eyelashes sweeping down.

She steadied herself on his shoulders, and he stared down at the perfect curves and angles of her. He couldn't wait to let those perfect tits bounce tenderly, free of restraints like God intended. “I know some excellent brainwashing techniques,” he coaxed, kissing her throat. “You'll be begging me to make the orgasms stop. So you can rest.”

“Wow.” She leaned into his caresses. “Sounds intense.”

“It will be,” he assured her. “Your problems will be a distant dream. You'll lie there, too tired to flutter your eyelids, and I'll deliver the final blow. Hand feeding you fudge ripple ice cream.”

She hid her face against his neck, her shoulders shaking. “Make it Dulce de Leche, and I'll do your bidding for all eternity.”

Yes.
“There's an all-night grocery two blocks from my house,” he said quickly. “All eternity, then. It's a deal.”

He meant for the kiss to be a quick, glancing contact, a seal-the-bargain sort of kiss, and a promise of more to come, but he couldn't lean away. She was so soft and sweet. That tender mouth, those soft lips, that shy, sweet tasting tongue. She was delicious.

She leaned back, panting. “One condition,” she said.

He took the opportunity to drag in some badly needed oxygen. “Condition? What condition?”

She stroked his face, thighs tightening hungrily around him. “That you let me brainwash you back,” she murmured huskily.

Kev noticed, as he grinned like a fucking fool, that the scar tissue on his cheek was stinging a little bit less than before. He must be stretching the scar tissue out. Limbering it up.

“Oh, babe,” he said hoarsely. “I was counting on it.”

“D
o not lose them,” Des hissed into his cell. “Whatever you do.”

“No way.” Wanatabe's breezy tone pissed Des off. “We've got him cold, heading over the Fremont Bridge. Would be easier if I didn't have to hold your hand while concentrating on doing my job, though.”

Des clicked to break the connection. “Fuck you, too,” he muttered, striding down the hospital corridor.

He was glad for the back-up, and Tom's men were admirably flex about changing plans in midstream after he found out about Larsen, but he'd forgotten what a pain in the ass collaboration could be. He and Ava were a seasoned team, but Tom's minions and their pumped up egos were going to be a challenge. It would have been less nerve-wracking to plant a GPS device on Larsen's car than to actually tail him, but they couldn't identify the vehicle until he took off in it.

Des was startled by how violently Larsen had pissed him off. He considered himself a very cool customer. A necessary character trait for a man who played such high-stakes games. Emotions resulted in mistakes. Mistakes were unacceptable. Dr. O had drilled that into them.

But that arrogant fucker Kev Larson was going to pay for talking to him like that. Correction: Kev McCloud. He was certain of it. He could feel that fact, humming in the air. He could smell it. That acrid, burning stink of destiny.

An Internet search to check out the face of the guy's identical twin, the one who'd slit Dr. O's throat, would confirm it. There had to be some resemblance, even with those godawful scars.

But he scarcely needed a confirmation. How Edie could fuck a man so hideously defaced was beyond him. The idea made him want to vomit. It he were Edie, he'd be flinching in horror whenever his eyes landed on the guy. Maybe she fucked with her eyes closed, or dog style.

He caught sight of himself in a window. Took a moment to check out his own impeccable, chiseled good looks. Smiled widely at himself, sucked on a tooth. Yes. Charming, dapper. Perfect.

Dickhead. Playing alpha dog with him. Pissing to mark his territory right there in a hospital corridor. Publically humiliating him. This brain damaged, fucked up, ugly, pathetic amnesiac asshole thought he could win a pissing contest with Desmond Marr, VP of Helix International, son of Raymond Marr, one of the richest men in America?

Wrong. Larsen was going to be humbled, and Des was going to enjoy the process, very much. So he felt territorial about Edie? Des would hit him where he lived. His mouth watered as he imagined going at that lithe body, pounding like an earth drill. Or having those plump, rosy lips wrapped around the base of his dick, anxiously sucking.

While Larsen watched, straining and grunting at the gag.

Yes. That would go a long way toward compensating Des for the discomfort of the preceding five minutes. And it didn't have to stop there. Ava had said that McCloud was the prototypical X-Cog subject. Tough enough to crown and fuck around with for a while. Des could probably crown the guy himself without burning him. He wasn't half bad at X-Cog crowning, no matter how Ava carped and carried on, with her insanely high standards about vestigial muscles and speech control and reverse sensory info, blah blah fucking blah. Spare him. It wasn't like he had to make the guy do cross-stitch.

Des would crown that arrogant prick. Make him grovel and crawl. He'd roll over, eat from the floor, bark like a dog, lick Des's shoes.

Yes, that would be Larsen's life. What little was left of it. Until he started bleeding out his orifices, and they sent him to the boneyard.

The phone buzzed in his hand, interrupting his fantasy. The display told him it was Ava. Her tenth unanswered call since he'd left the hotel. Controlling bitch couldn't just let him do his job. He muted the phone, stuck it back in his pocket unanswered. Av could wait.

He turned the corner to the ICU. There was Parrish's family. The stringy plucked chicken of a sister. Charles's sharp, masculine good looks did not translate well onto her face, sadly. Her daughter, Charles's thick-bodied, dull-eyed niece, Tanya. The sweet little sister, Veronica, crying in a chair, looking luminous and vulnerable. Big limpid eyes, just like Edie's. He ran his eyes down over her figure, in the modest lavender satin. Budding. Coming along nicely. He liked them super fresh from time to time. A taste he'd picked up from Tom, in their college days.

The shriveled bitch in the beaded black chiffon came hustling over. “Des! Thank goodness. Did you see her? Did you see that…that horrible person with her? Do you see what I mean about him?”

Des nodded, giving the woman a hug, careful not to inhale the powdery stink of her perfume. “I did, Mrs. Morris,” he said. “Knowing he was one of Osterman's victims, and how he attacked Charles eighteen years ago, he's certainly both brain damaged and mentally ill. Deadly dangerous, and to Edie most of all. She's completely under his spell.”

The aunt flinched, theatrically. “We know.”

“I thought he seemed nice,” Veronica muttered, rebellious.

“Don't talk about things you don't understand,” the aunt scolded.

The phone buzzed again. Des pulled it out, expecting to see Ava again on the display, but it was Wanatabe. He hit the decode function, and smiled his apology to the ladies. “Yes?”

“We lost them,” Wanatabe announced.

Des was speechless for a moment. “What?” he spat out.

“He's gone.” Wanatabe sounded defensive. “I have no idea how he made us, but he—”

“Not interested.” Des hung up, gave the ladies a reassuring grin. The rest of him wanted to howl like a hungry dog.

“I don't know what to think of this wild story of Edie's, about Uncle Charles being poisoned,” Tanya said. “I mean, the only person we can think of who would have a motive is that man. And the person with the best access was Edie. Like, do the math. It's obvious.”

Des stared at her, acting astonished at the woman's incredibly intelligent insight. “My God, Tanya! You're so right! I can't believe that didn't occur to me. You must be unusually perceptive.”

Tanya simpered. “Women's intuition, I guess.”

“When the lab has the results, they'll probably assign a police officer to the case,” he said. “We have to make sure to explain this whole complicated situation right away. Make sure to stay available.”

“Anything for Uncle Charles,” Tanya said piously.

“I hate it that he's out there with Edie,” Des fretted. “I'd like to question that son of a bitch myself.”

The pig faced security guy started digging in his pocket. “I have his business card,” he said.

Des stared. “You have
what?
”

“He gave it to Max Collier this afternoon.” The idiot stared at the thing, brow knitted. “Kev Larsen, Lost Boys Toys and Flywear.”

Des snatched it out of his hands. No home address, but he could pass what was there on to Tom, who could pry the necessary info out of the databases floating in cyberspace.

Then, the time consuming process of kissing, hugging, petting and reassuring the old biddy and her brain-dead spawn. He texted the data to Tom while loping to the parking garage. Ava could do the search, but she was probably in the middle of a screaming meltdown. Ava had to be kept busy. Her restless, unstable brain needed a constant source of data to crunch, the way a huge, slavering predatory animal in a cage needed constant chunks of bloody meat.

The phone buzzed again. Ava. He braced himself. No reason to put this off any longer. He decoded, hit talk. “Yes?”

“Where the fuck are you?” she screeched. “Why have you stopped answering your phone? Is this a time for adolescent power games?”

“Av, calm down—”

“Did they get her? Is she in the bag? Tell me she is.”

“No. Ava, I—”

“What do you mean, no? We clearly instructed those meatheads to nab the mealymouthed bitch while Parrish was having his fit! We've already planted the vials of Tamlix-12 at Edie's apartment! And they wasted it? We stuck our asses miles out into the air for nothing?”

“Shut up, Av! They choked because I told them to choke!”

“Why? Goddamnit, Des!” Her voice was so shrill, he winced, and held the phone away from his ear.

“McCloud,” he said, letting the word punch through the momentum of her tirade like a bullet.

She went abruptly silent. Ah, the satisfaction. Those fleeting moments of Ava rendered speechless. It almost never happened.

“What?” she whispered.

“You heard me.”

“You mean, he's alive? You know where he is?”

“I know better than that. He's alive, and he's a fucking amnesiac. No clue what happened to him. Can you believe it?”

“Oh. Oh, my God.” Her voice trembled with excitement. “Where?”

“Edie Parrish is fucking him. Tonight she asked if I could put her in touch with someone who could look through Dr. O's archives. To find this guy's family, his past. Isn't that sweet, Av? You can imagine who came to mind. Don't you feel the urge to help the poor fucker?”

“God, yes,” she moaned. “I'll help him like he's never been helped before.”

“So, you see? I had to leave her on the loose until we got a line on him. Now we bag them both. She left the banquet with him, and went to the hospital to check on her dad. I met them a few minutes ago—”

“Met them? You mean, you've met him? What's he like?”

“Ugly,” Des said harshly. “He's an arrogant, ugly prick, and he needs to be taken down.”

“That can be arranged, darling.” Ava was happy again, excitement bubbling in her smoky, seductive voice. “So what's the plan?”

“Wanatabe was following them, but he lost them—”

“They can't even tail a goddamn car?” she exploded.

“But I am retrieving his home address as we speak,” Des soothed. “We'll get them. Soon. We just have to figure out how to play this. The cards have changed, babe. It's better, now.”

“What do you mean? What's to play? We take him. He's ours. End of story.”

“No, Av,” he said patiently. “McCloud has a grudge against Parrish for letting Osterman dick his brain around. Now he's fucking Parrish's daughter. If we want to mess with the Parrishes, he's our man. Suspect number one. It's beautiful. An opportunity we cannot pass up.”

“You're complicating things,” Ava scolded. “I need him as a reasearch subject, not a fall guy! He does me no good in jail!”

“Not jail,” Des wheedled. “Give me credit. He does dreadful deeds, then he disappears forever. The case stays open. The evil scientist, the obscene mind control experiments, the murdered billionaire who financed it all. The kidnapped heiress, his innocent daughter, raped and brainwashed, carried away to an awful fate, her body never found. Juicy, sexy stuff. They'll write bestselling true crime novels about it.”

“I still think it's too risky. Not when I need to—”

“Later, Av.” He broke the connection, slid into his Jag, and was about to dial Tom to see if he'd found an address. The phone buzzed.

Av, again. He gritted his teeth, decoded it. “What?” he snarled.

“Edie,” Ava whispered. “Did she look pretty tonight? Does fucking McCloud give her a nice rosy glow? Could you smell if she was wet for him? Tell me, Dessie. Did you like her?”

He cleared his throat, lust pumping through him, hot and immediate as he saw it happening. Edie, naked but for a crown in the lab beneath the bright, cruel white lights, eagerly servicing him. Ava watching, with her master crown, her dark eyes behind the goggles lit with unholy excitement. And McCloud, grunting and straining across the room while he waited his turn for the slave crown.

“I liked her fine,” he said thickly. “She'll do.”

“I think this is going to be a lot of fun, Dessie. Don't you?”

“Oh, yeah.” He gripped his crotch, massaged it. “Lots of fun.”

 

The drive through the city didn't cool Edie's buzz of arousal one bit, but her brain churned stubbornly along, independent of the buzz. It sounded so luxurious, to go to Kev's lair and play sportive erotic games in his big bed. Feeding each other ice cream. Fooling around, giggling, teasing. Having fun. What an alien concept.

But fun was not in the cards for her right now. She was the one with the controlling family breathing down her neck, and she had to protect Kev. Of course, the best way to do that was to stay away from him, but she couldn't ask that of herself. For God's sake, she'd just discovered him. It was too damn cruel.

The next best thing was just to try to keep them both as far out of sight and out of range as possible. It was only a temporary solution, but there she was. All out of bright ideas.

When he pulled up next to a big warehouse, she looked at him. “We can't stay here tonight,” she said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he replied. “They'll find my address. It's not hard, even for a nonprofessional, and I assume your father has a private investigator on the payroll. Could your people come up with a piece of paper tonight authorizing them to drag you away?”

She considered it. “I'm not sure, not without my father signing it. But they could get the police to issue a warrant for your arrest. On what grounds, I don't know, but they'd think of something.” She heaved a sigh. “I was looking forward to that brainwashing session.”

“It's highly effective in a hotel room, too,” he assured her. “We'll get good results, I promise. Your brain will be squeaky clean.”

She snorted with giggles. “Then why are we here at all?”

“I need some stuff from my arsenal,” he said. “Couple of back-up guns, some knives, some cash. Odds and ends.”

She gaped. “Backup…you mean, you're armed? Now? With a…a gun?” Her voice squeaked on the word.

“Of course. I'm always armed. Take another look at my face, Edie. Can you blame me?”