Missing Lynx (3 page)

“No shit?” He pulled out his phone. “Command is going to be interested to hear that.”

“Who are you calling? It’s Christmas morning.”

“Iniquus. They should have someone from human resources who can come in. Fill out Spyderman’s paperwork, handle the insurance.”

“Even today?” I asked.

“I hope so. Someone’s usually available when an operative’s unconscious.” Striker pressed a button and held the phone to his ear.

“This happens often enough that they assign someone?” I pinched at the skin on my neck.

“Precaution. We’re all required to leave a directive so the doctors can talk to someone, otherwise. . .”

“HIPAA – got it. We’re in the dark.”

Striker held up a finger and turned his body while he spoke to Headquarters.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. I checked the screen. Dave Murphy, my across-the-street neighbor.

“Lexi, you’re not at home.”

“Nope, I had a friend rushed to Suburban, I’m just getting here myself.”

“You’re at Suburban now? Good. Hey, tell Mrs. Nelson Cathy’s going to come up to the hospital later this morning and bring her communion, and ask what else she needs.”

“Okay.” I put a finger in my ear and turned toward the wall as a noisy group moved passed. “You didn’t call me about Mrs. Nelson, though.” I raised my voice over the din.

“The boys want to show you what Santa brought. I let them go over and ring your bell. They heard the dogs bark, your car’s parked outside, but you didn’t answer. I thought I’d check in and make sure everything’s all right.”

“Thanks. Let the them know I’ll stop by later. Okay?”

“Yeah, hey did you know we’re getting new neighbors?” Dave asked.

As he said the word “neighbors,” a thought leaped through my mind like a white leopard. I reached out to grasp the tail so I could pull her back and understand the meaning, but she slipped silkily through my fingers and slinked under the brush, too quick for me grab hold. A shiver tingled down my spine.

“I spotted the SOLD sign up. So Detective Dave, what’s the skinny?” I asked.

“No idea. I haven’t noticed anyone hanging around. Hey, Cathy’s calling me. Gotta go.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Striker raised a questioning brow as I dropped my phone back in my purse.

“Dave called. The little old lady on the other side of my duplex had a stroke a couple of days ago. She’s here, too.”

“Is her family with her?”

“She doesn’t have family. She just has us neighbors. What did Headquarters say?” I asked.

“You’re listed as next-of-kin. They’re on their way with the papers.”

“They can’t fax them over?”

“Protocol. The information is classified.”

I exhaled my frustration at the rules and hurdles standing between me and Spyder.

Striker reached for my hand. “Let’s get you something warm to drink and some food. The doctors are doing their work. Iniquus is on the way to get the papers straight. Then we’ll make a plan.”

I wiggled frozen toes in my sopping wet shoes. How could Striker run through a freaking winter storm and stay immaculate, and I looked more like something a dog chewed on?
Dogs.
I slapped my hand to my forehead and glanced down at my watch. “This is a little complicated because of Christmas.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Striker used his body to shield me from another big family group moving through with presents and “It’s a Boy!” balloons.

“Right now I’m thinking about Beetle and Bella. They need to be fed and walked. They’re probably pacing at the door.”

“Gater’s on duty at Iniquus this morning. He can go to your place if you want. I’m sure he’d jump at a chance to eat the party leftovers.” Striker stooped to pick up a little girl’s bunny she had dropped and handed it off to someone else in her family.

Gater was one of seven men on our team at Iniquus lead by Striker. Last fall they were assigned to safeguard me after Travis Wilson’s attack had me rushed to this very hospital. I stared up the hall with tightly sealed lips. Bad memories. The doctors here glued and bandaged me back together, then the Iniquus team slipped me out in the middle of the night to hide me in a safe house, and protect me while they hunted for Wilson.

Six women. Six. All with husbands or fathers in law enforcement — all killed. I was supposed to be number seven. My survival turned out to be a skin-of-the-teeth miracle. I lived because Spyder had trained me well.
God, please make this okay. Make Spyder better.
I needed to thank him. And I needed to ask him…No one could figure out how I got caught in Wilson’s crosshairs. When they were alive, my dad had been a mechanic, and my husband had been a Ranger over in Afghanistan – not in law enforcement.

While tucked away at the safe house, I explained how I actually had a long-standing relationship with Iniquus through Spyder. We had guessed that it was this association — well, my connection to Spyder more specifically — that made me Wilson’s last target. Now that Wilson was dead, Spyder was probably the only one with an answer to the puzzle of why I was stalked and attacked.

Well, the silver lining to this mess was that the puzzling skills I demonstrated at the safe house caught the attention of Iniquus Command; I was offered a job here. And voila! Mostly I loved my job; I certainly loved my team — especially Gater Aid.

I took off my coat, tucking it over my arm. “I thought Gater was with Amy.”

“Amy wanted Gater to go home to North Carolina to meet her family and spend a couple of days visiting. In Gater’s book spending Christmas with a girlfriend’s family is just shy of getting engaged. Gater isn’t as committed to the relationship as Amy’s feeling. He asked for duty, so he’d have an excuse to stay put and not rock the boat.”

“Maybe Gater should be clear with her about his commitment level.”
And maybe you should be clear with me, Striker Rheas.

“Gater tried. He’s told her, on more than one occasion, he’s married to the job and not interested in a serious relationship right now.”

“And, Amy said what?”

“He’d change his mind because she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”

“Huh. So what do you think Gater’s doing?”

“He’s probably still hunkered down at the barracks on-call. Iniquus only runs a light crew on Christmas. Though if there was an emergency, we’d all get pulled in, no matter where we were, or what we were doing.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Did I sign up for that part of the Iniquus pledge?”

“Nope. You’re special. You get your own set of rules.”

That made me smile. “I like having my own set of rules.”

“I thought you would.” Striker put his hand on the small of my back and steered me toward the doors.

“Wait, I need to call Gater before we go in.”

Three

I
t wasn’t quite seven o’clock when we joined the blurry eyed nurses and doctors in the cafeteria breakfast line. I certainly won the prize for fanciest dress. The cashier stood open mouthed, his eyes directed down my cleavage. Striker cracked his knuckles. The guy refocused and rang up our trays.

I took a sip of coffee and swirled my fork in my scrambled eggs. I couldn’t get my brain to rest on a single subject. My thoughts kaleidoscope-d in my head. Striker watched me over the top of his coffee cup with that quiet assessing look of his, and let me have my mental space to process this turbulent day.

When we went back to Emergency we found that the doctors had moved Spyder into level four isolation until they determined his diagnoses. They had confirmed the recurrence of malaria, but I guess that was only part of the picture. I wrung my hands and listened to the nurse explain that Spyder was still unconscious, and we should just go home for the time being. It might be days before we were allowed any contact with him.

We took the elevator up to the fourth floor to check on Mrs. Nelson. I hobbled like Quasimodo, grimacing with each step. “Darned shoes!”

“Not feeling pretty and girly?” 

“Oh yeah, nothing says sexy like spaghetti legs and aching feet. I think between wrestling with Spyder and tottering around on these heels, my legs are ready for a nice, long hot bath.”

Striker’s eyes grew dark and intense when I said that.

“Stop.” I warned, as we stepped out of the elevator.

“I can stop the action, Chica, but I can’t stop the thought behind it.” 

I care for Mrs. Nelson, but to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t up for chit-chat. I peeked in her room and was relieved to find her still asleep. I left a message with the nurse and headed home.

When we parked, I found my stairs and walk neatly shoveled. Gater’s black Vibram-soled boots stood at attention on my porch by the door. I headed back toward the kitchen where I heard the microwave beeping.

My dogs lay sopping wet at Gater’s feet on the cool kitchen floor, their chests heaving and their tongues lolling out. They must have gone long and hard on their morning run.

Gater grinned at me from behind a plate piled high with food. Gater was in his early twenties. He had sun-bleached blond hair even in the winter, deep brown eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose, which seemed at odds with his Iniquus uniform – gray-camo fatigues, and a long sleeved, charcoal-gray compression shirt, showing off his massive arm muscles and washboard stomach. It was a rare thing for Gater to be dressed in anything else, though.

“Good timing.” He set his plate on the counter. “Much later and I cain’t for sure say there’d be anything left.”

We sat down to eat. Striker filled Gater in on the morning’s happenings.

“You still don’t know how Spyderman’s doing? Or where he come in from?” Gater asked in between bites.

“Right now, it’s all classified, and I’m not privy.” Striker dunked his shrimp into the cocktail sauce. “Later this evening, we’ll call over and find out if the doctors made any progress. Lynx has vamp-shoe-itis and needs to take a bath and a nap.”

“Yeah, I saw her limping in here, but I weren’t gonna say nothing. I know how ladies get all pissy if you point out something like that when they’re all gussied up.” Gater popped an egg roll into his mouth.

Striker focused down at his plate.

“What are you grinning at, Striker? I’d like you to try walking in these heels as long as I have and still be able to stand up. You know what they say about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, don’t you?”

“No, what?” Striker reached for one of Gater’s egg rolls.

“Fred was a good dancer, but Ginger could do the same things he could only in four inch heels and backwards.”

“True,” Striker paused to take a bite of egg roll, “but at night, she couldn’t walk any better than you can, now.”

Gater snorted. I rolled my eyes at them, took my tea, and headed upstairs to the bath.

When I came back down, the kitchen was clean. Striker had his shoes off and was lying on the couch in front of a football game. I hate football, but I stretched out with him, anyway. Striker cuddled me into him, flipped a blanket over both of us, and curled me into his arms. As good as it felt to lay here with Striker, I couldn’t throw off all of my scared-for-Spyder thoughts, all of my holy-shit-Sylanos-became-a-Hydra thoughts. And all the thoughts that had me wondering who the hell was moving in that would make me think of predators?  

Four

T
he phone buzzed near my head – it took me a minute to realize what was making that noise. It sounded like the swarm of mosquitos tormenting me in my dream as I hacked my way through the jungle, searching for Spyder. I put the phone to my ear. The sky shone periwinkle through my window – what time was it?

“Striker here. You awake?”

“Is it Spyder? Is he okay?” My hand clutched the sheet up to my throat.

“No, sorry Lexi, I don’t have any new information from the hospital.”

My muscles released their protective clench. I glanced at the clock – 4:37, ugh. “So what’s up?” I scratched my nails over my scalp to rev my brain and swung my feet out from under the covers.

“Sorry to do this to you. We need you in the Puzzle Room. Now.”

“Okay, Give me thirty minutes.”

I grabbed my jeans and turtle-neck from the chair – not my usual professional outfit, but now means
now
and this would have to do — and ran to the bathroom. What had them pulling me out of bed so early? Must be serious. I wished Striker had at least given me a heads up about what clues I’d find on my table when I got to headquarters.

I put the dogs into the back seat of my new car, a Lexis Rx400, charcoal-gray, just like Striker’s. Command gave it to me as a Christmas bonus — probably “bribe” was a better description. They didn’t want me to leave Iniquus? Fine, if I was going to stay on, at least I wrangled a cool car out of the deal. I slid behind the wheel and headed to Headquarters.

As I drove through the sleeping neighborhoods toward the highway, I called over to the hospital. No change in Spyder’s status – test results not in, no visitors allowed. He was alive. I had to pin that thought to the front of all of the other thoughts pinging around in my brain, vying for my attention. Every time one of those wayward, worse-case-scenario thoughts rushed to my frontal lobe, I pushed it back with my new mantra. “He’s alive.”

The work-crisis was a good thing. If I could do nothing for Spyder – not even hold his hand — then I needed to keep myself busy with something else, or I would go absolutely nutso.

I took the elevator up to the top floor and tramped to my office with snow clinging to my boots. Last fall when I solved a crime that put a lot of very bad men away for a long time, I got my Puzzle Room as a reward. A designer created the space for efficiency and clear thought. Three tables lined up like soldiers in the large square room — plenty of surface area for spreading out the files and pictures – the flotsam and jetsam my team gathered in the field. I had a white board across one wall and a cork board across the other. A cosmetic magnifying glass sat on my desk next to a top-of-the-line computer system with some very kick-ass software – I even had a predictive algorithm to guess who would commit crimes in the future or estimate where they lived once the crime had been committed. The designer even thought to include beds and feeding dishes for my dogs, because they were almost always with me. On the far wall, a little walkway lead to a full bathroom off to the right and a closet to the left.