Remembered by Moonlight (3 page)

MacCreedy looked in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t amused.

“Hang on.”

At his grim warning, Cee Cee grabbed the dash and the Oh Shit handle above the door to avoid being whipped about the bucket seat as Silas executed a sharp, tire-squealing turn, hoping to cut around the big rig before they were blocked in. No such luck. He backed quickly into another tight half circle to find their only two exits closed off.

“Call for backup.” Silas began reaching toward the small of his back for his service piece. “This isn’t going to be pret—”

There wasn’t time to brace, as a lift truck suddenly appeared on the driver’s side. Violent impact rocked the vehicle as its raised forks pierced through the door panel. One impaled MacCreedy’s thigh, pinning him as they were steadily pushed toward the edge of the wharf and the deep waters far below.

“Silas!” Cee Cee reached frantically for his seat belt, but his hip was smashed against the dividing console. She couldn’t get to the release.

He pushed her away, his features tight and gray with pain. “No time. Get out. Get out!”

Gun in hand, Cee Cee pulled herself through the passenger side window, crouching over the roof to get off several shots at the driver of the lift. The car shook, spoiling her aim, sending her bullets careening off the protective roll cage.

Then, a tremendous jolt as they hit the raised lip of the pier sent her flailing backwards. There was nowhere to go but over the side. And down. With the now driverless forklift still joined and following.

Cee Cee instinctively flung out a mental distress call as she pushed away from the plunging vehicles so they wouldn’t come down on top of her. She hit the river’s murky surface. The hard slap of it against her spine knocked most of the breath from her. As water closed over her head, she sent another frantic psychic cry, not knowing if it would be heard.

Finally the shock of impact lessened, allowing her to kick arms and legs in a struggle not to get caught up in the sinking tangle of metal. Instead of heading for the surface and her own safety, she dove, following the hazy shapes all the way to the bottom. The car hit first on the passenger side with the fork truck above it, then rolled onto its roof as the heavy lift toppled over to settle on the silty bottom beside it.

Mac!

It was almost impossible to see with the already dirty water clouded by the disturbance to its floor. Cee Cee felt her way along the undercarriage, trying to find entrance to the upended coupe. The force of landing with the weight of the forklift on top had crushed the passenger side like a trash compactor. The space where she’d been sitting was obliterated. She couldn’t get inside and could only hope the damage had sealed in a pocket of air to keep her partner alive. She couldn’t carry news to Nica that her new husband had died after insisting Cee Cee save herself. Help. She had to get help.

Kicking fiercely upward, she broke the surface. Gasping noisily for air, half expecting a hail of bullets to rain down, she searched for any sign of movement along the edge of the dock above. Someone had to have seen them go over.

No one appeared.

The wall, slick with slime, offered no hand holds.

Taking a determined breath, she jackknifed back down. The water had begun to clear, but the river’s natural yellow-brown filter still obstructed a good visual. A gentle trail of bubbles coming up from the crippled vehicle gave her a burst of hope, but time still slipped away far too quickly as she worked her way over to the driver’s side. She pounded her palms against the ruptured door panel, listening for a response from inside. Nothing.

Dammit Mac, hang on!

Emotion cramped about her oxygen-starved lungs as she continued her futile search for some way to breach the car’s exterior. Even if she could smash in the cracked windshield, would she be able to free her partner as the water rushed inside? She couldn’t see through the webbed glass to gauge MacCreedy’s condition. Odds were she was already too late, but Silas had an uncanny way around the odds. An involuntary moan of anguish escaped the tight press of her lips, carrying the sound to the surface in a trickle of little air pockets. Air Silas MacCreedy no longer had.

Something hit the water above her. A dark shape plummeted downward. She couldn’t tell what or who it was until she caught a glimpse of red.

From Max Savoie’s hightops.

Cee Cee’s relief was short-lived as Max gripped her arm and began to tow her toward the surface. Her tenacious struggle surprised him until he followed her desperate gestures toward the car. Max quickly studied the scene as a large hook on a sturdy cable came drifting down from above. Before Cee Cee could react, he applied his heel to the windshield and, as it caved inward, secured the hook to the frame. Together, they tugged on that life line. Slowly it went taut and began to retract. The car started to rise off the bottom but the weight of the forklift dragged on it, slowing the upward progress.

Seeing the problem, Max wedged himself into a small space between the vehicle and the lift. When an alarmed Cee Cee tried to intervene, he waved her away and braced his back against the fork truck. At first he was pulled forward, and Cee Cee had a terrifying vision of him getting knocked over and crushed beneath it. But his knees locked and his heels dug in until he was nearly up to mid-calf in river bed. And there, he held.

Slowly, agonizingly, the two vehicles began to separate, the forks tearing from the car with a muffled scream of steel. And then the coupe, with MacCreedy inside, started upward.

Chest burning, Cee Cee grabbed Max’s arm, supporting him as he wrestled free of the bottom so they could swim up together. By the time they broke the surface, gasping and coughing, the car was safely on the wharf, and a heavy rope had been lowered to them. Max positioned the wheezing police detective behind him and curled her arm about his neck.

“Hold on.”

She clung in shivery relief as he began to climb, lifting them out of what might have become their underwater grave.

  Finally, on legs nearly as liquid as the river, Cee Cee ran ahead with a strength born of fear toward the crushed vehicle where Giles St. Clair was prying open the door. She pushed through the small cluster of workers who had gathered on the now unobstructed dockside. Where had they been when they were needed? But only one question mattered now.

“Is he alive?”

MacCreedy slumped in the seat, shoulder belt holding him upright. She reached around him to release the buckle, letting him spill into her arms. Carefully, she maneuvered him from the car and laid him on the wet concrete. He was pale and unresponsive, so she began mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.

“C’mon, Mac. Don’t do this,” she cried almost angrily.

Max stood back and watched her work, her expression fierce, her actions quick and competent. An amazing female. Such reckless courage. Such devotion. Risking everything for one who wasn’t even her own kind. Staying under to the very last seconds, until she was certain all had been done that could be. And now, even exhausted and weak, she battled to revive that life she’d been willing to surrender her own to save.

He could still hear the faint vibration of her call. Like some kind of beacon, it led them right to her. Reading the story of what had happened in the scorch marks on the pavement, he’d jumped in without hesitation while Giles ran to commandeer the needed assistance topside. And they’d been able to save her and hopefully, her partner. She wouldn’t have left MacCreedy. Max knew that with a shaky certainty. She would never leave behind someone she cared about. Even now, as she tried to force life back into the body of her colleague and friend.

She’d called to him. What was that? How was it possible? This strange connection he felt with her, just how deep did it go? Just how intimately were they linked? At the hearts? At the souls? At the psyches?

MacCreedy’s chest gave a sudden hitch, then a great gout of dirty water erupted from his mouth. Cee Cee rocked back on her heels, her hand stroking through his crisply cut hair, tears finally streaking her face now that it didn’t matter. She rolled him gently to his side so he could cough his lungs clear. Then, while Giles made a tourniquet with his belt and used his jacket to bind the gaping leg wound, MacCreedy’s eyes blinked open. Cee Cee palmed the side of his ashen face, greeting him with a smile.

“You scared the shit outta me,” she scolded. “Don’t do that again. Good partners are too hard to find.”

Silas managed a small smile before his consciousness waned.

Then her attention turned to Max. The complexity of that look made his heart skip a startled beat.

“Talk about nick of time. Thank you.”

“Glad to be so punctual, Detective.”

Her gaze softened, then with a blink, she turned to Giles, all business once more. “Let’s get him to Susanna. I don’t like the looks of that leg.” As she stood, she leaned over to touch a light kiss to the human’s cheek, murmuring, “Thank you, too.”

Something growled through Max at the sight of that tender gesture. Something that felt a lot like possessiveness.

When he recognized their destination, Max froze. The Institute. Its low, long lines and careful landscaping were inviting, its purpose a total deception. Touted as a research, recovery and long term rehabilitation care facility, it was that . . . and much more. From Giles Max learned that he’d purchased controlling interest in the failing privately-funded clinic to arrange for special treatment for Charlotte’s best friend Mary Kate Malone, as well as for those potentially compromised Shifters who needed observation. He’d obviously never dreamed he’d be locked inside as a patient, but he could testify rather begrudgingly to its security and discretion.

Susanna Duchamps ran a cutting-edge lab within its walls. There, unencumbered by species politics, she continued studying Shifter genetics based upon the astounding discoveries she’d made since escaping tight supervision in Chicago. Jacques’s mate was a tremendous addition to their cause and their community, and even though he could sense her differences, she’d earned his respect if not yet his trust.

But he still didn’t like being under her roof.

As they followed the gurney rushing MacCreedy down the hall, Max could feel eyes upon him. Eyes that recognized him as the wailing, snarling wild thing they’d caged within their walls, now returned amongst them in a soaking-wet Armani suit. He didn’t blame them for their uneasiness. It sparked through him like electricity.

Because this place reminded him of another in the North.

Then Cee Cee’s hand touched to the back of his shoulder. A brief stroke, settling him like smoothing raised nap on velvet.

A tall, whipcord lean woman with black hair flying in a heavy braid raced down the hall toward them. Her deep blue eyes fixed upon Cee Cee while her hands clutched the man on the cart.

“What’s happened? Is he all right?”

“A tussle on the docks. Thanks to Max, he’ll be fine.”

Her intense gaze rose to him. He remembered meeting her. Nica Fraser. Silas’s mate. Former assassin for the North. No one to be on the wrong side of. And at this moment, vulnerable with gratitude.

Her wide mouth trembled. “Thank you,” she whispered then turned her attention back to her husband.

At the brush of her fingertips along his jaw, MacCreedy opened his eyes and focused on her anxious features.

“Hi.”

“Hi, yourself, hero. I’d never forgive you if you made our child fatherless before he was born.”

“I’ll try to be more careful.”

“You do that, lover.” Keeping up with the pace of the gurney, she bent to kiss him, conveying with that brief gesture the enormity of the love between them.

After observing them, Max glanced at the woman beside him. Was this how it had been between them? This desperate, unbreakable bond of emotion that made two into inseparable one?

Susanna Duchamps came trotting toward them, her attention on her new patient as she calmly asked for details. By the time she’d heard them, she had a plan formulated.

“Let’s get him prepped,” she instructed the orderly handling his transportation. “I want this wound irrigated and an IV of antibiotics started. I can’t even imagine what kind of organisms are floating around in that river.” She smiled at Silas. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, until you got me thinking about organisms.”

Nica gripped his hand firmly. “I’m going with him.”

Susanna nodded and stepped back so they could continue on. Her attention focused on Cee Cee. “And you?”

Cee Cee caught the undercurrent in the doctor’s voice and glanced at the figure beside her before saying, “I’m fine.”

“Under the circumstances, we can’t be too careful.”

Charlotte’s tone firmed. “I’m fine. There’s no need.”

Susanna let it go. She swept the dripping couple with a cautious gaze. “You’d better clean up. Think organisms.”

Who was behind the attack? How had someone discovered so quickly that she and MacCreedy were on the case? Had the bodies been under observation at the morgue to see who came for them or expressed interest in their fate? Or had their visit with Philo prompted the aggressive response?

What were they getting themselves into?

Wrapped in a blanket from the facility, Cee Cee frowned slightly when Max opted to climb in beside Giles in front rather than ride next to her. Mood chafing, she glared at the back of their driver’s head as a focus for her temper.

“Good thing you just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

Giles flashed an unapologetic look in the rearview mirror. “Yes, it was.”

“Rather than where you were supposed to be.”

“Good thing I’m not one for following directions.”

Irritated because she couldn’t argue the outcome, she snapped Giles in the back of the neck before settling back into her solitary seat. She wasn’t angry with her friend. He would never allow any harm to come to Max or put him into a compromising position.

Or so she thought until she caught a glimpse of Karen Crawford’s interview.

While she’d showered and dressed in their luxurious master bath, Max had done the same segregated in the guest suite. He and Giles were watching the midday news when she emerged, still toweling her hair. The punch of seeing Max’s cool, “No comment,” on the flat screen left her breathless. But only for a moment.

“What the hell? You call that keeping an eye on him?” she demanded of Giles. “How could you let that woman near him?”

Giles regarded her with a no harm, no foul grin. “You know her, Detective. To stop her, I’da had to tackle her.”

A sour return smile. “Now
that
I’d like to see on the news. What were you thinking, taking him there without any prep?”

“He handled himself just fine.”

“
He
,” Max interrupted, “would like you to stop talking about him as if he wasn’t in the room. I’m not a houseplant, Detective, or some unreliable little pet you’re afraid will pee on your guests if agitated.”

Giles’s robust laugh was cut short by one of Cee Cee’s crippling stares. Neither of them had the decency to appreciate her concern. Finally, she blew out her temper on a big sigh. “You’re right. Of course, you’re both right. I’m being foolish.”

She returned to the bedroom and angrily flung the damp towel down on the bed. What did it matter? Their sheets weren’t being used for anything of importance anyway.

All the fear and tension of the past hours rattled through her. She hugged her arms about herself to still the shivering. The events emphasized her fragile hold on those she cared about. For all her best and bravest intentions, she couldn’t protect them, especially within the often-lethal uncertainty of their preternatural sphere. One she was now a part of by choice and by recently-discovered heredity.

Still, she wasn’t doing Max any favors by keeping him isolated in emotional bubble wrap. He’d proved himself to no longer be a danger to others or to himself, his moods stabilized if rather withdrawn. Nothing too unusual there. Except for his loss of memory, he seemed fine.

If he was going to recover any sense of normalcy, he needed to get out into the world and out of her panicked grip. Almost losing her partner made that all the more painful to accept. To be alone again. To not share her life, her thoughts, her heart with another . . .

What did she have to lose? She had none of that now in her despondent dream that all could go back as it was.

She’d known one of them would come into the bedroom after her. She’d expected Giles to make the placating gesture. He was so good at running interference. Her system gave a jolt when she realized it was Max who’d come up behind her to make amends.

“You weren’t being foolish.”

The rumble of his deep voice caressed over her nerve endings, quieting them like a balm. “Yes, I was. If you and Giles hadn’t been so close by, MacCreedy would be dead, and I wouldn’t have been able to live with that. I should be thanking you, not treating you like a runaway child who broke curfew. I’m sorry.”

His hand settled on her shoulder, and the weight and warmth of it had her dying inside. “Don’t apologize. I know how hard this is for you. I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

Past tense. A bittersweet twist shaped her mouth. “All I’ve done has been for me, not you. I haven’t given you much consideration at all. I’m selfish that way.”

His palm rubbed over the cap of her shoulder, fingers gently kneading. Leaving
her
needing as he objected quietly, “There’s not a selfish bone in your body,
cher
.”