Their Improbable Mating [Paranormal Protection Unit 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (15 page)

She grinned at that and shook her head. Goodness, she loved this man, but Jackie couldn’t stop the feeling in her stomach that there was something wrong with Aiden. “How about you go and track him down now? Didn’t he say that he was going to the city or something like that?”

“Yeah, he and a couple of the guys were going for dinner and I think a club,” he told her. “Let me find out who he headed off with and I’ll track them down.” Pressing a kiss to her lips, he smiled. “I love you, Jacqueline,” he whispered, his grin getting bigger when she wrinkled her nose right on cue. She hated her given name but he thought it rather fit her perfectly.

Jackie snorted and shook her head. “I love you, too…” There was the pause before the awaited “Al” came out. Hearing his growl had her winking and then making a “shooing” movement with her hand. “Go. Go and find your brother. Have a drink for me while you are out, too, if you wouldn’t mind, please.”

“Yes, love.” He winked at her, moving for the door. Grabbing up his jacket and keys, he headed for the SUV just in case he needed to haul his brother’s drunk ass home. Calling the base, he found out who had left with Aiden and headed for the first favorite spot the particular group had. Not that he had any luck there or the next place. Finding them at the third, minus his brother, Allister spoke with them for a time before going out to his truck. “Hi, love, can you check Aiden’s house and see if any of the lights are on, particularly the front hall and upper hall?” With how his house was constructed Jackie should be able to see the glow from their place.

There was genuine worry in her tone when she whispered, “There are no lights on, Allister. Anywhere. Not even the small light he keeps out front with the animal food and water. What is going on with your brother?” Dropping the curtains down, Jackie moved once more, pacing as she did so. “When did you see him last?”

Allister had to think for a moment. “Today after lunch we had the meeting and then went to his office to bullshit for a while. We were munching on some popcorn, watching something on the TV, and you came in to find me. He was harassing me about your complaints of his hosting skills and you appeared, which had him bailing fast after confirming your gaming date. Not that you answered him though,” he murmured. “Other than that…Oh, I did see him at the end of the day. I waved at him while I was racing over to the training rooms for the class I was instructing.”

“Odd. He never doesn’t call me at night.” Which she knew would sound weird to anyone but Allister. He would understand the bond that Jackie and Aiden shared. “He always calls just so I can put the phone to my belly so that he can, in his words, instruct his nephews how to ensure that I have to get up fifty times a night to go pee.”

Chuckling softly since it sounded exactly like something his brother would do, Allister pushed a hand through his hair and headed for the truck. “I’m going to try a couple more places I know he occasionally frequents, love. I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve checked the last one. Do me a favor and call his cell. I tried in the bars but realized it was futile even with my hearing to try and catch a ringing phone over some of that crap they play. Maybe he’s got it on him and will at least answer.”

“Sure. I will try him, honey.” Jackie paused and then added, “I love you, Allister. Find our brother for us pretty quickly?” Worry laced her tone. It was something that she wasn’t accustomed to and that was very clear in the tone of voice she used.

“I will, baby,” he whispered softly. “And if you find him, text me and keep him on the line so that you can hear me beating the snot out of him,” he grumbled. “I love you, Jackie. I’ll see you soon, love,” he promised and hung up to head off for another stop.

“I will text you if I find him,” Jackie promised before disconnecting the line and leaving Allister with his own thoughts.

“I couldn’t find anything,” Allister said, leaning over the back of Quincy’s chair. “This is the last club that positively identified him as being there. Likely only because it was a changer at the door.”
A good guy, that bear
. A relative of Mac and Sully’s if he recalled right.

“Well”—Quincy leaned in—“I have him going into the club and inside the club at the bar, later at the bathroom, at the bar, on the dance floor with not one but ten females all trying to climb him, and back at the bar.” Fast-forwarding the feed, it was more of the same, bar, dancing, bar, sitting and yakking up a storm, bar, bathroom once more, bar, dancing, and repeat. “And then here.” He stopped the tape, pointing to a guy with his back to the camera. “This guy stops him and obviously asks the time.”

Given his brother was showing the man his watch, it stood to reason. Allister frowned. “What was that?” he asked before saying, “Back up twenty seconds and slow it down to frame by frame.”

“All right,” Q muttered, doing as Allister asked even as he shot a questioning look over his shoulder. “What did you see, Allister?”

“Watch the guy’s hand as he looks to the watch Aiden shows him,” he said, pointing at the screen as it came into view. “Tell me that doesn’t look like an injector.”

Quincy squinted. “Well, since you have mighty Dragon vision, I’m going to believe you, but for the rest of us I’m going to clean this up a bit.” Typing fast, he got his little cleaner program running and tweaked it on the go, muttering to himself under his breath. “Well, you were definitely right,” he admitted a moment later as he stared at the injector the guy had aimed right for Aiden’s neck.

“Track this guy back to a camera shot,” Allister said. “We need to ID him and then we need to know how they got Aiden out of there. He’s not exactly tiny,” he pointed out unnecessarily, but he was terrified for his brother.

“They would need at least one more guy this size”—Quincy tapped the screen to the guy’s hand holding the needle—“to get him out of there easily. And even then they would be struggling.” Dragons may look like large human males, but in reality they were seriously dense. It took a lot to harm one.

“Watch for a partner,” Allister said, pulling out his phone to call his mate. “Jackie, love,” he said, leaving the room so Quincy could work without him hanging over his shoulder. “Aiden has been abducted, love. At least that’s our best guess given what we’ve found so far evidence wise. Skittles is working on the cameras to find some faces and know who they are and how they got him out of there. I want you to lock the doors and put on the alarm system. This may be about Aiden or it may be about the Teams. I refuse to put you in the line of fire if they are coming after me, babe.”

“I’m not exactly a wilting lily, Allister,” Jackie told him even as she turned on the alarm. Going to the gun case, she opened it up and pulled out a shotgun as well as two handguns. “I’m armed, so if any of the boys decide to come and visit, make damn sure that they let me know they are here, or we will have to pick up their gooey bits, and you know how I hate to clean.”

“I will, darling.” He smiled at her tone. “Just remember, protect yourself and the rug rats before anyone else. They’ll all heal if you shoot them. They won’t if I get my hands on them.” Especially if they caused any harm to his mate. “I’ll call you when we have more information, love. Stay safe and call me if anything comes up on your end,” Allister said softly.

“Don’t you worry. The boys and I are going to be just fine,” she told him simply as she patted her rather large belly. “You just find their uncle and life will be good. I need to have him back because he promised he would change the first diapers of our boys.” She had conned Aiden into that one. The poor man would fall over dead when he took the first whiff. Of that she was sure.

“Babe,” he snorted. “I hate to tell you, but you were conned on that one. The first diapers, while they might be a little ripe, won’t be as rank as the ones when you start having to give them solids. That’s when it becomes diaper hell,” Allister said, looking up as Quincy opened his door and waved him back inside the office. “Look it up. He did,” he told her, moving into the room. “Quincy has something, darling. I will call you back as soon as I can. I love you, Jackie. Stay safe for me.”

“That dirty rat fink,” Jackie grumbled. “I love you, too, and I will stay safe. Just keep your ass safe, too, or we will have words,” she muttered. “And tell Quincy I said hi and I am grateful for the freaking caseload of Skittles he sent me.” Q seemed to have turned her pregnancy into one where she was constantly seeking sweets, and he had obliged.

“I will, my love, on all counts.” He smiled and hung up. “She says ‘hi’ and thank you for the large case of Skittles you had dropped off. I’m not quite so pleased about you getting her hooked on those damned things.”

“They are good.” Quincy grinned, popping a couple into his mouth with a chuckle.

Rolling his eyes, Allister pointed to the screen. “Show me what you have so I can figure out what the hell is up with Aiden and I can hopefully get home to my mate sometime this year.”

“Right.” Quincy dropped his bag of sweets on the desk and began to go through the footage a little at a time. Some had Aiden in it and something they hadn’t noticed the first time around since they weren’t looking for it. There were two large guys watching him and several others hanging in the shadows taking signals from the two obvious watchers. “They walk him right out of the bar, likely the old ‘you look like you need some air, bro’ routine,” he said to Allister. “Or something similar and led him right into a camera blind spot outside the backdoor. I checked both ends of the alley from this point on with the street cameras and this is what I got. It’s not great. It’s an older camera not yet on the list of ones to switch over, so it’s stationary and of crappy quality but gives me a direction.”

Quincy rolled the footage ahead. “They turn at this set of lights and then…” He looked up at Allister and saw the realization. “They head into the only part of the city without a single camera in it. I’ve got my program running to see if I can pick up anything from some of the cameras on the outlying areas or if they come out and go elsewhere. But as it stands right now, I don’t know where Aiden is,” he finished, slumping back in his chair.

“Fuck me,” Allister breathed out. “Jackie is not going to be happy about this.”

“Not my problem. Mine is everything else for the moment,” Quincy said, looking up at the big Dragon.

“No, it’s mine,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Four hours later, he went home, calling first so his mate didn’t kill him on sight, and knew he’d have to tell her the bad news.

“Jackie, it’s me darling,” he called out, toeing off his boots. Shrugging out of his jacket, he hung it up and padded through the lower floor. “Babe, you still awake?” he asked loudly, having a clue she was actually dead to the world asleep.

“Awake,” Jackie called after shaking herself out of the sleep she was in sitting in the recliner. Yawning, she looked up at Allister. “Hey, honey. Did you find him?” she asked and put the foot of the recliner down, pulled the hidden pistols from the sides and placed them back into the case but left the shotgun out. “Please tell me you found him?”

Eyeing the weapon she had within reach, Allister shook his head. “Quincy lost them in a section of town where the drug runners and less-than-honest folk take out cameras the city puts in. He’s still searching everything he does have for more clues, but for the moment…” He couldn’t say it, so he just shut his mouth and stared at her, feeling an agony tearing through him at the thought he might never see his brother again.

“Oh Gods,” Jackie breathed and went to Allister. Wrapping him up in her arms as best she could with her protruding belly, she tried to give him as much comfort as she could. “We will find him,” she whispered. “Somehow and someway, we will find him. We have really great people who are amazing at their jobs. We will find him.” She was assuring him, as well as herself.

“I know we will,” he said, quietly holding her to him. Stroking her hair, Allister buried his face in her neck and breathed her in. “I can feel the link between us. He’s alive and well, but that’s it. Gods, of all the times I wanted GPS included with the bond we have, this is the one most necessary.”

Jackie frowned. “Why aren’t you guys chipped with trackers?” When she went on her mission, they had chipped her. Granted, that hadn’t done her one hell of a lot of good with the fucking shield that the people had over the place she was held, but still. “I think that’s something you should talk to Talon about implementing. Subdermal trackers for all of his men and women.”

“If we shift to our Dragon form it’s crushed. We’d have to be tagged every single time we go out,” he told her honestly. “Plus, because there is a degree of magic in our changes they don’t exactly work well. There isn’t one yet developed that can fully survive the magic in our bodies without us appearing to be somewhere in a four hundred mile radius, give or take, on GPS.”

“Ah, that actually makes sense,” she said and sighed. “Goodness, that would have been really good to have,” she told him softly. “So we will just have to figure out how else to find him. We will find him.” She had to think that way. She refused to believe anything other than they would find him.

“I know we will,” he murmured, lifting his head slowly. “Q’s working on it, and you know him. He won’t stop until he has something to give us. We will find him. Unfortunately we’re now working on the kidnappers’ time schedule.”

“Yeah, he’s tenacious like that,” Jackie murmured with a sigh. “All right, let’s head up, and while I get into bed you can get your shower so that we can try to get a couple hours of sleep before we are up and trying to find him again. Come on, love. You need sleep.”