"Smoke detectors," he said.
They were out of the bed and dragging on clothes before the words were fully out of his mouth.
Blue grabbed her Glock and followed Noah into the hall.
The smoke was so thick she could scarcely see him right in front of her.
She looked both ways down the hall-nothing but smoke. It boiled up from the staircase.
Fear banded around her chest.
The house was on fire.
Chapter Twelve.
Noah moved down the staircase as quickly as he dared. Touch was his only guide.
Smoke hung as thick in the air as any fog he"d ever seen. There was no time to try and determine where the fire had started or where it was headed. He considered briefly the tunnel exit, but it was fraught with crumbling steps and decaying walls.
He had to get Blue to safety now.
His lungs burned with the acrid smell. Behind him Blue coughed hard. They had to hurry.
Reaching the front door, he grabbed the k.n.o.b and started to turn the lock.
Blue pushed between him and the door, knocking his hands free of the lock.
"The sun is rising," she stammered between bouts of coughing. "You can"t-"
"There"s no choice." He set her aside and opened the door.
"Noah, stop!"
The security alarm activated and sounded its siren.
Ignoring her plea as well as the wailing of the security system, he rushed outside, dragging her with him. Smoke rolled out behind them.
For several seconds he froze, blinked and tried to see through the gray mist swirling around them, enveloping them like a coc.o.o.n.
He was outside.
It was not dark.
Move-no time to think.
He propelled Blue down the steps.
As they rushed across the yard toward the edge of the woods, putting distance between them and the smoke...the danger, the sun peeked above the horizon.
Long, glowing streaks of light reached across the blue water...across the sand, spilling over all in its path, including Noah.
The first strike of pain was like a bullet to his brain. He staggered. Blinked.
A shower of agony erupted in his head and spiraled down the length of his body, paralyzing him on the spot.
"Keep going!"
Blue pushed him forward...toward the shelter of the trees.
His movements were pure survival instinct urged on by the woman beside him. He couldn"t think... couldn"t process the necessary actions required to reach safety.
The pain undulated beneath his skin...sizzled and crackled like a slowly building fire. Breathing grew difficult. His heart raced harder, faster as if attempting to outrun the misery blazing along his nerve endings.
They reached the trees. His knees buckled. He couldn"t go any further. His eyes refused to remain open...the pounding in his head grew louder, more insistent.
"You can"t stop now!" She pulled at him, trying to get him back to his feet. "Noah! You have to move."
"What the h.e.l.l happened?"
A male voice.
Maverick.
"Help me get him to the old chapel. It"s that way...I think. Hurry, Maverick. It"s the light. He can"t be in the light."
Fear was in her voice. She was afraid for him.
Noah felt only the pain...the need to surrender to the blackness swooped down on him like a hawk, talons ready for the kill.
The voices around him were distant blurs of sound now. He felt himself being lifted and dragged forward. An anguished groan echoed around him. He realized belatedly that it must have come from him for he felt it more than heard it. Awareness faded to nothing.
BLUE AND MAVERICK stumbled into the old chapel, dragging Noah between them. It was almost pitch-dark in the farthest corners of the rickety building and that"s where they headed. She could scarcely draw a breath for the thundering in her chest. G.o.d, please don"t let him die, she prayed.
"Here," she told Maverick. Together they lowered Noah to the floor.
"He"s not dead," Maverick told her, after checking for a pulse. "Do we need a medflight?"
She shoved a handful of hair behind her ear and tried to think. "Use your cell phone. Call Rothman. Find out what to do. I"ll stay with him."
"Will do." Maverick moved toward the front of the decaying structure. "I guess I"ll check on the house, call the fire department too."
Blue nodded, not caring if he saw her or not, tears streamed down her cheeks. "Close the doors, Maverick. We need the darkness."
"Hang in there, Blue, I"ll get help." His deep voice was full of rea.s.surance, but she knew even Maverick couldn"t fix this problem.
The doors closed, leaving them in total darkness.
For the first time in her life, Blue was not afraid of the dark. She was too d.a.m.ned scared that Noah was dying to be afraid of anything else.
The sounds he made in his suffering wrenched her heart. There was nothing she could do. She held his hand and prayed for help. His skin was like ice. A sob twisted through her. If help didn"t come soon- "Step out of the way."
The seemingly disembodied voice came out of the darkness maybe a half dozen feet away.
Female.
Vaguely familiar.
Blue leaned back on her heels and simultaneously reached for the Glock in her waistband at the small of her back.
"You won"t be needing that," the voice cautioned.
The old woman from that first night in the woods.
Blue didn"t have to see her to know for sure. The distinct sound of her voice poked through the numerous layers of fear and anxiety pressing down on Blue. She thought of the voodoo doll. Leberman had put it there when he drugged her. An attempt to frighten her. The old woman was dead, he"d claimed. But here she was.
"What are you doing in-?"
"Makes no nevermind about that." The old woman knelt next to Noah. "Now move aside before you be the death of him."
Blue obeyed. "It"s the light," she started to explain. "He can"t-"
"I know what ails him. Now leave us so I can mend him."
Not in this lifetime, lady. "I won"t leave him."
The woman turned toward her. Though it was dark as tar in the old chapel, Blue could see her eyes...her expression as if some sort of inner glow suddenly made her visible. Or maybe her own eyes had simply adjusted to the lack of light. The long slashing scar stood out in stark relief against the woman"s mahogany skin.
"This has to be done in private...between me and him only. If you stay, I can"t help him and he"ll die."
A new rush of tears bloomed in Blue"s eyes. She tried to think this through, tried to reason, but there was no rationale for what was happening. She could feel the old woman"s energy. Her gut told her to listen and believe...to take that leap of faith. But her heart pleaded with her to stay right beside him.
"Okay." She looked the old woman dead in the eyes. "Don"t you let him die. You"ll have to answer to me if you do."
She nodded her understanding. "Wait outside, Maggie Callahan. And watch your back. Evil is very close."
A chill raced up her spine, almost paralyzing her, but Blue forced herself to move. She kissed Noah"s hand, then laid it at his side and followed the old woman"s orders without looking back. Once outside she closed the doors behind her.
She told herself that she"d prayed for help and the old woman had suddenly appeared. Blue didn"t believe in that voodoo mumbo-jumbo...or so she"d thought. Right now she wasn"t sure what she believed. She only knew that Noah was dying. She felt that reality with every fiber of her being.
And she couldn"t bear it.
Blue collapsed onto the dilapidated steps, braced her arms on her knees and buried her face there. She wept like a child, uncontrollably and openly for a full minute before she pulled it back together.
She pushed to her feet and swiped the moisture from her cheeks. She had a job to do.
Parting the deep weeds she moved to the rear of the old chapel and listened intently. An ache pierced her at the sound of Noah"s soft groans. The low chanting of the old woman was a perpetual hum underscoring the sounds of his suffering.
Forcing her personal feelings aside, Blue did the only thing she could, she squared her shoulders and a.s.sumed a posture and position to keep watch over the chapel.
And then she prayed some more.
BY NOON the sounds inside the old chapel had ceased. Blue wanted to bang on the wall and call out to the old woman, but she didn"t. If Noah was resting she didn"t want to disturb him. From the look of the place, a strong wind could take it down. She wasn"t about to risk making the wrong move.
Maverick had checked in with her a few times and had things under control at the house.
Blue kept a watchful vigil knowing that forcing Noah out of the house could have been a move by General Bonner to render him vulnerable. For that matter, Leberman could want him dead. Though she couldn"t see the motive in that, psychos didn"t always have a rational motive. Maverick had put down perimeter alarms in the area to a.s.sist her. If anyone crossed the invisible laser beam, she would know it, but the intruder would not.
He had also left a field-op communications set with her to keep a link between them in case she needed backup in a hurry, and for hearing the alarm if the perimeter was breached. A distinct tone would sound in her earpiece. She"d pinned the tiny transmitter to her neckline, and snugged the earpiece into place. A single stroke of her finger would activate the transmitter for a direct link to Maverick and vice versa.
It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to dwell on Noah"s condition or the lovemaking they"d shared only hours ago. The way he"d kissed her every injury, his whispered words of need and desire, made her ache inside for his touch. Her heart reacted instantly to the memories. He"d made love to her with an urgency that had been at once incredibly intense and beautifully tender. His strength and control was all that had kept the sweet joining from becoming a frantic act of desperation.
She thought of the depth of emotion it took to create those masterful works of art she"d seen in his secret room, emotion he consciously denied for fear of losing control. She recognized the battle, it was far too familiar. She fought that same war, had done so since the moment she"d first laid eyes on his painting in that Georgetown gallery. Meeting the man had simply been the proverbial straw that broke the camel"s back.
Unable to help herself, she touched the wall closest to where she"d left Noah. The wood was soft with age and covered with ivy and resurrection fern. She wished again that she could see inside...could know that he was alive and no longer suffering so horribly.
"Blue Bell, how"s it going out there?" Maverick"s voice sounded in her earpiece.
Despite her current state of emotions she almost laughed. No one, absolutely no one, not even her brothers, dared call her Blue Bell. Only Maverick.
"Too quiet," she said bleakly. "I don"t know how much longer I can take the not knowing."
Maverick made a tsking sound. "I don"t know what I"m going to do with you young folks. I swear, if it"s not Logan or Ferrelli, it"s you. We don"t send you on a.s.signment to fall in love. With the record you guys have been setting, we might as well start calling this unit Mission Cupid instead of Mission Recovery."
"What"s up, Maverick?" she demanded grumpily. She had a good mind to tell him that if he had half a heart, he"d be doing the same d.a.m.ned thing. She couldn"t help wondering what kind of love life the ruggedly handsome older man had. Just a touch of gray peppered his dark hair. She imagined he had his share of lady friends. Even at forty he was every bit as physically fit as his younger counterparts.
"The fire marshal has finished his walk through, but I didn"t need him to tell me that we"d been had."
Maverick had called her within an hour of his going back to the house this morning and informed her that there hadn"t been any fire. Smoke bombs strategically placed throughout the house had created the illusion. If Leberman was behind this and he had caused permanent damage to Noah...she was going to kill him herself. Too bad she couldn"t kill him twice-once for Noah and a second time for Lucas.
Fury whipped through her anew. "You didn"t find anything?" She had hoped that Leberman would leave some sort of clue, like the notes he"d obviously sent to Noah. But then, those had been nothing but a distraction...a ruse...bait to attract the real prey. She did wonder though how he had known Rothman would call Mission Recovery.
"Nada. What"s more, the sheriff never received any calls about gunshots or intruders."
No surprise there. Sykes and Jaymo had been working for Leberman all along. Blue ma.s.saged the ache beginning in her forehead and wondered if Lucas was even still alive. She thought of Victoria Colby and what she must be going through as each hour pa.s.sed with no news.
"Why the h.e.l.l did he do this?" Dammit! What kind of games was he playing? What did he hope to accomplish?
"I wish I could tell you. I"ve opened all the windows and doors to air the place out. On the third floor there"s some first-rate locks."
"That"s Noah"s suite," she said absently, her mind still searching for angles that somehow tied the latest stunt to draw out Noah to whatever Leberman had planned for Lucas and Victoria. "Security"s top-notch."
"Good. You"ll be safe there. I"m coming out there to relieve you."