"Of course he did. I"ve been over that G.o.dd.a.m.n video for hours! And I"m the one who spotted him outside your house the other night."
I tightened my hands. "Not from last night or the video. Further back. To be fair, you only saw him for a second, but it was a memorable one. After all, you shot him. Right before the car plowed into him."
"That"s-"
Tate stopped. A growing look of awareness dawned on his features. He stared at me with widening eyes, and then his mouth tightened in a thin, hard line.
"Well." The word was soft. "Didn"t you play us all for fools, Catherine Crawfield?"
I took in a deep breath. "It"s Bones, the vampire I told you I"d loved and killed in Ohio, but I didn"t kill him. I left him and pa.s.sed another body off as his. I hadn"t seen him until recently, when he was at Denise"s wedding. This was all a setup today to get Bones in here so he could find the turncoat. He knew if he went to my mother "s that she"d call in the troops, and I"d told him the only way in was that capsule or dead. Bones chose the capsule, despite the risk that he might be killed once he was strapped inside."
Tate still looked sh.e.l.l-shocked. "I almost did kill him. I had him in those restraints, and I knew all I had to do was shake him and those spikes would shred his heart. Juan stopped me. He told me we were questioning him first before condemning him.
It"s been over four years. You haven"t seen this vampire until recently, but you"ve been in love with him this whole time?"
"Yes."
Tate laughed, a harsh little bark. "Of course you have. But that doesn"t mean I"m breaking every rule ever implemented about vampires to let him out."
"He is getting out." My fingers cut into his hands. "The only question is, will you be conscious when he does? You"re my friend, Tate. In many ways, my best friend, but I want to be very clear-I"ll get him out and destroy anyone in my way to do it.
You. Juan. Don. Anyone. I want you with me, as my partner and my friend, but I will do it alone if I have no other choice."
He looked like he wanted to slap me. "G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Cat. G.o.dd.a.m.n you! You"ve been with him a total of what? Six months? You"ve been by my side for over four f.u.c.king years! Is he worth that much to you? More than all you"ve fought for and all you"ve done? Think, for Christ"s sake!"
I stared straight into his eyes and didn"t hesitate. "Yes, he is. Maybe you don"t understand. Have you ever owed someone everything? All your strengths, all your victories, every last thing that"s meant anything in your life...and it can be traced back to one single person? That"s what Bones is to me." Tate suddenly yanked me closer. "You b.i.t.c.h, I do understand, because that"s what you are to me."
I didn"t shove him back, but let him stand with only an inch between us. "If I pa.s.sed on anything of value, it"s because I first learned it from him. So then you owe him, too."
Something sparked in his midnight gaze even as his shoulders slumped. "I don"t owe him s.h.i.t. But yeah...I owe you. Is this your price?"
"If that"s what you want to call it." Better to negotiate than beat him senseless.
"There"s more to it than opening that capsule, Cat. There are four levels of highly trained guards, and there will be an automatic lockdown as soon as someone spots a prisoner strolling the halls. He can "t green-eye all of them into submission; someone will trigger the alarm. You know this, you designed it!"
"That"s why you"re going down there nice and casual with Juan, and I"m going to stay up here and override the security."
Tate moved away from me and started to pace. "Don changed your computer clearance as soon as he found out about you and the vampire. Your codes won"t work anymore. Even mine only go so far."
Ignoring that, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed.
"Randy, we"re on schedule. In exactly ten minutes pull the plug. All levels except four and the connecting elevator back up to one. Full shutoff, prehistoric. Kiss Denise for me. I owe you."
I hung up and gazed at Tate. "Go down now. In ten minutes, all the power will shut off and this place will be a tomb.
Appropriate, don"t you think, since we are letting out a dead man. The only things that will work will be the ones I want to work.
Did you really think after all these years I wouldn"t have left myself with some back-door pa.s.swords in case Don turned on me?"
He stood up with a look of disbelief.
"If you could do all of that, why did you bother to ask me for help?"
"You"re my friend," I repeated, pulling open a desk drawer and then tucking the gun it held into my pants. "And I still want to lead this team, although none of you seem to believe that. Hurry, you only have nine minutes now..."
Denise had been correct about Randy. He was indeed a genius with computers. With the pa.s.swords I gave him, he "d hacked into the mainframe and dropped a virus that he remotely controlled. It froze out everything. Even the phones didn"t work.
The neighboring cell phone tower, which intercepted our wireless signals, had also just experienced a power failure. My phone was satellite and still operated, and when the lights went out, I was the only one who didn"t gasp at the sudden dark. I just went to the elevator and waited.
When the doors slid open, Bones was right in front of me. I threw my arms around him even as I gave directions to Tate and Juan, who were backed warily into the far corner.
"Guard this door. No one gets close, not even Don."
"What are you doing?" Tate asked as they stepped past us out of the elevator.
"Giving him blood. That box drained him. He needs a refill."
"Cat, Jesus-"
I hit the manual b.u.t.ton and the elevator doors closed, effectively cutting off Tate"s protests.
"I knew you"d come through, luv," Bones said.
I hugged him hard. "G.o.d, I"ve been worried sick these past few hours!"
He kissed me, gently exploring every crevice of my mouth while running his hands over me. I clutched him, feeling sick over the multiple holes in his clothes where the silver p.r.o.ngs from the capsule had pierced him.
"No need for foreplay," I whispered, breaking the kiss. "Just bite me already."
Bones laughed low. "You are ever impatient."
Then his lips trailed to my neck as he pushed my hair back. His tongue circled the hollow in my throat for a moment before his fangs sank into me.
I shivered, instinctively clutching him tighter at those twin stabs of sensation. This felt different from the other two times he"d bitten me. Less erotic and more predatory. Still, my heart raced, my knees went deliciously weak, and that same strange warmth crept over me.
The elevator doors opened right as Bones lifted his head. There was an ominous sound of a gun c.o.c.king as I pulled mine out of my pants at the same time.
"Back off, Tate! You shoot and I fire back."
We must have looked quite the sight, Bones licking the last drops of my blood off his fangs and me with my gun pointed at everyone but the vampire drinking me. h.e.l.l, I could understand Tate"s reaction, but that didn"t mean I was letting him shoot Bones.
Juan also had his gun drawn but at least it was lowered. Smart man.
Bones eyed Tate and didn"t bother to sheathe his fangs. "Don"t fret over her safety, mate. I"d never hurt her, but I"ve seen the way you look at her, so you don"t have that same pa.s.s."
"Tate," I said warningly. "Drop the gun." Tate stared at me. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, Cat. I hope you know what you"re doing."
"It"s all right, Kitten," Bones said. "He won"t shoot."
Tate lowered his gun even as the sudden dizziness from blood loss made me sway. Bones took my gun and casually handed it to Juan, who gaped at him in amazement.
"You called her Kitten? And she let you? She put me in a coma for three days when I called her that! My b.a.l.l.s never recovered from her smashing them into my spine!"
"And well she should have," Bones agreed. "She"s my Kitten, and no one else"s."
I poked him in the chest. "Do you mind? I"m a little woozy here."
"Apologies, luv."
He lifted me off my feet as his fangs cut into his tongue with a snap of his jaws. There were so many other ways for me to get blood from him, but I was figuring he"d chosen this one because of his comment to Tate. I kissed him back while swallowing those needed drops. How like Bones to kill two birds with one stone-both staking his claim and replenishing my strength at the same time.
Don picked that moment to come striding through the throngs of stunned spectators just in time to see me curled inside a vampire"s arms with my feet dangling off the ground.
"What the h.e.l.l is going on?"
Bones set me down and went to my boss in a blink of speed. To Don"s credit, he didn"t try to run.
"You must be very determined to kill me to go to such lengths," he flatly commented, squaring his shoulders.
"I"m not here for you, old chap," Bones said, looking him up and down thoroughly. "I"m here to find out what rat you"ve got in your garden. But first we"re going to have a chat, the three of us. You"ve kept her in the dark long enough."
"Tate, Juan, make sure no one comes through that door and no one tries to get frisky. The place is secured, but someone could pull a weapon. Keep sharp."
I inclined my head toward Don"s office. "After you, boss."
Don took his seat like it was any other visit and not a hostage situation, and we sat across from him.
"Don, I"d like to introduce you to Bones. The real Bones, not the impostor on ice in the fridge. You"ll remember him from Ohio, where he gave the highway a whole new look."
"All these years, Cat," Don said with sadness. "You"ve been working the other side this whole time. Bravo, I was totally fooled."
My mouth opened in outrage, but Bones beat me to it. "You ungrateful sod, the only reason I"m not picking you out of my teeth now is because of her. She fancies you a decent man, not that I agree, and has in no way betrayed your trust. You can hardly say the same."
I rolled my eyes. A death threat, gee, great way to start out a talk.
"I haven"t played you at all, Don," I said. "When I left Ohio, I thought I was leaving Bones behind for good. He tracked me down and found me only two weeks ago, and I have never done anything to betray this operation."
Don shook his head in self-rebuke. "I should have sensed a trap. No vampire ever surrenders. How did you get your mother to play along?"
"She didn"t," I said grimly. "Bones told her he wanted to meet without my knowledge. We knew what she"d do."
Bones snorted. "When I got to her house, she"d already blacked both her eyes and knocked over every stick of furniture in the place. But back to you, Don. For most of my years, I"ve had a trade. I find people, and I"m right good at it. So imagine my surprise when I had such a devil of a time tracking her, and then also my inability to find much out about her father. Now, failure to locate one I could see, but two? Both hidden so carefully, it was almost as if they were concealed...by the same person."
A foreboding sensation crept up my spine. Bones squeezed my hand.
"Two things always struck me as strange when she disappeared into the smoke. The first was how you found her so quickly. You showed up with all of her facts and figures the day she was arrested. Too pat, that. Such research takes time. You"d have to have been keeping tabs on her for a while, and how would you have known to do that? Only one way. You already knew what she was."
"What?" I shot out of my seat with a shout. "Don, what have you been hiding?"
"Sit down, luv." Bones gripped me when I would have sprinted across the desk to throttle Don. For his part, Don had turned a fine shade of parchment.
"The second thing that stumped me was how there were no records of any recent deaths matching her father"s description at the time her mother was raped. Not even any John Does. Ian"s the one who solved that riddle. You know him as Liam Flannery, Don, and you sent her after him, but he wasn"t her usual target, was he?"
"No," I answered for Don, whose mouth was sealed in a tight line. "He wasn"t. Get to the point, Bones."
"I"d rather hoped Don would step up and finish it for me, but he "s staying quiet. Probably hoping like blazes I "m only fishing, aren"t you?" Don didn"t reply. Bones made a regretful noise. "Open that envelope I gave you earlier, Kitten."
With trembling fingers I drew the paper out of my shirt, ripping open the seal and unfolding the single page inside. It was an article with a photo, but the caption underneath blurred into nothingness because all I"d needed to do was look at the face.
The man standing with a grin had red hair, high cheekbones, a straight nose, a jaw that was masculine but eerily similar, and I couldn"t tell, but I"d bet those were gray eyes. Even faded, the likeness was unbelievable. Finally I had a face to put to my hate, and it was a mirror of my own. No wonder my mother had such issues.
As absorbed as I was in devouring the image of my father, it took me a minute to look at the other person in the photo. The one with an arm around my father"s shoulders. "Family Celebrates Commendation of Federal Officer," the t.i.tle read.
The years hadn"t been kind, but I recognized him at once. A furious chuckle escaped me, and I flung the page at Don.
"Well, isn"t life just one big joke? One huge cosmic one-liner! I now know just how Luke Skywalker felt when Darth Vader told him who he was, only you"re not my father. But you"re his brother."
TWENTY-FOUR.
I GLARED AT MY BOSS. "SHOULD I CALL YOU Uncle Don? You son of a b.i.t.c.h, you sent me out on how many suicide missions when you knew I was your niece? You and my mother have a lot in common-the two of you should be related!"
Don finally broke his silence. "Why would I think you"d be any different? Thirty-five years ago my older brother was investigating Liam Flannery, and then he disappeared. Years pa.s.sed. We thought he was dead, and no one would tell us about the last case he"d been on. I joined the FBI myself to find out what had happened to him. Over time, I also found out what my brother had really been chasing. I vowed I"d continue his hunt and give him justice, but then one day out of the blue, he came to me. He told me to forget about Liam and the underworld I was tracking or he"d kill me. My own brother. I couldn"t believe it.
"Six months later, your mother was attacked in the same city in Ohio I "d followed him to. When I read the description of her rapist, I knew it was him, and I knew that he"d finally crossed over. Then five months later, she gave birth to a child. One with a genetic anomaly doc.u.mented at birth. Yes, I suspected all along, and made it a point to check up on you periodically while I created this department. Years went by, nothing happened, and I began to forget about you. Then your name came up in connection with a series of strange murders and grave robberies. I was already on my way back to Ohio when your grandparents were killed."
Don smiled but it wasn"t happy. "I also believe that life is a comic accident. Here G.o.d had given me the one thing strong enough to stop my brother and his kind, and it was his own daughter. Yes, I used you while waiting for the day when you"d turn as he did, but that didn"t happen. When I finally believed you were different, I sent you to capture Flannery so I could use him to draw Max out. But as fate would have it, Liam got away. I"m guessing he"s the one who sent the shooter after you last night."
My mind reeled with this latest bombsh.e.l.l. Ian had made my father? The same man who"d turned Bones had also been the one who sired Max? That made Ian partly responsible for my half-dead existence. Unbelievable.
"It"s not Flannery who hired that gunman," Bones stated. "He wants her alive. No, it has to be someone else who"s trying to kill her. Someone affiliated here."
Don made a derisive noise. "How are you going to find out who this mythical traitor is? Torture all the staff?"
Bones glowered at him. "For someone who"s studied vampires for years, you certainly don"t give them much credit.
Forgetting these?"