Afterglow (30 page)

“He’s doing okay, all things considered.” It was damned hard to dredge up the old resentment, considering the night they’d just spent, and in the bright light of day it was harder still to maintain his stance. It was what it was. No matter who was to blame, the bottom line was Paul was in prison, and it didn’t look good for him being released anytime soon.

“Check the bad guy’s location again before we land, would you? I’m surprised Ligg and Rebik haven’t called in to let us know their status.”

He’d called his assistant, Cole. Voice mail. He’d called Creed. Voice mail. He’d called his office in Los Angeles. His receptionist, Kristin, had answered. She was just as worried now as Rand—she’d thought he was with the rest of the team. It seemed that nobody knew where the fuck half his team was. They’d disappeared off the map and he was left out here swinging in the wind without help or backup.

Kristin asked if he wanted the men who’d just returned to head back to Europe, but after a moment, he said no. This wasn’t a situation that required that many people. With two of his men on the trail of the bad guy, he figured that was sufficient. For now. Instead, he instructed her to have them check into the disappearance of the men they’d left behind.

This wasn’t adding up, no matter how he looked at it.

It seemed a stretch—a
big
stretch—to think that the men were in cahoots with the bad guys. He’d known most of them from his stunt days. They were people, men and women, he trusted. But offer enough incentive, and a man could crumple as easily as a used tissue. He hoped to hell they
weren’t
part of this. Right now Dakota’s
don’t trust anyone
philosophy seemed like a sound plan.

They’d lost one lead; he didn’t want to lose the second. Rand had a bad feeling. Ligg was experienced and exceptionally fast on his feet. Rand trusted him to keep their quarry in sight without engaging. Once he’d questioned Paul, he planned to rendezvous with them and assess the situation himself—but he had to see his father first.

He couldn’t believe how quickly and thoroughly everything had gone wrong. The wedding fiasco, the dead waiter, the mass murder in Barcelona, Ham’s death … now an assassin on his ass. Hard to give chase when he was being chased himself. He hoped the lucrative deal he’d made with the guy from the flight school would prevent him from talking if anyone asked. Rand wasn’t going to hold his breath. Rand knew the authorities must have his name by now, and there was a strong possibility, if it wasn’t already done, that his photo would be next.

“Anything?” he asked, starting their descent while she was still rummaging in that bottomless bag of hers.

“Got it!” Dakota pulled the hard case and handheld GPS out of her bag again. “Hang on a sec.” She quickly tapped in the longitude and latitude she was seeing in her head. Her ability was extraordinary, and uncannily accurate. Rand took back everything he’d thought when first Stark and then Dakota claimed to have this amazing tracking ability. Without her, he would’ve been screwed.

“He/she/it is now in a town called Berat, Albania.”

“Damn it. I wish to hell I knew if Ligg and Rebik were close or looking for their asses with both hands,
miles
away.”

“If they read their texts, they’re right there with the bad guy.”

When they hadn’t responded to his voice mails, he’d texted both of them the GPS coordinates every hour for the last eight. There’d been zero fucking response. “Yeah. If.”

“I can tell you exactly where they are.”

“I
knew
you had a crystal ball in there.”

“Something better and far more accurate.” She shot him a sassy smile despite the edge to his levity, a smile that did a number on his heartbeat. She dove back into her bag.

As she searched for whatever, he powered back and leveled off, increasing the amount of pressure on the yoke, adjusting the aileron in the crosswind so the nose rose slightly. The wheels bit the tarmac with a screech, and he slowed and taxied across the runway’s centerline to the private terminal.

“Hang on a sec—okay.” She held the small aluminum case and the GPS again, then turned her head to look at him. He saw his own reflection, not a happy camper, in her sunglasses.

“Can you give me a minute, or do you want to wait until we’re in the terminal?”

“Here.” He applied the brakes and taxied in. “How are you doing this magic?” If she said she knew where his men were, she knew.

“I appropriated Ligg’s sunglasses and Rebik’s Swiss Army knife back in Paris.”

“Devious.”

The sunny smile disappeared as a cloud of hurt moved in. “Yeah. So I’ve been told.”

THEY WENT TO RENT
a car. “Let’s get a scooter,” Dakota suggested. “The wind in our hair, the sun on our backs?”

“Not much to protect us if someone tries running us off the road again.”

She grimaced. “Good point.”

Rand pointed to a sports car with the roof folded down. The kind of car he would’ve rented if they’d indeed come to Europe for their honeymoon. “How about that little blue job over there?”

Her face lit up. “Perfect.”

It didn’t take long to do the paperwork, and they were on their way. “You know, your father isn’t going to want to see me,” Dakota pointed out, holding her hair back and lifting her face to the sun. The wind teased bright banners of molten copper out in a stream behind her.

No fucking shit. Rand wouldn’t have wanted to chitchat with the woman responsible for putting him away in a foreign prison either.

Flanking the road were vineyards as far as the eye could see. “Were you serious when you said you’d testify on his behalf?”

She hesitated a beat too long, then said into the wind, “I’ll try, but I won’t perjure myself. Not for old time’s sake. And not even for you.”

“I figured. And this is a meeting better done alone. I know a decent hotel in Perugia—you can shower and rest up while I go see him.” Rand wasn’t looking forward to the visit.

He and his father had always had an adversarial relationship. His mother, whom Rand had adored, for all her faults, held the purse strings. Old oil money. His father hadn’t liked toeing the line; instead of taking it out on his golden goose, he’d made Rand his whipping boy. His parents had been two dogs with one bone, each using their only child to motivate and manipulate the other. They’d professed to love each other, and yeah, his father had been devastated when his wife died. But for Rand, growing up in a war zone, their abiding love had been fucking impossible to understand.

Paul’s imprisonment for the last two years was frustrating and depressing for his father, not to mention expensive and frustrating for Rand. Instead of assisting the legal team, Paul was constantly coming up with ways they could do their job better, which delayed proceedings while they tried to sort out his paper trail.

Rand tried to be understanding. Paul desperately missed his wife. He maintained his innocence to anyone who’d listen. Even if he was found not guilty of the premeditated murder charge, he’d certainly be imprisoned for involuntary manslaughter.

He’d been in Capanne prison for twenty-five months already, and he was understandably stir-crazy, as the Italian justice system moved slowly. Of course, he took no responsibility for his own delaying tactics and their effects.

Rand and Dakota checked into the small hotel. “Go ahead and go to the room,” he said. “I’ll probably be an hour or so. Then we can go and grab something to eat.”

She shook her head. “I’m going with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. He doesn’t like anyone seeing him like that.”

“Like what?” Dakota asked dryly, tucking her hand in his arm, steering him back outside. “In prison? Probably not. But we worked together for years, and he respected, if not me, then my work. There are questions I can ask him, or he may say something that you’d miss—–I don’t know, but if there’s a chance he knows something, I want to be there. Four ears are better than two.”

Rand agreed. He still wanted to give her an out. “He might not want to see you.”

She shrugged, looking very French as she did so. “Let’s deal with that if and when it happens.”

He opened the passenger door. “Your chariot awaits.”

“Barring people trying to shoot us or run us off the road, we can enjoy the short trip, right?”

He smiled back, unable to resist tucking a long strand of coppery hair behind her ear. “Right.” He got in and started the car.

He had to gird himself for the upcoming confrontation—because a confrontation was always what their meetings were. He just wanted this one over with.

It was almost a relief to see the sign:
Casa Circondariale di Perugia.
Capanne prison. They had to show identification to the guard at the gate, a big fucking problem if they were followed, but there was no choice. They were allowed to pass through to the parking lot. More ID checks along the way. As they turned into the designated parking place, Dakota reached and laid her hand on his arm. “I know you’ve heard your father’s point of view for the last two years, but I’m asking that you please keep an open mind right now. I swear to you, I didn’t give Paul the drugs he administered to your mother. I swear on everything we shared. He lied to save his skin. I understand that need.”

“Yeah. So do I. There’s a lot of shit that doesn’t add up. Let’s go in and see what Paul has to say when you confront him face-to-face.”

She bit her lip, her eyes shining as she said thickly, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

Dakota left her bag locked in the trunk, and they went through the process of being searched and checked in before being escorted to the visitors’ room by two officers. Rand figured if he didn’t ask if Paul would see Dakota, he wouldn’t have the chance to say no.

His father was wearing regular clothes. Jeans and a sweatshirt over a blue dress shirt, and waited at a table, having been told he had visitors while they were filling in the required paperwork. Other than him, the large, sunlight-filled room was empty, but two guards were stationed outside. Paul had been a model prisoner and wasn’t considered a risk. Clearly, the prison officials hadn’t been sliced by his acerbic tongue.

They crossed the cement floor, their footsteps unmistakable on the hard surface. His father didn’t look up.

Paul’s style of dress and meticulous grooming hadn’t changed despite his incarceration. A fit and healthy-looking sixty-seven, he had salt-and-pepper hair, buzz-cut close to his scalp to disguise the fact that it was almost nonexistent on top.

Rand knew his father was aware of their presence long before they arrived at the table in the far back corner. Paul liked to keep his back to the wall. The chairs scraped as Rand pulled two away from the table.

“Hello, Paul.” Dakota curled her fingers around the back of a chair.

Paul lowered his glasses to glance up from the book he was reading. He ignored Dakota. “I saw you last week when you and Seth came. What’s this visit in aid of?”

Rand tried to gauge the older man’s reaction as he said, “Dakota flew in from Seattle because we had a situation at the wedding.”

Paul removed his glasses, folding the earpieces before placing them squarely on top of his open book. He met Rand’s eyes with no expression. Dakota had gone from Paul’s most promising young chemist to the woman who’d framed him for murder, without any noticeable transition.

“My trial starts in days.” His father folded his well-manicured, slightly arthritic hands on the table. “Is she here to
help
me this time, or is she going to fucking lie to keep herself pure and blameless?”

“She’s standing right here, why don’t you ask her yourself?” Rand suggested.

“Someone is demonstrating DL6-94’s potential to prospective buyers.” Dakota skipped the social niceties and got right to the point. “We believe someone intends to manufacture Rapture and flood the market with it.”

“
Flood
the market?” Paul raised a brow. “Surely no one would
flood
the market. If, as you say, someone has their hands on a formula that the authorities believe was destroyed, one would think that they—whoever they may be—wouldn’t be stupid enough to make the product that readily available. Not a good business model. That would drive down the price.” He glanced at Rand. “How
was
the wedding?”

“Eventful, and not in a good way.” He watched his father’s face carefully to gauge his response. He sat down, because he didn’t want to. He’d rather be outside in the fresh air. He wanted to be driving back to the small hotel and making love to Dakota. Hell, he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was. He’d taught himself in his mid-twenties that he wasn’t the fuckup loser Paul insisted he was. But whenever he was near the son of a bitch, Rand felt diminished. Which in turn pissed him off. He was excellent at what he did, had been well respected in Hollywood, where his stunts had won him awards and the respect of his peers. Had a thriving, successful security business—

“Someone dosed the guests with Rapture,” he said, cutting to the chase.

Paul’s eyebrows rose, and it was like looking at himself in thirty years. Cold clenched his gut. Everything Rand despised in Paul was a character trait he himself carried. If and when he recognized a trigger, Rand did everything in his power to eradicate it.

“Impossible,” the older man told him unequivocally, mouth twisting in derision as he put his glasses back on, adjusting the earpiece before saying, “The formula was destroyed years ago.”

Rand gave Paul a cool look. “Apparently not.”

His father’s mouth tightened, and he waved a dismissive hand. He still wore the wedding band Rand’s mother had put on his finger thirty-six years before. The light from the window on the opposite wall shone on the lenses of his glasses, obliterating the expression in his eyes. Rand didn’t need to see it to know what it was.