Awaken Me Darkly (16 page)

“So,” I said, flicking him a quick glance, “do you still want to help me?”

He stared out the passenger window. “Give me some time to digest this. That’s a lot to throw at a man.”

Time was the only thing I
didn’t
have. “You’ve got until we’re seated at Trollie’s. If you won’t help me, I’ll have to find someone else.”

He hissed out a breath between his teeth, filling the car with a soft whistle. “Are you always this impatient?”

“Always.”

“I bet you drove Dallas crazy.”

“You could make a fortune on that bet.”

We made the rest of the drive in silence. A few minutes later, we eased onto a gravel drive and parked in front of a cheap orange boxcar, elongated for space.

Outside, the air was cold and quiet, scented with car exhaust. When I pulled open the brass-handled door, a volley of drunken chatter spilled out. We cut through a thick haze of cigarette smoke—like we were going to arrest each other for smoking—and meandering bodies. As usual, the place was jammed. We had to shoot the shit with several agents we knew before snagging a back corner booth.

Dallas and I had spent many evenings here. Neither of us liked to cook. I tried, but the end result was always burned slop. We’d laughed in here, relaxed in here. He deserved more nights like that.

We punched our order into the wall unit, and soon Molly, a cute blond, brought our drinks and scampered away. Jaxon, the consummate health nut, had requested water with a lemon twist. Me? I wanted the strongest, blackest coffee they had, laced with a shot of pure, undiluted caffeine. I’m sure injecting crude oil into my veins would have been easier on my body, but I didn’t care. I downed the burning liquid, then signaled for a refill. I was like a boozehound with a brand-new bottle of tequila.

“My God, Mia, you trying to kill yourself there?” Jaxon asked with a laugh.

“Just trying to survive.”

“Is that how you stay so slim? Living on caffeine?”

I shrugged and watched him through the thick shield of my lashes. I’d had enough pleasantries; I wanted to get down to business. “So are you in or out?”

Jaxon understood what I was asking and stared at me across the speckled yellow tabletop. “Let me see if I have this straight.” Shadows and light played across his features as the lamp above us swayed, illuminating his scar, giving him a menacing quality. “Kyrin—”

“No names,” I interrupted, giving a pointed nod to the other agents present.

“The brother can save our friend’s life. In return, he wants the sister released. And he’s given you four days to free her, or our friend dies.”

“Only three days left, now. But otherwise, that’s right.”

“And no agent—”

“But me.”

“Can search for him, or he’ll disappear.”

“Right again.”

“So you’re planning to find our victims—and the brother—within these next three days?”

“That’s right. Now are you in or out?” I asked again.

“In, of course.”

Of course,
he said now, as if he hadn’t made me sweat the last ten minutes of his indecision. On the black vinyl seat beside me, I’d tucked my briefcase filled with the stolen case files. I’d already covered the Confidential sticker with a plain casing. I withdrew two and handed them to Jaxon. “We need to go over these. Study every detail.”

He clasped the offered files and then, to my astonishment, set them aside. “I can’t concentrate without food. Let’s eat. Then study.”

My impatience reared its head. The sooner we worked, the sooner we found answers. Still, I wasn’t going to push my luck, so I forced myself to agree.

Our food arrived fifteen minutes later and was arranged in front of us. Jaxon dove into his turkey-on-wheat sandwich. No mayo. I managed a few bites of my double bacon cheeseburger and extra crispy chili cheese fries. Normally, I would have cleaned my plate and requested dessert. Dallas always made fun of my junk food addiction and constantly complained that if he ate like that, he wouldn’t fit inside the car. Me? I had uncommon metabolism. Couldn’t keep the fat on me. Which was good. I had no intention of changing my eating habits now.

Tonight, however, my stomach was simply too unsettled to allow me to indulge.

“You going to eat that?” Jaxon asked, eyeing my burger with distaste.

“There’s not enough grease to suit me,” I said.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes and threw his napkin on the tabletop. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,”

he said, opening one of the files, “since you’re not going to relax until we do.”

Only moments later, he glanced at me, his features blank. “On the outside, this looks like a nonrestricted file. This
should
be a nonrestricted file. Yet what did I find when I took a glance at the inside? This is confidential material, Mia. What’s it doing outside of A.I.R.?”

I shrugged and said, “I’ll return everything when we’re done.”

“My God.” He shook his head, but I detected a hint of admiration in his expression. “You are some piece of work.”

While he read on, I grabbed a file and poured over every photo, every sentence. I had just reached the third page when I paused, reread, blinked. Blinked again. A thought jumped to life in my mind.

“Check this out,” I said to Jaxon and handed him the folder. “This wasn’t mentioned in
our
file.

Steele and his wife had just had a baby, right? Turns out they conceived through artificial insemination.

Didn’t Hudson say that Lilla paid Sherry to try and get pregnant by him? And now I discover that Sullivan Bay made frequent deposits at his local sperm bank.” I shook my head. “Who are you working on?”

“Raymond Palmer.”

“Check for—”

I didn’t have to finish my sentence. Jaxon glanced up at me. “Mr. Palmer made regular deposits at Kilmer, Peterman, and Nate, too. Same place Rianne Harte worked. Why wouldn’t they give us that information?”

I didn’t know, but a thrill of success tingled through me. I had a common thread. Fertility. I turned my attention back to the photos and papers in front of me. A few minutes later, I was shaking my head in disbelief. “Look what else I found,” I said. “Check out the fourth paragraph.”

He glanced at the paper, looked back at his own file, then glanced again at mine. “Guess what?

Mine says the same thing, except the name isn’t mentioned. Just the description.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I could,” he said gravely. “What do you want to bet the others say the same thing?”

I fought back a groan. “Let’s pray they don’t.” We knew there was a particular person connected to two of the cases, but if all of them were connected to—I sliced that thought to a halt, not wanting to borrow trouble. Still, I fought a sense of impending doom as I withdrew the two remaining folders from my briefcase, handed one to Jaxon, then opened the other myself. Only two minutes had passed before we were staring over the table at each other.

“Glad you didn’t take my bet?” Jaxon asked.

Damn it. Kyrin was mentioned in every file as a “tall Arcadian male.” Twice by name. Not only had he dated Rianne Harte, he’d had dinner or some type of contact with every fucking man the night before they were abducted. The very night.

This was not the kind of information an agent could ethically withhold from a commander. If we told Jack, however, twenty agents would immediately be assigned to hunt and kill Kyrin. They might even write off the missing men as casualties, not stopping to question Kyrin about their whereabouts, just killing him in their fury.

I couldn’t allow that. Because I didn’t doubt for a moment that Kyrin would act on the threat he’d made to me. If he discovered other agents were hunting him, he would vanish, and Dallas would die.

Unbidden, Kyrin’s image formed in my mind. White hair. Enigmatic lavender eyes. Taut sinew and rigidly muscled body. The way he moved with such grace and fluidity; his long strides of self-assurance.

The way strength radiated from him.

“What do you want to do about Kyrin?” Jaxon asked.

“I don’t know. God, I don’t know.”

Jaxon rubbed his jaw with two fingers. “We could split the search. You take one half of the city, and I’ll take the other. Or…” He tapped his fingers against the tabletop. “Or we could bring Kyrin to us.”

Intrigued, I tilted my chin and studied him. “How so?”

“He loves his sister and wants to save her, right?”

“That’s right.”

A man strode by our table, followed by another. Jaxon waited until the two were out of range before continuing. “What if someone alerted the media about Lilla’s execution?”

“Execution? We aren’t killing her yet. We need—Oh. Ooohhh.” I smiled slowly. My heart kicked into overtime. “A false tip. I like that.”

“Everyone at headquarters will be shocked when protesters storm the doors.”

“Which will allow Kyrin entrance. And when the sea of reporters burst inside, every exit will be sealed, trapping everyone inside.”

Jaxon nodded. “Think we should tell Jack and the others what’s going on? They’ll be able to give us more cover, and we’ll have a better chance of capturing our guy.”

“No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m not taking a chance on a trigger-happy agent who doesn’t care if Kyrin lives or dies.”

“Okay. I’ll make the call at eleven tomorrow night and say Lilla’s being executed at midnight. That

’ll give the press one hour to spread the word, yet won’t give Jack enough time to deny it.”

“Perfect. If he somehow finds out what we’ve done, though, I’m taking full responsibility.”

“I don’t need you to cover for me. I’ll take the consequences.”

“Sorry. No.” I gave him my grittiest won’t-take-no-for-an-answer glare, which he of course ignored. The male ego was not going to make me change my mind. “I won’t let you go down. I asked you to help me, not the other way around.”

“Too bad.” The lines around his mouth firmed. “Dallas is my friend too. Now, do you want my help or not?”

I paused. “Fine. If we’re caught, I’ll tattle on you like a whiny girl. How’s that?”

“That’s good.” He grinned. “Real good.”

“Go home, get some rest,” I told him. “You’ll need it. I’ll meet you here for dinner at seven.”

Maybe I should have taken my own advice and gone home to rest. I didn’t want to sleep, though, didn’t want to dream. I ended up making the twenty-minute drive to Kilmer, Peterman, and Nate Pharmaceuticals.

I spent two hours inside, questioning employee after employee—but it was wasted time. Mostly they confirmed what I already knew. That several of the abducted men had voluntarily submitted sperm samples for payment. That Rianne had worked here.

The only new piece of information I received was that each male donor had had a very healthy sperm count.

I was feeling frustrated—until I stepped outside. A wave of familiar energy hit me square in the chest. I froze. Heart hammering against my rib cage, I darted my gaze in every direction, searching for Kyrin. And then I found him. He stood off to the side, his back to me. He was facing a young, dark-haired couple.

Damn, I loved this new energy-sensing gift of mine.

I slowly reached for my new pyre-gun and moved toward the group. I held the weapon at my side, not wanting the couple to see it and give Kyrin warning.

“Do not come here again,” I heard Kyrin tell the couple. “Do not let your names be entered into their database. People in that database are dying.”

“You’re crazy, ET,” the guy said. “Something like that would be all over the news. Now, for the last time, get out of my way.” He dragged the pale-faced female along as he pushed past Kyrin and strode into the building.

I waited until they passed me before taking aim, yet Kyrin’s words echoed in my mind, giving me pause.
Do not come here again. Do not come here again
. He’d risked implicating himself by coming here. He’d tried to warn potential victims away. Neither was something a bad guy would do.

That knowledge almost kept me from squeezing the trigger. Almost.

I had lucked out by finding him so quickly and unexpectedly, and I wouldn’t spit in the face of that luck. I was going to stun him, take what blood I needed, then lock him up and question him.

Zeroed in on him, I squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. My mouth dropped open, and I squeezed again. And again. And again. Still nothing. Frustrated and growing more furious by the second, I glanced at the weapon. The crystal had somehow been knocked out of range. Shit. Shit! Had I tested the damn thing before I signed it out of A.I.R.? No, goddamn it, I realized. I hadn’t.

Kyrin’s shoulders stiffened. He spun around, giving me a glimpse of tense features and haunting shadows under his eyes. “Mia.”

I didn’t panic. I kept my weapon steady. He didn’t know my new gun wasn’t working properly. I’

d use it to keep him docile, then find some other way to knock him out. “I’ve been looking for you,” I said, holding my ground. “We’ve got unfinished business.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but a blue beam of pyre-fire suddenly lit a path just behind him—and it wasn’t mine—silencing his words. Someone screamed. Footsteps pounded. I caught a glimpse of a lithe, white-haired female as Kyrin shouted, “Get down!” and jolted forward, slamming into me and knocking me down.

The moment we hit, I lost my breath, and sharp rocks dug into my back. Kyrin rolled off me and crouched to his knees. I followed suit, and we scrambled to a car, using it as a shield as another beam flew at us.

Kyrin peeked over the hood. “Where is she?”

I set my gun to kill and prayed
that
setting would work. He ducked as another beam shot past him, hitting the ground just beyond his feet. Dirt and gravel spewed in every direction.

“Want to tell me why that woman’s trying to kill you?” I said, rising slightly and firing.
Click
.
Click

. “Damn it,” I cursed as I sank down. The gun wouldn’t work on kill either.

“Perhaps she doesn’t like that I wish to atone for past sins.”

I slid my old kill-only gun from my ankle holster, popped up, and fired. I hit a dark blue vehicle and shattered the front window. “Yeah, what kind of past sins?”