Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (33 page)

Her knees buckled again, this time partially because her legs really felt like Jell-O, and partially because she wanted this man to believe she was still out of it. He’d taken the bait—would it be enough to keep her alive? He would need her to show him where the bracelets were, to get into her safety deposit box. It could give her an opportunity to escape. She needed every advantage she could get.

Her teeth snapped together as he jerked her upright again.

“I feel sick,” she blurted. Her eyes filled with tears, and she managed to curl one hand over her belly.

“Don’t hurt me. Please.”

“Then tell me what your mother gave you. Tell me how to retrieve the money you say she stole.”

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“I can’t. I don’t remember, I—”

Growling, he half carried, half dragged her toward the fish tank. Terror kept her silent. Had she gone too far? Heather struggled like a worm on a hook, thinking fast. Keir and Tony would be searching for her right now, she knew that without a doubt. They would certainly have contacted Caleb the second they realized she was no longer in the restroom at the airport. Caleb would
definitely
come looking for her.

So why wasn’t he here? she thought achingly as Al-Adel threw her against the side of the enormous fish tank. Her face took the brunt of it as she hit the solid glass wall. She literally saw stars as her nose connected with a thud, followed by a sickening crunch that ricocheted into her brain and vibrated through her body. Her legs refused to hold her and she crumpled to the floor.

Heather blocked out everything but Caleb. Caleb
would
come.

Not just for
her.

For Bean.

Caleb would come for his son.

Wouldn’t he?

And if he did, would it be in time to save them both?

“If you want to live, Miss Shaw, answer these two simple questions.” Al-Adel wrenched her to her feet.

Barely conscious, Heather couldn’t stand. His words blended and merged, pulsing in time with her manic heartbeat, which pounded deafeningly in her ears, and throbbed excruciatingly around her broken nose.

Calebcalebcaleb.

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He shook her violently. Her head flopped backward and forward like a rag doll. Half blinded by the swelling of her face, Heather gagged on the blood filling her mouth.
Calebcalebcaleb.

“What did your mother give to you?” he shouted. Shake. Shake. Punch. Oh, God. Agony. Heather left her face open to the blows so she could protect her stomach. “And where is it?”

She felt herself being lifted off the floor, strangely light, yet there was this dreadful heaviness inside.

Metal scraped against glass. The top of the tank? Something heavy fell to the floor with a loud metallic crash. With Al-Adel’s unshakable grip on the back of her torn dress and a handful of hair on her crown, she was pulled up and over a hard edge. Blurry light hurt her eyes. What…?

Water. Close. So close. Didn’t make any sense. Something hard cut across her middle as she was bent over.
Bean…

Cold water rushed over her face, shocking her into semiawareness. Her eyes flew open. Blood and her long hair floated in front of her face. Struggling to break free, she flailed her legs weakly. Her lungs burned as if she’d sucked in fire.

He held her head underwater with an inextricable grip in her hair.

A teal-and-yellow fish swam right in front of her nose.
Ohgodohgodohgod.
She tried to lever herself off the side of the tank, but he was pressed against her legs, holding her body against the side of the fish tank with his own, and she was weak. Dangerously, lethally weak. Water went up her nose and filled her mouth as she fought to hold her breath as all sound—save the thudding, erratic beat of her own heart in her ears—disappeared.

Red blood mingled with swirled black to obscure her vision as she started losing consciousness.
Bean.

Noooooo.
The harder she struggled, the weaker she became.

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Al-Adel jerked her head up. Out of the water. “Answer the questions.”

She hung limp, choking, coughing, desperately trying to drag air into her burning lungs. Sucking in deep, desperate gulps of air, Heather tried again to get free. But with no purchase she was pinned there, caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

“Brac—”
lets.

His words were lost as his fingers tightened painfully in her hair. He forced her head under the water again. Her lungs burned as she held onto her last, rushed gasp of air.

BARIAIRPORT

SUNDAY, APRIL16

1415

“Hey, Middle Edge. Your presence is req—”

“Unless this call is about Heather, I’m not interested.” Caleb cut Lark off, his voice flat. Grim. Oh, fuck—
terrified.
He was in the women’s bathroom where Heather had last been seen.
Last seen.
Jesus. It felt like he hadn’t drawn a breath in the past half hour. “She’s missing.”

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His gut twisted in a knot of fear for the safety of both Heather and Bean, Caleb was almost out of his mind with worry. She
couldn’t
be goddamned missing, he thought savagely for perhaps the thousandth time in the past thirty minutes.

Impossible.He’d put a protective spell on her. A powerful spell. A reinforced spell. Unless she’d chosen to walk out of this bathroom on her own two feet, nobody, but nobody, should have been able to get near her to do her any harm.

Yet Caleb knew, with every fiber of his being, that not only had Heather been abducted from beneath the noses of two highly trained T-FLAC operatives, she was in danger. Grave danger. His fucking protective spell hadn’t protected her at all.

How was that
possible
?

He raked his fingers through his hair, feeling the knot of frustration tighten in his chest. Another wizard?

he wondered. He shook his head, dismissing the thought. He’d sensed no other wizard at any time during this op. No other wizard. But then why had his spell not worked, God damn it?!

Maybe his powers were screwed up. Testing the possibility, Caleb turned to the mirror, gave a small flick of his finger, and splintered the glass into a million little shards. Then just as easily, froze the shards and reversed their momentum. The mirror was back in place, complete with water spots and fingerprint smudges. Jesusshitcrapdamn.

How? Why? What the fuck was happening to his magic that a relatively simple protection spell had failed? And for Christ’s sake, he was ridiculously weakened by his recent backspace and wouldn’t be capable of doing it again for
hours.
Heather might not
have
hours. God damn it. He had to find her in real time.

Real time.

Real fast.

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Thank God his morning sickness seemed to be over. He didn’t have time to be anything but at the top of his game.

Dismissing his own physical discomfort—it would pass—he started searching the far right-hand stall.

Again. Searching for anything. Any clue.

He’d half forgotten he was still on the phone with Lark. “What do you mean missing?” his control said in his ear as he closed himself inside the stall and ran a hand down the door panel. What he thought he’d find there, he had no idea. Something. Anything.
Where are you, sweetheart? Where the hell are you?

Unfortunately, mental telepathy wasn’t one of his powers. “Where’s Stone? How fast can you get him here?” Alex Stone was telepathic—he’d find—

“Terrorist Summit,” Lark informed him. “Prague. And before you ask again, he’s on his way to Gabriel and
his
problem in Montana. Getting a shiny gold star for doing what his control asks of him.”

Caleb stepped out of that stall and went into the next, starting the search all over again. Same result.

Nada. “Jesus, Lark—”

“Gabriel has called a meeting. His place. Today. 2030. Emergency. Psi/spec ops. Levels one and two only.”

What was going on? His brother was a big boy, and the choice between attending the meeting of powerful wizards or finding a powerless female wasn’t even a choice.

“Can’t make it.” He closed the phone and shoved it in his back pocket. Then he immediately started checking out the next stall, Lark and the emergency meeting already forgotten. He, Farris, and Rook were still at the airport. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they’d moved her out in the cleaning cart. Farris had found the cart quickly enough outside in a parking area. But there was no sign of Heather or the cleaning woman.

Or the woman who’d posed as a nun.

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And no clue as to who they were, or who they worked for.

Why? Caleb closed his eyes, imagining what had taken place. Rook, blaming himself, was watching surveillance footage supplied by the airport security people while Farris was interviewing anyone who might have seen the women. Caleb had sent Dekker and another team to watch and wait at Shaw’s house. The invisible cats waiting at the entrance to a rat’s hole. His chest burned with impotent fury.

Caleb continued to hunt high and low for anything that might lead him to Heather. His nostrils filled with the sickeningly sweet scent of industrial-strength pine deodorizer.

“What do you mean you
can’t make it
?” Lark demanded, materializing in front of Caleb in a swirl of leather and black lace just as he came out of a stall. He had to stop on a dime as she blocked his way.

She pointed a long fingernail at his chin. “That was an order. We have a rogue wizard out there assimilating powers—”

“Does this rogue wizard have my wife?”

“No,” Lark assured him.

“Then screw orders. My wife is my immediate problem. I have to find Heather. Help me find her, Lark.

Please.”

“I’m not in the lost-and-found biz, sweetcheeks,” she said with only a trace of sympathy. She stepped back, folding her arms over her chest, watching as he tipped over a trash can to inspect the contents. She pulled a face, high-heeled boots clicking on the terrazzo floor as she backed up.

“There’s not a damn thing here to indicate a struggle,” he muttered, frustrated. The second he’d seen Rook and Farris’s faces he’d known that Heather hadn’t just decided to go it alone.

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“But damn it, I feel—She’s in trouble. Jesus Christ. It’s bad. Christ, Lark—You have to tell me where they took her.” He quickly filled the empath in on what he’d learned from his men.

Lark raised a brow. “Are you telling me that Farris and Rook were standing
right outside
and had no idea she was being smuggled out right
in front
of them?”

It was no secret that Lark had a heart of gold. It was just buried under five or six feet of concrete. But if he could reach it, she’d be the best help a wizard could ask for.

“Heather came in. A cleaning woman and a cart followed, right on her heels. A woman dressed like a freaking nun came in, then went out a few minutes later, conning Rook and Farris with some bullshit about Heather needing something ‘female’ from the shop across the concourse. While the fake nun was talking to Farris and Rook, the cleaning woman strolled out. We found the empty cart in the parking garage.”

“Ah, the old ‘woman’s problem’ ploy.” Lark shook her head, the fuchsia stripes in her hair picking up the fluorescent lights above. “At least three women involved. Sounds like a riddle, doesn’t it? The cleaner, the nun, and someone left behind to impersonate your lady love. Bad guys—bad
girls
in this case, had upward of nearly fifteen minutes’ head start?”

“
Seventeen
fucking minutes. They could have her
anywhere.
We’re at an
airport
for Christ’s sake. They could have…”

“She’s still here in Bari,” Lark assured him, placing a hand on his arm, which had an immediate calming effect.

Which he shook off. “Where? Isn’t this your special skill? Clairvoyance?”

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Middle Edge. If I told you your future you’d freak. Besides, telling anyone what’s supposed to happen might alter their behavior, thus changing what should happen. It’s a total karma thing.”

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“Fuck karma. This is my own damn fault.” He thumped his fist on the towel dispenser, effectively buckling it and making it inoperable. “God damn it! Nobody should have been able to get anywhere
near
her! The spell didn’t fucking
work,
” he said through gritted teeth.

She observed him, her gray eyes clear. “Why do you think that is?”