Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (39 page)

Nothing slipped Caleb’s mind, Heather thought with alarm. Not a damn thing. A small notepad and pen materialized in her hand. She wasn’t even surprised. “Only if you promise to bring it to me first,” she told him, writing down the name of the bank, the location, and her pin code. “I’ll know which is which.” She looked up just in time to observe Tony Rook glancing at Lark. The woman nodded.

Heather handed over the piece of paper, hoping against hope that she was doing the right thing. “Maybe I should go—”

Lark shook her head. “Rest. It’ll be fine.”

Tony knocked twice on the back of Lark’s chair, then disappeared.

“Cute,” Heather said, almost smiling before remembering what she’d heard. “What’s wrong with Caleb?”

“He ran out of power.” Lark pointed at Heather’s mug on the table. “More tea?”

“In a minute—Okay. Thanks.” Heather reached over and picked up the full mug, taking a sip through the steam. The heat was calming. “How and why ‘out of power’?”

“His special power is manipulating time—But you already know that. When he shifts, he loses strength when he returns to real time. He went back to see your mother. He was gone for four hours. Normally it would take him under an hour to recuperate when he got back. It’s always been that way. He compensates for it. But your pregnancy changed that. This time it took four hours for him to regain his full strength.”

“My
pregnancy
? What has that got to do with Caleb’s powers?”

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“Couvade syndrome. From the moment you conceived he’s experienced most of the physical discomfort of your pregnancy. The nausea. The fatigue. The cravings.” Lark grinned. “The irritability.”

“I still don’t see—”

Lark’s smile faded. “Each time shift uses more…juice…for want of a better word. If he needs to backspace, teleport, or use any of his other skills, each one depletes him more.” She sipped her tea, then said matter-of-factly, “You were dead. He brought you back. Your face was pulp. He fixed it. Any one of our acquaintances would have said what he did was impossible. He’s the only wizard known to have ever performed a revivification on a human. It took him five hours.”

Lark got up, pacing the room as if searching for answers.

Been there,Heather thought, watching her.
Done that.

“Why didn’t he take a break? Doesn’t he have some sort of apprentice or assistant?”

Sniffing, the woman said in her husky voice, “It doesn’t work that way. Sure, we all have shared talents—teleporting, that kind of thing, but each wizard has a unique skill. Some, like Duncan, have lots of unique skills.”

“Okay, so Caleb drained himself to save me and the baby.”
Still didn’t completely erase the fact that
he’d put them in danger in the first place. But it helped.
“Did he run out of…juice before he could fix himself?”

“Can’t fix himself. Ever. But it’s more than that,” Lark said. “Even if he hasn’t admitted it, Caleb knows you’re his Lifemate.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “He’s got a strange way of showing it.”

“He returned from the four-hour backspace to Paris. Immediately teleported to find you without having
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time to regenerate. Got shot. Teleported you back to the safe house. Enough of his juice had already been depleted to flatten him like a pancake right there.
Then
he performed an incredible feat of revivification on you and your son. Two people. Five hours. Sounds like a lot of ‘showing’ to me.”

Heather heard the controlled anger in Lark’s voice, which only made what she’d just said more real.

Her throat closed with a terrible fear. “Is he going to die?”

“I have no idea.”

Heather’s heart skipped several heavy beats. “That’s pretty damn cold.”

Lark shrugged her elegant shoulders. “He knew the risks. He took them. He had to keep your baby safe.”

Heather curved an arm across her middle. Her mouth went cotton dry. Please say it was because he loved them. “Why?”

“Because your child is going to grow up to have unimaginable powers. Believe me, I know.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered weakly, the news overpowering her feelings of being used. Even if it was for a higher good.

“Not quite, but close.” Picking up Heather’s ringing phone, she said. “Hi, this is Heather.”

Heather felt a chill run up her spine. Lark didn’t just sound like her, she sounded
exactly
like her. “I will,”

Lark said, again in Heather’s voice. “It will take me at least an hour to get there.” She put the phone down and drew in a deep breath.

“How did you do that? No. Never mind. I want to see Caleb.
Now.
”

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“You can’t.” Lark’s vibrant face had drained of color. “The El-Hoorie brothers have him. They’re holding him for ransom.”

The blood drained from Heather’s head, and her heart went manic. “That’s impossible. He’s…”

Invincible. A wizard. A T-FLAC operative.

“Barely alive,” Lark finished grimly.

“But Caleb barely alive is better than any
other
man on steroids, right?” When Lark didn’t respond, Heather repeated,
“Right?”

“Not this time.”

Don’t panic,Heather told herself as she felt a surge of sheer fear swarm through her. Her experience with Al-Adel had been so recent that she couldn’t help immediately flashing back to what had been done to her. How scared she’d been. How much pain she’d had to endure.

And the final result of the terrorist torturing her.

Caleb had brought her back, at great loss to himself.

Who would bring him back if—

No one.

He’d told her that, to his knowledge, he was the only wizard who could revive a person, and Lark had just confirmed it.

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“My number is unlisted. How did they—”

“Used Caleb’s cell phone.”

Heather forced herself to remain cool and calm. It wasn’t easy. Her brain was darting about like a gerbil on a wheel. She opened the door to her almost-empty closet. “They don’t know he’s a…a wizard fighter/agent/super spy, though, right?” That gave him a huge advantage.

“They know he’s T-FLAC. They got him at the hospital. And the fact that’s he’s a powerful wizard is moot right now. His magical powers are completely on the fritz.”

“The ransom they want is the forty-eight billion dollars my mother stole or they’ll kill Caleb?” Heather swallowed nausea, still reliving her brief, but interminable experience with the terrorists. She couldn’t bear to think of Caleb in similar circumstances. She pulled out a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers from her suitcase.

“They’ll settle for the location and access to the money. They insist you deliver.”

Heather went into the bathroom to change out of her ripped sundress, leaving the door ajar so she could hear Lark. “Of course they do.” Just the thought of going anywhere
near
the people Caleb and Lark dealt with in their line of work made her sick to her stomach. The other part of her was fully focused on Caleb’s plight. The images in her head of what they’d be doing to him this very second weren’t pretty.

The beatings and drowning
she
hadn’t survived were crystal clear and debilitatingly fresh in her memory.

“You’re not going, of course,” Lark told her. “I’m sending a female T-FLAC operat—”

“
I am
going.” Heather stepped out of the bathroom dressed for combat in jeans and a black T-shirt.

“My mother took that money. My father did business with these people.” Her mouth settled into what she knew was a stubborn line. “It’s a Shaw problem, and a Shaw will fix it.”
Caleb is there.
In some wacky, insane way, she had to be the one to bring this full circle.

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“You may be a Shaw,” Lark informed her, her tone unbending. “But you’re carrying an
Edge
child.”

“Then an invisible someone,
several
invisible someones better be with me to ensure our safety.” Heather sat on the chair to put on her shoes. “What condition is Caleb in?”

“If they were able to take him? Pretty damn bad.”

Heather tightened the laces of her shoe, her heart speeding with surging adrenaline. “Does his power come back in a rush or is it incremental?”

“Incremental.”

She finished tying that shoe, and went to work on the other. “Okay. So it’s been building up in the last hour or so. Right?”

“What’s the question?”

“I’m trying to figure out how strong he is, and if he’s got any of his powers—” There was a hard double rap on the table next to her before Rook materialized. She stood, brushing her damp hands against her jeans. “Thank you, Tony. Caleb has been kidnapped by some brothers.”

“Ah, shit.” He glanced at his boss. “Saif and Muhsin El-Hoorie got to him? How? Is he suddenly jinxed or something?”

Lark’s pretty face showed her concern. “He is not jinxed, he’s being stubborn. And the answer to the first question is: at the hospital. He was in a coma.”

Heather spun around to glare at her. “You didn’t tell me he was in a coma!”

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“If he wasn’t, do you think anyone could have snatched him?”

Heather scowled. “But wasn’t he in a…
T-FLAC
kind of hospital? How the
hell
could bad guys just waltz in and take him like this? What kind of flaky freaking security people do you guys
have
?”

Like Heather, Tony Rook gave Lark an incredulous look. “Couldn’t’ve happened,” he said flatly. “Not possible.”

“Oh, I’ll find out how, don’t worry.” Lark told them flatly. “Heads will roll. Literally. For now, let’s concentrate on what we
do
know. Start with that stuff.” She indicated the briefcase Tony held.

“Dump it on the table,” Heather instructed, tucking her shirt into the waistband of her jeans. “Let’s see what my mother gave me.”

He emptied the contents of the sleek leather case on the table. “Where and when for the drop?” Rook’s attention was turned to Lark as Heather started sorting through the various pouches. She pretty much knew what was in each of the silk or chamois bags on the table. About three mil in pretties. Diamonds, various semiprecious gemstones, and pearls. But she wasn’t interested in any of those pieces.

She searched the colorful pile for the small gray silk drawstring bag her mother had given her at the flea market the day she’d been killed.

“Monterey Bay Aquarium.”

Heather’s head shot up as her brain immediately filled with the image of bursting lungs and sheer, unadulterated terror. “More
fish tanks
?! No way!”

“Way. Don’t worry about it. You won’t be going.”

Heather found and opened the familiar small bag. Lark and Tony were nuts if they thought she’d sit idly
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by when the father of her child was in danger. “Here it is. Let’s see what’s worth almost fifty billion.”

Lark and Tony came closer. “That’s it?” he asked, openly disappointed.

So was Heather. A pair of earrings, a brooch, and half a dozen old-looking bracelets rattled onto the wood surface of the table. Each bracelet was between two and five inches wide. Heather suspected that her mother had bought all the similar-looking pieces together, probably tied with a ribbon, or in a pretty box. Her mother had loved the chase of finding treasures; their value was immaterial. As far as Heather knew, her mother had never worn any of these pieces. They were all discolored with tarnish, age, and years’ worth of dirt. And then she noticed the slip of paper that had floated onto the table with an address on it in her mother’s handwriting.

“Well?” Lark demanded.

Heather picked up her jeweler’s loupe and the closest bracelet. “What am I looking for?”

“Microchip, maybe?” Rook suggested.

“Numbers,” Lark said impatiently. “Probably a Swiss account, and this address is most likely the bank’s location.”

Whatever it was, Heather wanted to find it
fast.
The thought of Caleb held hostage and powerless made her insane. Was this how he’d felt when he found out
she’d
been taken? “This looks like a mixed alloy.

Probably an imitation of something far more valuable.” She twisted it slowly between her fingers, inspecting the outer surface. It was so black with grime it was hard to make out the stamped relief design.

She turned it so she could see inside, her curiosity aroused. “It’s filthy, and frankly, I have no idea what a microchip would look like if I saw one.”

“It’s not a microchip,” Lark said impatiently. “It’ll be numbers. Some offshore account. Trust me.”

Heather, fighting her own flare of impatience, said, “I can’t see anything with all this gunk on it. All this stuff needs to be cleaned. And that’s going to take forev—”

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The pieces transformed before her very eyes, and she laughed. In under a second, Lark had whisked away years of grime that would have taken Heather hours of tedious, painstaking work. The sooner she could get the information, the sooner they could save Caleb. Heather turned and smiled at them both.

“It’s good to know people with skills.”

All the pieces were pristine save for one. “I wonder why that didn’t work on this piece?” Picking up the blackened bracelet, she twisted it to the light. “My God—” She met Lark’s eyes. “The numbers
are
here.”

A long string of them, circling the inside of the bracelet. If she hadn’t been specifically looking for something, she never would have seen them. The piece was black and cruddy, the indentation of the numbers almost filled in with the dirt and tarnish of years, decades, hell—
centuries.