Dragon Gate (15 page)

“Is there any coffee?”

“No, sir. The Nobles tend to stay away from caffeine with the exception of hot tea.”

“Orange juice is fine.”

He poured a glass for me and set it on the table. Then he leaned toward me. “Please don’t allow anything bad to happen to the Nobles. They aren’t merely my employers; they are more like my family.”

I nodded and took a sip of the orange juice. It tasted good but had more pulp than I liked. Beggars, choosers, you know the drill. I wolfed down the food, which was terrific.

When I rose to take the dishes to the sink to rinse them, my head spun, and I had to sit back down.

“Whoa,” I said. “Head rush.”

“I apologize for my deception, sir.”

“Deshepshun?” I felt myself fading. The empty dishes slipped from my hands onto the table. One started to slide off, but Jenkins caught it.

I blinked several times then slid from the chair. It toppled backward and I fell to the floor. The room tilted and started spinning. I tried to fight it. At first I thought he’d drugged me to keep me from leaving due to my injury.

That notion vanished when I saw a group of men who looked like they belonged in a Robin Hood movie enter through the back door.

“We have your gold in the wagon out back.”

“Excellent.”

“Is the warrior woman gone?”

“Yes, she left an hour ago, and Mr. Shade won’t present a problem,” Jenkins said. “He’ll be unconscious in moments. If you kill him, please wait until I’m not in the room. I do so hate the sight of blood.”

“We’re not going to kill him.”

“He killed two of your sons,” Jenkins said, being helpful.

I tried to raise a finger to say it was self-defense, but my world went black.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RAYNA NOBLE

Rayna loved being at The Steam Room. She had three private training sessions lined up, and she thought Brand would follow her to the other room, but he took a seat in the waiting area.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’ll keep an eye on things from here,” he said.

“You could come into the training room.”

“Does it drizzle this steam shit in there too?”

“Of course. It takes the pain out of training and soothes the muscles. It’s incredibly healthy.”

“I took a shower this morning,” Brand said. “I don’t want to take another one here while people work out.”

“Suit yourself. So I should call you if I need you?”

“Esther will keep tabs on you and let me know if I’m needed. I’ll keep an eye on your brother from here.”

Rayna wished she could see the ghost. It was a bit unnerving to know a dead woman was keeping an eye on her. She looked around at the various people working out. The Steam Room was packed this morning. She loved it when they were busy. Sure, they made plenty of money from people paying for memberships and then never using them, but she much preferred people actually making use of the facilities.

She entered the training area and began stretching to get ready for her first client. She and her brother had hired other personal trainers, but Rayna liked to have clients of her own. It made her feel more essential to the running of the business. Graham handled all the accounting and all the major aspects of keeping the business running. Rayna mostly appeared in the TV commercials, and she taught the occasional class, but her favorite part was working as personal trainer to individuals. That’s where she felt she made a difference in someone’s life, and that difference could be measured by their gains.

While she waited, she considered her situation. She hoped Jonathan and his team could protect her. She hoped they could keep Graham safe too. Kelly could clearly handle the Marshall Clan all by herself, but she worried that Jonathan might get killed if Kelly wasn’t there for him. Rayna wondered why he chose to live such a dangerous life. There were so many safer occupations. In any case, the Marshalls weren’t going to be much of a problem for someone such as Kelly. She just hoped the Marshalls had been unable to bring the crates with them. As long as it was just them, she felt she was safe. If they’d been able to get the crates with the destroyers through the Dragon Gate, all bets were off.

KELLY CHAN

The drive back to Boulder took forever in spite of the fact that I didn’t pay attention to the speed limit. Then again, I was in Brand’s beater of a truck, so it was a miracle that it even managed to make the speed limit. I kept telling him to buy a new truck but he refused. He could certainly afford a new vehicle with all his ill-gotten gains, but he insisted that as long as his truck ran, he would drive it. I kept resisting the temptation to intentionally drive it off a cliff.

When Highway 36 dumped me into Boulder, I considered heading straight for The Steam Room, but I knew Brand would have things under control there. I wanted to check on Jonathan, so I took a detour to the Nobles’ residence.

I parked the truck beside Jonathan’s Firebird. The truck engine ticked when I shut it off. I found the sound annoying, but Brand liked it. Brand liked a lot of annoying things.

When I opened the front door, I knew something was wrong. Jonathan may be the detective, but when I saw Tess’s head lying on the floor, even I knew I’d found a clue.

“Jonathan?” I yelled.

No answer.

I glanced to the right and saw an incredible amount of blood pooling at the base of one of the staircases.

“Jenkins?”

Still no answer.

I moved toward the blood. As I reached the stairs, I saw Tess’s headless body lying on the landing.

I took the stairs two at a time and checked the rooms. All were empty. “Jonathan?” I called again.

I took the other staircase down and found Chantelle’s body on that landing. Her head was missing.

My next stop was the kitchen. There were dirty plates on the table. That didn’t seem like something Jenkins would leave. The back door stood open, so I stepped outside.

Jenkins’s body was sprawled in the grass. His head was nowhere in sight.

I searched the rest of the property and the remainder of the house. No sign of Jonathan. If they’d killed him, they must have taken his body with them.

Now I regretted allowing them to live. If I’d killed them when I first ran into them, none of this would have happened. Shit, shit, triple shit.

I phoned Brand.

“Hey, baby,” he said. He knows I hate pet names, and baby was definitely not the thing to call me. I let it slide, as I did with many of the things Brand said and did. There were more important things to handle.

“Lucas’s daughters are dead. So is Jenkins.”

“How?”

“Doesn’t matter. Is Jonathan with you?”

“Of course not.”

“He’s not here at the house either. I think the Marshalls took him.”

“You think he’s alive?”

“For their sake, he’d better be.”

“Can you track them?”

“I have nothing to go on, Brand. It’s not like they left a trail of breadcrumbs.”

“In that case, you have two options. You can either come down to The Steam Room, or you can go guard Lucas.”

“If I guard Lucas, I’ll have to tell him about his daughters. I’m getting paid to watch over Rayna and Graham. They’re both fine, right?”

“Yeah. Any sign that Jonathan put up a fight?”

“Zero.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Even injured, he’d have taken out a few of them, so there’d be signs of that. Blood or something.”

“There’s a lot of blood, but it seems to belong to the bodies at hand. Goddamn it. I should have stayed here.”

“Jonathan’s a big boy. If they captured him, they’ll have their hands full. If they killed him, I promise you we’ll kill all of them slowly.”

“I’m going to assume he’s still alive,” I said. “He has to still be alive.”

“You’d best prepare yourself. If they caught him off guard, he could be gone.”

“They’d have left the body.”

“Unless they wanted to use him as leverage against you.”

“They haven’t seen us together.”

“You don’t know that,” Brand said. “They could have done a reconnaissance mission, in which case they’d know you were working with him. Seeing as how they’ve got to be shitting peach pits just thinking about what you’ll do to them, that does improve the odds that he’s alive.”

“It might diminish the odds. They might have killed him to upset me.”

“It’s always about you and Jonathan, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Worrying about Jonathan.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Would you be worried if I was the one missing?”

“No.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“You can take care of yourself.”

“So can Jonathan.”

“But he’s just a man.”

“He’s a tough son of a bitch so drop it.”

“Easier said than done.”

“It doesn’t do us any good. Just come out to The Steam Room. If they’re attacking and killing everyone, they may strike here next.”

“If they do, you make sure you don’t kill them all.”

“I’ll save a few for you.”

I ended the call and closed my eyes. Jonathan had better be okay.

oOo

“Where would they likely hole up?” I asked, looking at Graham. We were all in his office at The Steam Room. Brand leaned against the wall. Rayna sat in one chair in front of the desk, Graham in the chair behind the desk. I stood over Graham. Esther waited outside the door, keeping watch. She would pop in to alert me if anyone unsavory showed up.

“They’re used to village life,” Graham said. “They lived in a keep, so they’d be most comfortable in some stone building overlooking everything.”

“I’m not that familiar with Boulder. Can you think of a place that would suit their needs?”

“Maybe the Compton Castle?” Rayna said.

“Compton Castle?” I said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s sort of a nickname,” she said. “Henry Compton, a real estate developer, built a castle in the foothills overlooking Boulder a few years ago. I was dating a guy who sold them a lot of the stone. He worked at Tribble Stone Company, and it was a huge order.”

“
Star Trek
fans?” Brand asked.

“Tribble is the owner’s last name,” Rayna said.

“Did he have any daughters?”

Rayna frowned as she turned to look at Brand. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Brand shrugged. “Just wondering if they were born pregnant.”

“Be serious,” I said. “If they have Jonathan, I’m going to find them.”

“Tribbles?” Brand asked.

I glared at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t resist. So where is this Compton place?”

“You can see it from the highway. It’s just west of town.”

“And you think they’d just take over the place?” Brand asked. “Wouldn’t Mr. Compton have something to say about that?”

“He never moved in,” Rayna said. “The economy took a nosedive, and he ran out of discretionary funds, so they never finished building it.”

“And they’d know this how?”

“They’d seek the higher ground,” Graham said. “As you can see the castle from Highway 36, there’s a good chance they’d check it out.”

“It’s worth a look,” I said.

“I’m in,” Brand said.

“No, you need to look after Graham and Rayna.”

“We’ll go with you,” Rayna said.

“Right,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because taking the people we’re supposed to protect into the enemy’s stronghold is beyond stupid.”

“Not fair,” Brand said. “You get to go kill some people, and I get stuck with babysitting duty.”

“Get used to it,” I said.

“What did I do to piss you off?”

“You’re trying to make jokes, and you suck at it.”

“That’s not it,” Brand said.

“We can talk about that later. First, I have to find Jonathan.”

The look in his eyes told me all I needed to know. He was jealous that I cared more about Jonathan than I did about him. Sometimes he acted as though he were in high school. I wondered why I was still with him, but I had more important things to deal with, so I pushed it aside and left the spa.

oOo

I cruised out Highway 36 and hoped I wouldn’t miss the building. About the time I thought I should turn back, the road curved, and I saw the castle standing guard at the top of a rocky bluff. A moment later, I saw a dirt road for an exit, so I wheeled off the highway and bounced along until I drew close.

After parking, I climbed out of the truck, tucked a Glock in my pocket, grabbed my sword from behind the seat, and hiked the rest of the way to the castle. I don’t normally use guns, but I wanted to put these guys down fast in case Jonathan was with them.