Dylan (Bowen Boys) (5 page)

“I didn’t do this. I don’t know how I
know that, but I don’t kill children.” She wasn’t as sure about the adults, but
she knew that she’d not killed a child. “You’re in danger. I can’t focus on
this much, but just from what you said, I’m being hunted, and if they find me
here, you’ll be in just as much trouble.”

He looked away, then back at her. He was
in the shadows, but she knew that he was good looking from when he’d been with
her the first time. She wondered how a man with a wife—because there was no way
that this man could have remained unmarried—could want someone like her in his
bedroom.

“It’s not my bedroom, but the spare. I’m
just down the hall.” She looked at him. “Yes, I can read your mind. It’s an
ability I’ve had since childhood.”

She tried to think. He could read her
mind. What the fuck was that all about? He could read her mind. Jack looked up
at him.

“Do you know who I really am?” He shook
his head. “So I could be that person in the paper and you’d know it?”

“No. Whatever is wrong with your mind, I
can’t touch it. It’s been locked up tight. If I tried to access it, I’d run the
risk of hurting you. I’m going to let it go. But I can see the memories and see
your thoughts of things that are going through your mind since you came to on
my deck.”

She lay back and closed her eyes. “That
man and woman from before…do they know who I am?”

“Yes, but only what they got from
someone else. And Caitlynne, the woman, said that she’s having doubts of what
he said to her. She said that she doesn’t trust what he’s saying to be true
about the whole thing.”

Something popped into her head suddenly.
“There was blood on the stairs. I…I reached out to touch it, and it smeared. But
I hadn’t…I hadn’t done anything yet.”

He stood up and went to the door. When
he stepped out, she decided that whatever she’d remembered hadn’t been good. Tossing
back the blanket, she tried to sit up and get out of the bed, but he came back in
with the woman again. She tisked at her, and told her to get back in the bed.

“You’re a bossy thing, aren’t you?” Jack
moved to stand, and sweat popped out all over her skin. “I don’t know what you
think you know about me, but I have to get the fuck out of here. I have to save
you if you don’t want to save yourself.”

“I’m Caitlynne Bowen.” Jack looked at her,
shocked. “I can tell by your face that you know who I am, and what I am. So let’s
get things straight between us. You, for whatever reason, are in serious
trouble. Trouble that I may be able to help you out of. As of right now, you’re
under arrest and in my custody. And, as of right now, I will have you cuffed to
that bed or have Dylan hold you there until such time that I can determine what
involvement you had in the deaths of that family.”

“I didn’t kill the little girl. I don’t
know about the adults, but not the kid. I don’t do kids.” Caitlynne nodded. “I
don’t know…. You’re with the CIA, and that means something to me. Something I
should know.”

Her head began to pound again, and she
let herself drop back on the pillows. She looked up when another man came
toward her. She remembered him as Walker, Dylan’s brother, the doctor. When he
pulled her arm toward him, he told her that he was giving her something for
pain.

Nodding, she let him give her whatever
he wanted. She heard Dylan speak, but he was too far away to hear. She looked
up at Walker as the medication was warming her. She had to try twice to tell
him.

“The company doctor put something in me.
I can’t…I can’t remember what, but Snow helped me take it out.”

“I’ll tell my wife. Let it take you,
Jack. The sooner you rest, the sooner your head will heal, and we’ll be able to
help you.” He nodded and leaned toward her. “Dylan is a good man, and he won’t
let anyone hurt you.”

She wanted to ask him who would protect
Dylan, but the meds were kicking her ass. As she drifted off, she thought of
the blood again and wondered what stairs she was going up when she’d seen it.

Chapter Four

Dylan moved all the boxes from his truck
to the storage unit in the back of his garage. He’d put all of her clothes in
the thing the first day, and now stuffed them into the boxes. He felt something
bite into his hand, and reached into the pocket to see what it was.

He wasn’t as computer savvy as his
brother, but he knew a chip when he saw one. This one had been broken into
pieces, but he could see that it was state of the art techno. He slipped it
into a baggie that he’d brought from his class and decided to run it by
Caitlynne.

She was just coming out of the house
when he stepped up on the porch. “She’s still resting. Walker said he gave her
enough to put her down for a little while so she would heal. He seems to think
the harder she tries to remember what happened, the harder she is going to
fight to leave here. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He agreed with her. “So
what do you want me to do?”

He handed her the bag. “I found this in
her things just now. I don’t know what it is, but I’m pretty sure you can find
out. It looks like it’s some kind of chip.”

“It is. It’s a tracking chip. They use
them on dogs and cats to help owners find them when they’re lost.” She held it
up to the sunlight. “You think this was in her?”

He didn’t know at all and told her so. “She
said that the company doctor put something in her, and snow got it out. You
think Snow is a person and not a thing? Do you think that…I don’t know…that she
was in on something more than just this murder, and they used this to give her
information when she needed it?”

Caitlynne looked at him and nodded. “I
think that what we’re going to find out is nothing compared to what she has in
her mind locked away. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that something
more than her simply getting shot is what will happen to her once they find
her. She’s the key to something huge. And just between the two of us, I got a
feeling that Small is in on this, too.”

The vice president had been caught in a
huge sting two years earlier, and Caitlynne had been a big part of it. Dylan
had been working and not able to go to DC where she lived to help out, but knew
enough from Walker that the man whose job that Caitlynne had ended up getting
was the one trying to have her killed. He asked her when his trial was set to
happen.

“They’re working on that now. His
attorney is screaming for a new trial because of the exposure  Clements’s death
is causing. If they don’t come up with something soon, he may get it. Clements’s
house and his office were cleaned out of anything on the trial.” She nodded toward
the house. “I have a few things you should see before you go back up to see
Jack. It’s more about her prints being found in both his office and that of the
incinerator at his work. They’re trying to say she was working on her own
because she was infatuated with Small.”

“And what does Small say about this? I’m
betting that he’s denying any knowledge about her, isn’t he?” She nodded. “So,
she went to the office, ransacked it, then took everything she found on him and
burned it. Then went to his house, murdered his entire family, then did the
same to that place. And when the fuck was she supposed to have done this? While
they were shooting her up? Maybe while she was bleeding to death? Christ,
Caitlynne, you don’t believe this shit, do you?”

“Nope. And that’s where you come in.” He
didn’t like the look she was giving him. Nor did he think he was going to like
whatever she had going on in her head, and thought to see for himself when she
spoke again.

“You’re going to help me figure out not
just what she knows but just how involved in it she really is.”

He shook his head. “I told you, her mind
is locked down. I can’t go in there and see what she had without hurting her,
and I won’t do that to her. I think she’s been through enough.”

“You’re right, she has, and I wouldn’t
ask you to hurt her. But Mann isn’t hurt, and you can help me with him.”

“Do I even want to know who Mann is and
why you think he’s involved?” She shook her head. “So you want me to go and
touch this man to see what I can find out about my mate and if she’s involved
with the vice president. What if everything that they say about her is true?
What if she’s as guilty as the papers say she is?”

“Do you believe she is?” He didn’t know
and told her that. “Then this will help us all. If she’s guilty, you haven’t
bonded with her, correct?”

“No, but that doesn’t lessen the fact
that she is my other half. What if I go…shit, I don’t know… insane afterwards,
and try to kill all of you for taking her away.”

“Then I’ll sic Monica on your ass. We
both know that she is pretty good with a gun.” Yes, he did know that. They had
been working together to learn to shoot with Caitlynne, and not only had Monica
been good at it, she’d done much better than he had.

He told her he’d help her and went into
the house. He had more people there than he’d had since he bought the place. But
the great part of it was, he was getting help on the house projects. He had
already taken up the carpet in the dining room, and he’d been on his way out to
get the flooring when he realized that the stuff from the school was there. He
found Marc in the kitchen with the small chip.

“Somebody busted it,” he said to
Caitlynne. “I can read the serial number on it, but what do you want me to look
under? I’m sure that whoever put it in her—if that’s what they did—doesn’t want
anyone to know.”

“I’m sure of that, too. So can’t we just
go in and see who manufactured this thing and not activate it?” She sounded condescending,
even to him. Dylan laughed. “You have a better idea? Last I knew these things
were being used to track animals. For all we know it could be from her long
lost dog.”

“She doesn’t have a dog.” She looked at
him. “I’d be able to smell it on her, and so would anyone else in this house.
She doesn’t own a cat, either. Not yet, at any rate. And I think you should ask
a vet, not look it up.”

“Why?” Marc looked at the chip, and when
no one answered him, he looked at Dylan. “Why ask a vet? I mean, I get that
they would know, but how would they know why it was planted in Jack somewhere? And
while we’re talking about Jack, why would someone name her that? She’s so not a
Jack.”

“I’ll make that my first question to her
right after we find out why she was shot to fuck and ended up on my deck.” He
tried to pull his temper in. “Sorry, but I don’t like you thinking about her in
that way. Hell, in any way. It makes my panther pissy.”

Marc nodded. “I guess I can understand. I
mean, having a mate can make you all sorts of possessive. Hey, look what just
came up.”

He’d found a site that specialized in
using the tracking codes to find animals. All that was needed was the twelve-digit
code, and it would bring up a map that would help track them, sort of like a
GPS in reverse.

“I can try and fake a bunch of numbers
and see if anything comes of it. Or, I can simply switch a few of hers around
and see what I get.” Marc looked at them both. “Or, you can see if anyone you
know has a code on their pet, and we can use that.”

“I could tell them I’m thinking of
getting little George a pet and want to see how this works.” Caitlynne went to
the phone. “Now, who to call. I don’t know anyone with animals.”

“Surely someone in your office has a
pet. Anyone. Hell, ask Marshall, he might have…no, he doesn’t, either.” Dylan
snapped his fingers. “Dennis. I can call this kid in my class. He brought his
dog in for show-and-tell, and was telling the class about this thing. Let me
call. I’ll just say I’m getting one for your baby.”

Ten minutes later they had a code, and
the map showed not only where the dog named Tinkers Damn was, but included a
map of how to get there and a phone number to call if the dog had been found.

“The number is the same kind of system
that’s on this one. Seven numbers and five letters, and they are in basically
the same format. So now we’re pretty sure that this was used to track
something.” Dylan looked at Caitlynne as Marc asked the hard question. “Do we
use it or wait?”

“Use it, but not here. We’ll use the one
in my office because it’s a scrambled line. That way it won’t come back to bite
us in the ass if it is hers.” She looked at the stairs. “Christ, I wish she’d
remember.”

“I wish my brother remembered that he
was picking up flooring.” Khan stood in the doorway, sweaty and covered in dust.
“You should have been back nearly an hour ago, dumbass.”

Dylan stood up and kissed his brother’s
cheek as he walked by him. He had no idea why he’d done it, and nearly lost a
leg running from him when Khan set off after him. By the time he was backing his
truck out, he was bruised and sore and had a bloody lip, because when Khan had
caught him he’d beaten him to shit and back. Smiling, he knew he’d aggravate
his brother again in a heartbeat. It was just too much fun not to.

~~~

Blood was everywhere. Jack was even
swimming in it, her body weighted down by it. She tried lifting her head out of
it, her lungs filling with the red liquid. The harder she tried to get out of
it, the more it pulled her under. When she felt it break over her face, she
screamed.