Earth Enchanted (22 page)

“Are you trying to bash your brains out? Two explosions and now a tumble down the stairs!”

“I know where she is.” He grabbed his keys where they had landed on the floor by the door. “If you plan on coming along, you got till I’m in the car.”

Ryan beat him out of the house.

“How do you know? Is she okay?”

Jack had his eyes on the road and his mind on Liv.

“I saw her. She must have tried to call out to me. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I’d have seen it before. Whiskey tends to dull the mind.” He swerved to avoid an oncoming pickup and cut off the driver in front of him.

“What are you, psychic or something? Liv doesn’t believe in psychics. Ask our brother. You shouldn’t be driving.”

Jack punched the gas and ran under the yellow traffic light just as it was going red, point of no return. “I only had two glasses. I used to have visions, hear people who weren’t really there, dreams, you know the usual ESP stuff when I was a kid. I learned to block it out after my wife died. I can’t seem to do that since I met your sister. Sometimes I swear it’s like she’s reading my mind.”

Somehow Ryan found the nerve to laugh at him. ”Some psychic you are. She is reading your mind, probably not on purpose though. She showed you where she is. Skye is fey, you know, he and Liv have been communicating telepathically since they could talk. Used to drive the rest of us crazy, always being left out of the loop.”

Jack cut the wheel sharp to the right just in time to make the last turn.

“She’s a telepath, but there’s no such…”

“Yes, she is, but only with Skye. She’s never been able to do the same with anyone else she’s been close to. She’s always just considered it something twins do. You’d have to be practically part of her… You’re in love with her.”

“I want her to marry me, but I haven’t figured out how we’re going to work it out. She won’t move to the states, and I can’t go to Ireland.” Jack screeched to a halt outside the bar.

Ryan muttered when his head bashed the dashboard, his brogue thickening with annoyance. “You’re a crazy bastard.”

“Should have been wearing your seat belt, it’s the law. This is the place.” He noted the position of the sign and using his vision as his guide, guessed the part of building Liv might be in. “She should be up there on the second floor somewhere in the middle.” Jack checked his pistol.

“Aren’t you going to wait for the police?” Ryan asked.

“I’m the police.” They got out and headed for the building without a front door, just a narrow stairwell.

“Not anymore. You gave the badge back, remember.”

“Right, a lot’s happened tonight. I’m not leaving here without her, whatever I have to do.” He checked the clip in his pistol. Eyes grim and determined, he glanced back at Ryan. “Let’s go.”

* * * *

Gueraldi listened while the details of the night’s events were relayed to him.

“The boat blew, diamonds on board. Corrigan still lives. Roarke’s to thank for that. Screw-ups everywhere, sir. Per your orders, I went to persuade Miss Corrigan to come with me, but someone beat me to it.”

Gueraldi tightened his grip on the receiver. “Is that so? Have you located LeFleur yet?”

“He’s slipped under the radar, but I’ll find him. Finding the woman may prove more difficult, and she could be dead. The writer’s house was in cinders when I got there. I don’t know if she was in it when it blew or not. Looked like Shadow’s work to me, messy.”

Gueraldi tried to remain calm. Control was everything. Never let anger rule.

“She’s alive. Shadow will have taken her. I believe you know where to find her now. I want Olivia Corrigan here within the hour or it will be your neck I will snap.” He slammed down the phone, the only outward sign of his rage. A timid knock came at the door.

“Who is it?”

“Marie.” The feminine reply was a welcome respite.

“Come in.” She was short, blond, well built and very French.

“I only wish to inquire if you need anything before I retire.”

He smiled, cold and deadly, and wagged a finger.

Believing she knew what he wanted, she came around the side of the desk, leaned over and unzipped his trousers.

He pushed back the leather chair, and let her sit across his lap.

“Do you know what I want, Marie?” he asked as he used her viciously, violently.

She gave no complaint. It was fortunate for her that she liked it rough. “
Oui
. I know what monsieur likes.”

His hand slipped behind her to the desk drawer. He pulled out a loaded .38 special, placed the barrel to her heart.

“No, you don’t. I want to be steeped in death, especially theirs, but yours will do for now.”

Shock and horror ran across her face. Gueraldi pulled the trigger and watched the light leave her eyes as he spilled into her. He tossed her body aside and buzzed his assistant.

“Send someone to my study. There’s a mess that needs cleaning up.”

He adjusted his clothes, ignored the blood on his sleeve, and stepped over her on his way out. She had been his lover for the past ten months, longer than he had kept others, but she had been very talented. Perhaps he shouldn’t have allowed the slip of his temper. It could be difficult to find another so skilled. No matter. He never looked back as he made his way down the carpeted hall. With enough money, you could buy anything.

Chapter 21

Liv woke in an elegant champagne silk bedecked bedroom with baby pink roses on the wallpaper. What sick game were these people playing, and who had kidnapped her after she killed that guy back in the apartment? Mozart piped in through invisible speakers. A quick scan of the room showed two windows facing east, barely any light shining through the lace curtains. That meant it was either dusk the same day or just before dawn of a new one. How long had she been out?

Someone had bathed the blood from her and dressed her in a—surprise—silk champagne colored dressing robe. Her skin crawled at the thought of it. Some stranger had undressed and washed and redressed her body while she had been unconscious. She prayed they’d been considerate enough to put her somewhere with an adjoining bath. She was beginning to feel nauseous.

She wasn’t bound, at least, and after a few ginger movements found she was able to get up out of the bed to wander around. She had on impossibly high heels with feathers across the toes on her feet. The room might have been plush, but the shoes were just tacky. The first thing she tried was the door…locked, so she hadn’t been rescued and put in a fancy hotel suite, not that she’d actually held out any hope of that. The next were the windows…barred. Okay, escape through conventional methods wasn’t going to happen. She’d just have to be creative. She found the bathroom and in the corner were her blood-soaked nightgown and robe. The smell and the memory of what she’d had to do roiled in her stomach and revolted.

When she came out of the bath there was a tray on the nightstand. She had missed her chance, but if whoever had her prisoner, however gilded the cage, came once, they would be back. She should have been starving, with her stomach empty. How many hours or days had she lost? She no longer even knew what city or country for that matter she might be in. At the moment, her imagination was more curse than blessing. The aroma of the wonderfully displayed food sent a new queasiness through her and had her running for the bath. Where was she? What the hell had they given her?

* * * *

Devin had heard Olivia screaming in his head. He’d seen clearly her kidnapping and the death of the two police detectives assigned to guard her. He dressed quickly and checked out of the hotel. Whatever came of all of it, she was family, blood of his blood, and that overruled everything else. For all the immoral things he was, the young laird he’d once been still remained. She was of the clan.

He barreled down the road twice the speed limit on a battered Harley in the middle of the night to help a friend, when he normally would have just transported himself. He hadn’t been able. His magic was weakening, but he didn’t have time to analyze why. Another vision flashed through his mind and like a movie playing, he watched the explosion of Jack’s house. Devin had only seconds to say the spell to shield Jack from the fire, but it kept him from burning to a cinder. For the first time in several centuries, he began to pray.

* * * *

Jack stormed the building with Ryan hot on his heels. He woke a street sleeper in his path, and nearly gave the old woman watching early morning reruns of Andy Griffith a heart attack. See no evil hear no evil, was the only answer he got. After all, he didn’t know what the kidnapper looked like. Ryan knocked on another door, but all they heard were unmistakable sounds that couldn’t be torture or murder.

Jack called him over and pointed to another door that was barely open. “This one’s ajar.” He took a step closer and shoved it open, pointing his pistol into the empty space, but there was no one left alive here to warrant the need. The stench hit him like a wave. The knowledge punched him in the stomach. The smell of death sickened his mortality and ripped at his heart. Liv. Oh, God, he hadn’t been fast enough to save her. Not again. He crumbled.

Jack felt Ryan’s hand rest on his shoulder. He looked up, ashamed of the tears, sick at heart.

“Liv?”

Ryan offered him a hand up.

“Tell me she’s…”

“She’s not here. It’s not her. She was here, though. You were right. She must have killed him and got away. Army guy in there has a knife in his heart, blood everywhere.”

With the worry subsiding, Jack could finally focus on what Ryan was saying. She had been there, but wasn’t now. He heard Ryan say he should go in and take a look around.

“You have experience with crime scenes that I don’t. Maybe you can see something I can’t, or you could get a vision, or whatever.” Ryan waved his hands around as if his words needed punctuation.

Jack walked into the room and tried to let the cop takeover. Lock it down, Jack, deal with it later. Filth everywhere, the smell was obvious. Save for the blood, there was no way to tell when the place had been wrecked. An orange liquid had been splashed against the wall, but looked days old. No blood anywhere in the living room. The bedroom was a different story. Blood covered everything like a geyser had spewed into the room.

The dead lay with one booted foot on the bed, and the rest of him on his back on the floor with the other knee bent at a sickly angle. A rope lay on the floor at the head of the bed; another two were still tied on the posts at the foot of the bed. They’d been cut on one end. She’d been tied up in this bed, he thought, at the mercy of this very dead psychopath. He wanted to roar and rage at the possibilities of all the things that could have been done to her. Where was she? Ropes had been cut at the foot, but not the head. Could he have untied her hands? How did she get her ankles free? If she’d had a weapon, she would have used it sooner. No blood in the hall, he knew before he thought to look. Whoever took her had taken the fire escape, which was a terror in itself, and left by way of the alley unseen. Out of clues, out of luck, he felt the weight caving in on him. He couldn’t find her. No more hope. No Liv.

As dawn broke over Ryan’s house, he and Jack pulled into the drive. Weary and heart sore they had done all but comb the world to look for Liv. Maybe Sam had called with news. All that could be done now was wait and worry and wonder. Ryan flipped off the foyer light he had neglected to turn off in his haste to leave.

The house didn’t feel empty, Jack thought when they walked into the study. He shoved Ryan behind him and pulled out his pistol.

“You’re beginning to get a habit of that. I wish you’d stop. I’m not feeble or female.”

Jack motioned for him to be quiet. “Someone’s here.”

“You should have taken the time to lock up, Corrigan.” This came from some disembodied entity in the dark study, and caused Jack to cock his gun. When he saw the face belonging to the voice, he holstered it.

“Christophe.”

“Devin.” Both Ryan and Jack spoke simultaneously and only after, became suspicious.

“Right on both counts. I guess there’s some explaining to do.”

Jack leveled his gun on him. This was the man who had forced Serena to steal the diamonds that had gotten her killed. He cocked back the hammer. Not possible, this was Devin, his friend.

Devin’s voice slipped into a Scottish burr. “Have a seat, we’ll discuss it, and then we’ll plan what comes next.”