Echoes (19 page)

Callie woke slowly, her brain adjusting to her surroundings with less than its usual agility. She'd been in too many hotels in the past week. This was the DoubleTree, she reminded herself. Times Square. New York City. The shades were drawn, but daylight seeped around their edges. The clock read 9:43.

From the other room of the suite, she heard the tapping of computer keys, the same sound she'd fallen asleep to. Had Mac been to bed at all? He'd gotten a phone call from Nash in the middle of their conversation about the Lewis family history and, following Nash's instructions, had used the new laptop to log securely into Harp Security's system. He'd urged Callie to get some rest and promised to wake her should anything of consequence occur.

That must have been around two. Could he really have stayed up all night? She grimaced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and opted to take another shower before facing the world. What she really wanted was a bath—long, luxurious, and relaxing—but she didn't envision getting home to her soaking tub in the near future, so the sweetly scented hotel soap and the oddly soothing act of shaving her legs would have to suffice.

Once the hot water had rinsed away some of her weariness, she toweled off, forced her unruly hair into a tight French braid, and slipped into a fresh black T-shirt and the same skirt she'd worn the night before. The shopping bag hadn't provided much else in her size. Whatever Nash and Mac might be planning, she'd have to insist on stopping somewhere for a decent pair of jeans.

Stepping into the living area of the suite, she noted the linens piled haphazardly on the sofa and immediately felt guilty for hogging the bed.

“You shouldn't have slept out here,” she said. “It can't have been comfortable. We could have shared the bed.”

Mac glanced up from the computer, his jade eyes searing her skin. “No, we couldn't.”

O-kay.
Nowhere near ready to go there, Callie squelched her body's immediate reaction and changed the subject. “What are you up to?”

The hotel had provided only one desk chair, so in answer, Mac rose and moved the laptop to the coffee table, where both he and Callie could see the screen by sitting on the couch. She dumped the previous night's blankets and pillows on the chair, trying not to be flustered by the peculiar intimacy of the act, and sat beside him.

Mac had logged into a popular genealogy site and was in the process of buying advertising space in their sidebar. The ad copy requested anyone associated with the Lewis clinic contact “Jackson Ardmore,” with an e-mail address. He filled in the credit card information for Ardmore, which Callie assumed Nash had provided. She wondered whether Mr. Ardmore existed at all and, if not, how many others like him—bodiless individuals with excellent credit scores—Harp Security kept on hand.

“Lewis probably has an electronic alert set to notify him whenever new information about his family or the Lewis clinic turns up on the web,” Mac explained as he clicked the button to submit the advertising request. “I've spent most of the morning posting on adoption and fertility forums. I want to flood the guy's inbox. The harder we push, the more likely he is to panic.”

“I take it Nash got the site you wanted up and running?”

“Yeah. He'll be here in half an hour or so. He called while you were in the shower.” Mac's cell rang and he eyed the display. “Speak of the devil,” he said, a crease forming between the black wings of his brows. He flipped open the cell and held it to his ear. Callie couldn't hear Nash's words, but the urgency of his tone and the deepening frown on Mac's face created a sick feeling in her gut.

Mac shot off the sofa and began pacing furiously. Twice he started to speak, but Nash cut him off, evidently not in the mood to be questioned. When Mac hung up, he returned to the couch and took Callie's hands in his own, and her nausea coalesced into a hard knot of dread.

“There's been a . . . development,” he said. “It's not good. Last night, Nash promised to put a man on your roommate. His guy, Hal, got to the restaurant where she works at midnight, but Erin had already left. He went over to your house and hung around for a few hours, but she didn't show, so he drove over to her boyfriend's apartment, figuring she'd spent the night with him. Her car was there, so he parked behind it and called in.”

No, no, no . . .
Callie wanted to put her hands over her ears, to tell Mac to stop.

“When Trey got there this morning to replace him, he found the place roped off with crime-scene tape. Hal just turned up in New York–Presbyterian Hospital with two gunshot wounds. One in the head, one in the chest. He's in surgery but not expected to survive. Tommy Lowell's dead, and Erin is missing.”

“Dead?” Tommy couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. She'd just spoken to him the night she called from St. Martin. And Erin . . .
Please, God, not Erin, too.
“What do you mean, Erin's missing?”

She'd done this. She'd pushed and pushed, and Erin and Tommy had suffered. Erin had told her to let it go, and she'd been right.

“She wasn't at the apartment when Trey got there this morning. Obviously, he hasn't been able to speak to Hal, but Nash's contacts in the police department say the cops are looking for her, too. Tommy's neighbors called nine-one-one this morning when they heard screaming and what sounded like shots fired in his apartment, but by the time the police got there, she was gone.”

Mac's voice was perfectly calm, controlled, and even. Callie wanted to scream at him, to scratch and claw and punch and, conversely, to curl up against the bulwark strength of his body and hide. Her face hurt, and tears blurred her vision.

No falling apart. Erin needs you.
She'd gotten Tommy killed, and she couldn't let that happen to Erin. Someone had taken her for a reason. Callie had to get her back. Then she could spend the rest of her life making up for her mistakes.

“What are we supposed to do now? Why would they want to hurt Erin? She wasn't even home. They had full access to the house if they wanted to search it again.”

Mac retrieved his phone from where he'd laid it on the table when he'd sat beside her. He placed it into her hands, wrapping her fingers around it when she didn't take it from him.

“You need to call her cell. Leave a message. Tell her to call you on this phone, not yours. Hang on.” He strode to the desk and scrawled something on a piece of paper, then settled beside her again. “Here's the number, though it will probably show up on her caller ID.”

“What good will leaving her a message do? She didn't run off somewhere!”

“I know she didn't. Someone took her. And they did it to get to you. They'll be listening to her messages. Once you've told them how to contact you, we'll go over what you need to do when they call you back.”

“John Lewis?”

“Still in St. Martin. I underestimated him.” He turned his opaque, green gaze on her, and she could feel the force of his emotions, though she couldn't interpret their meaning. “I should have realized he wasn't just another arrogant prick. He's connected to something much larger than just his father's baby-selling operation.”

“But you still think he's involved?”

“Yeah. I do. We'll talk about it once you've called Erin.”

“Right.” Callie swallowed hard and called her friend, tears choking her at the sound of Erin's happy-go-lucky voice mail message. She left the number of the disposable cell, as Mac had instructed, but when she hung up she didn't return the phone to him. Instead, she went into the bedroom and dug the business card John had given her out of her purse, then dialed the number on it. Mac, who had followed her, realized too late what she planned.

John picked up on the third ring.

“Callie,” he said brightly when she introduced herself, “how are you? Where are you? The gendarmes say you never left the island, but they can't find you. Have you been watching the news?”

“I've been watching. And I'm not on the island. But you knew that.”

The tears in her throat, the stiffness in her face burned away in a sudden flame of fury, leaving her voice rock-steady.

The false cheer faded from John's tone. “I have no idea what you mean. What's happened?”

“Don't lie to me. You—” Before she could accuse John of plotting Erin's abduction, however, Mac's hand closed around hers, snapping the phone shut and ending the conversation.

“Are you out of your mind?” Mac forced the words through gritted teeth, and Callie jerked reflexively away from their violence, pulling her hand from his. “That man killed his own sister or, at the very least, arranged her murder. And you just call him up like he's Joe Average you met at the coffee shop?”

Again, that sudden, violent urge to smack, to punch. But hitting Mac wouldn't get her anything. He'd just stand there and take it. Instead, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the bedroom. Calling John had been an impulse, a reflexive response to her need for action. No, it probably hadn't been the smartest move in the book, but for a moment she'd felt—for the first time she could remember since finding that damned picture—as if she knew what she was doing. As if she had a plan. And if Mac hadn't cut her off, she might have learned something useful.

She could sense him looming behind her. “Look,” she said, doing her best to keep her breathing even as she faced him, “you said to leave a message for Erin. I did. But why be so indirect? You're certain John's involved in this, so why not go straight to the source?”

Mac scrubbed a large hand across his face and ran long fingers through his hair. Despite the black shadow of stubble beginning to color his jaw and the overtly masculine build, Mac Brody appeared disarmingly childlike with his hair in cowlicks, and Callie twisted her fingers together in order to resist the urge to reach out and smooth the disordered waves back into place. Damn him, anyway. He'd turned her life upside down.

“There's too much we don't know,” he said, clearly struggling for patience. “Lewis didn't kidnap Erin himself, and until we know exactly who and what he's mixed up with, it's better if he believes you don't consider him a threat. Right now, my main concern is keeping you safe.”

Which was pretty hard to argue with, even if it did piss her off.

***

Mac watched Callie's face carefully, trying to gauge her reaction. He'd worked damned hard to modulate his tone, but he was practically shaking with fury. And—though he didn't like to acknowledge it—fear. John Lewis wanted her dead, and if she continued to act without thinking, or asking, he would get his wish. No way was Mac letting it happen on his watch.

The cell in her hand rang. She glanced down at the number, frowning when no identification came up. “It's probably John calling back,” she said. “If he's still on the island, it would be long distance and wouldn't show up on the caller ID.” Her eyes met his, red-rimmed and dull, and while he appreciated that she'd turned control over to him, he wanted the spark back, even if it was merely the fire of anger. “What should I do?”

“Answer it. Tell him you got cut off and you're on the road, about to go into another dead zone, so you'll call him back when you can. Then hang up.” More than anything, they needed time to work through the permutations and possibilities to come up with the best strategy.

Callie did as he instructed, assuring John she was fine, that she'd call him as soon as she could, even going so far as to thank him for his concern. The whole time, her cocoa-colored gaze never left Mac's, as if she were using his strength to shore up her own. Not that he thought she really needed it. She amazed him, remaining composed in a situation that would have shattered most women. Most men, too.

She shut the phone, and the composure vanished. She simply broke. Her arm shook visibly as she held out the cell, and rather than taking the phone from her hand, Mac slid his fingers around her wrist and tugged her toward him, then closed his arms around her.

“This is my fault,” she said, her voice muffled against his T-shirt, her breath hot against his collarbone. “I had a good life. Erin told me so. Why couldn't I just have left that stupid picture alone?” Her hand, still clutching the phone, pounded against his chest as she railed. “What does it matter where I was born, or whether my parents were totally honest about how they got me?”

“Don't,” Mac said, smoothing a hand up and down her back. “You can't think that way, sugar. This is on Lewis and whoever he's involved with, no one else.” But he knew the words wouldn't be enough. Self-blame and other flavors of what the shrinks called “survivor's guilt” ran rampant in both the police force and the Army. He'd borne plenty himself, including the weight of Nikki's murder. If anyone should have recognized John Lewis for what he was, Mac should. But he hadn't. And now Nikki was dead, Callie's roommate was missing, and Callie herself was in danger.

“What do you think they're doing to her?”

He didn't have to ask who. He put a finger under her chin, forcing her to look up so she could see the truth in his face. “Nothing. Erin is their ace in the hole. Without her, they have nothing. When they call back, you're going to insist on speaking to her. If they won't let you, you're going to hang up.”

“I can't—”

“You can. You have to. They want you, not her. Their only reason for keeping her safe and sound is that you insist on it. If they think they can fool you, can bully you into accepting their word for her well-being, they won't need her.”

A tear dripped slowly down Callie's cheek, the sparkling drop filling him with a combination of vicious rage and savage frustration, both of which he forced down. She didn't need his anger. He brushed the droplet away with his thumb, but another followed it.