Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (68 page)

He inhaled sharply, practically a gasp. His fingers closed over my shoulder. I pivoted and felt the sting against my open palm. Saw Noah’s head snap sideways and the red imprint blossoming on his cheek. Neither of us moved. Seconds passed before I remembered to breathe. I crossed my arms over my chest, as if that could keep my rage tucked inside.

“You ask me to help you,” I said darkly. “You ask me to trust you. Then you fucking lie to me. Again!”

“Dahlia, I’m—”

I held up a silencing hand. “If you say you’re sorry one more time the next place I hit you will not be your face. The only words I want to hear from you, Noah, are why. You barely knew me. You could have let King kill me, done your other favors, paid the money, and had Aaron back by now. So why?”

A storm of emotions brewed behind his eyes. Emotions I simply could not interpret—would not. He needed to say it, damn him.

“Any explanation I could give you,” he finally said, “will just sound like a worn-out cliché.”

“Sure, right, because feelings are clichés.”

Anger broke to the surface, seeming to darken his green eyes. “Tell me what you want me to say, Dal. What do you need to hear?”

“Nothing.” If he had to ask, I didn’t want to hear it. Not now, not ever. “Do you have a phone?”

“For what?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

To shove up your ass.

“I need to call Gage and let him know I’m alive, for one thing. And maybe I can find out exactly what happened at the parking garage.”

He hesitated, and I was glad. I didn’t even trust myself always to do the right thing—as if I knew what the right thing was in this situation—so he had no business doing so when I couldn’t. I had no clue what I’d really say once I got on the phone.

Noah reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a cell phone. I took it and slipped past him into the hallway. He didn’t follow.

I walked into the other bedroom and closed the door, aware of the power in my hands. Power over his family’s future with a single call. Only that wasn’t true, was it? He hadn’t followed me to listen in or monitor my conversation. He’d trusted me not to betray his family. Then again, he could have just asked Jimmy to read my mind.

I flipped a light switch. A single, bare bulb hung from an exposed ceiling fixture. The bed was neatly made. A suitcase had been shoved haphazardly into a corner, near a broken wooden chair. The furniture was younger, the bed smaller. A child’s room at one time, probably a boy.

I sat on the edge of the bed, but instead of dialing Gage’s private com, I dialed Ethan’s. It rang half a dozen times, and just as I resigned myself to leaving a message, the line clicked over.

“Hello?” Ethan’s voice, uncertain and curious. Noise in the background was intermittent and hazy, as though he was in a car.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Dahlia? Where the hell are you?” The concern I detected was genuine, the question immediate.

“I’m safe.”

“Gage has been on a rampage about—” He stopped, muffled the phone. Voices spoke, him and someone else. Someone male. He must have moved his hand from the speaker, because I heard Marco’s distinct voice demanding to know where I was. “She’s fine,” Ethan said. “Calm down a minute.”

Back on the line with me, he said, “Okay, so we’ve all been on a rampage about you.”

“What happened this morning?” I asked. “We were talking, I was starting to get through to them, and then the gates of hell erupt and gunfire starts. Who was it?”

More muffled conversation. Then Ethan said to me, “It was Detective Forney and a SWAT team. Look, Gage called Pascal and told him about your lead with the cell phone.”

A sudden flash of red burst behind my eyes, rushing straight to my cheeks. My hands started to shake. Gage had betrayed me to the police.

“Pascal told Gage to go ahead with what
we
had planned, though, without police backup,” Ethan continued. “Then Forney shows up less than a minute after you walk into the garage, and she takes over the scene. Onyx tried to get over there and warn you, but it was too late. They opened fire before we could stop them. For Christ’s sake, Dal, we thought you were dead when we didn’t hear from you.”

I clenched my left hand, unable to keep my rage under control. It vibrated in every muscle. “I couldn’t call before
now,” I said, amazed at the restraint in my voice, when the rest of my body was helpless. “I’m not hurt, but they shot Dr. Kinsey. He’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Why didn’t you—”

“We can’t go to a hospital. Noah won’t allow it, and I think those were Kinsey’s wishes, too. There’s too much at stake.” The words came out unedited: “I can’t turn them in.”

“We can help—”

“No.”

Ethan grunted. “Gage thought he was doing the right thing by telling Pascal, and Pascal wasn’t even at the parking garage. No one’s seen him and he isn’t answering his phone.”

Strange. Pascal hadn’t ordered the police hit, but his partner had—why? A late reaction to the bad breakup with her now jailed boyfriend? And where the hell was Pascal? Far from painting a clearer picture, the new facts only further muddied the palette. “Ethan, I need you to do something for me.”

“I’ll do what I can, Dal.”

“Find out who this other guy is that Liza Forney is seeing.” I had no recollection of his name, just that someone else had been beaten the night she was attacked by Bates. “Name, occupation, the works. And then go talk to Bates.”

“We already tried. He’s at the courthouse for a hearing today. We can’t get to him.”

“Dammit.”

“Why is Bates important?”

“I have a hunch he knows why Forney is acting so oddly.”

“Of course he does; he beat her up.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I’ll do what I can, but after the stunt at the garage, Gage said some choice words to Forney, and we’re personae non gratae with the LAPD right now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he was livid.” Whispering. “Marco said Gage’s head almost spun in a complete circle. Teresa’s, too.”

The mental images almost made me smile. “How is Teresa otherwise?”

“She’s doped up on pain meds, but the doctors are all positive that she’ll be fine. The worst is over.”

Relief reached into my chest and released the strangle it had held over my heart for the better part of two days. The flood of peace also set loose a deep-seated well of tears. My vision blurred. “That’s the best news I’ve had all week,” I said.

“It is,” Ethan agreed. “Look, I have to go. Are you sure—Marco, what’s that?”

Something squealed—brakes? The phone went dead.

Twenty-two

Boiling Point

T
he phone cracked, alerting me to how tightly I was gripping it. I dialed again—no answer. Every number I knew, all with no response. Each failure ratcheted my fear up another notch. My stomach twisted a bit tighter until all that existed was a frozen knot of fear.

Noah took the phone and clasped my hands between his. I hadn’t heard him come in. “Dahlia, what?” he asked.

“Hey, guys!” Jimmy shouted. “Get in here!”

We thundered into the living room. Jimmy pointed at the television screen. King had closed in on the set and turned the volume up. On the black-and-white monitor, a news anchor sat primly behind her desk with an inset photograph of Gage over her shoulder.

“. . . to our continuing story,” she said, voice tinny and devoid of emotion. “The former Ranger known as Cipher has been arrested and officially charged in the attempted murder of a Los Angeles city police detective.”

My mouth fell open.

“Detective Lieutenant Peter Pascal was reported missing this morning by his partner when he failed to show up for a joint operation with the former Ranger Corps members.” The inset of Cipher disappeared, replaced by a frozen image of the escaping food truck. “This was the scene earlier this morning.” The image began to play. Our truck sped toward the exit ramp, taking bullets from half a dozen hidden cops.

“The escaping truck was thought to contain two suspects wanted in a series of horrific murders. One patrolman was injured by returned gunfire—”

“That’s a lie,” Noah roared. “We never shot back, Goddammit.”

The video switched to a long shot, taken from the opposite side of the parking structure. In it, Cipher could be seen arguing vehemently with Detective Forney. Both appeared to be shouting, using wide hand gestures to make their points.

“The sting did not go as planned,” the anchor continued. “The Ranger known as Ember was active in drawing out the two suspects. Once believed to have been taken hostage by the fleeing suspects, we are now told that she is, in fact, aiding the fugitives. If you have any information . . .”

A buzzing sound filled my ears as my image appeared on the screen—a freeze-frame shot from the night of the warehouse fire, out of uniform and streaked with ash and soot. My knees wobbled. Noah’s arm slipped around my waist, and I didn’t fight him.

“. . . Detective Pascal was later found in the back of a sport-utility vehicle owned by Cipher, bound, gagged, and
presumed dead. However, EMTs managed a miraculous resuscitation on scene, and Detective Pascal is now listed in critical condition at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. The remaining Ranger team members are being sought for questioning in the Twenty-second Street fire that left two people injured and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. Police have offered a hotline if you have any information regarding the—”

“This is bullshit,” I said. “Gage did not beat that detective nearly to death, and I am not in collusion with murder suspects.” Three heads swiveled toward me. “Okay, kind of, but they make it sound like we’re all a bunch of criminals. And what fire on Twenty-second Street? Shit.”

The newscast switched to regular programming. King turned the set off. The bungalow vibrated with the sudden, intense silence.

“On the upside,” King said, “sounds like most of your friends are still out there.”

“I lost contact,” I said. “I was talking to Ethan, and then we got cut off. No one’s answering.” I told them what I knew about the parking garage and was met with matching stares of disbelief—or what King’s blank face managed as disbelief.

“Didn’t you say that Detective Forney’s name came up in one of your leads?” Noah asked.

“Tangentially, yes. The video clue you left led to a man named Alan Bates. He was arrested last week for beating up his ex-girlfriend, Detective Liza Forney, and another guy. Bates has a hearing today. He’s been in jail almost since this
thing started, so he isn’t involved. We were going to start looking at additional people from the video, but then other stuff happened.”

Like escaping from police in a bullet-riddled food truck. Taking care of an injured man. Stealing a car and assaulting a salesperson. Letting friends get arrested for things they didn’t do. That sort of other stuff.

“Why did you send me that video footage?” I asked. “What am I supposed to see in it?”

“We aren’t sure,” Noah said. “Dad said that during one of his phone calls with the kidnapper, they mentioned the incident in an offhand way. It made him wonder, so he got the file. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and we were honor bound to not talk about it, so he compromised. He thought you would see something in it he couldn’t.”

I blew out through my teeth. “I think I just made everything more complicated by finding connections where they don’t really exist.”

“Are you sure?” King asked.

“About what?”

“No connections.”

“I’m not sure about much of anything right now, actually. I don’t even know the name of the other man Bates beat up.”

“You know your friends, Dahlia,” Noah said. “What are they doing now? Hiding from the police or turning themselves in?”

Simon would never allow himself to be hauled in for questioning. He hated and distrusted the police, and for good
reason. The others I wasn’t sure about, but Ethan and Marco were in trouble. Or hurt. Maybe both.

“If they suspected Forney was setting them up, I think they would hide. I just don’t know where. Hill House is obviously off-limits. Ethan has a friend who lives in Burbank, but I don’t think he would put her in the middle of this.”

Noah furrowed his eyebrows. “What about—” The phone in his hand rang, and he nearly dropped it. He looked at the display, eyes widening. Another ring. “It’s them.”

“Them who?” lingered on my lips for a moment, until I realized. Noah knelt on the floor next to his brothers. He opened the phone and turned it on speaker.

“Yes?” he said.

“You’ve been making headlines,” an electronically filtered voice said. Impossible to tell if it was male or female. “That’s not wise.”

“It wasn’t our fault.”

“Where is the girl Ember? Is she still with you?”

Noah’s shoulders tensed. “She’s here. She was shot during our escape. I don’t know if she’s going to make it.” What was he doing?

The voice laughed, a dreadful, eerie sound. “So the police managed to do by accident what King couldn’t manage on purpose. Interesting. Do you have the money yet?”

“It’s in a safe place.”

“Good, because we’re calling in the final favor. Once it’s done, you’ll receive instructions on where to drop off your three packages and pick up your brother.”

“Three packages?” The trio exchanged confused looks
(well, Jimmy and Noah did; I could only guess at King’s blank expression). I remained still, afraid to move and give myself away.

“Three,” the voice said. “The money, the person you’ll be fetching for me as favor three, and, of course, Ember’s dead body. Let her die and then bring her with you.”

I closed my eyes, staving off a wave of dizziness that threatened to flatten me. Someone squeezed my ankle. I looked down—Noah’s hand, offering what silent support he could.

“Fine,” Noah said. “What’s the favor?”

“Alan Bates has a pretrial hearing this afternoon at four o’clock. After the hearing, they’ll take him out the west-side exit. He will have two police escorts, plus one man driving the van. I want Bates removed from police custody safely. He is the other package.”

Jimmy paled, his skin taking on a sallow, stretched appearance. King hung his head.