The Visitor: Alien Hunger Special Edition (27 page)

When he hit the floor, he lay panting,
his eyes closed. Garryk studied him for a moment and stepped over
him. Moving to the door Glory had left open, he glanced outside and
shut it.

Ledger slammed into it just as he
stepped back out of the way. “You are one dumb fuck, you know
that?” Garryk growled, grabbing the back of his neck and slamming
him against the door a couple more times.

Ledger slid to the floor, huffing for
breath. Garryk crouched in front of him. “We done here? Or do I
need talk to you some more?”

Ledger glared at him. “What the fuck
do you want? Money?”

Garryk uttered a disgusted snort.
“I’ve got want I want, dick-wad. Chelsey’s mine. You got that? You
ever fuck with her again, for any reason on any subject, and you
won’t live long enough to regret it. I can fuck you up so many ways
it don’t even bear thinking on.”

Ledger studied him with a mixture of
helpless fury and wariness. “What are the pictures for?”

“
I sure as fuck won’t be
showing them to Chelsey, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t
want to taint her with them. Call it insurance. I’m a firm believer
in being prepared and I know your proclivity for using the law to
your advantage. No cops, no lawyers. You stay away from me and
mine, nobody ever has to know what a sick little turd you are. Mess
with me …. Shame on you.” He studied Ledger for a long moment. “Are
we done here?”

Ledger swallowed a little sickly.
“We’re done.”

Garryk straightened. “You aren’t
nearly as stupid as I thought you were. It’s a shame. I was just
starting to enjoy it. Now, crawl your flabby white ass out of the
way.”

Ledger got to his feet with an effort
and moved away from the door. Garryk paused to look at him as he
opened it. “I’d do something about that if I was you. The ladies
like tight buns.”

The sense of triumph buoying his
spirits after the confrontation led to his downfall. He was so
focused on the fact that he’d solved Chelsey’s problems, and
pleased with himself, that he didn’t realize he was being followed
until just before the two men in black stepped out of the shadows
and hit him with a taser.

They were a lot more surprised when it
had no affect on him than he’d been when they appeared.

Chapter Fifteen

Chelsey had spent three of the most
miserable days of her life waiting in vain for Garryk to come. It
hadn’t occurred to her when she’d seen him leave the courthouse
that he wouldn’t. She’d been so certain after the hearing that he
cared about her.

True, he’d been summoned to appear.
She wasn’t certain he would’ve shown up otherwise, but he’d done
his best to convince the judge that he was a decent man and
wouldn’t be a bad influence on Larry and there’d been nothing to
compel him to do that, or to make the offers he had. Why would he
offer to marry her and quit dancing if he didn’t care?

Or was it just … like a gut reaction
to what he saw happening? A sudden impulse to try to help her that
he’d regretted?

She didn’t think Garryk was impulsive,
but she knew he could be very protective.

Was he angry because she’d refused his
help?

She would have explained if he’d given
her the chance! It had begun to look like he wouldn’t, though, and
she didn’t even know if she should try when he’d been so secretive
about his other life.

She couldn’t think of any reason why
he hadn’t told her he was a doctor. He must be proud of his
accomplishments when he’d fought such tremendous odds to reach
victory!

Maybe his pride? He’d guarded that
ferociously even when he was a kid, maybe especially then because
it had been battered so much. Most people were just like Marla.
They didn’t look at him and see potential. They looked at him and
saw failure.

And maybe they were right
a lot of the time. The odds were so stacked against kids like
Garryk that only a handful ever even got a chance or managed
to
make
a chance
for themselves and of that handful there was always the poverty
monster right at their shoulder, just waiting to drag them back—the
masses that didn’t make it and wanted them to fail, too.

So maybe he hadn’t told her because
he’d needed to know she didn’t see him like that? Maybe he’d wanted
to know that she cared about him—the real Garryk and not just the
place he’d made for himself?

She couldn’t say she completely
understood that, but then she hadn’t had to face the things he had.
Her place in society had been assured by her parents, inherited by
birthright. She could’ve failed miserably. She could’ve fallen, but
she’d been assured a chance.

The heavy knock on her door brought
her from her thoughts and set her heart to racing with excitement
for a handful of moments until it dawned on her that Garryk had a
key. Disappointment flooded her and then uneasiness. Getting up
from the couch where she’d been sitting for the past several hours,
hoping against hope that Garryk would show up, she went to the door
and hesitated. “Who is it?” she asked in a quavering voice instead
of the authoritative demand she’d intended.

“
Agent Claude Sherridan.
Open the door, please, Mrs. Ledger.”

Chelsey’s heart leapt in
fright and then made a series of missteps that gave her the
sensation of falling down a flight of steps. “
Agent who?”

“
If you’ll just open the
door, Mrs. Ledger, I can show you my credentials.”

But she didn’t
want
to open the damned
door!

What if he wasn’t an agent at
all?

What if he
was
?

FBI? What in the hell had her
ex-bastard done now?

She didn’t think she had a choice,
unfortunately.

Unless it was to try Garryk’s route
over the balcony and she didn’t think she could handle that.
Besides which she didn’t want to get caught dangling from her
railing and she had a very bad feeling that would be the end result
of trying to escape.

As quietly as she could, she engaged
the security lock and then unlocked the deadbolt and eased the door
open as far as she could with the security bar still in place—which
allowed about a two inch sliver of space.

An ID pinched between two thick male
fingers appeared in the opening.

Chelsey stared at it, feeling her
stomach go weightless as the wording leapt out at her.

It looked real. It looked official.
And all it said was government agent—not which government agency,
which disturbed her more than she liked.

A person who hasn’t committed any
crime should never be afraid of any agency of their own
government!

But she was and yet she didn’t see
that she had any alternative.

She debated closing the door again and
calling the cops.

That actually didn’t seem like a bad
idea—assuming there was a possibility that the guy wasn’t really a
federal agent.

Well—even if he was.

“
Ok,” she said. “I’ll have
to shut the door to take the burglar bar off.”

“
Alright.”

She shut the door and raced to her
phone, punching in 911 with shaking fingers. “911 what’s
…”

The door abruptly burst open,
splinters flying in every direction. Chelsey screamed, jerked
reflexively, and lost her grip on her cell phone. Mouth gaping, she
whipped her head toward the door in time to see the man who’d
identified himself as an agent surge through with his gun drawn. A
woman—presumably another agent since she was dressed similarly in a
dark suit—followed. In the lead was a man dressed in the armored
gear of a swat member or soldier with an automatic rifle at the
ready and behind the two agents were about a half dozen more
military/or swat team members.

Chelsey was so paralyzed with shock,
the two agents approached her and manacled hands around her upper
arms while she was still frozen, her brain scrambling madly for
some sort of explanation for this outrage.

“
Are you alone?” the man
barked.

“
Is anyone here with you,
Mrs. Ledger?” the female agent demanded.

Chelsey glanced from one to the other,
blinking while her scrambling brain tried to make sense of what
they were demanding.

The apartment was tiny. It didn’t take
as long as the questions they’d asked for the swat team to return
to report that no one was there.

“
Where’s the … person that
calls himself Garryk Sinclair?”

That threw her for a bigger loop. Her
mouth, she discovered when she tried to speak, was dry from gaping
at them slack jawed and her vocal chords squeaky. She frowned.
“What do you mean calls himself …?”

The woman shook her. “Garryk Sinclair!
Where is he, Mrs. Ledger?”

The physical ‘assault’ was sufficient
to dispel some of Chelsey’s shock. She glared at the woman, trying
to wrest her arm free. “How the hell would I know?” she snarled
angrily. “I don’t keep a GPS up his ass! Why do you want him? And
why did you say ‘calls himself’? Because I’ve known him since he
was a kid and that isn’t an alias! And I don’t believe for one
single damned minute that he’s done anything!”

The two agents exchanged a look. “He
was here before,” Claude said to his companion.

“
Yes, that does seem to
confirm he was one of the original ….” She tightened her grip on
Chelsey’s arm. “We have to go. We need to get you to a safe
house.”

“
What?” Chelsey demanded,
so stunned by their comments that they managed to haul her across
her living room and out her door before she realized they hadn’t
actually waited for her to agree or comply. “What are you doing?
Where are taking me? What’s this all about?”

“
You’ll be debriefed once
we get you to a secure location,” Claude responded grimly once
they’d negotiated the stairs and reached the sidewalk.

“
Debriefed?” Chelsey
echoed, glancing around desperately for help as they manhandled her
down the sidewalk toward a dark sedan that was sitting by the curb.
“I want my lawyer! You can’t do this! I haven’t done anything! I
have rights, damn it!”

“
We just want to talk,
Mrs. Ledger,” the female agent said as they opened the rear door
and shoved her inside.

Claude climbed in directly behind her,
before she was even halfway in, and the woman then hurried around
the car to the other side before Chelsey had a chance to clamber
across the backseat and try to escape through the opposite
door.

Wedged between the two agents, Chelsey
flicked a look toward the front seat as the driver started the
engine and pulled away from the curb.

There were actually two agents in the
front seat, but one was slumped against the passenger window as if
sleeping.

The driver turned toward them with his
hand extended.

Both agents made an aborted attempt to
pull their holstered guns when the three realized almost
simultaneously that the driver was actually Garryk.

Then a blinding light hit them just as
Chelsey gasped Garryk’s name and she felt herself falling into a
deep, dark pit.

“
Sorry, baby!” Garryk
muttered as she slipped from consciousness. She was going to be
totally pissed off with him when she woke up and remembered
everything, he didn’t doubt, but he saw no way he could have
avoided the situation.

If he’d gotten to her before the Feds
had ….

He shook that thought. She
would
still
be
pissed—because the shit had hit the fan and his persona had
crumbled, leaving him no options.

Well, he could’ve simply abandoned her
and left, but he didn’t consider that option. She would be danger
and the baby she carried in more danger.

She
had
to see that!

Unfortunately, that didn’t
mean she would forgive him because he’d caught her up in his
elaborate charade and now
she
didn’t have options—
none
of them had a choice of which
life appealed the most—a life here or a life on the colony world
he’d chosen.

They were all just going to have to
deal with it, he thought grimly as he made his way through town and
out into the countryside where he’d left his ship.

Parking the car on the shoulder of the
road, he got out and moved to the back. He had to drag the
unconscious female agent out to get to Chelsey. Shrugging, he lay
her on the ground beside the car and reached for Chelsey. She was
completely limp and that gave him a pang as he cradled her
carefully against his chest and headed across the field.

Without ordering the computer to
decloak, he issued the order for engine startup and told the
computer to open the hatch and extend the gangplank. He was only a
couple of yards from it when the gangplank settled. Moving swiftly
up it, he ordered the gangplank to be retracted and the hatch
closed.