Weakest Lynx (33 page)

The Shaman snapped her fingers, and I found myself panting in the safe house dining room.

I searched for Striker’s eyes. They shone black and unfathomable. I gulped at the air. Striker jerked forward to grasp at me as I slid from my chair, but Jack made a lunging grab, and kept him from touching me. My head clunked with a resounding thud against the wood before I caught myself. Striker spun, his fist balled and chambered for a punch. But quickly, Striker seemed to remember Jack wasn’t the enemy. The enemy wasn’t here. There was no one to fight. With rigid control, Striker knelt beside me. “Tell me what to do.”

“This house holds secrets. You can’t go in and rescue your child. It’s fortified, and there are too many of the devil’s soldiers inside.” I took in a jagged breath. Having gathered what intel I could and puzzling through the scene to the best of my ability, I offered a plan.

Picking up the picture of Juan, I said, “You can’t save this man. He’ll die momentarily. Go and negotiate. Trade the lamb for the girl. The lamb is stuffed with diamonds and packets of heroine, the cause of all the death and misery. They’ll trade. They realize the child’s in danger, and won’t survive the medication much longer. They’ll think they’ve traded the lamb for the child’s body, and that will make them laugh.” Striker’s energy spiked to razor-sharp points. It hurt to be near him.

“I’ll do what I can from here to help her.” I struggled within myself; the words tangled my tongue. Enunciating through swollen lips made me sound infantile. I gasped and spat blood.

“After you rescue Cammy, and she’s heading to the hospital, come back. Remove her photo from my hands without touching me. Wash it in water, picturing Cammy in my arms and us moving away from each other.” I was glad the Shaman sat beside me telling me what to do; I had no clue on my own.

“After that, I can be touched. I need help.” I looked from one man to the other; my focus was fogged and almost unseeing. Even still, I caught fear and apprehension flicker and disappear behind the men’s eyes. Then Striker picked up the lamb and ran from the house.

Time passed. I swayed in my chair. Sometimes I vomited. Bile and blood covered me. My nose continued to bleed. At some point, I slipped onto the floor beneath the table. I laid on my side, never releasing the photo. Jack knelt beside me, desperate to help. Blood coagulated and covered my nostrils. I breathed through my mouth, my face down in the bloody vomit water. In the ether, I felt Striker lifting Cammy. Felt her receiving help, oxygen flowing in her veins. Thank God.

Striker crashed the door open and carefully extracted the picture from my hands. Water ran in the sink as Striker washed away the connection. “Done!” When he yelled, the action began.

Jack lifted the table and threw it out of the way. He pulled the strands of congealed blood from my nostrils. He used his fingers to scoop out my mouth and throat, clearing the blood and mucus that choked me.

Striker checked for a pulse. “Medic!”

I
sunk into a recuperative trance that held me still and unknowing for a week. Then, one morning, I woke up like nothing had happened. I pulled myself upright and glanced over at the medic. “Good morning.”

He nodded. “Good morning, ma’am.”

“Where are Striker and Jack?” I was surprised to be alone with this stranger.

“Jack’s eating breakfast, ma’am, and Striker is taking a phone call in his room. He said he’d be right back. The call concerned his sister.”

“Okay.” I picked up a fresh set of clothes and went to shower and change.

In the bathroom mirror, I traced a finger over the thin, red line where someone removed the stitches from my head. A two-inch scar ran along the side of my forehead; I arranged my hair to hide the mark. The Wilson bruising had faded away. I pulled the man-sized T-shirt I was wearing over my head. Yes, my stomach had healed as well. All of the crusty scabs and glue were gone. In the light, pink scars traced their design like the path of a figure skater over me.

When I was cleaned and ready, I opened the door to find Striker standing, hands on hips, waiting for me. He gave me one of his long, assessing looks, then gathered me into his arms.

“Oh, thank God,” he whispered into my hair. “Thank God.”

My cheek pressed against the soft fabric of his shirt. I listened to his heart beating an accelerated tattoo. He was warm, steady, dependable. I breathed him in and felt my solidity returning to me. He held me tightly for a few minutes, then released me, and reached for my hand.

“Someone else needs to see you’re okay as much as I did.”

We went down the stairs together. The team sat at the table eating breakfast.

Jack leaned a hip into the kitchen counter, coffee mug in hand. He stood when I came in, his face lined with concern.

The men’s moods instantly shifted as tension stirred the air. The team watched Jack closely, focusing angry eyes on him. I immediately understood that they held Jack responsible for my injuries. I figured no one had offered them an explanation; neither Jack nor Striker had confided what had happened the night Lynda and Cammy were rescued. How could they? The men must think Jack allowed me to be hurt somehow.

I reached for the step stool under the counter and laid it at Jack’s feet. Stepping up to bring my eyes level with Jack’s, I wrapped my arms tightly around his muscular neck.

“Jack, you are so damned loyal and brave,” I said. “I can’t imagine what I put you through.” My voice hitched as my emotions overwhelmed me. “I will always be grateful. Thank you for everything you did to help me.” I hugged him tightly. Jack nodded against my hair, his hands on my hips to balance me. I gave him a big smacking kiss on the cheek and jumped back down.

I turned to the men. “Long time no see, what’s for breakfast?”

When the rapport between Jack and the team had found its way back to even keel, Striker dismissed his men and the medical attendant. Jack, Striker, and I gathered in the living room. I curled comfortably at the end of the couch.

“How are you feeling, Chica?”

“Well, thank you. You guys don’t look so hot.” And they didn’t. They were both clean-shaven and dressed in pressed Iniquus fatigues. But the dark circles under their eyes matched their uniforms. Stress gave them an unhealthy pallor.

“I don’t think I’ve had any shut-eye since you decided to play Sleeping Beauty,” Striker said.

“I explained to you how I slept for three days after that one case.”

“Yes, but this lasted more than twice as long. You’ve been out for over a week now. When you told me about the last time you did this, you
never
fully explained what would happen to you.” His voice was accusatory, making me feel like an errant child, caught in the act, and shamed.

“I pictured your going behind the Veil more like watching a movie,” he said. “And, that you found the effort tiring.” Striker stopped and scrubbed a hand over his face. Jack shifted around, looking uncomfortable. They both seemed to be struggling.

Striker shook his head and reached for my hand. “I can’t even imagine what was happening for you. I
can
say it was terrifying to watch. I never would have handed you those photos had I even the smallest inkling of what I was going to put you through.” Guilt thickened his words. I misread what he said earlier. He wasn’t accusing me. He was blaming himself.

“It’s a darned good thing you didn’t understand what I was saying to you, then. I’ve got no regrets. You shouldn’t either.” I shifted my focus back and forth between the two men.

“How are Lynda and Cammy?” I managed after a few minutes.

“Cammy’s good, no residual effects from the drug. She’s moved in with my dad and stepmom down in Miami. They say her only memory is of a pretty blond woman who held her the whole time and made her feel safe.”

“Wow. Surprising. She saw me? Huh. And your sister?”

“She’s alive, and that’s saying something. The men found her on this side of dead. It was a close thing.” Striker stopped for a moment. I think he needed to regroup. “She has some more surgeries to go, and a lot of psychological work and physical rehab in front of her. The doctor said if she sticks with the plan, she’ll eventually recover.”

“Is Lynda in Miami now, too?” I asked.

“They’ll transfer her down when she’s made improvements. She’ll have lots of support—family and her oldest friends—she’ll be able to visit with Cammy.”

“Good. I’m so glad she’ll get the love and care she needs.” I considered Jack. “I walked in on some mighty strong cold-shouldering. Have the men been giving you a hard time?”

Jack shrugged. “Picture it from their point of view. They came in from a mission to find the dining room and kitchen covered in blood. You were gone from sight. Medical support wouldn’t talk. Striker and I wouldn’t talk. I was the guy on duty. We all think highly of you, ma’am, not like a client at all, more like a team member and friend. We were charged with your safety, and they thought I’d hurt you, or allowed you to be hurt.”

“They didn’t think I fell down with vertigo and cracked my head open?”

“It doesn’t matter, ma’am. You were in my charge. If you were falling, I should have caught you. Besides, if you fell, we would say so.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. It’s a small thing, comparatively speaking.”

A distant memory stirred. Something I heard before I went into the trance. “You exploded the devil’s mansion?”

“Axel did, as soon as I had Cammy with me,” Striker said.

“Any survivors?”

Striker shook his head. “None.”

“Good.” I sighed and shut my eyes. Again we fell into silence.

“I need to tell you something.” I shifted my weight uncomfortably, wanting to postpone my newest revelation even if for just a few seconds. I cleared my throat and plunged in. “I get these things I call ‘knowings’—pieces of information that seem to come from nowhere.”

“More ESP?” Striker’s posture stiffened.

“A different channel on my psychic network. Anyway, the thing I was ‘knowing’”—I did finger quotes in the air—“quite clearly, as I woke up this morning, was that Travis Wilson figured out where I am. I need to leave, immediately, and I need to stay at a high security building. The place I should move to has a square, white office with a green roof set on a large lawn. The colored roof helps disguise the building from the air. This is part of a complex with other buildings near moving water, and a high-rise near some woods.” I stopped for a minute to recall the picture I had seen. “The designer situated houses to make it appear to be a small subdivision to outsiders. The houses are not really residences. They’re storage units, I think. Striker will know what bed I’m to sleep in.”

I blushed as I said that aloud. For any man to choose my bed for me made me feel like I was betraying Angel’s trust. Striker eyed me curiously; he had seen the blush. I wondered what he made of it. I took a deep breath and said on the exhale, “That’s what I ‘know.’ I also ‘know’ I’m to take seven days to finish healing my head, and then I’m to dangle.”

“Sorry?” Striker wrinkled a perplexed brow.

I mimed with my hands. “Like putting a worm on a hook.”

“You want to be bait?”

“I do what I’m told. My ‘knowings’ are never wrong. Just sometimes hard to interpret. This one is very clear.”

“We need to leave now?” Jack asked.

“Yes. Do you recognize the white building I’m talking about?”

Striker and Jack looked at each other. “We do,” Jack said.

Striker’s sharp focus cut through any crap. “If anyone else had said this, I wouldn’t pay the least attention—since it’s you, it’s gospel. I’m willing to do this, move you and dangle you. But no secrets. We’re partners all the way. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I nodded my affirmation. I wasn’t going to dangle on my own, that’s for darned sure.

“Do you know how he found the safe house?” Jack asked me.

“I got the impression he followed us from the hospital the morning I was brought here by a tracking device on one of the Humvees. I’m not sure why he hasn’t made a move yet. But it sure explains my heebie-jeebies. He’s been nearby all this time.”

“Right now?” Striker moved to the window to scan the front of the house.

“Right now.”

“Is there a mole at Iniquus? Do you know? I’m imagining not since that’s where you want to go,” Striker asked.

“Iniquus is clean—when I woke up, the understanding I had was that this guy has an issue with the government. He wants to be a homegrown terrorist, for people to believe he’s a great hero when he finally reveals himself as the mastermind. He had a group he was training with, paramilitary, but he didn’t work and play well with others. I’m picking up on a mentor who encouraged him to branch out and do his own thing, a special operation, something like that.”

I pulled my hair back and secured the ponytail with an elastic band. “Wilson’s goal is to terrorize the agencies. He wants to spread fear through the evening news. He’s pissed off because he’s not getting the publicity he thinks is his due. Even the picture they showed on TV said ‘armed and dangerous, give us information’—they never explained his crime, and boy was he furious. He thrives on fear.”