by N. J. Croft
“Are you all right?”
She blinked a couple of times. “I’m alive.”
He smiled and crossed the room. “I’m glad. We’re here to get you out.”
Doubt flashed across her face. “Why? I heard you talking to Callum. I was bait, nothing more. Well, it looks like it worked—I got you here.”
He could hear the bitterness in her voice. “They have to be stopped. Besides, while I might have started out with the intention of using you, that’s not the only reason I’m here. You matter. I don’t know why, and it’s bloody inconvenient. But you do.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, we’ll talk when we’re out of here. I promise, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
She studied him for a long moment. “Okay.”
Luke strode to the foot of the table, unlocked the ankle restraints, and moved to her wrists. She sat up slowly, rubbing her arms.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “Are you okay to get out of here?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jenna stretched experimentally. The truth was she felt fine, so filled with energy she could almost feel the blood flowing through her veins. She glanced down and saw she was virtually naked from the waist up. Luke’s gaze lingered on her, but she didn’t bother covering up.
They’d left her alone since she regained consciousness. She’d known it couldn’t last, but somehow a strange sense of fatalism had overcome her fear when she’d heard footsteps. Her whole body had tightened in anticipation. Then she’d opened her eyes to see Luke standing in the doorway, and a feeling of overwhelming relief had washed through her body. He had come for her.
Saved her a second time.
Her mouth curved up of its own volition, and he frowned as though she wasn’t behaving as expected.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“They didn’t hurt you?”
She remembered back to the drugs and the agony that had engulfed her body. “A little. I’m okay. I just want out of here. Are we going to make it?”
“Yes.”
The soft tread of footsteps sounded. “Luke?” He looked up and caught her eye. “There’s someone coming.” She nodded to a spot behind him, and he turned slowly.
“Lie back down,” he whispered. He drew his pistol and moved so he stood to the side of the door.
Jenna lay back on the cool steel and peeked out from beneath her lashes.
A man hesitated in the open doorway. He wore a shiny silver protective suit and a full face mask. Behind the mask, she recognized the doctor from her interrogation and had to fight the urge to leap up and rip out his throat. A flashback washed over her to how good it had felt as her heel had crushed the other man’s chest. How good this would feel, and she had to lock her muscles to stop herself from moving.
The doctor stared at her for a minute, and she held still. He took a tentative step through the door, no doubt wondering why it was open. When he was in the room, Luke moved swiftly. He pressed his gun up against the doctor’s side. “Freeze.”
The man froze, and Jenna glared at him, allowing the hatred to show clearly in her eyes. Horror blossomed on his face. After swinging herself up into a sitting position, she jumped lightly onto her feet and stepped toward him. Above the mask, his eyes widened until she thought they might bulge out of his head. She liked the idea and allowed a small smile to curve her lips.
When he tried to step back away from her, Luke jabbed him hard with the pistol so he had no choice but to stand his ground.
“Who is he?” Luke asked.
“Doctor Smith. He’s the one who carries out the interrogations.”
“He hurt you?”
She nodded.
“Take off the mask,” Luke said.
The doctor swung round. “What?”
“The mask. There’s no gas down here.”
“Gas?”
Luke reached across to pull off the mask, and Smith struggled, his hands snatching at his face as he tried to hold it in place. Luke ripped it from him and threw it on the floor. Smith lost control. Ignoring the pistol, he sank to his knees, scrabbling for the mask, which he grabbed at and covered his face with. His breathing was short and sharp, and he stayed on his knees and backed away until he was in the corner of the room, as far from Jenna as he could get.
She took a small step toward him, and he pressed back against the wall. Jenna turned to Luke and shrugged. A small frown played across his face as he studied the doctor.
“It’s safe,” he said again. “There’s no gas down here.”
The doctor’s gaze shifted for a fraction of a second to Luke and back to her as though he couldn’t look away. His voice came out muffled from behind the mask. “Not gas. It’s her.” He lifted a trembling finger and pointed at Jenna. “She’s poison.”
…
“Lauren.”
She’d dozed off as the car drove them out of London. Now she opened her eyes as Mark spoke her name. He sat on the seat opposite her, a laptop open on his knee, and from his carefully blank expression, something had just gone badly wrong.
“What?”
“The woman, Jenna Young, she’s escaped.”
She came fully awake “Tell me.”
“They broke into the facility where she was being held.”
“Who broke in?”
“We don’t know. They stole the security feeds and the hard drives.”
Lauren’s mind raced, working through the implications. Did this compromise the attack? Should they call it off? Her whole mind protested at the idea.
“How did they find her?”
“We don’t know.”
“Well, what do you know?”
“Hockley went to see Gordon Haughton earlier today. When it became obvious Haughton was leaving with him, I gave the order to take him out. The hit failed, and they got away.”
“Jesus.”
“We didn’t think it mattered. Haughton shouldn’t have known anything, certainly not the location of headquarters.”
“Well, obviously he did. There’s something else, as well, isn’t there?”
“Smith’s missing. We think he was taken at the same time the woman escaped. Either that or he’s gone into hiding.”
“The doctor? Shit. How the hell did this happen? It must have been Hockley. Goddamn it!”
“It’s not so bad. Smith knows very little about the actual attack.”
“He knows enough, and he can guess more. Put extra security on the storage facility, just nothing too overt. I don’t want to draw attention to the place.”
“We have helicopters stationed nearby. I’ll put them on alert. They can be there within minutes.”
“Good. But let’s see if we can find them before it comes to that.”
She sat back. What was the relationship between Jenna Young and Hockley? Had he gone in tonight to save her, or was the doctor his real target? Trying to ease the ache before it could take hold, she pressed her fingers to her forehead. One thing was sure—they needed to get Jenna Young off the streets.
“The woman—I don’t care how, but I want her found. And if Hockley goes anywhere near the storage facility, kill him. And this time, make sure he stays dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Where are we going?” Jenna asked. “Back to the apartment?”
She felt sick and shaky. She hoped it was just a reaction to getting out, a sort of relief, but Smith’s words echoed through her mind.
She’s poison.
He’d refused to say any more and had gone into a fit of panic when Luke had forcefully divested him of the mask. After that, he’d made no sense. Luke had cuffed him and dragged him along with them. He was somewhere in the vehicle following.
Beside her, Luke glanced away from the road. He frowned. “No. The apartment’s been compromised.”
“That was my fault, wasn’t it? I told the police. I should have trusted you.”
He shrugged. “Why should you? I lied. In the circumstance, I would have done the same. But tell me, how did you know? I thought we were close, but you vanished.”
“I overheard you talking with Callum. You said you were using me. As bait.”
This time he turned and stared at her. “How? We closed the door. You couldn’t have overheard us.”
“I don’t know, but that morning I woke up and everything felt different. All my senses more acute. I thought maybe my medication had been having some sort of effect, suppressing my senses, and I was hearing normally for the first time.”
His eyes narrowed as he considered her. “Being able to hear through a concrete wall is not normal.”
She laid her head against the back of the seat. “Then I don’t know, but I did hear. I got out of there and phoned the police. They told me David didn’t have a cousin.” She studied his profile, the lean, handsome face. “Who are you, Luke? For that matter is your name even Luke?”
“Almost. Lucien Hockley. Look, I’ll tell you everything when we get to a safe place. Why don’t you rest for now?”
She closed her eyes but saw again the terror on the doctor’s face. “What did he mean? That I’m poison?”
“I have no idea, but we’ll get the truth out of him. Did they use any drugs on you?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s probably it. Maybe there’s some residual effect as the chemicals clear from your body.”
If that had been the case, the man she had killed would have worn a mask. He certainly hadn’t thought she was poisonous. In fact, he’d been quite willing to get very close to her. No, something had happened between then and when the doctor had come back. He had found out something that terrified him.
Something about her.
…
“How is she?” Callum asked.
“She seems fine. Physically at least.” Luke frowned. The Conclave had held her for nearly two days, yet she seemed to have suffered no physical harm. She said she’d been interrogated, they’d used drugs, yet there was no evidence of any intravenous injections.
“So, why don’t you seem happy about it?”
“I am, I just don’t understand, and I hate it when I don’t understand.”
“You think she might be some sort of plant? That she’s working for them? Could they have let us take her?”
“I’ve thought about it, but the fact is, if she were a plant, they would have made it far more convincing. She would have looked like she’d been interrogated.” He ran a hand through his hair. He was getting a weird feeling about this. “What about the doctor? Where is he?”
“Locked in one of the basement rooms. Screaming we’re all going to die, that we have to let him out. He’s babbling. He claims some guy called Lynch broke her nose.”
Luke’s fists clenched at his side. “Where is this Lynch?”
“Well that’s the other thing. Smith claims your girlfriend killed him. He reckons he’s never seen anything like it.”
“Well, let’s give him an hour or so to calm down, and then we’ll question him. Have you started going through the stuff you picked up?”
“No. I’d rather leave it to the experts. If the hardware’s been encrypted or booby-trapped, Stefan is more likely to pick it up. You know, they’re going to be on to us by now.”
“I figure they’ve been on to us longer than that, but we should be okay here for a while. This house is hard to trace back to us.”
…
Jenna lay curled on the crimson velvet cover of the four-poster bed, huddled in a robe she’d found in the adjoining bathroom. Luke had told her to rest, but there was no way she was going to sleep, and besides, she didn’t feel tired; she felt alert, wide awake, and hungry. She wanted food, and then she wanted to know what was happening and why. Luke had promised he would tell her what he knew.
When she was about to get up and go hunt for him, there was a quiet knock on the door, and Luke poked his head in. “I thought you might have trouble sleeping.”
“You thought right.”
He came in and shut the door behind him. He’d showered, his dark hair damp, and he’d changed into faded jeans and an olive shirt. Something warm stirred to life deep in the pit of her stomach when she looked at him. He might have set out to use her at the start, but he’d saved her last night. “Thank you,” she said.
A startled expression flashed across his face. “For what?”
“For saving me. A second time.” Something that might have been guilt flickered across his features, but he shrugged it off. Crossing the room, he placed a mug of coffee on the table beside her and stared down at her for long moments. “You look good,” he said.
“I feel good. And I don’t understand it.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“This, for a start.” She lifted her hand and waggled her fingers at him. “It should have taken weeks to heal.”
His face was blank for a moment, and she realized he’d forgotten about her broken finger. Then shock flashed across his features. He reached out and took her hand in his, turned it over, and studied it, a frown forming between his brows. “How long has it been like this?”
“Since the morning after…” She paused. She’d been going to say the morning after they’d made love, but suddenly she felt shy. “Since the morning I went to the police. I woke up, and it was fine.”
“This ties in with something I didn’t understand. You were interrogated, but there’s not a mark on you.” He stroked a finger down over her cheek. “Smith said you had a broken nose.”
“They used drugs, and one of them hit me. I thought it was broken, but…” She trailed off. “Has the doctor said anything else?”
“Nothing that makes sense. Yet. We’ll talk to him later.”
She remembered the red-hot agony as the drug had coursed through her body. “Good.” She picked the mug up from the table as Luke sat on the bed at her side. “Where are we?” she asked. “I couldn’t tell in the dark last night.”
“We’re about forty miles south of London. We should be safe here for a while, but they’re going to come after us. We need to find out how you’re connected or this thing will never go away.”
She sipped her coffee. “I was lying there thinking about it, and the more I think, the more it doesn’t make sense. I feel like my head is about to explode, but otherwise, I feel fine. Really great. Which doesn’t make sense, either.” She bit her lip. “There’s something else—I killed a man.”
“Smith mentioned it.” Head cocked to one side, he considered her. “How are you with that?”
She searched inside herself. Did she feel any guilt? “I feel good. He deserved to die, but that’s not it. I killed him with one kick. I shouldn’t be able to do that.”
He didn’t answer, and she finished the coffee and put the mug down. “Will you tell me what you know? Tell me who you are?”
“Of course.”
“But first, do you think I could have some food? I’m starving.”
He grinned. “You want to get up?”
“Yes, please.”
Rising to his feet, he held out a hand. “Come on, then. We can talk in the kitchen.”
She followed him through the house and down the broad stairway. The place appeared to be some sort of manor house, beautifully decorated in period style. It felt like a home and not a hideaway.
Finally, they entered a big open kitchen, and Jenna sat on one of the seats around the wooden table. Luke placed crusty bread, butter, and cheese in front of her. Jenna’s stomach rumbled, and she tore off a chunk of bread, spread it with butter, and bit into it.
After pouring them both more coffee from the machine, Luke sat down opposite her. She ate
in silence for a few minutes, and when her immediate hunger was satisfied, she sat back, cradling the mug of coffee. “Tell me,” she ordered.
A flicker of amusement flashed across his face. “Tell you what?”
“Everything. Who you are, for a start. How you got involved in all this.”
He stared into her face, as if unsure where to start.
“At the beginning would be good,” she said.
Surprise flared in his eyes. “From the beginning, huh? Well, you’d better make yourself comfortable.”
Jenna made to settle back in her seat but changed her mind, got up, and refilled her cup. She brought the pot to the table and refilled Luke’s then sat back down. “I’m ready.”
“I come from a wealthy background. My mother died when I was young, so my father brought me up. We were close. I was supposed to go to Harvard when I was eighteen, but my father killed himself a month after my eighteenth birthday.”
Shock ripped through her. “What?”
“I was…surprised. I just couldn’t believe he wouldn’t have talked to me. I went a little off the rails for a while.”
The connection clicked in her mind. “You joined the French Foreign Legion.”
“I was a hotheaded idiot, but the Legion was good for me. It taught me discipline. After I got out, I visited Callum in London and met his sister.”
He paused and took a drink of coffee.
“Callum has a sister? I somehow can’t picture him with family.”
Pain flashed in his face. “Had a sister. Leah is dead.”
“How?”
He gave her a small smile that didn’t clear the bleakness from his eyes. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Leah and I were married a month after we met and a year later, she gave birth to our daughter—Madeleine. Things were going well until I had a visit from an agent with the CIA. She claimed my father hadn’t committed suicide but had been murdered. I called Callum, asked him to come over, help me look into it. We started digging into everything—my father’s last months, his business dealings, his personal life. At first we didn’t find much, but then I was given a letter. My father had left it for me in the event that I was investigating his death. In it, he told me he’d been approached by someone to join a group. A group whose sole concern was the amassing of wealth and power.”