by Black, Regan
"We have to tell Callahan. Now." He grabbed her hand and hauled her back down the hall.
Running to Callahan was the last thing she wanted. All the old messages about privacy, safety and security were rearing up, insisting she handle this alone.
Her father. Her order. Her problem.
All her life she'd been taught healers dealt with problems internally. Outside influence wasn't accepted or appreciated. Her departure from the community to follow so boldly in her father's footsteps had been considered rude by even her friends in the community.
Former friends.
Her father was an outcast and someone in her order was the crux of the problem. The Five were cold, and often harsh in their judgments, but she wasn't sure they would stoop to using Dr. Luther's gifts for research against the general population.
And just what was she going to do about it?
The Five didn't have any measure of compassion as far as she could tell. They didn't like her family and they'd been ready to strip her of her gift just because she saved Jameson's brother. She'd seen a person in the ill prisoner, but they considered him useless, possibly even an infringement on society.
Having read through a great deal of the history and documentation of the healer's gift she wondered what had pushed her order so far from their original purpose. What would it take to show them how wrong they were?
Her temper was edging toward a new high when they rushed in to find everyone crowded into the Callahan suite.
Brian was talking a mile a minute, Jaden was pacing, and Callahan looked a little green. Petra and Nathan were huddled over a hologram with Cali.
Jameson hesitated and Mira hung back behind him, wanting to stay out of the way. When Petra glanced up, her eyes went wide with surprise when she saw Mira. She walked over and did that almost touching thing again. "You might want to dial it down."
Mira followed her pointed gaze to her hands and jumped. Her hands were glowing with that pale blue light she'd cast over herself during the explosion. Jameson turned, but she tucked her hands out of sight and gave him a weak smile.
"You okay?"
"Sure." She nodded quickly, hoping she wasn't lying to him and grateful when Petra guided her away.
Her relief turned to dread as she realized they appeared to be watching a recording of a gang war. Two rough looking men faced off on a corner, flanked by supporters. The audio was crap, but Mira didn't want to hear details. Seeing it was bad enough.
Someone drew a gun and all she could think was that personal firearms were illegal. Gun possession soon became the least of the offenses as the fight escalated. Gun muzzles flared, a knife flashed, then the crowd dispersed and bodies were left behind.
Blood ran into the street, flowed in glaring red streams around debris and down into the storm drain.
Mira clapped a hand to her stomach, willing it to be calm. She knew she couldn't get there in time to help, but it didn't stop her urge to try. "What...when?"
Jameson was suddenly by her side and she let herself lean, let herself take the comfort he offered. This time his warmth seeped into her, soothing away the cold helplessness.
"This was over a day ago," Nathan said softly. "Brian is using his connections. Tracking down what the evidence van collected and where they took it for processing."
She nodded though she didn't really understand. Cali looked at her with too much sympathy. "It looks like Montalbano was testing your dad's new formula."
* * *
It was a risk to visit the scene, to even venture out for fear of being recognized, but some circumstances required a personal touch.
He walked the perimeter of the charred building and gave credit to whomever had leveled it. Probably Conrad. No arson investigator would be able to determine what had been going on in this lab. In fact, he had it on good authority they were already chalking it up to careless students looking to develop a new designer drug. Score one for Montalbano's network of influence.
He was not entirely impressed but he was even less worried.
Montalbano had his new weapon and would surely be adjusting his lifestyle with the inevitable return on his investment.
No, his real concern rested with the Luther family and the security of his own flawlessly designed plans. Jacob, his second in command reported two of his enforcers were dead by their own means. They'd been found in Dr. Luther's abandoned clinic – what a pathetic idea that clinic had been – cuffed and bruised by rubber bullets fired at point blank range. Unfortunately, Jacob had been interrupted when a military team arrived to clean up the mess. He didn't worry that they would learn anything from the bodies and now he smiled a bit, imagining how frustrated the ham-handed interrogator must have been. It was obvious to his deputy that two out of the team of three had chosen an honorable death over capture.
He respected that, had trained them himself in the art of death and the circumstances that required the greatest sacrifice. But the third man was different.
All of this information ended with a rather worrisome question mark by Luke Conrad's name. Prisoner or escapee?
His tracking device was offline which only added more questions. Topping the list were loyalty and ability.
He'd thought Conrad to be a capable person, with aspirations to advance within the pending reorganization. Indeed, the more he examined the scene, the more he decided Conrad had done it. Still, having destroyed the lab, he had yet to deliver Mira or report the status of Dr. Luther. Clearly he'd missed something pertinent in the man's file.
Worrisome, yes, but not enough to change the time frame. Conrad didn't know everything. In fact, he reminded himself, Conrad didn't know much of anything at all.
Breathing a bit easier, he took a closer look at what he'd come here to examine with his own eyes.
Neither the cleaners nor his most trusted enforcers could see the trail of energy that was visible to him. Of course they hadn't studied the history and relics and philosophies as he had. They didn't know what to look for, how to adjust their vision to observe the proper spectrum.
All of his plans, her development, their future, was merely a matter of applying the correct vision. Vision and just the right amount of pressure, to be specific.
He frowned at the spot where she'd collapsed after her escape from the inferno. Not wanting to mar the evidence, even if he was the only one who recognized it, he stayed several paces back. When he had a better sense of it, a theory of how it likely played out, he circled the spot where she surely had rested.
Even now, days later, the area had a sheen to it, an extra current of energy lingering in the earth. Oh, she was quite strong.
"Sir?"
He lifted the cane he carried as part of the persona rather than need and the man halted a pace behind him. When he'd adjusted his eyes, he turned. "Yes?"
"We just received word the wife is missing."
"Give the Five a story and let them track her down." He didn't like it, but again, she wasn't critical to his plans. Luther had left the wife far behind, but he'd never forgotten the daughter.
He returned to his task, untroubled except for the glaring common denominator of the daughter. He had no intention of forgetting Mira either. It made him uncomfortable. His entire life he'd found the less he shared with Dr. Luther the better.
Noticing a divergence in the energy residue, he stepped closer to where she'd been. The paths of light parted, then rejoined.
"Impossible." He uttered a prayer of protection.
No one in the old records, not even the fabled Miranda herself, could divide her energy.
"There will be another explanation." Had to be. And he'd find it the moment the girl was within his control.
"Time to go." He signaled and his team moved accordingly.
On the drive back it was all he could do to sit as still as expected. His thoughts were leaping from one outrageously hopeful conclusion to the next.
She was the answer, he just had to be patient.
Chapte
r 10
Mira knew word of those senseless deaths would destroy her father. As soon as he found out the anticoagulant had worked so well, he'd be devastated. It wouldn't matter to him that the victims had been criminals. People were people and slaughter was slaughter.
She heard Jameson ask about the footage. Cringed when Callahan reported it had been intercepted as an email attachment from Montalbano.
"He's offering proof that it works as advertised," Jameson said.
"It'll cause a freaking bidding war," Callahan agreed. "There's no way to stop him now that he has the formula. This won't end well."
"It gets worse." Jameson glanced at her and she nodded for him to say it.
"How?"
"Mira thinks someone in her order knows about, possibly even put Dr. Luther into, Montalbano's hands."
"What do you mean?"
She couldn't listen, had to tune it out as Jameson explained the frightening theory. Her mind was reeling with the dreadful consequences of her dad's formula in criminal hands.
There had to be a safeguard, an emergency stop order at the cellular level. Her father would never have developed something so dangerous and let it loose on the world without a balancing counter measure.
She turned away from the many faceted debate going on around her and tried to remember exactly what she'd seen in that lab. More, she tried to recall every nuance she'd felt when she'd touched her father.
It was like trying to think through brain freeze. Her dad was the researcher, but she wasn't stupid. For years he turned his healing gift toward the reasoning and exploration at cellular levels and deeper. She was all about the macro side of healing, but she understood the basics of hereditary diseases.
The hemophilia had to be the key to this particular situation, at least from her father's perspective. She had to find him, to help him correct this horrible error.
As a radical plan unfolded in her mind, she turned it around, looking for the pitfalls. If the others were right and her father was merely a pawn to trap her, she needed to be prepared. The risks didn't cloud her determination. Her intuition said it didn't matter who was behind the chess board, they needed to be stopped.
She'd go to her father, there was only one place Luke would take him that made any sense now. Whatever started this rift and derailment within the order, however deep the roots went, she intended to stop it. For her father as well as the other healers who were consistently denied the opportunity to ease the world's suffering.
If the explosion had been the catalyst that elevated her gift to a new level, she imagined her father would know how best to guide her. At the least, he would be able to assess the full impact of the change on her ability.
She looked around the room, her courage growing as she watched Callahan and his team compare ideas and plans to find and stop Montalbano. That was their forte.
Right here, in this moment, she knew what to do to be of the most help. She was useless to them on the tactical side, a hindrance in the field. She was only good for treating injuries.
Looking closely at Nathan, she realized he was injured. The poor man's eyes would soon be black if she didn't intervene, but she didn't want to interrupt the planning. Her fingertips grew warm and she gasped when she saw the tiny ball of blue light rolling between her thumb and index finger. She caught his attention and drew him away from the others.
"Will you let me take care of that?"
He smiled, but it quickly turned to a wince. "Only fair since Jameson was working off his frustration over you."
She didn't dignify that, too curious about what she wanted to try. "Hold out your hand." She rolled that bit of light onto his fingertips and lifted her hand away. It stayed! Her heart pounding, she said, "Put it on your nose. Carefully."
Nathan looked at her as if she'd asked him to poke himself in the eye. "What is it?"
She shrugged. "A test? Try. Please?" How long would the light stay in his hand? "Go on. If it doesn't work, I'll fix it my usual way."
He brought his hand to his face, smoothing the light like modeling clay over his abused nose. "It's cold."
"Okay." It had felt warm when the light was in her hand. She couldn't see the glow of it anymore and wondered if the bit of energy had simply dissolved into nothing. "Is it helping?"
"Does it show?"
"No. Wait. Yes." Nathan looked around for the closest mirror. She laughed, thrilled with the discovery. "You're not glowing, but your nose is healing. I think." The puffiness and early bruising improved even as she watched and she beamed when he started breathing through his nose as the internal swelling subsided. "Does it feel better?"
Nathan gingerly touched the contours of his face. "Yeah. Wow."
Mira was so completely tickled by the discovery, she didn't notice everyone staring at them. When she did, she might have bolted, except Nathan grabbed her and gave her a loud, smacking kiss on the lips. "Thank you!" He turned to their audience, his arm still around Mira. "She saved me from days of annoying questions about what the other guy looked like."
Since everyone seemed to know Jameson was 'the other guy', attention shifted to him. "And I had a portable hologram all ready for you to share." He was smiling, but Mira saw the concern in his deep brown eyes.
Wanting some space and time to arrange a ride out of here to find her father, she announced her intention to return to her room. Cali looked at her oddly, as if she knew there was something more to it, but the other woman didn't argue.
Callahan did. "You've got fifteen minutes, then we're headed for the morgue. Meet us in the garage."
Mira recognized the implacable tone of an officer assuming command. Whether she was back in the Army or not, he wasn't about to let her off the hook, but she wasn't about to salute either.
Jameson followed her out into the hallway. "You look good. Feeling okay?" He brought her hand to his lips and her heart did that silly spin again.
"I promise you I feel great." It might be easier if she didn't. If they expected her to need some down time it would be easier to get away. Jameson would only hover more if she tried that tactic. She sighed. "Whatever happened at the lab, I don't feel weak afterward helping someone anymore. Not like I did at the prison. You caught me at a bad time that day."
He smiled down at her. "I think I caught you at the perfect time."
She wanted to forget the world and just enjoy the moment. To let every stress, every new and troubling discovery, fall away until knowing him was the beginning and end of her purpose for breathing. The intensity of her feelings startled her. She felt her face heating with embarrassment even though he couldn't possibly hear her thoughts.
Mira forced herself to smile. "I'm glad you were there that day too." She rose up on her toes and kissed him, sweet and fast. "Go on and help with the planning."
* * *
Jameson let her go, but his gut told him she was up to something. Cali must have wondered too, because she shot him a quizzical look when he walked back in. He gave her a no worries shrug in response, though his attention was as divided as Callahan's team seemed to be.
"We should let the police handle Montalbano," Brian suggested, "and we go after your doctor."
Callahan shook his head. "I can't let Montalbano off the hook anymore. It's no use trying to bust him for the small stuff. There are too many layers insulating him from the gang he's running. Operating against the military, against the country means we can haul him in and shake him down before this recipe gets out. I have to send this intel up the line."
The former Chicago police chief understood, but didn't like it.
"Do you know where he's making this stuff?" Jaden studied a map of the city proper. "Or what it takes? It might be easiest to interrupt the supply line."
Callahan brought up a screen that showed the formula. Jameson stared at it along with the others, but none of them could make sense of it. "If Mira hadn't told me what it did, if I hadn't seen Montalbano's little demonstration, I'd have no idea," Callahan said.<
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"You think a trip to the morgue will help?" Jameson couldn't keep the doubt out of his voice.
"I'm open to a better plan," Callahan snapped. "The enforcers dropped dead, an entire gang bled out on the street. Maybe she can find something out of our reach."
"I hope you're right," Cali murmured. "Who's with her?"
"You and Jameson," Callahan replied. "I think you're the only two she really trusts. Head down to the garage and suit up. Cleveland will drive."
* * *
It was simple enough to order a few things online and have them delivered to Leanore's. After this little field trip to the morgue, she'd find a way to pick them up. It would be good to have at least a backpack and a few clothes to call her own. Micky's generosity was great, but she couldn't get the potential trade-off out of her mind.
She glanced around the guest room, pocketed her father's keys and her cell card, the only two items that were both useful and hers.
Down in the garage she wasn't surprised to see Cleveland, but the black evidence van with the Chicago police department emblem on the side was foreboding in comparison to the bright yellow classic car he'd so lovingly restored. She supposed the van was less conspicuous since they were visiting a city morgue, but she couldn't quite shake the unease.
Seeing that they were alone, she quickly asked about stopping by Leanore's on the way back from the morgue.
"We can do that. Is that all you need?"
Mira nodded, afraid to risk being overheard by Callahan or someone else. Her discretion was rewarded as Slick Micky strolled in.
He smiled at her and then turned to Cleveland. "Going somewhere?"
"An errand for Callahan. I figured this was the better choice," he replied, with a nod to the van.
"No problem." Smiling again at Mira, he drew her aside. He lowered his voice and leaned close. "If you need anything," he stopped, cleared his throat. "Just ask me."
She felt her palms go damp with nerves. Was this place so wired that he knew she'd placed an order with Nordstrom's? "Okay. Thanks," she hedged.