Death was so easy for humans. She’d seen people die by slipping in the bathtub, choking on a piece of bread, touching an electrical outlet. One second you were full of life and then the next second you were pounds of meat that was already decaying.
Matt held her hand as they crossed the Great Hall, looking down at her occasionally, a worried expression on his face. “Luke wouldn’t call unless he had news. At this stage any news is good news.”
Oh God. He’d felt her mood. That sudden black depression that had fallen over her like a veil — he’d perceived it. He wasn’t supposed to be sensitive. He was a tough guy. She wasn’t used to being with a man who could read her moods, it was almost scary.
Matt and his friends and his company were doing their best — and it was a good best — to keep her alive. The least she could do was try to remain as serene as possible, not burden them with her black thoughts.
She sketched a smile. “I know. I wonder what he found?”
“Well, we’ll find out right now.” And he led her into yet another room. Large, comfortable, not intimate like the other room they’d been in. It was more like a conference room, with a long highly-polished oval table and comfortable chairs around it. Matt took a chair at the head of the table to the right and gestured for her to sit down. He entered a code on a console and pressed a button. At the other end of the room a screen flicked to life.
Honor nearly gasped. It covered the whole wall. It was the wall, which became a screen at the touch of a button.
Luke’s grim handsome face filled the screen. “Matt. Honor.” He nodded twice. It was like he was in the room with them, only blown up to giant proportions. Hidden speakers made it sound like he was sitting beside them.
Matt leaned forward, pressing another button. A thin screen shot up from the surface of the table near them and a panel retracted, showing a keyboard. The screen was on a swivel and he turned it so she could see too.
“Honor.” Luke’s voice was hard. There was some kind of alignment of the cameras, brilliantly done, because it looked on the screen as if he were looking right at her instead of at a camera.
His voice was somehow accusing.
“Luke?” Matt cocked his head at the tone.
Luke scowled. “Why didn’t you tell me — tell us — that your father’s company has an office right here in Portland?”
He made it sound as if she’d been hiding something. Her brain stalled. Her tongue stalled. Matt had swiveled his head to look right at her. A whole bunch of tough-guy disapproving male energy, directed right at her.
“I — ah …” Her mind whirred emptily. “I — I don’t know. I honestly didn’t think of it.” Why hadn’t she told them? It quite frankly hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Didn’t think of it?” Matt’s deep voice was slow. As if he could hardly believe the words he was saying.
“I mean —” She scrambled to gather her thoughts. “It’s not really an office of Quest Line Shipping. Daddy just designated it as that for tax reasons. Though it is in an office building. Quest Line ships rarely come into port in Portland. He bought the office suite basically so he’d have a place to stay when he came up to visit me — when we weren’t fighting. I mean he had computers that were slaved to his office computers back in LA and there were duplicate records. But mainly he kept two rooms that were used as a bedroom and living room with kitchenette so he wouldn’t have to sleep in a hotel. He said he spent way too much time in hotels as it was.”
She looked at Luke’s tight mouth.
“Why? What does this have to do with anything? I told you we’d been sort of fighting, because he refused to look after himself. I haven’t been there in — in months.”
“You went to that office on the 6th, the day you were abducted. You’re on tape. The whole thing is on tape.”
Honor’s mouth fell open. Her chest was tight, she could barely breathe. “What?”
Luke nodded and somehow, on camera somewhere else, he switched his gaze so he was looking at Matt. “I found the office by chance because it’s not called Quest Line Shipping, like normal people would call it, but Q Supply Services. Had to dig to get the ownership and it was Simon Thomas, all right.”
Oh God. If she could disappear, she would. As it was she scrunched down into the chair hoping to just disappear.
“I never go there,” she offered.
Luke switched his gaze to her again. “You did that day. You were definitely there.”
Well that shut her up. She didn’t remember anything about that day, or the days before it. “This sounds weird, but — what did I do?”
“From what we’ve seen, you went there, went into the office. The office itself doesn’t have security cameras, but the building does. You were there for a while. We saw two men walk into the building and we watched as they carried you out, semi conscious. You were walking but not under your own steam. Someone needed to hold you upright.”
She could see it in her head. The image was chilling. Matt looked at her closely, rolled his office chair close to hers and put his arm around her. She was cold and leaned into him, into all that strength and heat.
It felt like somehow she’d landed on a different planet. Working the emergency room, she knew full well the violence and danger of the world. The ER got it all — gunshot wounds, knife wounds, bones that were broken not by accident but by design. But she played no role in all of that. Her role was to patch things up afterwards, when they landed in her hospital. And to bear witness when, despite everything modern medicine could do, the victims couldn’t be saved.
But this — this was personal. It was happening to her. Unknown, shadowy men, who came from the bowels of hell for all she knew, wanted her, wanted to punish her for no reason she could think of and were going to a great deal of trouble to do it.
“You say you didn’t often go to this office?” Matt asked.
“No.” The answer came spontaneously. She’d only gone a couple of times. If her father came up to Portland, they met in the city center for meals.
“So what were you doing there?” Matt kept his face expressionless. “Tell us. Don’t think about it. Talk.”
“He wasn’t answering.” Honor surprised herself. She hadn’t known she was going to say the words until she said them. Matt nodded at her surprised look. “Your memory’s coming back.”
Was it? There was pure white static in her head between when a volcano erupted and Matt rescued her. But she’d had a flash … a flash of something. “I was still mad at my father but I was also worried. And I wanted him to take another blood test to see if the statins I told him to take lowered his cholesterol a little. And — well, I wanted to hear his voice. He has two cocker spaniels and I wanted to hear how they were doing and …” she sighed. “I wanted to hear his voice. I love him, even if he is the most stubborn man on earth, driving himself into an early grave.”
Honor recognized a rant coming on and stopped herself.
“So you went to the office?” Luke asked.
Had she? Honor rubbed her forehead. “I think — I think I tried to contact him and he wasn’t answering. He always answers, immediately, when I reach out to him. We have a little Kabuki dance and I’m always the first one to break the ice, after which he contacts me. Right away. I mean sometimes he’ll contact me five minutes after I email him, as if he’s been sitting at his computer, waiting.” She smiled. “Which he probably is.”
“But he didn’t this time.” Matt made it a statement not a question.
“No. Apparently he didn’t. Otherwise I can’t think of a reason to go to the Portland office, unless he was there.” She looked at Luke, the image so very clear it was as if he were in the room with them. “Was he?”
“No. No record of him on tape.”
“Well then. The only reason I’d go is to get onto his laptop. We have an email contact, a little messageboard of our own. He always answers immediately, like I said. So if he didn’t and if he wasn’t answering his cell, I
must have decided to go into the office and log onto his computer there. It’s slaved, and it would be like using his computer in LA.”
Matt let go of her to lean forward toward the computer that had magically appeared from the conference tabletop. She felt cold, and bereft, even though he was still inches away from her. But he wasn’t touching her.
Since when did she need to be in physical contact with anyone?
“So think back what you did, why you were there.”
Honor tried. She really did, closing her eyes to focus. All she got was a headache that made her feel dizzy. A wall of pain rose in her head. Shadowy figures were just beyond her reach behind that wall. Her head throbbed.
“It’s okay, shhhh,” Matt said, cupping her neck.
It was only then that she realized she was whimpering with pain. Her eyes flew open and saw only his face — rough, with that scruff of black beard, dark eyes warm and full of sympathy.
Oh man. Matt was a tough guy. The real deal. A former Navy SEAL for heaven’s sakes. Those guys could probably run a marathon on a broken leg. And she was a tough guy too. She’d once worked a 36-hour stint straight through. She was tough and resilient. She did not whimper with pain because of a headache.
There was something about this situation that was breaking her down and Honor Thomas did not do breakdowns. She sat up straight, swiping her eyes — that was not a tear, that was moisture leaking out of her eye — and looked him straight in the face.
“Sorry,” she said.
He shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry for. I keep telling you that. Let’s try something.” He took both her hands in his and oh! How good it felt to be touching him again. His large hands were so warm, heating up her own. “Now, I want you to close your eyes.”
She shut her eyes.
“Good girl.” His hold on her hands tightened. “Now I want you to empty your mind. Think of absolutely nothing. Shut that big brain of yours right down.”
“Not that big,” she murmured with a smile, eyes closed. Nope. She didn’t feel supersmart at all right now.
“You’ve got a medical degree and a specialization right there in your head,” he replied. “That’s a lot more education than I have. I joined the Navy right out of high school and got a bachelor’s while serving. Okay, so I want you to do this. Don’t think of anything specific. But — imagine that you’re worried about your dad.”
“Not hard to do,” she said wryly. “He was born to worry me.”
“Mmm. Been a long time since anyone worried about me. I imagine that deep down, he doesn’t mind.”
Her mouth lifted in a half smile. With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see Matt’s face. That face was so tough and uncompromising. He looked like someone who didn’t need anyone else. And yet, he also seemed to be at the center of a group of people who all looked after each other.
Must be nice.
“I don’t think he minds, no,” she answered. Her dad actually lapped it up, though he ignored her advice. “But then he doesn’t do what I say. And before you think that I am bossy, I’m not.” She paused for a moment. “Not too much, anyway. All I ask is that he watch his blood pressure, his cholesterol and his blood sugar.” She opened her eyes and glared at him. “Is that too much to ask?”
Matt shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. Close your eyes.”
Oh, right. This was some kind of exercise. “Okay.”
“So, you’re worried about your dad. That shouldn’t be too hard to imagine, then.”
She shook her head no. Not hard at all. Though this was an imaginary exercise, she felt that quick, razor-sharp pang of deathly fear that her father would be taken from her soon because he wouldn’t take care of himself. He was the only family she had left in the world and she didn’t have the network around her that Matt seemed to have.
“You’ve tried to contact him, but he’s not answering,” Matt said in that low, lulling voice. “That’s wrong. He always answers, right? Even when you guys are mad at each other. So why isn’t he answering?”
It was a hypothetical but again she felt that pang of fear. And it felt real.
“Yes. That isn’t normal.”
“So, let’s suppose that you’re really worried this time. You can’t get in touch with him. You’re working hard but when you have a free moment you’re trying to get in touch.”
“Yeah.” That felt right.
“So if he’s not answering you —”
He left the sentence dangling.
“I go to the Portland office.” She didn’t even think about it. Her eyes opened and met his. “That felt right, when I said it. That I’d go to the office.”
“You’re worried.” Matt looked over at the screen, at Luke, then looked back at her. “Okay. Close your eyes again. And imagine going to the Portland office.”
She did. And this time … this time she could see things. Not things, really, but she had perceptions. Feelings. The sensation that she was treading on familiar ground, not hypotheticals. There was a slight taste of truth.
“So … you want to go check up on your father but you don’t have time to make it down to LA. So you go to his Portland office to contact him, right?”
“Right.” Even she could hear the certainty in her voice.
“How do you get there?”
“I — what?” Honor opened her eyes in confusion.
“How do you get to your father’s office? Drive? Take a cab, an Uber? Someone drive you? A bus …”
“I drove. Drive.” Clouds and confusion but for a moment there, she could feel it. The steering wheel in her hand, a rainy day, the wipers going full blast. Feeling a little annoyed, a lot worried.
“Luke,” Matt said without taking his eyes from her face.
“On it,” he said. “I’ve got the make and the license plate and … yeah. Here we go.”
On the screen was her pretty little green Prius. Parked outside her father’s compound. There were parking tickets stuck under the windshield.
She recognized the street, the trees, lushly green. She’d parked across the street from the crafts shop she sometimes visited.
“Why not park inside the compound?” Matt asked, voice still low and calm.
“Where there are fixed security cams instead of having to hack into the security cams of front doors,” Luke said. Unlike Matt, his voice was exasperated.
“Well, I don’t — I don’t know.” Think Honor! she told herself. And a memory came, clear, unclouded. She opened her eyes, turned to Matt. “I keep the keys to Dad’s office on my keychain. But I don’t always carry the security pass for the car. That I keep at home, in the top right-hand drawer of my desk. Stopping by the office was a spur of the moment thing. It would have been really tedious calling up the security guy to open the gate for the car. There’s a pedestrian gate and I have the keys to that.”
Oh man, she could see it. And it was real! A real memory, not the shadow of one. It had the weight and heft of reality, not the elusive texture of something that maybe was or was not.
“That’s good,” he murmured. His thumbs rubbed across the backs of her hands. It was so oddly reassuring, like his voice. It said — I’m here and I’m with you. “Good detail. So you parked your car and went in through the pedestrian gate. Before telling me what you see, tell me what you’re feeling.”
Well, that was easy. “Fear. Fear and exasperation. Like when your child is missing and you will hug them hard when they get back home and then scream at them for being irresponsible. Both. I’d sent several messages to him, like I said. My phone calls went unanswered. That is really unusual and I was frightened that he’d received bad news from the medical tests I insisted he take. Or that —” she coughed to release a tight throat. “Or that he was dead. That occurred to me, too. As a possibility, I mean.”
Her voice wobbled. Now she remembered it with an intense pang as if reliving the moment, rather than remembering it.
And she was remembering the panic that pierced her w
hen her father didn’t answer immediately, as he always did. Half scared, half angry, feverishly praying to whoever it was up there who looked after foolish old men that she’d find him deep in business negotiations, and not that he’d collapsed in the boardroom and was currently on a slab in an LA morgue.
Her breathing was picking up and Matt smoothed a hand over her hair. “Hey.” He hooked the hand around her neck and gently pulled her head forward until their foreheads were touching. “It’s okay. Whatever happened, you survived it and no one’s touching you ever again.” He leaned forward until his mouth touched her ear and whispered, so low she could barely hear it though he was speaking directly in her ear, “Except me.”
Heat rushed through her in an almost painful pulse, head to toe, in a flash. It lit her head, her lungs, her heart. She turned her head slightly and met his eyes — dark, utterly serious. He meant every word. He meant that no one was going to hurt her and that he was staking his claim.
It should have felt clumsy and super macho, Neanderthal-like even. Honor didn’t like macho men. She was in a profession full of alpha males who were convinced they knew more than anyone, even when they didn’t.
She’d saved lives because she intervened, quietly and discreetly, when a male doctor misdiagnosed and prescribed the wrong treatment.
Just like with Suzanne Barron Huntington’s father.
But Matt wasn’t giving off those vibes. He wasn’t smug or superior, or even swaggering. I’ll save the little lady. It was more like placing himself and his skills at her service, just like she did with patients.
And, of course, something more. Staking a claim because he could see that she welcomed that. And she did.
What a time for romance, right in the middle of danger and mystery.
She could barely think of it, though it was there, heavy in the air, weighing down her body. Like a basso thrumming at the bottom of a piece of music.
As if realizing that he was distracting her, Matt let her go. “So, let’s go forward. You didn’t want to park inside the compound because you didn’t have your pass, so you parked outside. Is that right?”
Midnight Renegade (Men of Midnight Book 7) Page 16