His grave was empty.
She looked up at Adam. “Is my father still alive?”
The look on Adam’s face was ferocious. Dark shadows lurked under his eyes and along his sharp cheekbones. “That woman is Ruby Rypan.”
He’d said it like she should know the name, but she didn’t. “Who’s that?”
“Your father’s assistant. She ran the show whenever he was busy working in the labs. I’ve only met her once, but it was clear to me that she was as dangerous as she was devoted.”
“To Dad?”
“Absolutely.”
“And she thinks he’s alive.”
“So it appears,” said Adam.
His grave was empty.
“Why would Dad’s grave be empty if he were dead?”
“Did he ever experiment on himself? Could someone have stolen his body for research?”
“I can’t imagine him ever risking damage to himself. That was what his family was for.”
Adam swallowed hard enough that she could see his throat move, choking down his anger. “We need answers.”
Wheels in Mira’s head started to turn. Vague, cloudy memories of the night her father was killed came back to her. “Everyone was airlifted out of that barn last year. Were you on the helicopter with my dad’s body?”
“I don’t know. I’d lost too much blood by that point and was unconscious.”
She rubbed the scar where the bullet that had nearly killed her had left its mark. “I was taken away in the first flight. Payton was directing people—ordering them around.”
“Then we should talk to him.”
“He made all the funeral arrangements. I never saw Dad’s body. Not even at the funeral. Closed casket. Payton said he didn’t want me seeing him like that.” She looked up at Adam, horrified at the thought that passed through her mind. “He ordered the airlift. He could have taken Dad anywhere. Even someplace private where they could patch him up and force him to talk.”
“He would be an invaluable informational asset.”
That was it. The truth. It made too much sense for it to be anything else. Dad was alive, and Payton had known it all along. He’d let her grieve, let her think it was over and that she was finally safe.
Adam must have seen something in her expression. He reached for her, but she couldn’t stand the idea of being touched right now. She took a long step back, hitting the blue tarp wall.
Something tugged at the back of her calf. A trip line.
A small pop sounded nearby. Smoke began pouring from the computer. A strobe light flashed overhead, silent but bright enough to wake anyone nearby.
Adam grabbed her arm. “We’ve set off an alarm. Run.”
Chapter Fourteen
Adam hauled Mira out past the tarps. She went where he led, but she was too pliant for his peace of mind.
Her father was still alive. The news had shaken her badly. As much as he wished he could sit her down and discuss it until she felt more calm and steady, there simply wasn’t time.
Thick, black smoke billowed from under the stairwell door. A quick check of the one at the south end of the building revealed the same. There was no electricity to power the elevators, but whoever had set the trip lines would have had some way to safety. They wouldn’t have wanted to be trapped here on the third floor with no means of escape.
Adam peered out the windows, hoping for some kind of fire escape. There was none.
If he was living here, how would he have slipped out?
There was a large plastic tub sitting by the elevator doors. He raced to it and dumped it out.
A crowbar. A length of two-by-four. Rappelling gear. But enough for only one.
Smoke lined the ceiling now, and the toxic smell of it burned his lungs. They didn’t have much time.
“What are you doing?” asked Mira. “We have to get out of here.”
“The stairwells will kill us. So will the fall from one of the windows. This is our exit.” He pried the door open, seeing an open shaft below. “Shove that board between the doors to hold them open.”
She did. “How are we getting down that way?”
Adam slipped the harness on and fastened it as fast as he could. The smoke was just over his eyes now and growing thicker by the second.
He slipped the crowbar into his belt and dangled the flashlight from its wrist strap. “You’re going to hold on to me while I lower us down.”
“I’m not strong enough.”
He clipped the harness onto the line suspended in the elevator shaft. “You’ll be fine. It’ll be just like sitting on my lap.”
Before she could argue with him more, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close. “Arms around my neck. Legs around my waist.”
“I don’t really—”
“Do it, Mira!” He hated shouting at her, but they were out of time. There were no other options.
She did as he asked. A second later, he pushed away from the ledge with Mira clinging to him like a monkey.
The trip down was fast, but not so fast that he didn’t feel every frightened quiver that raced through her body. Each rapid breath that swept across his neck was one more reminder to be careful.
Before he touched bottom, he used the flashlight to check and make sure there were no more nasty surprises waiting for them. All he saw was dusty concrete with a few scuff marks to prove someone had come this way before.
Mira held him so tightly he could feel every inch of her curvy body plastered against him. She hid her face in the crook of his neck.
Adam put his feet on the floor and unclipped the harness from the line. She still hadn’t realized it was safe to let go, and his mouth seemed glued shut.
He wrapped his arms around her, using one to prop up her curvy backside. He knew she would let go in a second and that this contact with her would end. But until then, he would relish every second of it.
Light from his tethered flashlight bobbed around, brightening the dark space. The stench of that smoke still hovered on their clothes, but the stale air here was a welcome relief.
For a minute, he just held her, reveling in her trust. Yes, he’d tricked her, betrayed her, but in this moment, she’d forgotten all about that, and every dark little corner of his soul warmed at her show of faith in him.
Why what this one woman thought of him was so important, he had no idea, but it was. He ached for her trust. Yearned for a second chance to prove to her that he wasn’t a wholly evil man.
“It’s okay now,” he finally managed. “We’re on the ground.”
She lifted her head just enough to see that what he was saying was true. Then she looked at him, relief glowing in her canted green eyes.
Adam had never before seen anything half as beautiful as this woman’s eyes. There was something mysterious lurking there—some feminine secret he could only imagine.
Before he could sense her intent, she pressed her lips to his and kissed him.
His heart stopped. His lungs ceased to function. The rest of the world dissipated, meaningless and unimportant.
She lifted her mouth too soon; her kiss of thanks and relief was over before it had really begun. And now the look on her face shifted to an expression of shock and dismay.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He couldn’t imagine her having not done it. Not now.
Her legs unwound from his waist, dangling just above the ground. “You can put me down.”
He couldn’t. If he let her go, she’d never kiss him again. He could already see her resolve hardening her mouth.
It had been so very soft only a second ago.
“Adam? I can’t reach the ground.”
He knew that. He could feel her weight in his arms, right where he wanted her to be. The sensation was
strange and exciting, reminding him of the way other boys used to talk about girls when he was young. He’d never felt those things then.
But he did now.
Slowly, he forced his muscles to unclench and release her. She slid along his front until her toes reached the ground. His arms still shackled her to him, but there was nothing he could do to convince them to let her go. Not yet.
Her hands pressed against his chest in a subtle sign to move away. When he refused, she stopped pushing and relaxed inside his hold.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know. Why did you kiss me?”
“I lost my head for a second. It didn’t mean anything.”
A small part of him shriveled up and died. It had meant something to him. He didn’t know what, but that she would toss the act aside so easily hurt.
That pain was the thing that saved him, allowing him to release her. Pain he knew. Understood. It was how the world worked, and the jab she’d given him reminded him of that.
He stepped away, turned his back, and pulled the crowbar from his belt. He shed the harness and went to work on the doors. As soon as he had the elevator doors open, Mira slipped out. He was right behind her.
The doors closed with a rattle, shutting him off from that secret little place where she’d kissed him.
In his mind, he tried to close the act behind another door, compartmentalizing it. Later he would take it out and study it. For now, his attention had to be focused elsewhere.
They were in a basement. He found a service entrance where deliveries had once been received. Within a couple of minutes, they were back outside, on their way to the car.
The night air was cold, clean, and so very welcome to his burning lungs. He hadn’t breathed in much of that smoke, but it had been more than enough.
“Are you having any trouble breathing?” he asked her as they neared the car.
“No. You? You were a lot closer to it.”
“I’m fine.”
They got in, and she was once again close enough to him to touch.
He didn’t.
The doors closing off the memory of her kiss shuddered and bulged.
“I’ll take you home so you can get some rest,” he said.
“Not a chance. I’m going to see Payton.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“You say that like I care if I wake him up. The man has some questions to answer, and if that means he loses a little beauty rest, then so be it.”
“You could call.”
She shook her head, the movement stiff. “No. I’m going to look him in the eye. It’s the only chance I have at finding out if he’s lying.”
“A man with his background and training will be able to lie to you no matter what.”
“What do you know about his training?”
“Nothing for certain, but I recognize certain traits—the same ones that allowed me to lie to you without you knowing it.”
“So I’m screwed either way,” she said on a frustrated sigh. “Doesn’t matter what he says; I’ll never be able to trust it.”
“Not necessarily.”
“How’s that?”
“If he tells you what you don’t want to hear, you’ll know he’s not lying.”
“Fine. Then let’s go see Payton. I’m not getting any sleep tonight, anyway.”
Neither was Adam, but for reasons much different and more pleasant than hers.
As he drove away, the only thought in his mind was, if he got Payton to tell her the truth, would she kiss him again? With even the slightest hope of that happening again, Adam began going through his training on interrogation techniques.
He would find the truth Mira sought. One way or another.
Chapter Fifteen
Mira had always considered Payton a friend. Almost like a father. The idea that he’d lie to her sat in her stomach like a hot coal.
Was she really so gullible that everyone could lie to her and get away with it?
She used Payton’s dog tags to track his location. He was still at work despite the late hour. By the time she marched into his office, a little part of her had died. She knew the truth. Payton had lied to her about her father’s death.
“Where is my father?” she asked as she went through his office door without knocking.
Payton looked up. Even at this hour, his hair was still perfect, his tie in place, and his suit unwrinkled. In spite of his perfect grooming, she could see his fatigue hanging on him. It shadowed his eyes and dragged at his skin, making him look older than he was.
He sat his pen down, lining it up precisely along the notepad in front of him. His gaze slid past her, moving over her head to where Adam stood at her back.
She could feel his bulk there, creating a sort of gravitational pull on her. He’d always had that kind of magnetic energy about him, but she felt it much more now.
She never should have kissed him.
It didn’t matter that it was chaste, or that it had lasted for only a couple of seconds. It had been real. A genuine reaction to the way he made her feel. Denying that he had such power over her would only make it more likely she’d screw up and kiss him again.
Every cell in her body apart from one tiny little square inch of logic left in her brain wanted her to do just that. Only this time with tongue.
Payton stood and buttoned his suit coat. “Mira, what are you doing here so late?”
“You heard my question. Where is Dad?”
Once again, Payton’s gaze moved to Adam.
His deep voice came out quiet but filled with warning. “We know Sage is alive.”
Technically, that wasn’t true, but Adam’s lie had the desired result.
Payton let out a deep breath as if he’d been holding it for weeks. “I’m sorry you had to find out,” he said to Mira. “My hope was that you’d find some peace, some closure.”
She thought she’d been prepared for the truth, but the pain of betrayal lanced through her with surprising force. She swayed against it. Her palms tingled with shock, and her ribs seemed to constrict around her lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Adam’s long fingers wrapped around her arms to steady her. His body moved closer until there was no space left between them and she was leaning on him for support.
How strange it was that Adam was holding her up under the pain of Payton’s betrayal instead of the other way around.
The whole situation left her reeling and struggling to find level emotional ground. She didn’t know what to do next. Didn’t know what to say. Her world was upside down, and everyone she usually turned to in times of crisis was out of reach.
She was on her own. Except for Adam.
“Where is Sage?” he asked, his voice hard.
“In a secure location.”
“Where you held Clay?” she asked.
Payton nodded. “We still don’t know where all of Sage’s lab facilities are. We still don’t have all the research—all the names of those he experimented on.”
“You’re interrogating him,” stated Adam, as if commenting that the sky was blue.
“Daily.”
“He hasn’t said a word, has he?” asked Mira.
“Your father is a stubborn man.”
Adam’s thumb stroked across her arm in a comforting sweep. “He has people on the outside. They’re searching for him. He knows they’ll come and he’ll bide his time until they do.”
“They’ll never find him,” said Payton.
“You don’t know that,” said Mira. “They could be at your secret facility right now, breaking him free. How would you even know?”
His hand jerked toward his phone. The move was tiny, but enough for her to tell that he was definitely connected to the people who held her fa
ther.
Maybe she should hack into his phone and find out what she could for herself. She sure as hell couldn’t trust him to tell her the truth. Not anymore.
“The holding facility is secure,” said Payton. “You have my word.”
“Which is worth less than a bucket of spit.” What would her father do to her if he was free? As a kid, she used to resist his attempts to test her. She’d fake ignorance or fail on purpose, just to piss him off. That’s when he’d bring in the other kids from the lab and hurt them in front of her until she did as he wanted.
What would he do now that she’d lied to him, stolen precious data, and ruined his plans? Who would he hurt now to gain her compliance?
Her voice shook. “You should have killed him. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
Payton eased down into his chair, moving with an uncharacteristic frailty. “Sadly, I do. That’s why I had to let him live. He’s hurt so many people. It’s my duty to find as many of them as I can and try to help them. What I need to know is locked in his head. All that’s left is finding a way to extract it.”
“He’ll never talk,” said Adam. “Not so long as he knows his people are alive and working on a rescue.”
“Then I’ll tell him they’re dead. Give me enough details to make it believable.”
“He won’t ever believe you,” said Mira. “He’s convinced that his control over his subordinates is absolute. Even if you tell him that some of them are dead, you have no way of knowing how many people he controls.” She pulled in a deep breath and prayed she wasn’t making a huge mistake. She doubted her ability to sway her father to do the right thing, but she was smart. She might be able to gain some bit of information that someone who didn’t know him as well couldn’t. “But he knows he has no control over me. Let me meet with him. Talk to him.”
“No,” said both Payton and Adam at the same time.
She could feel Adam’s growl at her back. “You’re not getting anywhere near that monster. I’ve seen what he’s willing to do to you.”
The bullet scar along her ribs burned.
Payton glanced up at Adam. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe she can get information out of him that none of us have been able to pry free.”
Edge of Betrayal Page 12