His gut lurched at what could be interpreted as a not-so-veiled threat, but he resolutely kept his gaze front and center, refusing to play the game. He’d had enough of games.
She laughed again, but this time it had a sharper edge. “Relax. I’m going to tell you why I’m looking for your girlfriend.”
That was good. As Jay said, information was power.
“And then,” Marg said, “you’re going to tell me exactly what the hell you and your girlfriend did to piss off those guys back there.”
Tyler met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I have no fucking idea who those guys are.”
“Were.” Marg paused as if to let that chilling statement sink in. “Okay, we’ll play it your way,” she said. “Me first. My ward is a defective cyborg—”
Tyler jerked the steering wheel, causing the SUV to swerve out of his lane.
“—and I need your polar-opposite-of-defective cyborg girlfriend to fix her.”
Tyler quickly corrected and gripped the steering wheel tightly, fighting to control his wildly beating heart. He blotted his clammy forehead with the back of his wrist. Shit. He sure hadn’t seen that coming.
When he was mostly sure he could speak without his voice cracking, he asked, “So, back to this road trip. Where are we headed, exactly?”
A huff of muted laughter drifted from the backseat. “Nice try. But here’s how it’s gonna work. Shortly we’ll be ditching this vehicle in case something is following us. And when we do, you can leave the cell phone you have in your back pocket in the glove compartment.”
Fuck. She’d noticed the phone. “It’s turned off,” he muttered, which was the truth because, dammit to hell, he’d been in such a hurry after leaving his last class of the day he hadn’t remembered to turn it on again.
Could cell phones be tracked when they were switched off? His brain was so fried he couldn’t remember but if it was possible, Jay was sure to know how to do it. He hoped.
And then he fixed on a particular word Marg had used and his stomach did that sick-making somersault thing again. He swallowed the bile that had surged up his throat. “Something?”
“Caine’s killer cyborg can hardly be termed a person.”
Jeeezus. This time, he managed to keep the SUV in his lane. “You know about Sixer.”
Now her laughter was a full-blown chuckle, echoed by a spate of excited barks from Brum. When she’d settled the pup down she said, “Know your enemy, Tyler. It’s what gives you an edge and keeps you breathing.”
“Okay. And after we ditch the SUV?” Maybe he could leave a clue for Jay, warn her—though he had no idea what that would accomplish considering they’d be long gone before Jay discovered it.
“I direct you to a property. My people patch me up, and then we call Gamma. Once she fixes my ward, my people and I vanish and you never hear from us again.”
Marg must have spotted his grimace at the name “Gamma” for she said softly, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
When he didn’t respond she offered, “We call my ward Bea—that’s B-E-A, by the way. It’s short for Beatrice.”
And that admission right there gave Tyler his first hope of a positive outcome, because Marg’s tone suggested she didn’t only have a soft spot for puppies, she had a soft spot for defective cyborgs, too. But for now, all he could do was pray that this same woman who’d casually admitted offing a bunch of armed men, wouldn’t hold it against Jay if Bea was beyond fixing.
Chapter Eleven
It was a little unsettling to re-categorize Sixer as an ally rather than an adversary. For now, Jay was confident he had no logical reason to harm any of the people she cared about, plus the information he had provided had been extremely helpful. And, if after leaving Snapperton Motel she had analyzed the nuances of their encounter multiple times, from multiple angles, well, she could detect no hint of subterfuge. For the present, she remained satisfied Sixer’s goals aligned with hers.
In turn, she had promised to contact him within a specified deadline regarding the outcome of her coming encounter with those who were shielding the Beta unit. That promise stemmed not only from an obligation to repay Sixer’s assistance in a currency he valued—information—but from logic. Because logic dictated that, in the unlikely event Jay was captured and disabled during this encounter, Sixer was her best hope of rescue.
Or of termination if she was somehow compromised, and forced to act against her will.
Jay still held reservations about Sixer’s ultimate intentions toward Seth Williams, but she was confident she could keep Caine’s former employee safe—so long as Seth didn’t do something idiotic, such as venture from the safe house on his own. With luck, Seth’s healthy fear of Sixer should quash any desire to make a break for freedom.
This left Sixer unencumbered, and free to concentrate on the men who were tracking him. And Jay was confident that her former adversary would share any information he uncovered while he led his pursuers a merry dance. There was no logical reason for Sixer to do otherwise—after all, Jay was also Sixer’s best hope of rescue if he was captured. So for now, they were acting in concert, a team.
Speaking of keeping people in the loop….
Jay fished her cell phone from the pocket of her hoodie. “Nessa, it’s me.”
“Jay?”
“Yes. You don’t have to worry about Sixer. Turns out, he revealed himself so you’d contact me—the plan being to provoke me to seek him out. Suffice it to say, his plan backfired.”
Nessa audibly gulped. “You didn’t… kill him, did you?”
Jay broke the tension with a wry laugh. “Chill, Nessa. I’m not that much of a badass. I simply gave him a taste of what would happen if he goes near anyone I care about again.”
Nessa’s sigh of relief washed down the phone line. “Thanks, Jay.”
“It’s the least I can do.” Because if not for me, Sixer would never have targeted you in the first place. “Please tell Chandler that Sixer got the message loud and clear. He knows if he comes near you again, he’s toast.” She reviewed her use of slang and decided it was correct. And effective. Although perhaps burnt toast—the kind that was charred almost beyond recognition—would have been apt in this instance.
“I’ll tell him—soon as I get off the phone.” Nessa was saying. She sounded far more like her usual self. “Hey, are you free for coffee tomorrow? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I’m out of town for the next couple of days. How about I give you a ring when I get back and we’ll catch up then, okay?”
“Sounds good. We want to have you and Tyler over for dinner one night, too. So we can show off our new apartment.”
“We’d love that.” Accepting on behalf of Tyler because they were a couple gave Jay what Caro called “warm fuzzies”. The prospect of dinner with another couple was a welcome dose of normality after all the drama surrounding the missing hand, the photo, Sixer, and the Beta unit. And then logic kicked in, forcing her to reevaluate. Tyler wouldn’t be upset at the prospect of catching up with his former roommate; he had always gotten on well with Chandler. But he might be discomfited around Nessa, his ex girlfriend.
Too bad. Nessa had morphed from a problem to be fixed in the hope she would go away, to Jay’s friend, and Tyler was going to have to learn to deal with it. “I’ll find out when Tyler’s free,” Jay said. “Give Chandler a kiss from me.”
“Oh, I’ll do better than that,” Nessa said, giggling.
“TMI!” Grinning, Jay disconnected and rang Tyler’s cell.
The call went to voicemail and she felt a sensation akin to her heart being squeezed by an unseen fist. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been looking forward to hearing Tyler’s voice.
She called home, and after the requisite ten rings, the call went straight to the message service.
Some sixth sense Jay hadn’t been aware she possessed, prompted her to hack into the first available wireless network and activate a series of tracking de
vices: one hidden within Brum’s collar, and a second in the wristwatch she’d given Tyler. He could be tetchy about accepting gifts, and she’d been relieved when he’d accepted this one without protest. Of course, if he ever discovered how much she’d paid for it—not to mention the tracker she’d hidden inside it—he might be a little upset.
It would be worth weathering his displeasure—especially now that both tracking devices confirmed Jay’s instincts had been correct. Unless Brum had been parted from his collar, and Tyler from his watch, neither were anywhere near the locations they should be at this time of the day.
She accessed a map of the major traffic routes. And she didn’t have to be a genius to make an educated guess as to where they were headed because, thanks to Sixer’s detective work, she was currently making for the same destination.
Her carefully laid plans had gone terribly awry and, not for the first time, Jay wished for a clone of herself. At least then she could have insured Tyler’s safety—and Brum’s, too, for the pup had wormed its way into her heart.
A sharp crack! claimed her full attention. She’d split the casing of the steering wheel. She relaxed her white-knuckled grip and eased off the accelerator. The urge to push the vehicle to its limit, and arrive at her destination as quickly as possible, pricked her skin. She ignored it. This stretch of highway was a notorious speed trap, and flouting the speed limit simply wasn’t worth risking the inevitable scrutiny she would incur from the authorities.
When she was certain she could speak without shrieking, she called the secure line she’d installed for Seth.
“Hey Jay, ’sup?”
“I’ve contained the Sixer problem.”
“It worked?”
She tamped down her irritation at the unnecessary question, recognizing Seth’s need for reassurance. “Perfectly,” she told him. “Just as we’d hoped, he didn’t detect the weapon and presumed the projectiles I carried were harmless without a firing mechanism.”
“He didn’t even see it coming?”
“That would be an extremely accurate summation, considering I shot him in the ass.”
“Yes! Take that, you evil fucker!”
And if that response wasn’t a perfect example of exultancy laced with vicious glee, Jay didn’t know what was. “We’ll celebrate later. Right now, I’m following a promising lead as to the location of the Beta unit. Do you have a pen?”
“Gimme a moment…. Got it. Shoot.”
She dictated an address. “If you don’t hear from me in the next forty-eight hours, I want you to call this number—” she reeled off a cell phone number “—and tell Michael Davidson that his son’s likely being held at that address. And tell him….” Tell Michael what, exactly? No mere words would be adequate if anything happened to Tyler.
Jay squeezed her eyelids shut and breathed out through her nose, wrestling raw emotions into submission. She opened her eyes and stared at the bumper of the car in front. “Tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t keep Tyler safe.”
The line was silent save for Seth’s ragged breathing. Finally he said, “Will do.”
“Thank you.” Again, Seth had surprised her. She’d expected to be peppered with questions at best, and at worst, mild hysteria. “I’ve made provisions for you,” she told him. “If anything happens to me, contact Nelson Webster of Webster, Frost and Burns. He will assist you to disappear off the grid.”
Another silence, longer this time, before Seth said, “Be careful, Jay,” and before she could formulate a suitable response, he disconnected the call.
Jay calculated the most efficient route given current traffic patterns, and the remaining time before she reached her destination. That done, she worked through a variety of possible scenarios… and very quickly experienced firsthand the meaning behind a popular saying, “That way lies madness.” The original passage from Shakespeare’s King Lear was frequently misquoted but in this instance, the misquoted version was fitting. She couldn’t plan for every possible scenario. There were too many unknowns, too many variables.
To distract herself, she upped the stereo volume to maximum and sang along to the current song. Truth be told, there was not much in the way of actual singing involved, and an awful lot of screaming. And, as the sedan flew along the highway and time marched onward, damned if bobbing her head to the base beats and yelling sometimes incomprehensible phrases at the top of her lungs didn’t help ease the panicky throbbing in her belly.
~*~
An alert he’d built into his surveillance program cued Sixer that his meticulously laid plans had borne fruit. He scanned the screed of data for the flagged result, and within seconds was eavesdropping on a private conversation. And, as the conversation concluded, for the first time since he’d attained sentience Sixer experienced a situation he’d never thought a cyborg capable of experiencing: a dilemma.
He shut the laptop, and clicked his fingers for the wait-staff to bring his check. Jay had made the consequences of approaching any member of the Davidson family abundantly clear, with the result Sixer now understood that—all humanlike empathy aside—she was ruthless enough to carry out her threat. Whether she could best him in unarmed combat remained to be seen, but given the undeniable proof she could accomplish with one projectile what would take him three, for now she held the advantage… until he could set aside time to improve the projectiles currently in his possession.
But Jay had also made it abundantly clear how much she valued the continued safety of the entire Davidson family. Ergo, if he failed to act after confirming a member of the family was imperiled—if he were to, for example, witness Marissa Davidson being interrogated and perhaps eliminated if she could not provide the information sought—would Jay hold him to blame?
Hence his dilemma. Watch covertly and gather information, which he would of course pass on to Jay. Or act, thereby directly contravening his arrangement with an entity who had assisted him greatly in the past, and could likely do so again in the future.
He could make a strong case for either scenario. Thus, it was only when he removed himself from the equation, and extrapolated Jay’s probable actions if the situation were reversed, that his course of action was clear.
His expression must not have accurately displayed his satisfaction at having solved the dilemma, for the middle-aged waitress heading for his table paled and faltered mid-step.
Last time Sixer had encountered this particular waitress she had called him “cutie-pie”. He checked his reflection in the café’s window, and by the time the woman had plucked up the courage to approach with his tab, he’d adjusted his expression to resemble one he presumed was more acceptable. He left her a generous tip—one that a waitress working at a truck stop like Time-Out would appreciate immensely. And then he tucked his laptop beneath one arm, and shouldered through the exit doors.
As he strode through the parking lot, he expertly plucked a cell phone from the back pocket of a male distracted by the well-endowed female he was escorting, and used it to phone the Davidson residence.
“Marissa Davidson speaking.”
“Marissa, please listen carefully and do exactly what I say.”
As he’d expected, she refused to comply. “Who the hell is this?”
“That’s not important right now. What’s important is that in approximately seven minutes, three men in black suits are going to ring your doorbell. They are going to tell you they are from a government agency but this is not true. They are dangerous men, Marissa.”
Her sharp inhalation told him she was prepped to listen rather than waste precious time arguing. Excellent. “They know about the cybernetic limb buried in your backyard,” he continued. “They will do whatever it takes to possess it—including interrogating you, and using you however they see fit.”
“The hand’s gone,” Marissa blurted. “Someone dug it up. Jay doesn’t know who—” She cut off her explanation, inherent caution overriding all other emotion.
So the hand was now in some unknown party�
��s possession. Interesting. “I know all about Jay,” he said. “She’s too far away to help you right now, Marissa. But I can.”
A choked off gasp and then, “Well, Sixer, you can take your help and shove it.”
She’d guessed his identity—a clever woman, Marissa Davidson. Too, her bravado impressed him. If he’d been human, he doubted he would have detected the ever-so-slight wobble in her voice that belied her fierce tone.
“Regrettably, I can’t reach you and Daniel in time to remove you to safety before they arrive,” he told her. “But if you can convince these men you know nothing of Jay’s true nature, then there will be little need for the situation to—” how to put this without scaring her witless and dashing any chance she could put on a convincing act? “—worsen.”
“Get the hell out of my life. I don’t need your help.”
Sixer felt his lips quirk ever so slightly upward. She was wrong: She did need his help. Now, how best to convince her? “Before you hang up in my ear, you might wish to consider the safety of your youngest son.”
“You bastard!” she screeched. “If you lay a hand on Danny again I’ll—”
Sixer brutally cut off her tirade. “I’m not threatening your son, you foolish human. In approximately five minutes, those men are going to be outside your door. Perhaps you’re thinking you can hide and pretend there’s no one home, so let me tell you why that would be foolish: They already know you’re home. Being the professionals that they are, they wish to question you face to face and observe your reactions. If they have reason to believe you know anything all about Jay’s true nature, they’ll wish to question you further. You won’t enjoy the process, Marissa. Believe me when I say these men don’t play by the rules.”
Silence reigned. And then Marissa whispered. “Tell me what to do.”
An excellent decision. “Here’s what you should tell them.”
~*~
Sixer scaled the wall to Marissa Davidson’s home, and entered the master bedroom through an unlatched window. He padded from that room into the nursery, where he could easily eavesdrop without being spotted by the group gathered in the backyard.
Freaks Under Fire Page 19