by Holley Trent
They stepped to the curb, with Drea looking down to admire the gray-blue leather of Doc’s high heels, only to whip her head back up when tires squealed and a big black SUV slammed on brakes in front of them.
The right passenger door swung open, and from somewhere inside, came a man’s voice. “Just take them both.”
Drea’s fight-or-flight instinct had always been slow for a Bear, but for once, she had the wherewithal to run.
At the appearance of a stocky bruiser in the doorway, Drea grabbed Doc’s arm to flee, but before she could move them, she was grabbed by the back of her shirt and then pushed toward the open door.
“Get in,” the unfamiliar male snapped behind her.
She hesitated, still holding onto Doc’s arm, thinking, if we scream, Maria might come.
The bruiser pointed a gun right at Doc. “If I shoot, she ain’t gonna bounce back so easy, so get in the fucking truck now.”
“What is this about?” Doc asked, putting up her hands.
“When you need to know, someone’ll tell ya, I’m sure.”
The guy behind Drea gave her another push.
She wrenched away from his grip, keeping her gaze locked on the barrel of the gun. “I’m moving. You don’t need to be rough. We’re not going to fight back, and I think you know that.”
Drea couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag, and Doc might have had some martial arts training, they were still probably extremely outnumbered.
As Drea climbed into the SUV, she counted bodies to confirm.
One bruiser behind the wheel, a guy in a well-fitted suit riding shotgun, and another burly menace squeezed into a third-row seat.
She slid in close to the far door with Doc following right after and clutched her purse tightly against her chest.
My purse…
She’d been kidnapped enough times in her life that she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold onto her bag for very long. Someone would take her purse, go through it, and confiscate her phones.
But they probably wouldn’t take her watch—not if they didn’t know what it was.
She turned the face to the underside of her wrist and looked up.
The guy in the suit was pointing a gun back at them, too. “This certainly complicates things,” he muttered.
“What do you want?” Doc shifted her medical bag atop her lap.
One of the bruisers in the third row reached over and grabbed the bag and Drea’s purse, too.
Knew it.
Drea stuffed her hands wrist-deep into the pockets of her cardigan and forced down a swallow.
The driver got the SUV moving.
The guy in the suit pointed the gun from Doc to Drea and then back to Doc. “Been following you for three days, lady. Tried to get you on your own, but you always seem to have an entourage.”
Doc ground her teeth, saying nothing.
“You do what we say, and nobody gets hurt. That’s how this is going to go, okay?”
“I repeat, what do you want?”
“Your research. We know you have some. You’ve been cavorting with Dana Slade and her peers since the research study was dismantled. You know them better than anyone, and you’re going to hand over that data you’ve compiled on them.”
“The SHREW study?” Doc scoffed. “The hell I am. And the woman you’re referencing goes by Slade-O’Dwyer now.”
“Oh, but you are. I’ve got too damn much invested in this scheme for all my effort to go swirling down the drain now. That formula was ten years in the making, and with a few tweaks, I could take it to market.”
“You mean the same formula that you tested on dozens of women without their consent? The same formula that killed something like ninety percent of your participants?”
“So we’re on the same page,” the guy said.
The drug company. Shit. Drea suppressed a groan.
She bet that if she were to look at the back bumper of the SUV, she’d find a decal matching the picture Dustin had drawn for her. The timing was too damned unfortunate.
We finally caught Gene, and now this? Can’t catch a freakin’ break.
“What is your goal here?” Doc asked.
The guy in the suit shrugged. “Simple. Everything always comes down to money, right? My company has been trying to formulate a drug to create genetically enhanced superhumans for twenty years. We’ve been studying shifters.” He pushed up an eyebrow, as if daring her to gasp or express shock in some other way.
Doc remained stone-faced.
If that guy thought he was going to get any information out of her, he was sorely mistaken. Like Drea, Doc may not have been much of an aggressor in a fight, but she was pretty good at putting two and two together. And she certainly wasn’t going to play her hand and throw Drea under the bus. The guy didn’t seem to know who Drea was, and Drea wanted to keep him ignorant for as long as possible. The fact that people underestimated her might work in her advantage for once.
“But trying to manufacture shifters using our formula didn’t work out the way we’d hoped,” he said, in spite of the fact Doc hadn’t responded.
“Oh, is that what you were trying to do with those women?” Doc asked flatly. “Create shifters? Obviously, you don’t understand shifters very well.”
“We understand them just fine. We’ve had our operatives infiltrating groups long enough to know everything that matters.”
Because of her inquiries, Drea had known that, but hearing him confess so cavalierly made the morning’s coffee threaten to come back up her throat.
“We know how shifters are made, and that they can be made. But for whatever reason, teeth and fangs are still the only ways to transfer the affliction.”
“And you were trying to find a way to create shifters by injecting test subjects with some drug or giving them pills to swallow?”
“Imagine how much the government would pay for science like that.” The guy wore one of those oily, criminally insane grins Drea had never seen in real life, but had seen on pages and screens numerous times. He was a living, breathing comic book villain.
Doc entwined her fingers and let her right knee bob. Impatient. Pissed.
“You’re our key,” he said. “You’re going to help us put all the pieces together.”
“And why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “Well. We were just gonna offer to pay you a lot of money, but I get the feeling money doesn’t drive you as much as we’d hoped.”
“You’ve got the right feeling. I don’t need or want your money. If you’d done your research on me as well as you’ve claimed to have on shapeshifters, you’d know I have plenty of money already.”
“Fine. You don’t want money.” He aimed the gun at Drea again. “How do you feel about your friend? Want to keep her?”
“You’re disgusting.”
He shrugged again. “I’m just doing my job, and sometimes, I’ve got to go resort to off-the-books tactics to get results.”
“I imagine you would have to with government regulators breathing down your neck from all the trouble you got into with the SHREW study. It’s amazing you were able to spring back at all with all the settlements you had to pay out.”
The quivers of his cheeks and lips were quick, but Drea saw his flinch. Not all of her Bear senses had gone away. She could still see just fine, and obviously, Doc had touched on a sore spot.
Interesting.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Not for a long time.”
“Pity,” Doc muttered.
“You gonna help or not? Wouldn’t devastate me at all to get rid of your little friend if that would show you I mean business.”
Doc cut her gaze toward Drea, and Drea tried as hard as she could to keep her expression neutral. She suspected she wasn’t doing a great job. Bryan had always said she was easier to read than a billboard that only had one big word on it.
We can get out of this, Doc. Work with me. Don’t give him any clues.
Doc crossed
her legs and locked her gaze on the back of the exec’s seat. “I don’t want her to get hurt. She doesn’t have anything to do with this mess. She doesn’t even know who she’s working for, really. Dana hasn’t really exposed her to anything beyond mundane business concerns. She’s just a bookkeeper.”
“Well, that’s too bad. Just from this conversation, she’s learned too much. Might have to kill her anyway.”
“I won’t say anything,” Drea spat in a rush. “Lock me in a room if you have to. Knock me out. Just…don’t hurt me. I’ve got elderly parents to take care of and if I don’t go home, they won’t have anyone else. I promise, I won’t talk.”
That had possibly been the best lie she’d ever made up on the fly. Her inner bear being gone was turning out to be the best thing that had ever happened to her. She could actually think.
The guy cut his glare to Doc again.
Drea fiddled with her watch, looking down briefly now and then to make sure she was touching the screen in the right places. She needed to get a call out.
Doc peered out her window, still bobbing one knee with agitation. “If you let her go, I’ll agree to come along quietly and at least hear what you have to say about your research.”
“Nah, you’ve got to give me something a little better than that. You already heard what I have to say about the research. You’re gonna fix it. You’re gonna fill in the holes.”
Drea quickly muted the watch’s speaker when the call connected, and then stuffed her hand back into her pocket.
“Why do you make out that I have a choice, then?” Doc asked. “I either help you with your disgusting drug development or you kill this child. Obviously, I’m not going to let the latter happen, but don’t think for one moment that I’m going quietly into this deal. I’ll review your findings and add my thoughts, but you’re going to keep this woman where I can see her. If you harm her in any way, all bets are off. You’ll never get so much as a Post-it note full of information from me. You’ll get your information delivered when we’re both safe and away from you. Do I make myself clear?”
“I don’t think you’re really in a position to be negotiating,” he said.
Doc pressed her forearms to her knees and leaned toward him—toward the gun. “I don’t think you are. You’re not the guy at the top, are you? You’re just one more flunky failing his boss, and now that your little pet Gene’s off your hook, you’re desperate to have something to show for the past ten years of chaos.”
His nostrils flared at the mention of Gene’s name.
Drea would have given almost anything to put the two men in the same cell together and see who the last one standing would be. The guy in the suit might have been ruthless, but Gene fought dirty.
“Don’t try me,” Doc said low. “I know the score. You can’t get in touch with him, can you? Which is funny, seeing as how the Jersey branch of your company said he hadn’t had anything to do with you in months. I believe them. I think the right hand of CarrHealth doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”
“You don’t know a goddamned thing.”
Doc shrugged. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t, but let me tell you this. I will see your whole company go up in flames, and I don’t care if I have to go down inside it. At least I’d leave this world with a light heart, which is more than I can say for you.”
The guy in the suit narrowed his eyes and inched the gun toward her as if that small change in proximity would make such a difference. Dead was dead. Those few inches didn’t make a difference. “Just do what you’re told and no one gets hurt.”
“I’ll do what I have to.”
“If anyone gets hurt, lady, the bloodshed will be on your conscience. Not mine.”
Drea suspected he was telling the truth as he knew it. He didn’t have conscience to be concerned with.
He was just like Gene—a greedy sociopath who treated life like a game and believed that other people were just pawns for him to knock over on his way past.
Drea was sick and tired of getting knocked over.
I hope you’re getting this, Peter. Please don’t hang up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“If anyone gets hurt, lady, the bloodshed will be on your conscience. Not mine.”
Peter pulled his phone back from his ear and studied the incoming caller information. It was Andrea. That was the only reason he’d answered in the first place. He’d been standing behind his SUV in a gas station parking lot arguing with Soren for the better part of an hour and had ignored every other call. He’d never ignore a call from Andrea. He’d be happy just to hear her breathing into the phone. At least then, he’d know she was well.
But something about that call wasn’t right. Before he could even say hello, he’d caught the background noise. Doc was talking, and she was with some guy who didn’t sound like anyone associated with the Shrews.
“What’s wrong?” Soren asked.
Peter put a finger to his lips and pressed the phone back to his ear. Did she butt-dial me?
“Where are you keeping us?” Doc asked.
“No reason you can’t stay in the lab,” came the man’s voice.
Peter put his phone on speaker for Soren and held his finger up to his lips again.
Soren nodded.
“You want us to sleep in a drug research firm’s lab for an open-ended period of time? Sorry, but that’s not going to fly.”
“I didn’t say anything about both of you. I said you are going to sleep in the lab. We’ll find someplace more suitable for your friend.”
Soren was already starting for the front of the truck, and good thing, because Peter wanted to be out of the lot and on the highway by the time he pinpointed Andrea and Doc’s position. He was precisely that kind of paranoid asshole to have activated the family finder utility on her phone when she wasn’t looking. He hadn’t thought she’d mind, and he didn’t think for one moment that the GPS connection would last long. Her battery would die or someone would take her phone away. Or her watch. Given the background noise, he had a sneaking suspicion that was how she’d called him. He’d said the so-called “smart watch” had been a dopey-as-hell gift when Tamara had bought it for her, but all the Shrews had them. Apparently, they had real-world uses he hadn’t considered. He’d have to eat his words.
He got into the driver’s seat and closed the door.
“No, you’ll keep…Betty near me or I’m not working,” Doc said.
“Betty?” Soren mouthed.
Peter shrugged. Doc probably wasn’t used to lying on the fly.
“Whatever,” came the male’s voice. “We’ll work it out once we get inside.”
Peter opened the locator app and waited for Andrea’s little dot to appear on the screen.
She was in Research Triangle Park—the tech area located between Durham and Raleigh—and Peter’s hunch said they were heading toward the local facility of a drug company all the Shrews knew very well.
Fortunately, Peter hadn’t had to go far to catch up with Soren. They were about an hour outside of Raleigh’s western border. They could be in RTP in forty-five minutes if lunchtime traffic was forgiving. Peter didn’t plan on obeying the speed limit.
“More interviews?” came a muffled voice through the speaker.
“Yep,” came the first guy’s voice again. “Gotta rebuild the staff, you know. Gotta snap back from that brutal layoff. These two are going to take a look-see around. Hopefully we can convince them that CarrHealth is a great place to work.”
“Why do you have a secured lot?” Doc asked in a tart, brazen tone, probably to the guy checking badges.
The guy with the familiar voice chuckled while the gate guy stammered. “It’s a perk our employees seem to like. They enjoy the added layer of security on nights when they have to work late. There’s always someone on hand to get them safely to their vehicle.”
“I didn’t think RTP was that dangerous,” Andrea said.
Peter let out a breath of relief at hearing her voi
ce, and then climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Everywhere’s dangerous, depending on how you look at things,” the guy said.
“That’s the truth. Have a good one, Wes,” the gate guard said.
“Hey, you, too.”
Peter mouthed “CarrHealth” to Soren, who was already working his thumbs over the screen of his phone, likely sending out a message to any Shrew in the area. Most were in the mountains, so Peter and Soren were probably going to have a very small team mission on their hands. Dana and the girls would just have to forgive them for going in without them later. Waiting to act was out of the question. He’d told Andrea he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and he needed to make good on that promise. Just that quickly, he’d failed her. He’d thought she’d be safe for a day.
Won’t make that mistake again.
When he was done kicking heads in at CarrHealth, he wasn’t ever letting her out of his sight if he could help it.
Wes’s vehicle’s engine hummed, and a moment later, he said, “Don’t talk unless I tell you to. Don’t talk to anyone here.”
“I’ll talk if I damn well please,” Doc said. “I don’t know if that’s settled into your brain yet, but I’m guessing not. I suppose that’s to be expected if you’re one of those amoral shit-stains who have been dipping into the company drug bins for recreational use. Your brain probably has all the neural connections of JELL-O right now.”
“Rein in the snark, Doc,” Peter whispered and merged into the highway’s fast lane. “Careful.”
“If you don’t want me to talk,” Doc said, “then you sure as hell had better keep me away from anyone who doesn’t know what you’re up to, because I will run my mouth. You’re flying rogue. You can’t tell me otherwise. Get me close enough to a person who looks right and I will talk so quickly and so loudly that I’ll have your head spinning.”
The engine noise died and doors swung open.
“Nope,” Doc said. “Remember what I said. Betty comes with me. Don’t try me, asshole, or I’ll start screaming right now. Do you know those three people smoking under the eaves? Why don’t we see how well you know them?”