by Nancy Gideon
“So?”
“She’s my mate.” A strange exhilaration came over him as he voiced that aloud.
“Ahhh. That would explain the strange noises last night. Thin walls. I thought maybe you were watching something on Animal Planet.”
He grinned wide and shook his head. “Not from last night. From seven years ago.”
Charlotte blinked. “Wow. What are the odds?”
“Was wondering that myself.”
“Wow,” Charlotte repeated as her quick cop brain began processing the sudden change in her friend’s status. “So she’s the one you nailed and bailed on back in the day.”
“It wasn’t my choice,” he growled, insulted by her word choice.
But Charlotte’s thoughts had already jumped ahead to something more intriguing.
“Then her daughter . . . is yours?”
Twenty
The question stunned like the sharp crack of a bat to his head.
“Easy, now.” Charlotte gripped his forearms as he listed sharply on suddenly weak knees. “Take a breath.”
He sank down onto his heels, palms pushing into his temples as if trying to shove the square peg of that incredible notion into the round hole of his limited knowledge.
Could it be true?
The timing, the circumstances all fit, but one thing didn’t. He looked up at Charlotte, who’d crouched down with him, his voice low and unsteady. “Wouldn’t she tell me if that was true?”
But then, Susanna hadn’t come right out and said up front, “Hey, I’m the mate you can’t remember from seven years ago! Good to see you again!”
Charlotte’s advice was brusque and to the point. “Ask her.”
They straightened as Giles backed the SUV up behind them and got out to open the rear hatch. He bumped past Jacques with a casual, “Help me load up, Wolfman.”
Scrubbing away his stupor, Jacques went inside the second room to assist in wrapping Max’s slack form in the hotel bedspread. After Giles left a handful of cash on the nightstand to cover the loss, the two of them carried the heavy bundle out and tucked it into the back end of their vehicle.
“Get your lady,” Giles told him. “Time to saddle up and get the hell outta Dodge.”
Something was very wrong.
Susanna sat quietly in the back, watching Jacques fidget restlessly where he rode shotgun next to Giles.
After talking to Charlotte, he’d burst into the room they’d shared to snatch up his things and declare gruffly, “We’re leaving.” She’d been standing right in front of him yet he’d never made eye contact.
And as they approached Indianapolis, he still hadn’t.
Had the gift she’d given him last night been a mistake? Perhaps the very idea of her tinkering with his mind, implanting information, reminded him all too chillingly of how different she was, that she was of the Chosen, the caste that had subjugated him, that she was the one who’d stripped him of those memories in the first place. Perhaps he doubted they were real, that she’d pushed a falsehood upon him to gain his cooperation so she could escape.
She’d told him she loved him. Had that made no difference at all? Or maybe fatigue was stirring up anxieties where none were warranted.
She’d lain awake beside him for most of the night just listening to him breathe, attuned to his slightest movement, drawn to his body heat. She’d selfishly thought about waking him with a kiss and lusty caress but remembered all too clearly how only days ago he’d been lying in his own blood. He needed the rest to complete his healing and she needed to decide what she was going to do.
She didn’t want to go back to Damien, but realized her companions were safe only as long as he believed she was with them involuntarily. How much time did that give her?
Jacques was edgy, his gaze flickering from window to window, everywhere but behind him where she sat. She’d never seen him so agitated, so distracted. Finally, he turned on the radio, fiddling with the buttons until he found a classical station.
Susanna smiled to herself, remembering his reaction the first time he’d heard a symphony orchestra. She’d convinced Damien to let her go to a holiday concert provided her stoic bodyguard remained at her side. She’d worn a sophisticated beige sheath but found herself enviously admiring gowns in jeweled seasonal hues of red, green, and gold. And she was more than appreciative of her somber companion’s appearance in a tux. A gorilla in evening wear, Damien had commented with an unkindness that had surprised her.
Soon she’d been distracted from a simple enjoyment of the chorale selections as her usually silent escort murmured questions about the instruments, about the arrangements, about his reaction to the swelling emotional sounds. And she found herself hugging to his arm as they whispered back and forth, earning stern glances from the patrons surrounding them.
In the darkness of the auditorium, lost to the heart-tugging sound of the string section, as he’d leaned down to catch something she was saying, she’d impulsively stolen her first kiss from him. And nothing had ever been the same for her again.
Giles reached for the channel selector, stating, “Driver picks tunes. Another minute of that stuff and my brain’ll be bleeding.”
Another classic type of music filled the air. The Allman Brothers. Classic rock.
By the time they reached the Kentucky border, snow had become a miserable icy sleet and Giles declared he needed to pull off into a truck stop for a break and a cigarette. He parked some distance from the entrance, and as they gave Charlotte lunch orders to pick up at the attached neon-lit diner, Max woke up.
His feet slammed against the rear-door glass, knocking it off its track. And he was up and out before the rest of them could blink.
Giles, Charlotte, and Jacques leapt from the vehicle but Max had disappeared between the rows of trucks parked to wait out the storm. Charlotte gestured them into separate directions to make their search more efficient.
With the visibility reduced by the frigid spray and rising fog, Jacques jogged between the eighteen-wheelers, ducking low to check beneath them, pulling open any unlocked tractor cabs to do a quick search. His teeth chattered with cold as his hurried breaths plumed on the air. Even his tough-soled work boots slipped and slid on the glazed surface of the lot, but that didn’t slow him.
A brief rattle of sound from overhead caught his attention, sending his gaze upward in time to catch a glimpse of movement.
“Go high,” he shouted to the others.
Max was jumping from truck to truck off the tops of the trailers.
Face upturned, catching the slashing brunt of the sleet, Jacques raced behind the vehicles, always a step too slow to see more than just a fleeting trace of the figure he pursued. Then he skidded around the last truck to find Giles there and Max teetering on the edge of the trailer’s metal roof, his hospital garb plastered to his lean form, his eyes wild with a confused desperation, and no place to go but back the way he’d come.
As Max turned to retrace his escape route, Giles planted a well-aimed slush ball between his shoulder blades with enough force to knock his feet out from under him. He scrambled for purchase, bare hands and feet clawing at the ice-coated top and sides and, finding none, fell hard to the ground between his two friends.
“Easy, boss man. Easy now. Don’t want to hurt you.”
Giles had him clamped in a headlock, subduing him long enough for Charlotte to join them, snapping on cuffs, securing his wrists behind his back. As he was hauled to his feet, he made another lunging attempt at freedom only to have Jacques grip him by the ears to knock him out cold with a head butt.
A hurried look around showed no witnesses to their chase and capture. Each grabbing an arm, Giles and Jacques dragged him back to the SUV, where Susanna waited with a sedative prepared. Then, as a stony-featured Charlotte bundled his limp form up in the bedding to dry and warm him, Giles puffed out a breath and announced he was going to pick up their lunch while Jacques struggled to restore the glass to its track.
�
��Let me look at your head,” Susanna called to Jacques as he opened the passenger door to return to the front seat.
He touched fingertips to his brow, surprised when they came back bloodied. “I’m fine,” he murmured.
“Sit and let me see.”
Wordlessly, he climbed into the back and dropped into the seat Charlotte had occupied, staring unblinkingly out the windshield as Susanna dabbed and wiped and bandaged. Her scent bit into him like those icy pellets outside, tingling, burning until he could barely sit still. His awareness of her increased until each inhalation was near torture.
“I’m fine,” he insisted testily, pushing her hands away in his hurry to put some space between them so he could breathe. So he could think about anything other than how much he wanted to kiss her, tear off her clothes, and take her right then and there.
What the hell was wrong with him? He ducked down and reached a long leg over the center console so he could ease back into the front seat and sit there ramrod stiff in all interpretations of the word. His breath hissed noisily between clenched teeth as Susanna was no doubt gaping at him in alarm.
Was he the father of her child? Why hadn’t she told him, especially after what she’d shared with him last night? How could he expect the truth from her when she’d hidden all the facts from him for so long?
His child. His daughter. Heart beating so violently he feared it might refracture those yet tender ribs, Jacques closed his eyes and concentrated on recovering his composure.
His daughter.
A smile trembled over his lips.
It was close to daybreak when they entered Orleans Parish. Max had been stirring for some time, but Susanna advised against drugging him again so soon unless absolutely necessary.
As they drove beneath an overpass, lights swept through the interior of the vehicle from above, startling a semi-lucid Max into a panicked crouch behind Susanna’s seat. When Charlotte reached for him, he cringed away, knotting up even smaller, face averted, eyes tightly closed, knees tucked up to his shoulders. His breathing came loud and fast.
“Max. Baby, it’s me. It’s Charlotte.” She touched his hair, making the gesture light and gentle, but still he squirmed out from under it with a low anxious whine.
“Charlotte, he doesn’t know you,” Susanna explained.
“What? What do you mean?”
“What they did to him scrambled his thought process. It’ll take some time for him to put things back together, to sort them out.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t know me? How could he not know me?”
“His mind’s like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces dumped into a pile. They don’t make any sense to him yet. They don’t make a picture he recognizes.”
“And what if some of those pieces are missing?” Though she bit down hard on it, some of the fear shivered through Charlotte’s tight words.
“Don’t worry. They wouldn’t be that careless with him. They wouldn’t have kept him alive if they’d damaged him.”
“Damaged him,” she echoed numbly, her worried gaze on the feral creature huddled just out of arm’s reach.
“Stop at the club,” Jacques instructed Giles as they slipped unnoticed into the quiet Quarter. After Giles pulled in behind Charlotte’s screamingly orange muscle car, Jacques got out and opened the slider, putting up his hand to Susanna. Hers fit into it trustingly. He nodded back toward the pregnant detective. “Make sure she’s okay.”
Instantly alert, Charlotte regarded him suspiciously. “What are you trying to pull, LaRoche? Take us home.”
“This is as far as you’re going, Charlotte. Get down.”
She knocked his hand aside with a snarl of, “Like hell. Where he goes, I go.”
“Where he’s going, you can’t go.”
“Fuck that.”
He gripped her arm, pulling her steadily toward the door as he explained, “I’ll take good care of him. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”
She dug in her heels mulishly. “I’ll make sure he’s okay.”
He curled his arm about her waist and lifted her out of the vehicle. Then he held her close against him so she couldn’t dish out any damage. As she struggled furiously, he said softly into her hair, “For the next few days, he needs to be among his own kind. He’ll be watched and protected until we’re sure.”
She shoved away, taking a few stumbling steps back. Her eyes were bright with fury and fear. “Sure of what?”
“That he hasn’t been compromised by what they did to him.” He held up his hand to halt further questions. “Trust me. Charlotte, just trust me. Please.”
She hesitated and he took that as a positive sign to continue.
“Go with Dr. Duchamps. Let her examine you and make sure the baby is all right. That’s the best thing you can do for Max right now. Get some rest and I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
She searched his expression rather desperately but relented when he leaned forward to kiss her brow. Then he strode around to the driver’s side and opened the door, motioning Giles out.
“Take care of them,” he told the reluctant-to-leave bodyguard.
Giles climbed down and thrust his forefinger into Jacques’s chest. “Anything happens to him, it’s on you.”
Jacques nodded. “Understood.”
As a major contributor, Max’s name opened doors at the hospital. Charlotte identified Susanna as her private physician and once her credentials were checked, they were provided with an exam room. By the time Charlotte was gowned up and fidgeting on the table, Nica arrived, having responded to Susanna’s call.
“If you’re concerned at all about your baby’s health,” Susanna told her, “put one of those on and I’ll check you next.”
Without comment, Nica picked up one of the hospital gowns and disappeared into the bathroom.
It was morning by the time she’d taken genetic samples from both expectant mothers.
They filled Nica in on the adventures in Chicago and though she expressed concern over Max’s situation, she encouraged Charlotte to trust Jacques.
After leaving the samples with Dev Dovion to have them worked up into usable data, and stopping at an electronics store to buy a small computer on a credit card Damien had yet to cancel, Susanna had Charlotte drop her off at the Towers. Despite her suggestion that she take it easy, Charlotte planned to go to work, saying she had to check in with her partners at the NOPD. Susanna promised they would make a visit to Mary Kate the following day. By then, she hoped to have made some headway.
The apartment was quiet and dark with its drapes closed against the dull morning light, inviting with its memories and traces of Jacques’s scent. More than anything Susanna wished she could fall into the big bed and sleep off her fatigue until Jacques joined her, but her own work beckoned. While the laptop booted up and installed her programs, she made coffee and changed her clothes, hoping she’d hear from Jacques. No call, no messages, so she sat down at the computer and began to work, letting the hours of the morning, then afternoon, slip away.
She was dozing at the table, head gently bobbing as she wandered uneasily through her subconscious. In the dream, she walked down an overly bright corridor with observation windows on both sides. The first rooms were filled with newborns. All looked identical except for the tags at the ends of their bassinets, which separated them as Human, Shifter, Chosen. The next set of rooms held toddlers, again all identical yet divided into groups by color, each with a different teacher reading from a book of fairy tales. She slowed her step to check the titles. Humantales, Shiftertales, Chosentales. All the stories sounded the same as they were repeated to each group in unison.
Puzzled, Susanna moved on as the walls fell away and she was outside on a playground in a middle-class Chicago suburb. On the other side of a fence, two girls were spinning jump ropes in a fast double Dutch while another skipped to the rhythm they chanted. All looked exactly like her daughter, Pearl. Susanna paused, her eyes misting up as they fixed upon the girls. Pearl.
Though she wanted to call to them, she was unable to move, unable to do anything but cling to chain link, listening to their ditty.
“Human, Shifter, Chosen, Ancient. One and one and one we fall. Human, Shifter, Chosen, Ancient. One plus two plus three saves all.”
Susanna straightened with a gasp, cold hands fluttering over her face to brush away the remnants of sleep. She stared at her screen, at the combinations and divisions she’d been working on and realized what had been missing from her equations and why they had never added up.
She’d been missing one of the components.
Twenty-one
Are you sure he can’t get out of there?” Jacques turned from the thick plexiglass window to Philo, who stood beside him.
“No way,” his friend assured him. “No internal hinges, catches, locks, or bolts. Solid three-inch steel.” He tapped the glass. “Bulletproof, shatterproof. He’s not going anywhere.”
Jacques frowned as he observed the six-by-eight room, which held only a basic sink and stool and a cot that was bolted to floor and wall. Max had tucked himself into the shadows beneath the cot like an animal backed into a hole.
Philo placed a hand on Jacques’s shoulder. “He’ll be fine. One of the shipping companies used it as a temporary brig. Everything’s reinforced and he’ll be watched 24/7. Any changes, any surprises, we’ll call you. Now, go home and get some sleep before you drop. Let me take care of this for you.”
With a tremendous exhalation, Jacques let the tension drop from him. “Okay. Just make sure you tell them not to trust him. He’s smart and he’s fast and right now, he could be very, very dangerous.”
“I know what to tell them. Go home, Jackie.”
As he moved away from the glass, Philo added, “I hear she came back with you.” His tone was carefully guarded.