Betrayal's Shadow

by K H Lemoyne

  The other direction took her back toward Xavier’s quarters, but as she started that way, Rasheer walked out of the dark tunnel to stand before her with a sneer.

  Her breath hitched at the scar running down his neck. The tattoo of a fanged scorpion meshed along the other side and wove into the same scar. The life-like image and the man who had chosen the tattoo sent chills down her spine.

  Turen’s words echoed. Don’t let Rasheer near you. He will kill you eventually, but what you saw on my body will be nothing compared to what he’ll do to you. She wanted to cry but was too damn scared out of her mind.

  Both directions were blocked.

  Think, Mia, third option.

  Gritting her teeth, she glanced over the side of the catwalk. A good sixty feet separated the catwalk and the stone floor of the cavern. Best case, she’d break bones. Worst case, she wouldn’t live to feel it. Maybe those two were reversed.

  She didn’t pause to think and swung a leg over the rail, straddling it with a quick glance for her next move.

  Rasheer had walked slowly toward her, so certain she had nowhere to go. With her actions, he stopped and his eyes narrowed.

  “Chica, don’t do this.”

  Mia ignored him. Swinging the second leg over, she secured a foothold along a support wire. A series of cries and movements above drew her attention back.

  Turen was visible through the metal grates of the catwalk planking. Several guards were down around him. Two others were landing blows even as a third raised a gun and fired.

  Her cry of distress cut short as Rasheer shot a hand out to grab her wrist, missing her by a hair. She had sensed him and ducked lower.

  She grabbed the under-rail of the catwalk and let the tips of her shoes slide to the V of the support wires beneath the catwalk. It was an exercise in walking on tension wires. Stretching her leg, she met the next crisscross with her toe. She slid along the diagonal steel wire. The cable, taut but flexible, wove back and forth. The purpose, a lacing of steel strength meant to provide structure for the catwalks and conduits for the security wires and the lighting, not a mode of travel.

  Her hands grappled for a firm hold. Her compromise was to slide lower and hook her knees around the cable and hold on like a damn monkey, swinging just out of Rasheer’s reach.

  The intercom on Rasheer’s belt snapped alive as an explosion erupted from beyond the cavern. The vibration of a charge thundered through Mia’s body. She tried to tighten her grip against the cable’s violent shake.

  “Rasheer, the back gate’s been compromised. Have your team there in three. Copy?”

  Rasheer paused for only a second, glancing sideways at Mia. A tight snarl twisted his mouth. A glint of feral rage lit his eyes. Then he ignored the call and swung his leg over the rail in order to reach down and grab her.

  “Rasheer.” The device clicked. The low, deep command growled from the unit.

  Rasheer slid his fingers to his intercom and clicked it off. His cold gaze never left Mia’s face. “Just you and me, bitch. If you beg, I’ll make your death quick.” The edges of his lips rose in a sadistic smile as he laughed at his own lie.

  Mia looked around. The men on her catwalk who’d cut off her escape route were now running through those exits toward the explosion. She couldn’t see below her, but she doubted there were many people wasting time on her pitiful outcome.

  Farther above she could see Turen, now immobilized on his catwalk, facedown, arms positioned behind his back. No fewer than eight men surrounded him with weapons drawn, even though he lay with his eyes closed and blood covering one side of his face. He couldn’t get to her.

  She was screwed.

  Rasheer would be the worst way to go, yet she couldn’t commit to her last option. It felt like giving up, but she’d run out of time. A few more seconds and he’d have a hold of her hand or wrist, because there was nowhere else to go.

  Almost.

  “Chica, that is a bad decision.” Rasheer stopped, his glance going from her face to the shifting of her legs. Cold calculation swept across his features. He strapped himself with a cable to the under panel of the catwalk.

  He was coming to get her. With a cagey move, he whipped out his hand, and shifted to lunge at her just as another explosion rattled the entire cave and shook the catwalk.

  Rasheer teetered back to gain balance. Sweat caused one of Mia’s hands to slip as the motion jarred her legs. The wiggle of the cable caused her legs to slide and lose their solid hold.

  The swing of her feet propelled her body back and forth, too unstable for her fingers to keep a tight grasp. She clenched them in desperation, steel fibers cutting her skin. Slick with sweat and blood, her body’s momentum added weight. To try to grip with the other hand would cause her to swing again.

  She hung for a second.

  Rasheer’s fingers snatched at her and missed.

  With a deep breath, she kept her gaze fixed on his cold one as she purposefully released her fingers. A brutal scream tore from her throat as she plummeted, weightless.

  Rasheer’s scream of rage followed her. She closed her eyes and braced for the impact.

  The soft cushion of cotton beneath her was…unexpected.

  CHAPTER 14

  Mia had placed the pouch of vials in her freezer beneath the packet of peas. Mindlessly, she had walked to her bathroom and huddled on the shower stall floor beneath the beating stream of hot water until it lapsed to cold.

  That had been four long weeks ago.

  She had kept her promise and tried not to force a fold to Turen. The absence of his presence and lack of closure on his safety weighed like a ten-ton mantle on her shoulders.

  Four weeks eased nothing. It didn’t dulled her memories or numbed her worry. Instead, each night her dreams filled with images of him, vivid snippets of conversations and touches, want and need always the desperate result. Each day she woke more tired than the previous.

  The puzzle of how to block her fold to him proved useless. Her instigating method utilized simple processes: relaxation and concentration on his heartbeat. The more she’d envisioned him, the easier he had been to reach. Since she’d gained control to reach him, she hadn’t experienced a random fold.

  No reverse of the scenario made sense. And unlike her folds to Turen, her trips back home posed no consistent pattern. She usually disappeared from Turen’s cell during sleep but the time had varied from the minute she fell asleep to hours or even after a full day and half the time they had made love. As much as she wished for it, sleep hadn’t folded her to him once after her altercation with Rasheer.

  She had pushed efforts to block the fold aside and let routine take over. Training based on Turen’s guidelines provided a good distraction and expanded her skill, though more often than not it left her exhausted. She purchased two slender nine-inch KA-BAR combat knives, complete with leather sheaths and adjustable straps, and successfully added them to her repertoire without self-inflicting more than one or two nicks. The flame, she managed, finally able to repress the fire while she worked out. She could control the intensity to minute levels. It increased her confidence, but the achievement felt lackluster.

  Her Archive access hadn’t disappeared, but it was small comfort. The readings gave her little new information except for random details of different marks from Guardians through the generations. The journal entries were tedious to sort through, with no particular catalog of the information or ability for quick recall, turning the screen from ally to combatant.

  Frustrated, she swept the current screen to the side with a flick of her hand and scrolled down a second one. “Can’t you just tag the screen, ‘marks,’ user, Mia?” she snarled at the glitter in annoyance.

  She gasped as a small inscription flowed to the screen’s edge. Scripted letters, per her command, detailed, “Tag marks, Mia.”

  “Well, damn. I should have asked sooner,” she said and laughed. “How about, bring Turen home.” Nothing. Ah, well.

  The process we
nt on for several more screens. She’d tagged a variety of data for future reference, yet found no immediate answers in the ancient database. Frustration built again and she dismissed the screen, and then headed to her office to drown her blossoming bad mood with work.

  A new email from her publisher and one from Mason registered in bold at the top of her inbox. Her publisher’s note she ignored. Mason’s message was brief: field goal successful.

  Mia puzzled for a second. He’d searched for the photos from the accident and the medical examiner with some success. Mason wouldn’t have sent them via email, just as he had insisted on sending the police report only through standard mail in his previous correspondence.

  With a lighter step, she headed out the back door and down her winding lane to the main road. Her mailbox was deceptive in appearance, a large black metal standard affixed over a tall brickwork pillar. Never sure when she’d be around to pick up the mail, she’d had a slot cut in the bottom of the box so it would shift the contents into the bottom of the hollow brick pillar. She unlocked a metal door at the rear of the pillar’s base and retrieved the haphazard stack.

  One small lumpy pouch postmarked Denver stood out from the bills and junk mail. Mason’s publicity agent lived in Colorado and she had no doubt that was who originated the package, but why the subterfuge?

  Back in her office, Mia slit the pouch and slid the thumb drive into her computer. The files, a collection of autopsy photos, were chilling.

  Without specific details on what to search for, she was reluctant to waste too much scrutiny on the naked, dead bodies of Isabella and the cop, Marco Valencia. But her brief view of the pictures nagged her, as if they contained brainteasers of one item in the pictures that didn’t belong. Only she didn’t have enough knowledge of these people to determine any abnormalities.

  She bit her lip and clicked from one picture to the next. Even with a pale wash of death, Isa claimed an innocent beauty, clearly the reason for Turen’s reluctance to blame her for his circumstance. This young woman could have passed for his younger sister, with her dark hair and distinct cheekbones.

  Mia tried to shake away her emotions and assess the photos objectively. The M.E.’s reports listed stab marks and burns, all located across Isa’s chest and sides. The myriad tattoos covering Marco’s lean and muscular body made it harder to discern his stab wounds. The bullet wound in his chest, targeted by the M.E. as cause of death, she found with ease.

  The police academy picture Mason had added with the files revealed a young man with tanned skin, thick brown hair, vivid brown eyes, and a full sensual smile that would let him blend in and finesse easily in multiple groups of people. Not a surprise that he’d been a top choice for undercover with narcotics and DEA.

  She stared for a long time at Marco’s face, finding no correlation to the cold, horrific details of his wounds in the autopsy file. Yet there was something here. She could feel it. She’d learned over the years to trust in her gut, but damn if she could figure what it was trying to tell her.

  With a sigh, she closed her eyes and mentally parsed through the pages of details in her private journal. A connection teased in the back of her mind, refusing to come forward. She relaxed in her chair and forced her mind not to linger on any one thing but to drift in a round robin from the journal, to the photos, to the Archives and back.

  She jumped as it hit her. Eyes open, she clicked on the photos again and launched her graphics program. She ignored the queasy sense of voyeurism and the dangerous tingle along her nerves at the prospect of delving further into Guardian privacy and secrets. With a mental shake, she brought up the first of the photos and increased the view to two hundred percent.

  Isa’s murder had been cold and gruesome, and while the autopsy photos showed only the clean, sterile remnants of Isa’s body, Mia struggled to remain detached. She didn’t have the luxury of being squeamish. A quick search for tattoos on Isa’s body revealed nothing. Prepared to close the file, she stopped at an image of small swirls, strikes and circles, some filled, some not. The designs, resembling empty circles on a stick, were nestled in a one-inch circumference on the inside crease below Isa’s right hip.

  Mia enhanced the resolution to three hundred percent.

  Oh my God. She brought up Marco’s image and enhanced it as well. Painstakingly, she went through each section of his tattoos until, finding what she sought, she traced along the image with red.

  Isa’s symbols were clear delineations of sixteenth notes, rests, and accidentals. The images, mirrored on Marco’s files, were harder to find given his wealth of previous tattoos.

  Whether Isa’s talent was music or not, practicality forced Mia to assume Marco hadn’t chosen to inscribe musical notes between the clan tats on his chest.

  Her heart fluttered at the proof on the screen. Marco Valencia had been Isa’s mate, most likely earmarking him as one of the lost members of the Guardians.

  She wiped at the wetness on her cheek and forged on to the more horrific part of her search.

  Tracing Isa’s wounds in blue and Marco’s in green, she saved images of just the wounds and faded the bodies to translucent components in the background. Superimposing the image of Marco’s body over Isa’s, she confirmed Mason’s theory, as the stab wounds aligned. Marco had died with his body positioned over Isa. Shot first, he had covered her, presumably trying to save her. Two more mates brutally killed together.

  Had Isa knowingly used her mate to make connections for Turen to Xavier?

  Mia saved the files and turned off the screen, no longer able to stand viewing the evidence. She grabbed a pad of paper, her determination recharged. She wrote her directive in large letters on the sheet. Return Turen to his people.

  To free him she would need to break him out, or for Xavier to release him. How in—she ground her teeth and forced logic back to the forefront. Okay, if she didn’t have the skills to do either, then she needed resources. She needed help.

  She tapped the paper with her pencil.

  What she needed was for his people to help her. Again, too far of a leap…but nothing said they had to know they were helping her.

  If she manipulated them, broadcast that he was alive, then they would pursue his release on their own.

  Impossible. She couldn’t just call them all up and schedule. Or could she?

  Opening Marco’s file, she drew a box around the highlight of Isa’s mark and saved the segment to a new file. She cut and pasted the small segment of Isa’s mark to a new file as well.

  With a quick flip through the hard copy of the police report, she found another detail, the email ID Isa had used to coordinate with Marco and the text ID he’d used to contact Xavier’s team.

  Mia didn’t have the skills to hack into accounts. However, someone might still be watching these accounts, not just the police. She would bet Xavier still wanted information. She’d also bet someone on Isa’s team continued to search for what had happened to her.

  So now for the setup.

  Establishing several ghost addresses across various free accounts was easy. Just to be obvious, she used the same moniker as Isa’s email with minor alterations of 1, 2, 3 added to create a dozen similar accounts. That should attract attention.

  So many accounts added necessary layers for anonymity. A tedious process, but Mason had taught her the necessity and the procedure when she had worked with him. He’d been a wealth of knowledge. She even had an anonymous offshore account and corresponding address for the funds. Granted it held very little money, but no one could trace it back to her, thanks again to Mason.

  Now for the plan.

  From the first of her new email accounts, she attached the photo of Isa’s mark with only the comment “interested,” directing the messages to each of the other new accounts and finally to Isa’s actual email. The process created a string of spam-like email.

  If the Guardians were monitoring the account for activity, they would respond. If the police viewed the email they would probably
filter it as spam. Whether they were even monitoring this email account was doubtful. Mason had noted that the police department’s main system had experienced a brief power failure. The outage resulted in the loss of some digital files. Isa’s and Marco’s police report and the M.E.’s files were among those not recovered.

  Fortunately, the M.E. had a backup drive of his cases at home. Mason being a friend of the man had access to find the drive after the M.E.’s death. Mason had secured her copies prior to releasing the drive to the M.E.’s office. He’d tracked down a copy of the preliminary hand-written notes on the case, which had somehow made their way to the DEA and included that in her packet as well. But as far as he was aware, the police didn’t have all their information compiled. With no new leads on the case this wouldn’t be their highest priority.

  For those unfamiliar with Isa’s unique Guardian attributes, like the police and DEA, the emailed files would appear to be bits of nonsense.

  In a second series of text messages from her new email accounts, she attached the picture of the cop’s mark and Isa’s. This was dicey. If Xavier was monitoring the number Marco had used to contact him, or Rasheer, the text would alert him. If he wanted proof of his mate’s murder and he knew of Isa’s death, he would recognize what the coordinating marks meant. Another mate’s death should be of critical interest to him. Her only comment in the message read: “Turen = info. Trade?”

  Messages sent. She sat back and tapped the pad of paper with her finger with an unpleasant thought. What if only one side responded?

  Ready to sign off, she pulled email one more time.

  Three new messages.

  Damn. Lack of response wasn’t a problem.

  ***

  The crowd for the New York Opera’s evening performance mingled in the lobby. Mia sipped her soda and watched the fringes for signs of Turen’s comrades as she waited for her friend Becca and Becca’s husband to return from saying hello to some old friends.

  The Guardians would be here. However, would she be able to pick them out in this crowd? Turen would stand out in a crowd. Perhaps it was too confident to assume his people would also.