by Patti O'Shea
“I’m glad you told him.” He was pissed enough at Kendall’s mother that his voice came out choked. “And this helps us,” Wyatt continued after he had cleared his throat. “Catfish will tell Sullivan what’s up, and we both know once the Big Chill starts asking questions, things happen.”
Bug frowned faintly. “I ran into the colonel on my way here. He blew me off and kept going.”
“It doesn’t matter. The minute Catfish learns we’re missing, he’ll track down Sullivan and sit on him if that’s what it takes to get him to listen.” Wyatt grinned at the picture that jumped into his head. Hunter might be quiet, but he got the job done no matter what. Of course, while it would help if the lieutenant colonel knew about the thieves, it didn’t solve their problem. They couldn’t count on anyone finding them, even if one of the smugglers was arrested and told security about this inner portion of the pyramid.
Bug shifted. Not far, but enough to dislodge his hand, and Wyatt bit back a sigh. Two steps forward, one step back. “We need to go.” Wyatt hesitated, then added, “Our top priority is locating potable water. We can’t last without it for long.”
“Three to four days,” Kendall agreed, tone matter-of-fact. “Wyatt? You don’t think we’ll find our way out that quickly?” Before he could answer, she added, “We have to. I don’t care what we need to do, but we’re getting out and we’re warning the Brodys. I refuse to let those smugglers hurt that baby!” With a fierce glare, Bug swung the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
*** *** ***
Alex paused in front of the home Kendall Thomas lived in and studied it. He found her choice telling. While those assigned here were restricted to houses within a certain zone, there was a wide variety from which to pick. Thomas had opted for something small. Not that she needed anything larger for a single person, but that hadn’t stopped other officers from moving into mansions. McNamara, for example, believed that her rank had entitled her to stay in the so-called royal residence. She hadn’t lasted there long, though, and by the time Ravyn and her husband had returned to J Nine, their home had been available for them.
That was just one grievance on a list of many that he had with the colonel. His latest complaint was how damn long it had taken her to grant permission for a search of Thomas and Montgomery’s quarters. Alex didn’t think he should have to ask for her okay. Shit, he was in charge of security; it was his job to make these decisions. McNamara thought otherwise, and since she had a bird on her shoulder, she got the final word.
He’d already gone through Montgomery’s quarters and found nothing of any particular interest. The kid was reasonably neat, he liked suspense novels, and judging by the pictures scattered around, he was close to his family. Of course, for all Alex knew, Montgomery’s team had already made a visit and sanitized the place. McNamara’s damn delay might have cost him the opportunity to get to the bottom of this mess.
Shaking off his rising irritation, Alex climbed the stairs and reached for the knob. There were no locks in the Old City, so it surprised him that the door wouldn’t open. He tried again, but it remained stubbornly closed. What were the odds Thomas had jammed it on the inside and used another exit?
Slim. He knew it, but the alternative...
After taking a careful look around, he shut his eyes and extended his senses. Alex hated this damn mumbo jumbo, but even though he wanted to, he couldn’t deny the truth. He—the man with nicknames ranging from Colonel Control to Big Chill to that cold bastard—had psychic abilities. It had shocked him as much as anyone when they’d manifested three years ago. Stacey—
With a low snarl, Alex tried to push thoughts of her out of his head. If she wanted to leave, he was damned if he was going to stand in her way. He’d known from the beginning that it wouldn’t last, that at some point she’d walk away just like almost everyone else had in his life. It wasn’t the first time he’d been dumped, so it wasn’t that big a deal, right? Besides, he had a task, one that needed all his focus.
He reached out with his senses again, and this time he read what he hadn’t expected to find. Not really. Thomas had an energy shield surrounding her house.
To the best of his knowledge, only Stacey, Ravyn, Brody and he could erect one of these things, so how the hell had this girl managed it? And how had she known she had the ability? It wasn’t something that the four of them talked about outside their circle. Alex’s interest rose.
This field was an almost foolproof means to keep people out. Unlike locks, which could be picked or broken, no one could get through it who didn’t know how to manipulate the energy of J Nine well beyond what it took to turn on the lights and water. If she were just a bit more skilled, no one at all—not even him—would be able to get around it. Thoughts racing, Alex homed in on the pattern Thomas had used, and lowered the protection.
He stepped inside and brought up the lights. After looking around, he toured the house, wanting to absorb the big picture before he began to explore more thoroughly. It didn’t take long.
The thing that jumped out at him was the overwhelming perfection he saw everywhere he turned. While Montgomery had been neat, Thomas was obsessively so. In Alex’s experience, people this anal never shirked responsibility—exactly what Chief Cantore had said. The last trace of doubt he’d had about whether the two captains had willingly gone AWOL disappeared.
Alex began his search in the bedroom. He expected to spend the majority of his time here, going through clothes and other personal items. But unlike Stacey and his sister, Thomas didn’t have much, just her uniforms and the necessities. He found only three things that showed any hint the girl had a life outside the army.
One was a picture of her with Montgomery. Alex picked up the frame and studied the image more closely. The pose wasn’t remotely romantic, but he could see an intimacy between them nonetheless. It was present in the way they were laughing, as if they shared a joke no one else understood.
The second picture was of a child, apparently Thomas, with a woman. Alex guessed it was her mother, although there was little physical resemblance between them. She looked about seven, maybe eight, in the photo, but her eyes were old. What had Cantore said? Something about Thomas having to assume responsibility at a young age? Alex was making a big assumption from a two-dimensional image, but the mother looked like she needed to be taken care of.
Next to the bed was a book titled The Cultural Histories of Healing. Alex fanned through it, looking for a scrap of paper or something jammed into the volume, but there was nothing there. Some of the pages had been dog-eared, so he skimmed them—and almost bored himself to death. The girl read this for pleasure?
Alex moved on to the bathroom. Everything he found was practical; there wasn’t one item that could be labeled indulgent. Not like Stacey who enjoyed all kinds of lotions and oils. Shit, she’d almost taken over their counter with bottles and jars, and he’d lost count of how many times he’d ended up smelling like some damn flower or another froufrou scent because he’d joined her in the bath. More than once, Alex had intercepted questioning glances, but no one had dared to comment.
The smile disappeared when he remembered that he wouldn’t have to worry about girly perfumes any longer. Stace had taken them when she’d left. Alex rubbed his chest just over his heart, but he’d almost become accustomed to the hollow feeling there.
How many times had he lain awake as a small child, listening to his parents argue and wishing they wouldn’t fight? Then his father had left and the silence was worse than the bickering.
He’d been too young at the time to understand what was going on, but looking back, Alex could clearly see the way his mother had used him as a pawn in some unspoken war with his father. It had just about ripped out Alex’s heart when his mother told him that his dad was gone because he didn’t love them any longer. Nine years later, he’d discovered the truth—that his mother had done everything in her power to prevent his dad from exercising his custody rights. By then, though, the damage had been done.
>
Alex sighed, his hand going still. His mother had been a bitch, there was no question about that, and largely neglectful, but she’d been all he’d had. Until she’d met a rich man who wanted her but not another man’s kid.
Concentrate, he told himself. Standing here thinking about events long past wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and neither was mooning over Stacey. She was done with him—she couldn’t make it any clearer—and he wouldn’t beg. A man had his pride.
He moved to the gathering room, but there were even fewer personal possessions here. The only things that belonged to Thomas were some paperbacks—two anthropology texts, a book about the meaning of gemstones, and a dream dictionary. The latter items gave him pause, but he shrugged. It made her seem more human. Alex looked over the books and scowled. He hated it when people dog-eared corners, and it was apparently a habit of hers, since each of the titles was mutilated.
It wasn’t until he checked the second bedroom that he hit pay dirt. She’d set it up as an office, and there were neat files full of papers. Alex groaned as he perused the first one. Shit, in her spare time she wrote tracts about the possible cultural meanings of artifacts in the Old City. “Thomas, what in the hell do you do for fun?” he muttered.
To Alex’s great relief, the other folders held pictures, copies of e-mail, and her financial paperwork. He scoured those, looking for evidence—money always seemed to be at the root of every crime—but Thomas was frugal, and saved nearly her entire paycheck. Since arriving on J Nine, she’d spent nothing, not a cent. Of course, there was nothing to purchase here.
Closing the folder, he put it back and continued rifling through her possessions. Alex was pretty much resigned to coming up with nothing helpful when he found the computer tucked in a drawer. Carefully pulling it out, he set it on a table, and waited for it to boot up. Another interesting piece of info about Thomas. All officers were given the choice of a computer or a stipend to buy their own. Most opted for the cash. They’d add their own money to it and get something with more bells and whistles. Not this girl. She had the bulky, outmoded, Army-issued model. With a few enhancements.
Thomas was a geek. He recognized the signs of someone who knew far too much about computers—he was a closet geek himself. That was the only thing that enabled him to get past her security. The girl was good—he was better. Alex grinned. She had layers of defense, but he’d been using these things before she’d been born, and he was willing to bet he’d forgotten more about computers than she’d had time to learn. But he found himself enjoying the challenge.
It took him at least twenty minutes to reach her directory. Alex grimaced when he saw the number of files she had. He opened a few, discovered more anthropological data, and groaned. Shit. This was going to be a bitch to go through, and he’d have to page through each document in case something was tacked on at the end or hidden in the middle of unrelated data.
Halfheartedly, he opened another file, found more of the same, and decided he’d have to take the computer with him. The bad thing about that, though, was he’d need to fill out forms and give them to McNamara if he removed anything from her quarters. When he did that, word would leak out, and if Thomas were still alive, this could jeopardize her.
As he started to run through regulations that he might be able to use to circumvent the paperwork involved, Alex continued to open documents. It was the one labeled 523-stc that stopped his thoughts in their tracks. He only had to read a line or two to realize this wasn’t related to anthropology.
He skimmed quickly, not expecting much. It was like a diary, although it was largely focused on her job rather than anything interesting. Might not hurt, though, to read through this when he got home. There was information here on how the department she worked in was run, and that could prove revealing.
Alex started reading when he saw two drawings side by side—sketches of a room that were identical except for one thing. Number two had a circle around an empty spot, but in number one, an artifact was there. He still wasn’t reading as carefully as he could, but now it was because he wanted more info ASAP. A few screens later, he hit the bull’s eye.
Son of a bitch. Thomas had documented a smuggling ring.
He kept going, found his own name, and scowled as he read that she thought he was intimidating. Thomas was certain he’d write off her suspicions if she only had circumstantial evidence, so she was determined to wait until she found conclusive proof because she didn’t want him cutting her off at the knees. Alex muttered a string of obscenities.
The girl had tried to talk to him shortly before she’d disappeared, and he’d bet the bank that Thomas had come up with solid intel for him on the thieves.
He wanted to punch something. If he’d listened to her, she might not have gone missing. Montgomery either. And because Hunter’s death was no doubt tied to the thefts, Alex might already have the man’s killer locked up. He cursed again.
His single-mindedness had jeopardized the lives of those two kids, and if they were dead, he shared the blame.
Chapter Nine
Kendall leaned back against the wall, and stared at the viewer on her digicam, scrolling through the images of gem mosaics. The patterns of the stones reminded her of crop circles with their geometric complexity. Had the people of the Old City experienced the phenomena too, or was it simply a mathematical fluke?
She stopped at one shot that showed a hub of hallways. There were spokes going off in ten different directions with the mosaic covering the only large section of blank wall. The selenite was always arranged in a sort of line when it appeared, and in this image, it was at the seven o’clock position.
Its presence continued to nag at her. It was such a soft stone. All it took was a fingernail across the surface to cause splinters to come off the rock. Why use it?
Okay so this wasn’t the most important thing to think about, but who cared? It beat wondering whether they’d get out of this pyramid alive. And it sure was better than trying to figure out who Zolianna was and what Wyatt felt for her. The more she thought about him with some exotic, beautiful woman, the angrier she became. Was it her fault she’d ended up looking so ordinary? Of course not. Since she didn’t resemble her mother, the blame clearly belonged to her father—whoever he was.
And wasn’t that a laugh? Her mom was a serial monogamist, but she couldn’t remember who had fathered Kendall. Her mother couldn’t even recall the names of the men she’d been involved with in that time frame. There were days it ate at Kendall, moments when she longed to know who he was. She had so many questions. Did she really resemble her dad? Would he like her if they met? Did she have brothers and sisters?
Wyatt knew her parents hadn’t been married, but she had never told him her father was unknown. He came from an all-American family. Parents who’d gotten married before having children, and who were still together after more than thirty years; two older sisters who had also married before producing nieces and nephews for Wyatt to spoil; a real house near Fort Worth, Texas; he’d even grown up with a dog, for God’s sake.
She bet Zolianna knew who her father was. Exotic or not, she’d probably been raised in a family as normal as Wyatt’s. The kind of family Kendall herself had always longed for.
“You okay?” Wyatt asked.
With a sigh, she slipped the digicam in her pocket and turned her head toward him. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I was just thinking about my mom.” And a few other things she wasn’t going to mention.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her, sliding his arm around her shoulders and briefly hugging her. “I’ll do everything in my power to get you out of this alive, I swear.”
“Not just me,” Kendall growled. “You better get yourself out of this alive too, or I’ll hold a seance and kick your butt.”
When he laughed, she dug her knuckles into his side and twisted. “Not funny, Wy. Whatever happens, we’re together. That means either we both make it out, or I fight by your side until it’s over. I won’t run.
”
That sobered him. “If I order you to leave, you’ll get yourself out of here, understand me?”
“No.”
A flush tinged his cheeks. “You’ll obey my orders, or I’ll have you up on charges.”
She smiled sweetly. “Nice try, but it won’t work. First, we’d both have to get out alive for you to file paperwork against me. Second, you’d never press charges; I know that as sure as I know my name. Third, this isn’t an assignment where you were designated mission leader, and I outrank you, so you can’t accuse me of disobeying a lawful order.”
For a moment, Wyatt stared at her, obviously stunned. Then, as the shock cleared, she saw anger take its place. “What the hell do you mean you outrank me? That’s bullsh—” He swallowed the end of the word, but not quite fast enough.
“Nope, it’s true. I made captain almost a full month ahead of you; that means I have rank. Seniority rules,” Kendall told him gleefully, her grin widening. “I’m letting you lead because you have the experience and it’s the smart thing to do, but don’t try to pull rank again. It won’t fly.”
“Letting me?” he snarled. Wyatt went nose-to-nose with her. “I don’t give a fu—damn if you do outrank me, you’ll listen and you’ll follow my orders. Both our lives might depend on it.”
Kendall found herself staring at his lips, remembering how they felt against hers. She wanted to taste him again, to slide her tongue in his mouth and explore. And she wanted him to know he was kissing her, not that Zolianna woman. She began to close the space between them, but as her actions registered, Kendall jerked back, banging her head hard into the stone wall. The curse slipped out before she could stop it.
“Dang it, Bug! What did you do to yourself?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
“Lean forward.”
She started to argue, but at the look on his face, she decided it wasn’t worth the fight. Kendall bent forward.
Wyatt unclipped her barrette and slid his hand into her hair to test the back of her head. She knew he was checking for bumps, but the feel of his fingers against her scalp sent shivers through her body. What was happening to her? He was her friend; she shouldn’t be imagining his hands caressing other places, but still Kendall nearly protested when he lowered his arm.