“I didn’t crack up—” She desperately tried to steer their attention away from Alix and back to herself.
“No one is suggesting such a thing,” the psychiatrist said. “But the fact is you were under a great deal of stress. You were having nightmares. You disagreed with your boss and you were taken off active duty and reassigned.”
Technically all of that was true. Jeremy would use the truth against her, effectively allowing her to engineer her own downfall. Damned if she’d agree with them. In spite of the overwhelming urge to do just that, Xandra ground her jaw shut.
“Part of solving a problem lies in defining it. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”
If the doctor was in Jeremy’s employ, then he knew the techniques of extracting information. But so did she. And yet, with the drugs thrumming through her system, she felt obligated to say something.
The doctor eyed her stoic silence with a frown. “Why don’t we start this way… Would it be fair to say you were good at your job?”
“Fair enough,” Xandra admitted.
“And your job meant a great deal to you.”
She nodded her agreement, afraid to say anything further.
“So when your supervisor reassigned you, you might have taken that hard…”
He let the sentence trail off, leaving room to elaborate and damn herself. She’d taken it hard, indeed.
“I did my best to fulfill the new duties that I’d been assigned.” The words sprang easily from her lips. The drug relaxed her, made her feel warm and safe. Like the doctor was her best buddy and she could confide her deepest secrets safely.
“Those duties included dating vampires?”
Again she nodded mutely.
“And how did that go?”
“Fine,” she ground out.
“But dating vampires ultimately netted no further information for your case.”
“No.”
“Which might have increased your frustration.”
“Yes.” The word slipped out before she could even think about safely admitting it.
“And you argued with your supervisor about it.”
What did she say to that? She wouldn’t put it past Jeremy to have audiotapes of the event, maybe even surveillance. “I questioned the usefulness of the exercise.
“Would it be fair to say that, stripped of your former responsibilities, when the vampire Dante appeared on one of your dates, you might have thought you’d found a kindred spirit who could help you redeem yourself?”
“No!” The word leapt from her mouth. “That’s not how it happened at all!”
“Why don’t you enlighten us?” Jeremy said from his place by the door.
Xandra focused her groggy attention on him. Her system metabolized more of the drug. It raced through her bloodstream. She felt lightheaded. It was difficult to concentrate. Hard to decide what was safe to say. “Dante and I didn’t like each other at all. He is no kindred of mine!”
“But that didn’t stop you from initiating a sexual relationship with him, did it?” the psychiatrist asked quietly.
“No.” She’d said the word before she’d even realized as much. “Not that my personal life is any of your business.”
“But it is,” the doctor insisted. “If we’re going to help you, we need to heal your whole spirit.”
Healing wasn’t on the agenda, Xandra thought bitterly. Extracting information was. She had no illusions about what they’d do with her after. If only she could think past the fatigue and disorientation.
“So tell us,” the psychiatrist urged, “about your relationship with Dante Rodriguez.”
***
Dante entered his house through the back door. No sense using the front and alerting anyone who might be watching his house. He let himself in through the shrub-obscured basement door at the back. The dimness inside was no impediment to him.
He would only be there long enough to collect a few supplies. He had to act quickly and decisively.
Striding through the darkness, Dante swore under his breath. He took the basement stairs two at a time and hurried across the shrouded living room. He kept the heavy drapes closed even at night. Force of habit.
As he crossed the room, his cell phone rang.
He had half a mind to let it ring. Instead, he fumbled it out of his pocket. It rang again. He didn’t recognize the number.
“Rodriguez,” he barked. Whatever it was it better be important.
“It’s Alix,” came a whispered voice.
He froze, trying to place the name and the voice. “Alix.”
“Xandra’s friend,” she supplied.
The bar owner. Xandra’s friend who owned the Goth club. He’d given her his card.
Before he could say anything further, she blurted. “You have to help me!” He heard her take a gulp of air. “Something’s happened to Xandra!”
A pang of worry clenched his gut. Whatever had happened, they probably shouldn’t be discussing it on the phone. “Okay…” He cut her off before she could say anything further. “Can you meet me somewhere?”
“We don’t have time!”
“Your bar. Ten minutes?”
That seemed to mollify her. “Come in the back, off the alley.”
As a vampire liaison officer, it wouldn’t seem strange for him to be visiting the owner of a Goth bar. It was rare for vampires to cause trouble in public places, but still, it happened.
Alix was waiting for him as he eased his motorcycle into the darkened alley behind her club. He scanned the shadows around him. It didn’t appear he’d been followed.
The club owner let him into her office and shut the door. Visibly upset, she demanded, “Tell me I did the right thing by calling you.”
He leaned against her desk and tried to look harmless. “It’s all right, Alix, calm down. Tell me everything that happened.”
“We’re running out of time.” She took a convulsive gulp of air. “They already have her.”
“Who?” he asked. “Who has her?”
She played with the fringe of her sweater, obviously debating how much to tell him. “All right,” she said finally. “You probably don’t know this, but Xandra was a member of a secret agency.”
She let her words sink in, waiting for his reaction.
“What kind of secret agency?”
The bar owner chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know exactly. She never talked that much about her work. Everyone else thought she was a security expert, but I knew the truth. She did a lot of undercover stuff.”
“Okay…” Dante drawled the word out. Alix might know some things it would be difficult even for him to discover. Like where Xandra’s true loyalties lay. “So Xandra worked for a secret agency. Are you sure of this?”
Alix nodded. Heat flushed her cheeks. He could see the red splotches against her pale skin, even in the dim light. Her heartbeat leapt in anxiety, taunting him.
“And are you saying this secret agency—whoever they are—have confined her against her will?”
Another jerky nod. Alix was clearly nervous. He couldn’t tell whether it was his presence or the information she entrusted him with.
“What makes you so sure of this?”
Clearly trembling now, she shuddered. “Because they interrogated me as well.”
“Interrogated?”
“Well, yeah. I mean there were no bright lights or big guys with no necks ready to break my fingers, but they asked me a lot of questions. I—I just got a feeling.”
“A feeling?” He was starting to sound like a parrot, but Xandra’s friend hadn’t seemed to notice.
“Well, yeah. I know it sounds stupid, but I got the feeling they meant her harm. And she hasn’t been home. I’ve called her cell phone, even the emergency number I’m not supposed to have. The receptionist at work said she hadn’t been in. I’m sure she shouldn’t have told me that. I’ve been by her house several times, but no one’s there.”
“But you said she was some kind of undercover
agent. Surely it isn’t unusual for her to be gone for long stretches of time?”
“No,” Alix admitted. She chewed on her lip some more. “Normally, I wouldn’t have thought much about it. Xandra and I both work long hours, but with her boss showing up and asking me all those weird things, and then there were the dreams…”
Dante used his most gentle voice, the one he used on the odd occasion when he was forced by circumstances to lure his prey. When blood was not readily available. “Dreams?” he prompted.
Alix’s eyes shifted from side to side. “I shouldn’t be telling you this—”
“We’re trying to help Xandra,” he pointed out in those dulcet tones. “If you think it’s important, you should tell me.”
“Xandra’s mom was killed when she was a young girl. I don’t know all the details, but she has recurring nightmares about it all. Now she’s gone missing and…I just get the feeling it’s all connected somehow.”
“Okay, I’ll admit this is all a little suspicious…”
“Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered you. But Xandra told me you’re some kind of police officer.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know what else to do. I just have a really bad feeling that something has happened to Xandra. And that we have to do something to help her soon!”
Dante reached out to grasp her hands. The pressure helped to still some of her trembling. If the bar owner knew what had happened between him and Xandra, she’d be less likely to trust him.
A niggling worry nagged at him. He’d assumed Xandra had escaped the countryside by hitching a ride. But what if Jeremy had been driving around on the secluded roads looking for her? What if she hadn’t gone willingly? Memories of the two of them entwined on the futon in his cottage flitted through his mind. He could still conjure the taste of her blood on his tongue. He thought of what they’d been doing together and of the changes it was causing in her. Changes Jeremy might be quite interested in. Information Jeremy might be willing to extract in any way possible. If Jeremy had her, he had to get her back.
He studied the nightclub owner. There might be one particular piece of information Alix might have.
“If Xandra is being held against her will, do you have any idea where?”
Alix shook her head. Pulling one hand from Dante’s she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wait—when they questioned me, they took me to this new building. Not the one where Xandra has her office.”
“Would you be able to find your way back there?”
She considered that for a moment. “Maybe.”
“Okay,” he said, coming to a decision. He’d need special authorization for this particular maneuver. He’d need assistance. There was a protocol for such things. Sensitive vampire cases were handled with discretion, but that latitude only went so far. He’d need to call in every favor owed to him. He sighed. He was about to risk everything.
He turned to the nightclub owner, who was still chewing on her lip and picking apart the fringe on her sweater. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
***
Xandra floated in a dreamy haze. It felt like the entire world was wrapped in one big gauzy white bandage, but she couldn’t seem to muster enough consciousness to break through the gauze and wake up. Her nose itched. She tried to raise a hand to scratch it and found her hands still bound.
That discovery produced enough adrenaline to wake her up somewhat. She struggled to open her eyes.
“Shh! It’s me,” said a voice nearby. A familiar voice. One she knew. She pondered that for a moment. She ought to do what he suggested, she realized and remained mute.
A strong hand slid beneath her head, raising her up. The leather restraints slid away from her bruised wrists. Reflexively she scratched her nose.
“Can you stand?”
Dante’s voice. She jerked in his arms and opened her mouth to speak.
“Shh!” he whispered, his breath warm in her ear. “Whatever you do, Xandra, keep your voice down.”
She nodded to show him she understood. He was dressed like the shadows themselves, all in black, down to the leather gloves he wore. A knapsack was slung over one shoulder. It probably contained some not-so-legal break-and-enter equipment she really didn’t want to know about. She wondered just what he’d had to do to get to her.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said, his mouth mere inches from her ear.
Xandra turned her head in his direction. “There’s a guard on the door.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Dante answered. “He won’t be causing us any trouble.”
He worked quickly on the restraints holding her legs. Bracing her with one arm behind her back and one beneath her knees, he swung her legs over the side of the bed and clasped her to him. Xandra glanced behind her to see the crumpled form of the guard in the black uniform and Kevlar vest lying crumpled on the floor.
She opened her mouth to protest that they wouldn’t get farther than the hall before Jeremy’s forces swooped down on them, but Dante said, “Don’t ask questions, just do as I say, okay?”
Normally, she would have objected fervently to his blatant orders, but her body was weakened from the drugs the doctors had pumped into her system. A fight was out of the question. Calculating the odds between staying in Jeremy’s custody and throwing her luck in with Dante, she chose Dante.
“Do you think you can walk?” Dante asked. She heard the stress in his voice.
“Walk,” she said softly. “Maybe. But running is definitely out of the question.”
“Okay,” Dante pulled her more tightly against his chest. She swung an arm around his neck. “Let’s go.”
He took a step toward the door.
Just then, the unconscious guard’s radio crackled to life. “Agent Dores, report in.”
Chapter Ten
As one they stared at the walkie-talkie with its tiny speaker.
“We don’t have time,” Dante said in her ear.
Xandra shook her head. Even that small movement made her feel sick and dizzy. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, either.”
“Good point.”
Leaning her against the bed for support, he reached for the fallen guard’s walkie-talkie. “Situation quiet here,” he barked, trying to sound like the hired muscle Jeremy used. “Subject is sleeping.”
“Great.” Jeremy’s voice was clearly distinguishable even through the crackling speaker. “From now on, use the code words.”
“Right,” Dante said.
“Wait a minute…” Xandra could hear the suspicion in her boss’s voice. “Who is this?”
Dante yanked his hand off the button. “So much for that idea. I think we just alerted them to us.”
“Sorry.” She should have listened to him when he’d suggested making a run for it. Instead she’d try to buy them some time. And made things worse.
He slid a strong arm beneath her legs and one around her waist and hugged her tightly against him. “Okay, now we’re really going to have to move. You up to this?”
“Guess I’ll have to be.”
She felt his muscles tense to move. “Wait!” she said, spying her cuffs and torque on the table beside the bed. “My cuffs!”
Dante bolted back to the bedside table long enough for her to snatch them up and stuff them into his knapsack. Then he was running fast enough to make her head spin and whoosh the breath from her lungs.
He bolted down the stairwell. Behind them, she heard the clatter of regulation boots against the institutional tile.
Dante wrenched the door open, setting off the alarm. The claxon squealed its outrage as he took the steps three at a time. On the stairs below them, black-outfitted operatives disappeared into other hallways.
“Your people?”
“Yeah,” he grunted and kept moving. “They’ll create a diversion.”
A metal door hit the wall above them as an entire assault team poured into the stairwell. Dante raced down another flight of stairs. Xandra craned h
er neck to glance behind her. A wall of men in black uniforms took up the entire staircase above. Jeremy’s men. Rifle barrels gleamed in the fluorescent lighting.
Dante all but threw her against a wall with a window, out of sight of the team coming down the stairs. He hauled the window open, breaking the lock. Bits of the latch tinkled against the tile. He pushed Xandra through the opening onto a gravel roof. Leaping through the window after her, he snatched her up and raced across the roof to the edge.
“Hold on,” he ordered.
Xandra screamed as he clutched her against him and jumped. She was nearly jarred from his arm as he grasped the drainpipe and began an odd crab-like climb down.
She heard a loud pop. A bullet grazed the brick of the wall beside them. Dante quickened his pace.
Another bullet. Jeremy yelled above them. Brick fragments ricocheted around them. Dante jumped the last few feet to the ground, jarring her again. All she wanted was to find some safe hole to crawl into and sleep until the drug cocktail had worn off.
But Dante was up and running again, carrying her. He tore off down a narrow alleyway. The alley belched them into a back street. He stopped before an unfamiliar black jeep. A rental, she suspected, her investigator’s mind finally engaging. But he’d changed the plates. The license plates on the jeep had expired two years ago, she noted, as he dug in his pockets for the transmitter to start the car and open the doors.
He all but shoved her into the passenger seat and raced around to the driver’s side. Leaving the lights off, he threw the car into gear. It lurched ahead just as a rain of bullets dug up the asphalt behind them.
Dante made a hard right and they plunged down another side street. He jerked the steering wheel to the left. “Fasten your seatbelt,” he said. She fumbled to obey him.
It would take Jeremy a minute to scramble his troops. She risked a glance behind them. The dark street was empty. She wondered about the men who’d come with Dante and hoped they’d gotten out safely.
He roared down another street. His amber eyes slid sideways to glance in the rearview mirror, then he thumbed on the lights. They turned onto yet another street and proceeded at a saner pace.
“Where are we going?”
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