by Em Ashcroft
“Say that again.”
“He’s her father,” Vaughn said.
Shocked, Trinity opened her mouth then closed it with a snap. What could she say? It couldn’t be real. There must be some mistake.
“Explain,” Chris snapped.
“It’s the only thing that fits.” Vaughn had booted up a small laptop and accessed some files in the cloud. He turned the machine around so Chris and Trinity could see them. “I did a shitload of research while I was chasing Driscoll. After he escaped from jail, the authorities called on Wildcats to help.”
“Why?” Chris demanded.
“Because we’re good at what we do,” Vaughn snapped. “Our techie kept sending me data. I took the job alone, but I’ve kept in touch. Click on that first folder. That’s his medical records.”
Chris did as Vaughn told him. He put up the first sheet, and Trinity was faced with a format she knew well. She skimmed down the chart and stopped, fixated by the blood records. “Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah. It’s not a hundred percent.”
“It pretty much is.” She stared at the records and refused to believe what she was looking at. But she had to. “We share a rare blood group.”
“I called the office. The odds are about ten thousand to one that you’re his daughter. Add to that the circumstances of your birth, the way your father was drawn into the mob, and it’s pretty certain. Our techie’s getting hold of a personal item from the cops, so we can test for DNA.”
“Shit.” She was a mob boss’s daughter, a man she’d always feared and hated. A man who had killed the people she would always regard as her family to get to her. She’d slipped away then.
“It was when you said you were adopted that I started thinking properly. It’s not that you have some magical knowledge that will send him back to jail. That didn’t make sense because the police would have used that at the time to add to his sentence. Then I thought it was the job your father was employed to do, but they regained what was stolen. Nothing there. As soon as Driscoll found out where you were, he didn’t wait, but he escaped so he could come get you. He didn’t want to risk losing you again.”
“Shit.”
“In a way being his daughter isn’t important,” Vaughn went on. “It’s that he believes you are. I’m as sure of it as I am of anything.” He picked up his coffee and took a swig before he spoke again. Trinity cradled hers between her hands, taking comfort from its heat and familiarity. “When I came here, I got the intel that told me Trinity was Katrin, which solved one part of the puzzle, why Driscoll had headed down here instead of high-tailing it abroad to some country he could hide out in. And it said why he was a model prisoner working toward early parole but he chose to escape so near to his release. But it didn’t tell me why he wanted Trinity-Katrin so badly. This is the last piece. He wants his little girl back.”
Trinity shuddered. “Why didn’t he just keep me, then?”
“Because of his wife. She was a jealous woman, and if she’d known her husband had an affair, she’d have killed you. Or him.”
“They said I was adopted,” she said numbly. Was her mother her biological mother, or had Driscoll had an affair with someone else?
“We’ll look into the circumstances if you want us to,” Vaughn promised firmly. “But you’re here now and my breedmate. That’s all that matters.”
He was telling her she belonged here, with him and Nathan. Would she have made the same decision if she’d known whose daughter she was? Would she have chosen to stay with these two men?
All her senses screamed yes, but surely they had a right to know who they were linking their lives with? She felt as if she’d lied to them. She’d felt guilty about lying to Nathan, but like Vaughn said, her past had gone. Her life was here, as Trinity.
“Will I have to go back into witness protection?”
Unless that meant the safety of her breedmates, she wouldn’t do it. She’d run far enough. Now was the time to turn and fight. After all, what damage could one man do against a community of shape-shifters?
As if in answer, her phone rang.
“Ah, Dr. Forrest. I wonder, have you seen Dr. Nathan?”
“Hi, Wendy.” She recognized the voice of Nathan’s PA right away. “Not since—” she broke off. What was she supposed to say? They were keeping their liaison secret. But the secret has just disappeared. Their plan was in tatters. She sighed. “Not since this morning when he left for the hospital.”
A significant pause followed. “Yes. So you have not seen him since?”
“No.”
A presence in her head told her the men sitting at her table were listening in. Their gentle nudge asked for permission, which she gladly gave.
“Unfortunate. He has another procedure, but he hasn’t appeared in the OR. He had an emergency procedure, which was touch and go, and we had to bump the routine operation. However, he said he would do it before he left. But he has gone, and his car isn’t in its place.”
Mild alarm sparked in her. “He promised to call before he left. I haven’t seen him.”
The PA sighed. “Oh dear. That’s not like him. I’ll tell the patient we’ve run out of time and we’ll do the procedure in the morning.”
Not wanting to sound the alarm, Trinity thanked her and cut the call.
“Well, that fucked our plan,” Chris said. “You told her you were together.”
Trinity ignored him and met Vaughn’s wide gaze. “I can’t reach him.”
“Neither can I. He’s either out of range, or he’s unconscious.”
“Fuck.” Chris’s softly spoken comment did nothing to break their mutual alarm. “He’s been taken.”
“Kidnapped,” Vaughn said softly. “But he’s not out of range, and he’s not dead.” He turned to face the police captain. “If he was out of range, Trinity and I would have known. We’re newly bonded.” Chris nodded. “He’s not dead because we’d know that, too.”
“He’s bait,” Trinity said. “Driscoll wants me, not Nathan.”
“But if he gets you, he’ll kill Nathan.” Vaughn reached out for her hand. Trinity gripped it tightly. “Do we wait for him to call, or do we go after him?”
“I’ll get on to the office. We need to bug your phones,” Chris said.
“No need. You can listen telepathically as you did just now,” Vaughn answered him. “I vote to go after him now.”
“But we don’t know where to go.” Chris scratched his ear. “Telepathy isn’t directional. We can’t follow the signal. Did Nathan have anything else with him? His phone?”
“It’s worth a try, although I’ll bet Driscoll has disabled or destroyed it by now. He’s not an amateur.” Vaughn waited while Chris called his office and relayed the order, after briefly bringing his deputy up to speed. He hadn’t asked Trinity and Vaughn if they wanted him to do that, but Trinity couldn’t see the harm.
They all knew what this was. Driscoll had captured Nathan somehow, probably drugging him, if the silence from her breedmate was anything to go by.
Trinity’s throat tightened, and tears threatened. She forced them down. They wouldn’t help anybody now, and she’d never been a crier. They had to find Nathan. She couldn’t bear it, didn’t know how she’d cope if they didn’t. If Driscoll took him away from her, she’d kill him with her bare hands.
“How far away is he?” she asked, breaking into the urgent discussion between Chris and Vaughn.
Vaughn shook his head. “If Chris can sense him, then no more than a ten-mile radius of where he is. If we still can, then it’s farther because we’re a bonded trio and our telepathy is deeper and stronger. But I’ve never heard of even bonded telepathy going more than fifty miles around.”
A chill flooded her bones. “That’s an awful lot of miles.”
Chris nodded. “But Driscoll wants you to come. He wants you, Trinity, and he wants you alive. He probably wants your breed partners dead.”
“So I have to persuade him to tell me where he is?”
/>
Vaughn shook his head and reached for her hand as if he, too, needed comfort. “It’s not that easy, honey. He could lure us into a trap and pick us off. He could tempt us away from you and take you while we’re busy.”
She squeezed his hand. “Then we’ll just have to stay together, won’t we?” That meant that they couldn’t leave her home while they went off hunting. “So if I don’t come with you, he could break in here while you’re gone. And in any case, you’d be weakened now that we’re bonded.”
Vaughn growled, a sound of anger from his cat as well as the human side of him. “Something like that. But we can’t follow his instructions blindly.” He turned to Chris. “Do you think he’s alone, or does he have associates?”
Chris nodded. “I think he’s alone. He doesn’t have the old gang with him. He sold them out when he went to jail and gave evidence against them in return for a shorter sentence. Yeah, I know, I get it, but that’s the law for you. So they’ll be coming after him, too, if we don’t clear this up fast.”
“Was he mafia?”
“Kind of. Italians and Irish, so not the classic setup, but by hooking up, they increased their power. Ten years ago they were invincible in the criminal world.”
“What happened?” Trinity asked. “I saw the reports in the papers, but I didn’t dare ask anybody. Most of them were arrested and sent to jail.”
“Probably Driscoll’s evidence was the most important part.” Chris leaned forward. “I made myself familiar with the records and got hold of a few that I wasn’t supposed to see.” Trinity wouldn’t ask him how. She was only glad he had. “When Driscoll squealed, he did it loud and clear. He outlined the methods and where to find the bodies. Literally. In return, he got a sentence for the robbery only.”
“But he killed my family!” Trinity protested. “I saw him!”
“You weren’t there anymore, and the men with him that day got all the blame.” Chris made a sound of disgust. “He was never in the picture for that one.”
Without warning, a picture flashed through her mind. Vaughn’s hand tightened around hers to the point of pain. “Fuck!”
“What?” Chris demanded. “What is it?”
Their shock must have shown on their faces.
Trinity grabbed a paper napkin and a pen, drawing what she’d seen while it was fresh in her memory, leaving Vaughn to explain. “That was from Nathan. He’s drugged, no doubt about it, but he sent that. The man keeping him captive shot him with a dart.”
“Shit,” Chris said disgustedly. “Too cowardly to get close.”
“It’s Driscoll,” Vaughn said, “but we didn’t doubt that. He’s in a room with bars, one high window. Not well kept. The bars are rusty, but they don’t look like they’ll collapse. Not that rusty. You can still see scraps of gray paint. The floor is cracked cement. There’s a low bench on one side. No bed and an old, dusty toilet. White china.”
“Sounds like an old jail.” Chris got out his phone and scrolled through his maps app. “There’s one at the north end of the Goldclaw estate, but that’s a tourist attraction.”
“People want to visit an old jail?”
Chris grunted. “They do it as part of the Western Experience. They can spend the night in a cell if they want to. So not there.”
“He’s not within easy reach,” Vaughn said. “The vision was vague, but his state of consciousness could have something to do with that.”
“Everything.” Chris didn’t look up. “I know this area pretty well, but not that well it seems. I can’t find anything that works. Are you sure it’s an old jail?”
“That’s what it looked like.” He glanced at Trinity, who nodded. She shoved her rough sketch over to him. “Yes, that’s the place. It’s filthy and definitely not used.”
“Okay.” Vaughn got out his own phone. It was a top-of-the-line model, bells and whistles included, Trinity noted as she glanced at the crowded home screen. “Let’s assume Driscoll used some form of GPS to get there.” He hit a speed dial number. “Hey, Reese? Listen.” He outlined the situation in a couple of spare sentences. “So can you track him from the GPS?” He listened. “Oh, you fucking prince, I love you!” Grinning in triumph, he turned to the others. “Reese has been tracking Driscoll’s progress. He’s found the place where he hired a vehicle, near Dallas. Assuming he’s using the same one, Reese can pinpoint his location using the chip in the car.”
“Using perfectly legitimate methods, I assume.”
Vaughn regarded him steadily. “They will be.” Meaning, Trinity assumed, permission would be sought after the event. Not that she cared. If they found Nathan, that was enough for her.
His attention went back to the phone. “Thanks, Reese. You’re a genius, you know that?”
Trinity didn’t hear the reply, but it made Vaughn laugh. “Let us know anything you find out, will you? Thanks again, buddy.” He cut the call and tapped the screen. “This is where the car is.”
“What’s the guarantee Driscoll doesn’t know this and dumped the car?”
“Check on your map.”
Chris nodded and put the coordinates into his own phone. After studying the screen for a minute, he gave a low whistle. “Could this be it?”
He put his phone on the table. Trinity and Vaughn stared at it. “It could be,” Trinity said.
Near where the car was located was a building, identified as The Old Courthouse.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. “This place is around fifty miles away. It’ll take us an hour or so to get there.”
“We’d better get going, then.”
They all got up from the table. To Trinity’s relief, nobody argued when she followed them out to the garage and got in the four-wheel drive with Vaughn. He frowned, and his mouth flattened. “I’d do anything to have you somewhere safe, but right now your safest place is with me. We shouldn’t have bonded when we did.”
That hurt. As Vaughn started the engine and drove out, she said, “Why? Do you regret it?”
He soothed her hurt slightly when he said, “Never. But I guess I’m sorry we did it right now.”
“But without the bonding, we wouldn’t have gotten the image Nathan sent us.”
“But we’d still have the coordinates of Driscoll’s rental car.” He paused as he turned onto the road. He sighed. “Yes. You’re right. We wouldn’t know if we were on a wild goose chase.” He glanced at her. “At least Chris hasn’t called out the helicopters.” If he had, both Vaughn and Trinity felt sure Driscoll would have moved on or killed Nathan before he did. Nathan would be dangerous. No amount of tranq darts would keep him under. Driscoll wouldn’t know what dose was lethal to a shape-shifter or trigger a shift when the man became unable to cope. He’d know that.”
So the arrival of a helicopter overhead would spook Driscoll and he’d kill Nathan. He didn’t care about Nathan. He wanted only Trinity.
So why hadn’t he called?
She had her phone on charge in the car. She wouldn’t resist losing the connection.
A mile out of the town of Goldclaw, finally, her phone rang. She picked it up and linked mentally with Vaughn, only to find him already there. “Hello?”
“You know what I want, baby girl.”
His voice sent a chill through her, but she forced herself to keep her own voice steady. “No.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t worked it out. Katrin, you’re mine. All I want is you. Come to me and your lover can go.”
“Why do you want me?”
His tone softened. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. You have to come to me alone. Then I’ll explain.”
She wouldn’t tell him that she knew, not until they were closer. “You want to kill me.”
“Never!” he swore vehemently. “If I wanted to do that, don’t you think I would have done it by now? You know me, Katrin, and you know what I can do. No half-breed animals could have stopped me. I showed you that. If you don’t come, your lover dies. Simple as that. Do you want proof?”
&
nbsp; “Yes,” she said because that would slow him down. “Prove to me he’s still alive and that you mean what you say.”
“Then you’ll come?”
“Yes.”
Deep inside her head, Vaughn growled. Cut the call, honey. Tell him to call you when he’s ready.
“Call me when you have proof. Don’t hurt him,” she added. She didn’t want to get a finger in the mail. The very thought made her shudder.
“Okay.”
When she’d pressed the end button, she put her head back against the headrest and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“You’ve bought us time, honey,” Vaughn told her. “He’ll keep busy arranging the proof you want. We need to get to him fast. He’s weakening. I can feel it. Whatever that bastard is pumping into him is damaging him. We need to get to him and shift him fast, so he can heal.”
“Why can’t he do that himself?”
“He’s unconscious. I’m locked on him, and I’m giving him what strength I can.” He sounded grim.
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Why can’t I do that?”
Vaughn touched her arm in a gesture of comfort before returning his hand to the wheel. “He’s programmed to protect you. As am I. The breedmate must be cared for above everything else.”
“The biological imperative,” she murmured.
“Or love,” he added softly, but he didn’t elaborate on that.
Still, his words warmed her.
Chapter Nine
Vaughn made it to the Old Court House in just over an hour. It helped that he knew where he was going and he had a great sense of direction. Sure Driscoll didn’t have access to the sophisticated systems that he did, he risked leaving the navigation system on and letting it guide him. Confident in his driving abilities, he took a few shortcuts that paid off.
Chris stuck behind him. Having given orders for reinforcements to follow, he didn’t wait. He headed out, keeping in touch with Vaughn and Trinity telepathically, letting them lead the way.
They had the most to lose, after all.
The time seemed interminable. Vaughn set his teeth, hating to bring Trinity into this but knowing she was safer with him. They still weren’t positive that Driscoll didn’t have colleagues helping him in this, and leaving Trinity alone didn’t sit well with him. And at this distance, the bond between them could be strained and make him lose his edge.