“No, of course not. I couldn’t keep him from running into the middle of that wreck, or Morrell from chasing us down.”
“But you were in the car. If not for you, he wouldn’t have been on that road at that time.”
I snorted. “Morrell’s people herded us where they wanted us to go. They probably had several other traps laid in case we didn’t go the right way. Anyhow, whether I was there or not, he’d have gone to help the accident victims and been taken.”
“How is that different from Price?”
Because he’d been here for me and I should have protected him somehow. I wanted to say it, but Mel’s expression wouldn’t let me. She required honesty, and the truth was I was being ridiculous. Because whether he was driving across town or going to the hardware store, Price was going to be arrested. Now that we’d learned the FBI had been watching him since childhood, it clearly had only been a matter of time. I finally nodded when Mel’s gaze continued to skewer me and it dawned on me that we weren’t moving on with a rescue plan until I acknowledged the truth.
“Good,” she said. “Now that that is settled, we have one more thing to get out into the open.” Her gaze gathered in everybody at the table. “Be aware that aside from the possibility of death, the other likely consequences from this mission are that each of you will become fugitives. Your businesses may be forfeited, or at the very least, you won’t be able to return to them without getting arrested. Nor will you be able to freely associate with friends as they may become targets, or they may turn you in. Your lives, in a nutshell, will be turned inside out. If you are unwilling to accept that, you should go now. None of us will think less of you.” She looked at Taylor, Leo, Jamie, and me. Arnow was already committed on account of needing me, and Dalton’s life wouldn’t hardly change, unless he got killed. Something I would be willing to take care of for him.
“I’m in,” Leo said, not skipping a beat.
Jamie nodded. “Me, too.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, guilt pecking at me again. “You could lose everything for a man—”
“Shut up,” Taylor said. “We’re all helping. Get used to it.”
I shook my head. “The Rice Act—”
“Didn’t she tell you to shut up?” Jamie asked.
“But they could—”
“That’s enough,” Mel said with a quenching look at Leo as he threw his balled-up napkin at me. “We’ve all decided, then. Now, there’s a lot to do and little time. We need a plan and to get started implementing it. How are we going to rescue Price from the interrogation center?”
I basked in the warm and fuzzies for a moment, promising my eyes I would poke them out of my head if they let one tear fall. We all started tossing out questions and ideas. The discussion went this way and that as we came up with ideas and discarded them, hashing out the details of what we actually could do.
It was decided that Arnow and Mel would use their FBI credentials to get inside the building before the rest of us broke in.
“Can you get all the way in to where they’re holding Price?” I asked.
“I think so. My clearance should be enough.” She glanced at Arnow, who shrugged.
“Wolfe will be over the moon to have you—not only as a potential witness, but you’re the da Vinci of readers. He’ll be kissing my feet for bringing you in.”
“Once you’re inside, Jamie and I should be able to pinpoint your location. We’ll insert some metal into your shoes to make sure. That will help us find Price quickly,” Leo said. “That is, once you null out the building’s magic-dampening security,” he said to me.
“I’ll need to fetch some nulls from home,” I said, thinking of what I wanted to use.
Taylor scratched out notes on a pad of paper, creating a time line and a list of supplies.
“How do you plan to get inside the building?” Dalton asked. He’d mostly kept quiet up to this point, only offering opinions on the efficacy of various plans. “I can obtain explosives.”
Jamie nodded. “We might need them if we can’t open a hole in the wall. Depends on what it’s made of. Too much concrete and stone and Leo and I won’t be able to do much.”
I’d seen them do pretty miraculous things using their metal talents, not the least of which was helping me build my house out in the abandoned Karnickey Burrows. But I knew from past experiments that creating a hole in a wall was no easy task. Walls didn’t like holes, and they didn’t like alterations. There was a whole lot of physics and science about that that I didn’t bother to try to understand, but the upshot was that having backup explosives was smart.
“We’ll need a way to get up close without being seen,” I said. “A tunnel maybe. Think you two can find one?” I was proud of the way my voice didn’t shake, nor did I vomit up what I’d managed to eat. I had claustrophobia. Being underground was almost a fate worse than death. Yet it always seemed necessary, whether because I had to ride the subway, or because I needed a secret way into an FBI installation. Maybe I should get therapy to get over it. Repeated exposure sure wasn’t helping.
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Jamie said. “We’ve both done a lot of exploring in the area.”
Mel had produced a map and pinpointed the installation on it. I’d been startled.
“I thought that was a research facility for that big seed company—the one in the news last year for developing rice that needs a third of the water.”
“Marchont. That’s the cover. The FBI certainly doesn’t want to advertise itself. For certain considerations, Marchont allows the use of its name and record. Rest assured, however, it is an FBI compound.”
“There are some good possibilities in the area,” Jamie said and pointed out where he thought tunnels were.
“The entrance has to be somewhere that our vehicles won’t get discovered, and that will leave us escape routes off the mountain,” I said.
“I want to be able to land a ’copter up there,” Taylor added. At my glance, she explained. “It’s a faster escape and we can get a lot farther away without anyone tracking us.”
I shook my head. “They’ll hear and see us up there and get suspicious.”
“I’ve got this covered,” Taylor said. “Don’t worry.”
I hesitated and glanced at Mel. She was watching me, waiting for me to decide what I wanted. She’d been doing that since we started planning, I realized. For better or worse, they’d all let me take charge. I thought of Touray. My monkeys, my circus. Dear God, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t good enough for them to count on me. Was I? I took a slow breath and let it out, a heavy weight settling on me. Until recently—until Price had come into my life—I’d mostly worked alone, responsible only for myself. I’d liked it that way because the only one I ever could hurt was myself. Everybody’s got to grow up. Like it or not, Price and Touray had no one else but me to help them. Me and my family and Arnow and Dalton. Together we could do this. We were talented, strong, and smart.
I nodded at Taylor. “We’ll need to camouflage all the vehicles,” I said, my voice turning slightly gruff with emotion.
“We’ll handle that for the wheels,” Leo said. “Have you got the helicopter covered?” he asked Taylor.
“Five by five,” she said, military-speak for perfection.
We kept talking, hashing out as many variables as we could. Jamie and Leo would take the morning to locate a passage for us. Luckily, the entire mountain was riddled with old mine shafts and caves, and they had the ability to increase the size of passages, and even sometimes make new ones, using their metal work. It all depended on the flaws in the rock they were working with, the amount of metal permeating the area, and how much time they had.
In the meantime, Dalton would gather his supplies. Taylor and I would fetch nulls from my place and go to her hangar for a helicopter. Once Jamie and Leo had a
location, they’d send us the coordinates. Mel and Arnow would arrange to see Price.
“You’re sure they’ll let you?” I asked.
“Your mom is a rock star,” Arnow said. “No one would turn down her services. Not even with her connection to Price,” she added, correctly reading my doubt.
“What about our bodyguard teams?” Taylor said in the lull that followed. “Could we use them?”
Dammit. I’d forgotten to call Mason and tell him I was okay.
“More of us won’t be useful,” Dalton said. “Not for a stealth incursion.”
“We’re hardly going to be stealthy,” Taylor argued. “Once Riley sucks the magic out of the place and Leo and Jamie start doing their thing, the FBI will be coming after us. They’re going to have a lot of security personnel.”
“He’s right,” I said, hating to agree with Dalton. “Too many of us driving up into the area might put them on alert. If all goes well, Jamie and Leo will be able to lock the place down and trap everybody where they are. That will limit how many people we’ll run into. Since they ought to be able to disable FBI weaponry, we’ll have the advantage there.”
After a moment, Taylor nodded. “Maybe we can have the bodyguards set up some kind of diversion.”
“How?”
“If the agents at the facility call for reinforcements from Diamond City, we want to delay them as much as possible. Maybe Mason and Pia can come up with a plan.”
“Good idea. Call them,” I said.
Taylor stepped out of the room, while the rest of us continued our discussion. She returned about ten minutes later.
“They’ll take care of it,” she reported.
“What will they do?” asked Jamie.
She shrugged. “They’re working on a plan. They said to tell us all good luck.”
“Did they know anything about Touray?” I asked.
“Nothing more than that Savannah Morrell has him. They’ve been trying to figure out a way to get him back, but it sounds like things are in chaos with both Touray and Price gone. They said—” She broke off.
“What?”
“They said if you want to take the wheel of the organization, they’d back you.”
I goggled. “Me?”
Taylor shrugged. “I guess Touray’s generals are having a pissing match. Pia and Mason figure Morrell or another organization might take a run at Touray’s business at any moment.” She hesitated. “People would die.”
I rubbed a hand over my head. Me? Run a fucking Tyet? The idea would have been belly-busting funny if it hadn’t been about to come true. I’d have said it was my worst nightmare, but even I hadn’t dreamed up something that insane. “Christ.”
“One thing at a time,” Mel said crisply. “First we go after Price. Once we retrieve him, he can step up into his brother’s place.”
She didn’t say what would happen if we didn’t get him back, or if he was in no shape to take on the job. I didn’t let myself wander down that horrific road either. He was going to be fine. Period. Over and out.
IT WAS FOUR IN the morning before Mel chased us all off to sleep. She held me back as the others departed—Jamie, Leo, Arnow, and Dalton out the front door, Taylor up the stairs.
“One more thing,” Mel said, shutting the door for privacy. “First, I want to say how proud of you I am.”
“Me?” I almost squeaked.
She smiled. “You. In the past couple of months you’ve really grown. Matured. You’ve never backed down from trouble, but this time you’re facing it in a way you never have before. Carefully and thoughtfully.”
“I think you just said that I have had a habit of going off half-cocked,” I said, scrunching my nose.
She smiled, giving me a little shrug. “You are smart and have a good heart, but too often you don’t think through your decisions. You also have a habit of doing things on your own. I’m pleased you finally understand you’re not alone, and that this family stands together.”
I swallowed, confessing my fear. “What if something happens to one of you? Because I dragged you into—”
“Stop.” She put a finger over my lips. “Did you put your life on the line for Josh?”
I nodded.
“How would you have felt if you didn’t try and Josh ended up a Sparkle-Dust wraith or dead?”
She didn’t let me answer.
“Nothing could have stopped you. You had to try. All of us do. Because we love one another and we wouldn’t be able to bear letting each other down. If anything happens to one of us, remember that and don’t blame yourself. Each of us are doing this because we want to.”
Emotion knotted in my throat, and I hugged her. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, how much she meant to me, how grateful I was to her for always being there, like a rock under my feet. I couldn’t find the words.
She hugged me back. “I know,” she said against my ear. “I love you, too.”
That’s the nice thing about Mel being a reader. She always knew how I felt.
Chapter 10
I DIDN’T THINK I’d sleep, but I must’ve have passed out almost immediately. For a while I slept heavily. Once the worst of my exhaustion was gone, I started having nightmares of Price reaching out to me, begging for help. I tried to grab hold of him, but I couldn’t. He kept calling my name, and his face broke into pieces like a bad Picasso painting. Then the nightmare started all over.
Taylor woke me. The overhead light made me blink as it came on, and she shook my shoulder.
“Up and at ’em,” she said.
I groaned and sat up. The blankets were knotted around my legs, and I’d knocked the pillows to the floor. My eyelids felt sticky and dry when I tried to blink. My entire body ached.
“Here. This will help,” Taylor said, offering me a cup of coffee. She’d mixed in a healthy dose of cream and sugar.
I sipped, closing my eyes as the nectar of the gods warmed my insides. “I needed that.” I glanced at my curtained windows as the coffee got the blood circulating to my brain. “What time is it?”
Taylor returned, handing me a glass of water and aspirin. “It’s just about three. Just got the coordinates from Jamie. Get dressed, we’ll eat, and then be on our way.”
Urgency zinged through me like an electric charge. My nightmare spun through my head. What had happened to Price in those hours? I must have looked as scared as I felt. Taylor sat down and put her arm around me, saying nothing. Stillness wrapped her in quiet folds. It wasn’t calmness. Everything about her radiated coiled readiness, but overlaid with a shell of steady patience. This is what made her a good pilot, I realized. She kept a cool head. Not always. Not when the love of her life had been brutally kidnapped. Now she was steady as a rock.
I leaned into her, gathering myself, pushing away my fear. The best thing to do was to get moving. I pulled away and got up, heading for the bathroom to pee and wash my face. When I returned, I pulled on my clothes laced on a pair of boots.
On top of the dresser was the gun Touray had given me. I pushed it into my rear waistband. I stashed my phone in my front pocket and turned back to Taylor. She was wearing tactical gear—black pants and a long-sleeved shirt, both with pockets and fittings for optimal movement, storage, and protection. She’d braided her hair tight to her head. Leather boots completed her outfit. All of her clothing looked creased and well-used. Familiar.
I could hardly believe this woman was the same sister who kept a house that could grace the pages of House Beautiful. Ordinarily she dressed in designer clothes and shuddered when a nail broke. How could both sides of her coexist in the same body? I’d have thought she’d explode, like mixing vinegar and baking soda. Or maybe marrying a Hatfield to a McCoy.
“What?” she asked when she caught me staring at her.
�
�I just haven’t seen this side of you,” I said. “We never saw any pictures from your war years, and you don’t talk about it. When you do, you don’t say much.”
She rolled her eyes. “I like nice stuff. And a good mani-pedi. Sue me. Besides, it helps with cultivating the Diamond City upper crust. They don’t want a foul-mouthed, ex-private-military pilot with all the manners of a goat stinking up their excursions. They want class. I give it to them. They don’t care that I can dig around in an engine and fix it; they don’t care that I can do a strafing run at a hundred feet. They want Grace Kelly touring them around in the sky. For that, they pay through the nose. As for the war stories—” She shrugged, a haunted look flickering over her face. “Not much to tell.”
That was a lie, and we both knew it. But if she didn’t want to talk about it, I wasn’t going to push.
“I hate that you’re going to lose your business.”
“I was getting bored, anyway.”
“Right.”
“You’re more important to me than any business. End of discussion.”
Emotion welled up in me. For all that my dad had fucked with my mind, for all that I didn’t know if anything about my childhood was true, one thing was certain: my sister and my adopted family loved me. Far more than was reasonable, even.
I reached out and gripped her hand and let it go. It wasn’t much of a thank-you, but for the moment, it was the best I could do.
We stopped in the dining room to have an early dinner of roast beef, baked potatoes, roasted vegetables, Waldorf salad, and cherry pie. And coffee. I ate like a starving coyote. I didn’t know how long it would be before I got my next meal, and the food was delicious. Mel didn’t join us. When I asked, Taylor explained she’d been taking care of some personal business. I translated that to mean Mel was preparing not to be able to return home. Suddenly the food in my stomach hardened into rock. I pushed back, downing the rest of my cooled coffee and standing.
Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) Page 12