Kane slid away and collapsed on the bed. Lena rolled over until she was pressed alongside him. “I’m sorry I almost ruined the night.”
He kissed the top of her head. “It’s all fine. You freaked out a little. It’s to be expected. We probably should have had a talk before.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do it.”
“Let’s just make sure we have a lifetime to find out.” He maneuvered them so he could pull the covers out from under them and slide them both under the soft cotton duvet. He turned and switched off the light by the bed before rolling so they were spooned and his hand rested possessively on her hip.
Lena wiggled back, fitting her ass perfectly into the juncture of his thigh and hip. She would go to jail in the morning. She would likely have to face Oscar shortly after that. She should have been worried. Her mind should have been reeling with the possibilities of failure and what it would mean. None of those things seemed important as Kane’s even breathing lulled her to sleep.
* * * * *
If the agent guarding the hotel room had noticed anything unusual the night before, he gave no indication as he escorted them to where Lena would be incarcerated until her trial in two days.
Lena’s stomach was in shreds, but she kept her head high.
“How are you holding up?” Kane whispered in her ear as they walked down a long gray hall toward the cells.
“I’ve been better,” she admitted.
He took her hand and squeezed. “Hang in there.”
She nodded. When they reached a set of steel doors, Kane had to leave her. He hugged her quickly and turned away. She continued on with an agent and a guard until they came to an empty cell. Neither of them said a word to her when they closed the door.
The guard spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Lock ten.” The electronic lock clicked into place.
Lena sat down on the edge of the cot. She spent the entire day pacing or sitting on the cot. Basically, she waited.
Some hours later, a different guard arrived at the door. “You have a visitor.”
Lena stopped breathing. She nodded and got up from the cot. The guard took her down the same hall she’d come through and brought her to a gray door with a small window that was too high for her to see through.
When he opened the door, he said, “You have fifteen minutes.”
She’d expected to see Oscar. When Kane, Joshua and her grandmother’s smiling faces stared back at her, she rushed forward into the old woman’s waiting arms.
Her grandmother pulled away first and took her hand. The cool, smooth surface of the Stones of Adeline pressed into her palm. Lena closed her hand around her birthright and looked at her grandmother.
She sat down at the table. “Gran, did Kane explain what’s happening here?”
Rose looked toward the door. The guard’s head could be viewed through the window. She sat down and nodded. “You’re going to have to learn something new.”
When Lena was a teen, she had once seen her grandmother manipulate the stones to show a lie. The woman who had come for answers had been widowed and wanted solace. The stones wouldn’t have given the woman her peace. She and her grandmother saw a vision of the widow committing suicide. Gran had shown the woman a vision of a tall, older man walking into a light with smiling faces greeting him. The vision was false. The stones didn’t work that way. But the woman smiled as she left and was still alive.
When she had asked about the trick, Rose had said the stones should only be used in this way if the need was great. She had never talked of the incident again.
“How?” Lena asked.
Rose leaned forward and so did Lena. “See it and push it forward. You’ll have to practice, but your mind is strong. You can do this easily.”
“Won’t he know?”
Her grandmother’s slim shoulders rose and fell. “Diviners only sense magic, the source and the strength. The stones will be the most powerful thing in the room. All he will sense is their power. You are the transmitter, even when the stones read true. He won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“Okay.” She said it with more confidence than she felt.
They spent the rest of the time speaking of nothing important other than the fact that the Flacks were safe and how Joshua had protected them all. By the end, Lena had the impression Gran had a bit of a crush on the young agent. Joshua said nothing. He showed almost no expression, only stood against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and watched everything. It was obvious he felt responsible for her grandmother. She would have to find a way to repay him someday.
The time was nearly up. Lena hugged Rose tightly.
“You’ll do fine,” Rose said. She kissed her cheek.
Kane kissed her full on the mouth and hugged her so tightly, she thought he might never let go. When he did release her, she could see the fear in his eyes. Something she’d not really seen before, even when they were in mortal danger, though she imagined he had a similar look when Banta was in her head.
She turned to Joshua and hugged him. He patted her back tentatively. Kane laughed.
“I owe you,” she said. She broke the hug and looked up into the bewildered face of Kane’s brother.
He smiled at that. “You’ll have plenty of time to make it up to me. A home-cooked meal now and then would do the trick.”
Lena nodded and took a deep breath. Then she turned and knocked on the door. The guard opened it immediately and he returned her to her cell.
When night came, she could only tell because the prison lights went out. She began to practice, as her grandmother had suggested. Over and over, she thought of what she wanted Oscar to see in the vision. Over and over, she failed and the stones showed her different aspects of her own life. She’d never again seen the vision of herself in a body bag. Perhaps they had gone past the moment in time when that would have happened. Maybe she was no longer in mortal danger. She couldn’t be sure without asking the stones directly. She didn’t want to risk knowing the answer and having it alter her actions or distract her from her goals.
She tried to wipe it from her mind and concentrate on her job. After several hours, she lay down and closed her eyes, but every time she dozed off, she would see the faces of Oscar or Banta and come awake again. The block Kane had put up was all but gone.
By morning, she was worn out both physically and mentally. She ate the plate of food that was brought to her. Since she was in protective custody, she was not brought out into the general population of the prison.
She had no idea how much time had passed when a guard came and informed her, she had a visitor.
Oscar was dressed in one of his expensive business suits. One side of his face was badly bruised and swollen. She could see the panic in his eyes. He’d come alone and Oscar Thorn always moved with an entourage.
“How did you get in here? You’re not supposed to be able to see me.” She tried to look and sound surprised, though she’d known he would bribe or blackmail whomever he needed to in order to see her.
He smiled. “You should know by now, Lena, I can do as I please. Money will always win out.”
She sat down at the table and glanced at the window in the door. She saw no sign of the guard. Her heart raced. “What do you want?”
“I heard the old woman came to see you yesterday.”
“You mean my grandmother?”
“Did she bring you the stones?”
“Why should I tell you?”
He leaned forward and his expression showed desperation, anger and pure hate. “I don’t want to kill you, Lena, but I will and then I will hunt down that old bitch and kill her too. When I’m done torturing and killing your only family, I’m going to go after the piece of shit you’ve been whoring yourself out to.”
She leaned back in the chair. “Oscar, you really know how to make a girl want to help you. Such a smooth talker.”
His hand moved so fast she didn’t have time to duck before he’d slapped her a
cross the cheek. The crack of his palm against flesh should have brought the guard in, but when she looked at the window, he was still missing from his post. The slap had pushed her half out of the chair, so she straightened. “What do you want?”
“I have a deal with some very big investors. I’ve promised them the stock price on several companies would plummet and then soar in the next two days. I need to see what John Porter is doing right now. I need to know if he’s going to buy into Cross Lending.”
Lena had always liked John. She knew he was a crook, but he’d always been so nice to her. She didn’t know how he’d gotten on Oscar’s wrong side and she didn’t know if what she was about to do would hurt him or help him. “Cross Lending, aren’t they the three brothers who came to the house and refused to do business with you?”
His grin was made all the more sinister by the distortion the swelling caused. “That’s an added bonus. I get to destroy them and make a boatload of money. I have to have these answers. The people I’m dealing with don’t like it if you give them bad information and it costs them millions of dollars.”
“What are you going to do for me?”
His face reddened. “You little bitch. I’m going to not kill you and all the people you love.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not good enough. You see, Oscar, I don’t think you have the balls anymore to get it done. Gran is protected by an expert and Kane can take care of himself. I don’t really care what you do to me, since you’ve ruined my life already.”
“I could kill you right now and get away with it,” he boasted.
“I doubt that very much. Even you don’t have the juice to kill someone in prison and walk. I know where all the bodies are buried, Oscar. I know everything you did for those two years. Make me a deal that doesn’t include killing me.”
She could hear his teeth grinding as he recalled all the crimes he’d committed in the years they were married. “You know nothing.”
“Back side of the tool shed, under the shrubs. On the property in upstate New York by the old hunting cabin. Two more at the Cambridge house by the rosebushes out in the west garden. Senator Brockman’s wife and the little girl he was involved with. Marianne Collins, the rich widow you blackmailed to give you information about the sale of her dead husband’s company. Shall I go on, or do you get the picture?”
His face paled, making the bruise stand out even more. “How can you know all of that?”
She smiled and shrugged. “I was your wife. I lived in the house. You just assumed I was deaf, blind and stupid.”
“What do you want?”
“Drop the charges against me. Leave me and my family alone.”
“That’s it?”
“Not much to ask for your life, is it?” Her smile felt as fake as it likely looked. She would have given almost anything to jump across the metal table and blacken the other side of his face. She resisted. It would be better to destroy him completely.
“No.” His eyes focused on the wall behind her. She could see his mind spinning.
“Do we have a deal then?”
“Yes.” He looked at the door. “We don’t have much time. Do you have the stones?”
She placed the back of her hand against the cold table and opened her palm to reveal the small group of blue rocks. A cone of light spread out from her hand to the ceiling. Within the light, John Porter sat at a board table. Three other men sat across from him. John stood and shook hands with the older of the men and both were grinning broadly.
The vision changed. A man in a long black coat ran after Oscar. Lena had lost control of the vision. They could only see the back of Oscar’s head. She quickly altered the face of the man so that it was John Porter being pursued. When the gun was fired by the cloaked figure, the vision ended.
Lena closed her hand around the Stones of Adeline. Her heart was in her throat. She had messed it up. She had shown Oscar his own dismal future. She looked up and Oscar was smiling. She let her breath out. He hadn’t noticed the split second where he was in the vision. He only saw John being killed in an alleyway.
Blood coursed through her ears as relief washed over her. She thought she might pass out, but held herself upright in the chair as Oscar rose, still smiling.
“Thank you, Lena.”
She watched him, but didn’t say anything.
“Of course, I can’t keep my side of the bargain.”
“Bastard.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“You really shouldn’t try to manipulate me. I’m much too far out of your league. Don’t bother to tell the authorities about those incidents, they’ll never believe you anyway. You should stick to duping ignorant bounty hunters. Goodbye, Lena.”
She didn’t say anything until he’d knocked on the door and the guard came and let him out. Once he was out of range of her voice, she said, “No, Oscar. You shouldn’t mess with me.”
In order to keep up the pretense, Lena was kept in protective custody and she was led back to her cell.
* * * * *
Kane wanted to get Lena out of that cell, but in reality, it was the safest place for her. He had his own job to do. It took every ounce of his restraint to stay in the shadows and follow Thorn without jumping out and kicking the sadistic bastard’s ass. He did find some satisfaction in seeing the swollen, discolored side of his face. He’d would have liked to do the same to the other side and had to keep reminding himself the plan would hurt the millionaire far more than a good beating ever could.
He also doubted FBI Agent Blake would be too keen on him ruining the plan. There were several teams of agents set up to follow and observe. The entire conversation with Lena had been recorded on both audio and video. The cameras had been cleverly hidden in the visitor’s room and the microphone had been taped to Lena.
Blake and Joshua had needed to physically restrain Kane when Thorn had slapped Lena. Now he just wanted him to pay.
Now he followed in an FBI tech van. He could hear everything that was said in Thorn’s car as well as on the cell phone.
They had his phones tapped. In the car, he called his broker and told him to buy Cross stock. Then he called someone about the deal being in play. The person on the other end of the phone said they were in for ten million.
Kane raised his eyebrows.
Thorn hung up and made a second call to another broker and put the order in for ten million dollars.
They had sent a team down to Savannah to check out John Porter. Porter gave no indication he was involved with Cross Lending or Cross Enterprises. The agent reported the small-time crook was having dinner with a woman who was not his wife, but nothing illegal was going on.
They had been watching him for several hours and found nothing out of the ordinary.
The CEO of Cross Enterprises was in his office. The agents who went to question him came back with the impression a deal had been in play, but both parties had decided to wait a few months to see if the economy would stabilize before jumping into any new ventures. He was asked to keep the information to himself for a few hours and had agreed.
The locations Lena had mentioned in the meeting were already being checked. The one at the house in Boston had produced remains.
When Thorn’s car pulled up in front of his office, the van kept going. It was only a matter of time before he would realize he’d been set up. The FBI would have to move fast.
Kane got out of the van about a block away. He walked back to building where Thorn had his offices. He knew he was being followed before he saw Banta step out of the shadows.
“I thought you were looking for an old lady to kill,” Kane said.
Banta showed his bright white teeth. “Your brother managed to keep that one safe for now.”
“You should get out of town, Troth. Your time here is coming to a close.”
“You know I can’t let you live, Kane. It’s a pity, but you made me look incompetent. I can’t have you running around the streets telling people that you overpowered t
hree of my men.”
“Four, but who’s counting. Telling tales is not really my style.”
“Still, you made me look bad.”
“If you think you can get the better of me in a fair fight, come and try.” Kane’s heart sped up in anticipation of the battle. His palms itched to be wrapped around the mercenary’s throat. He’d hurt Lena. He was on Kane’s list. He bent his knees to lower his center of gravity and prepare for attack.
“I know you’re angry over the girl.”
“You’re right.”
“It was my job,” Banta said. “It wasn’t personal.” He crouched and started to circle. “You should know that.”
“It doesn’t matter. You hurt her. Now I’m going to hurt you.”
Banta’s laugh was short and mocking. “You don’t have the skills to hurt me, Kane. You’re a good hunter and your telepathic talent is impressive. But I’m out of your league.”
“Maybe. I guess we’re going to find out. It’s not as if you’re giving me much choice. You already said you planned to kill me.”
Banta looked behind Kane. It was an old trick. Then he heard Joshua’s mind. Stand down, little brother.
Banta stood upright. The mercenary’s focus had changed. Kane could see fear in his eyes.
“Mind your own business, Josh.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Banta’s eyes shifted from one Lakeland to the other. “I guess this will have to wait for another day.” He smiled and then darted down a side alley.
Kane ran after him. He searched for some sign of the man who’d damaged Lena. For a man of his size, he was fast and agile. In seconds, Kane lost sight of him. He jogged back to where Joshua waited.
“I had it under control.” He wanted to punch his brother in the nose, but he knew Josh would sense the blow and dodge it. It never paid to fight with someone with his brother’s talents.
“He would have killed you.”
“You don’t know that.”
Joshua looked him up and down. “You’ve barely slept in over a week and your mind is focused on a woman. He would have killed you.”
Kane didn’t meet his eyes. Just because his brother was right didn’t mean he had to admit it.
KanesBounty Page 15