by CJ Snyder
“Great. I’ll send you a map over e-mail.”
E-mails could be traced!
Stop, she warned herself. Mitch wasn’t through.
“You do know you only paid for a session for one, right? Just for yourself.”
Come alone.
“I–I understand. Mitch, I—” Tell me Lizzie’s okay. Let me talk to her. You can have whatever you want, but please. . .. Was he Lizzie’s torturer? Was Max right? No coincidences? Or was this just another scheme of her mother’s?
“Tomorrow at noon,” Mitch repeated.
Kat’s hands were suddenly still, for all that her heart galloped madly in her throat. Find Lizzie. Nothing else mattered. If there was the slightest chance. Kat would not betray her. “I look forward to our meeting.” A soft click sounded in her ear. Kat sank back against the wall, trying to hush sobs that came from nowhere. Max. She had to tell Max.
First she had to calm down. The phone beeped from the floor at her feet.
“If you’d like to make a call. . ..”
Kat pressed her hands to her eyes and tried to concentrate.
Hang up the phone. Amazed, she watched her fingers obey the silent instruction.
Put the phone down. She threw it on the bed.
Walk into the bathroom. Her feet carried her to the door.
Lights on. Cold water.
A stranger stared back at her. Her eyes were feverishly bright and huge, her cheeks flushed hot over pale, pale skin.
You can’t convince Max you can handle this if he thinks you’re hysterical.
She clamped her mouth shut on a giggle. Not good. Maybe she was hysterical. Could she handle this? Alone?
In the mirror, her eyes calmed. The riotous color in her cheeks faded slowly, but it did fade. She was not hysterical. She could handle this. Alone. She would save her daughter–return her to her father.
There wasn’t a man on earth who could stop her.
Kat smiled, cold and hard. She wasn’t surprised when there wasn’t a trace of it in her eyes.
Time to plan. But first, she needed to feed Max.
Chapter Twelve
To see if she could, Kat crushed some of Max’s pain medicine, peeled back the top layer of a corner of the lasagna, peppered the gooey mixture with medicine and gave a plateful to Max. He didn’t complain, but he didn’t eat much either. She’d need to find something stronger to hide the taste tomorrow.
She’d broached the subject while she poked at her own food—taken from the other side of the dish—offering a hypothetical, “What if Mitch calls, Max? What do I tell him?”
“Set up the meeting. Then call Reicher.”
“I could meet with him.” A dark scowl told her exactly what he thought of that. “But you were going to go. Before this,” she trailed a finger along his thumb, down to his splint.
“I’m trained, Kat. You’re not.” He captured her finger between two of his own. “I’m out of it now. Reicher will take over. He’ll know what to do. Let him handle it. I won’t lose you, too.” It wasn’t until he tried to soften his harsh refusal that she knew he meant it. No way in hell he would let her go if he knew. If he knew.
He told her he’d had enough dinner, but watched carefully to make sure she ate, too. After she cleaned up the kitchen, she sat with him and watched a shark special on television until his head drooped back against the sofa. Apparently she’d gotten enough of the pills into him to make him sleep. She eased his head onto her shoulder and then down onto the couch while she slid to the floor and made her way to the computer.
Not much hope of making sense out of his charts and graphs, but there was always a chance. Besides, she needed to time his sleep now, to know how long she’d have tomorrow.
Turning her computer’s speakers off to keep them quiet, she checked her e-mail. All work-related. She sent Pam a message that was basically a duplicate of the one she’d sent the night before: she wouldn’t be in tomorrow. Pam was to hold her messages at the office. Kat would contact her.
With one eye on the alert for new e-mail, she pored over the work Max had done. There were maps, but none with any identifiable roads or landmarks, just numbers she supposed were GPS markers. She had a GPS system in her car, but hadn’t ever had a need to use it. For as long as she’d had the car, she’d driven to the office, downtown, to the airport, and once to Bluff River Falls. Not anywhere she needed a map to find. For a moment, she considered finding the manual and teaching herself about the system tonight, but there were so many maps, and not one of them seemed to pertain to another. If Max had meant what he said about working with her. . .but he hadn’t. That much he’d made obvious tonight.
She cast a quick glance at his sleeping form on the couch, then flipped screens to one of the many graphs he had open. Probability charts. With parameters that looked like Greek. Kat searched for a file of codes, but Max had apparently made it all up as he went along. There was nothing she could use.
One last file listed dozens of initials. The headers at the top were the only things on the page that made any sense.
Primary.
Kill Date. Kat shuddered, then forced her eyes to move on.
Secondary.
Relationship.
Last known location.
She scanned the last column. No one in Colorado. Most weren’t even in the States. Like metal to a magnet, her gaze went back to the first two columns. So many. Secondary. Family members? The thought of Max actually shooting someone was so foreign, so. . .wrong. Were the initials of Lizzie’s abductors on that list?
Helplessly, she looked at the last entry. No initials here, instead it was a name. Blade. Kill date, seven years ago. With another shudder, she flipped back to one of the probability charts. Nothing on these charts she could use. Not without Max’s help.
At nine, bored and so nervous she wanted to crawl out of her skin, she pulled a blanket over Max and slipped off to take a shower. She wiped the mirror down afterwards with a glance at the clock on the bathroom wall. Fifteen minutes had come off of the crawling clock, but the shower had accomplished little else. When she opened the bathroom door, she heard the answering machine in the living room beep.
Vic’s warm, rich voice spilled down the hall. “Hi, love. I’m in town. Are you lonesome tonight?”
The normalcy of his standard opening line brought quick tears to her eyes. Kat raced to pick up the receiver before he continued and woke up Max. “Vic?” She sounded breathless, she knew, but they knew each other well enough that Vic wouldn’t misinterpret.
“Exercising, are we, love? Or did I interrupt a wild, passionate affair?”
Despite her anxiety over Lizzie, and her worry over Max, Kat smiled. Dear Vic. Getting her to smile was something he’d always excelled at. “How are you? Where are you?”
“Denver. Just arrived. Can I see you?”
Kat frowned. She glanced at Max on the couch. He hadn’t moved an inch. Vic couldn’t have picked a worse time, but when she thought of the hours between now and noon tomorrow, there was a very real possibility she might be insane long before the scheduled meeting.
“It’s not a math puzzle, darling. I’ve got meetings from ten on all day tomorrow. You never go to sleep before midnight on week nights anyway, so I thought–“
”I–I know, it’s just–“
”Just what?”
“I’m not sure I can get away.”
“Then I’ll cut through the small-talk, shall I? I’ve got some quirky chap, name of Mitch, who’s called four times.”
Kat fell into her office chair, eyes on the New Messages: 0 indicator on her screen. Mitch was calling Vic?
“He says he’s got information, and I quote, ‘about your ex-wife’s mother.’ I know I should have called you before, but you know the strange folk your mother has liked to pick up through the years and I didn’t want to worry you. He’s an insistent pest, though, and I don’t quite know what to do with him. Any suggestions?”
“No, I–“ Kat lower
ed her voice when Max murmured something unintelligible. “Hold on, just a minute.” She darted for the bedroom door. Once there, she closed it silently behind her. “Exactly what did he say, Vic?”
“Ah, so you do know him. I wondered. What’s he about?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” There was just a moment of silence and then Vic spoke again. “Kat, love, are you all right?”
A lump welled up in her throat at the caring and concern in his voice, making it impossible for her to reply. With a picture of Lizzie, scared and alone, foremost in her mind, the need to confide in someone safe was nearly overwhelming.
“I’m coming over, love.”
“No!” She pressed her hand against the door as though he were right outside and threatening immediate entrance. “I mean. . .it’s just–“ Tears? She sucked in a breath that was nearly a sob and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Things are a little unsettled right now.”
Vic laughed. “Things in your life, Katherine Jannsen? Unsettled?”
Kat smiled again, despite the emotions cluttering her mind. He was right. Before last weekend, the only thing unsettled in her life was her. “Yes, imagine that.”
“I’m sure I can’t, darling. What can I do? Let me take you out for coffee.”
Out for coffee. Vic’s answer to everything wrong with her. They used to walk to the diner down the street. He’d order her coffee, then listen while she talked about Max. In the beginning it had helped, really helped, to tell him, to share moments and memories. Despite the fact she couldn’t ever get over Max, Vic had always, always, eased the pain of living without him.
He had information about Mitch. “Do you know where he is?”
“Who?”
“Mitch, of course.”
“Of course,” Vic repeated, mimicking her. “You know I can’t follow your mind unless I can see your eyes, Kat.” Now he sounded a bit peeved. Completely Victor.
Kat smiled again. He’d always had an uncanny ability to read her thoughts, her moods, but only when he could see her. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Do you know where Mitch is?”
“I have a phone number. Want it?”
“Yes,” she hissed, then remembered the listening ears of the watcher. Max had taken out the cameras and the microphones, but had he checked the phones? She couldn’t remember, didn’t dare take the chance. “Wait!”
Vic sounded amused. “I’m waiting.”
“I–I’ll meet you.”
“Grand! Shall I come fetch you?”
“No. The–our usual place, Vic. Do you remember?”
“Kat, darling, I’ll never forget. When?”
“An hour?”
“One hour. I’ll be waiting, love.”
##
Kat was ten minutes early. True to his word, Vic was already waiting at the rear of the all night diner. He got to his feet as she walked up, brushed aside her outstretched hands and pulled her into his arms, pressing a kiss to her temple. Despite his work as an attorney, she’d always fancied he smelled of an earthier profession. Smoky. Mechanical. Tonight was no different. She rested her head on his shoulder for just a moment. Strong, steady, unflappable Vic. Anxiety over Lizzie, grief for Max, the terrible uncertainty of the past few days converged and she couldn’t stop a sob.
Vic’s arms tightened around her. “What’s wrong, love?”
She wanted nothing more than to dissolve in a puddle and tell him everything. Instead, she straightened, forced on a smile and backed away. “It’s just good to see you.”
Vic didn’t say anything, but he offered her a handkerchief, pulled out a chair for her and turned his back while she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
So proper. So upstanding. Kat wondered all over again what was wrong with her that she couldn’t love this man. Her smile was not quite as forced when he finished hailing the waitress and sat down across from her.
“Taken to running into things head-first, have we?” His eyes were on her forehead.
“Something like that,” she murmured.
The waitress brought steaming hot coffee. Vic picked up her mug. “Are we sweet tonight, or bitter?”
Tears stung her eyes again. It was all so familiar. So safe. Would they be talking about Max tonight, or merely her day at the office? She gave him a grimace that would have to pass for a smile and reached for her mug. “Bitter, I’m afraid.”
“I thought as much.” He relinquished the mug, but not before he’d softly stroked her fingers. “Well, then. Tell good old Uncle Victor all about it.”
She opened her mouth to do just that and heard Max’s voice as clearly as if he spoke in her ear.
You don’t want to do that, baby.
“I—”
Mitch. Get the information about Mitch. Find Lizzie.
Only she couldn’t lie to Vic. She’d never been able to lie to Vic. She took a sip of her coffee, closed her eyes for a moment as the brew burned her throat and let out all her breath in one long exhale. “A-a friend’s c-child was kidnapped.” She gripped her mug and ordered her voice to steady, her eyes to meet Vic’s. “We’re not sure, but we believe Mitch may have something to do with it.”
“But this Mitch character said it involved your mother.”
Kat nodded. “It does. Mitch contacted mom first. He may have nothing to do with the other, but my friend, he thinks it might. He doesn’t believe in—”
“Coincidence?”
Kat froze. How could he know that?
Across the table, Vic laughed and touched his temple with delight. “I still have it, Kat, darling. Admit it!”
Still unnerved, Kat only watched him.
“Have you forgotten, Kat? How well I’ve always read you?” He looked distraught. “I’m sorry, love. But you know those lovely eyes of yours have always betrayed you, don’t you? It’s rare when I don’t know the next word out of your beautiful mouth.” He cleared his throat. “If it upsets you, I shan’t do it again.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and sighed. She always ended up apologizing to Vic. “I had forgotten. Tonight it was just. . .strange.”
“So your friend thinks Mitch might be involved in the child-napping?”
“Yes. And we haven’t been able to locate him.”
Vic’s sweet smile split his face. “I’m delighted I can help.”
“You’ve got his number, you said?”
Vic leaned across the table and kept his voice hushed. “I’ve got more than that.”
Enticed, Kat leaned toward him. “More than his number?”
“I know where he is.”
##
Max twisted restlessly, searching the mists in his mind for Kat. She’d been here, not too long ago, offering a heavenly nectar that tasted like strawberries. If he could find her, he wouldn’t have to go back. He twisted and pain tore through his body.
“Lie still,” she’d said. “Lie still. This will help.”
Strawberries. Strawberries and the faint scent of lilac that meant she was near.
He couldn’t smell her now.
“Kat?” he called as the cold mists swirled deeper and denser.
“Come and get me, Ice,” the darkness hissed back. “Come and finish it.”
“I did. It is finished.” His voice sounded so weak. So unsure. Max swung his arms, trying to clear away the fog.
“Finish it,” the voice taunted. “Or I’ll finish you.”
The mists got darker. Thicker. Swirled until the pain Max felt in his body was swallowed up.
Then vanished, taking Max with it.
The man called Ice melted into the side of a mountain, surveying the small valley below him. A woman, a young latina from the look of her, tended an outdoor fire, stirring a huge iron pot of laundry with a stick. It looked like a scene from a movie, depicting life in the woods one hundred years ago. Ice gripped his state-of-the-art rifle and sited. The woman appeared to be alone. He knew it was just
that. Appearance. She appeared to be pregnant, too. Ice didn’t believe that either, but it didn’t matter. The woman was not his concern. Her lover was.
The mole was responsible for the deaths of half a dozen men from his unit. His brothers. Ice could still see the photographs Viper had laid out on the table. One by one, Blade set them up, watched them die. Men who would have died for him. He’d betrayed them. For money.