Two Weeks' Notice

Chapter 5

The first words McCallister said to her as she and Mr. French rushed inside the mansion’s big entry hall were “This way.”

“Do you have the information?” Bryn asked, dumping everything but her phone next to the door.

“Yes. Come with me.” He’d taken off his suit jacket and tie, and his pale blue shirt was wrinkled, the first two buttons opened—he looked unexpectedly vulnerable to her, somehow. She was so used to seeing him completely together. As she followed him, he said, “Bryn, you have to expect that this may be—”

“A trap,” she said, well aware of the tension in her voice. “I know. Just help me find her, Pat. I need to find her. Please, don’t tell me the dangers, just…help.”

He said, “I will,” in a soft, flat voice, and closed the door behind her. She hadn’t paid attention to where they were going, but in the sudden rush of stillness, she realized that they were in Patrick’s personal office…a place she’d rarely gone, simply because the door was always shut, whether he was inside or not. It was a warm, book-lined room of dark woods and maroon fabrics, with soft gold light fixtures that lit but didn’t dazzle. The desk was massive and heavily carved, and the chairs matched. It was all very masculine and Victorian, except for the gleaming, ultramodern laptop sitting on the tooled leather desktop.

Pat lifted his gaze to hers and said, “Info’s on the laptop screen. I printed a copy for you to take. But make no mistake, Bryn: I might be willing to accept letting you go alone on Pharmadene’s black flag op, but not on this. No way in hell. So I’m coming, too. I’m not entertaining any arguments. If you tell me no, I’ll just take another car and beat you there.”

“I wasn’t planning on trying to shut you out,” Bryn replied. “I’m scared. I’m scared for Annie.”

“And I’m scared for you. You’re too desperate to find her, and that’s a liability. Slow and careful. That’s how we’re going to find her, and how we’re going to get her back safely, without losing anyone else. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Do you think he ordered her to make that call?” Jonathan Mercer’s moral compass—if he’d ever had one in the first place—had shattered into a million sharp pieces when he’d helped create Returné. What was left was something Bryn didn’t really understand at all. Mercer was capable of anything…of luring them in to be killed, most obviously, but he was utterly unpredictable. He might just be screwing with her to entertain himself. Or to let Annie go…If Annie was still under his control, she’d be a perfect Trojan horse.

Or maybe, just maybe, her sister had somehow won her freedom and needed, desperately, to find safety.

Pat sank down in the desk chair, holding both her hands in his. “I think if Mercer wants to have a chat with you, he’d think using Annie to arrange it was just good business,” he said. “So until we find out differently, we have to assume that he knew she was calling, at the very least. It wouldn’t be safe to do anything else.”

She looked past him at the screen. It had a cell phone number on it, but he quickly crashed her hopes by saying, “The number’s not useful in itself; it’s a throwaway. But I have the cell’s last GPS location. It’s been switched off, but you were right. It was at a marina, right here.” He brought up a map, and pointed. “It’s not exactly the yacht club. The place is a favorite for drug smugglers. If we go, we go in armed and ready.”

“If we go?”

“Mercer—”

“Pat, Mercer didn’t set this up. If he had, he’d have at least had her give the location to feed to me, wouldn’t he?” Even as she said it, it had a hollow ring and she knew it. She wanted to believe that Annie had gotten free of him, that she could be saved. Could be fixed.

And at the same time, she knew that was bullshit, but she couldn’t let it go.

Pat, however, was going to make her do it. “Knowing we could grab the number off your records and get the GPS coordinates? No. He gives you more credit than you give him, Bryn.” He leaned forward, capturing and holding her gaze in his intense stare. “I will not let you throw yourself away on this. We’ll play the game, but we’ll play it safely. You don’t go charging in, are we understood? Say yes and mean it, or I zip-tie you and leave you here while Joe and I go on our own.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You think not?”

She couldn’t actually swear that he wouldn’t. McCallister could be coolly ruthless when he needed to be, and he might think that he did need to be right now, with her. “I could probably get those zip-ties off. I mean, skin and bones do grow back on me.”

A smile shadowed his lips but didn’t show itself plainly. “Probably,” he said. “But it’d slow you down.”

“So does a bag over the head.”

The smile, never really present, disappeared completely. Pat’s grip on her hands tightened, then deliberately loosened. “I will never, never do that to you,” he said. “You believe me?”

She did believe him, and always had—from the moment she’d first seen him on her second birth, she’d somehow believed in his essential goodness. And on impulse, she leaned forward and kissed him—caught him by surprise, for once, and for a second his lips were soft, yielding under hers before pressing forward, parting, meeting hers with equal amounts of need and longing. His tongue stroked gently over her mouth, and there was a buried wildness in her that broke free when she allowed it entrance. His body was tense against hers, and his hands traveled slowly down her sides, curved inward, cupped her hips, and pulled her tighter against him. She had no idea what drew him to her with such constant and consistent force, but it was always there, that buried attraction that required only a moment’s slip of control to surface. It was wildly sexy, but more than the pure attraction of him, there was a kind of beautiful strength to Patrick that she couldn’t begin to define.

Why he wanted her was such a mystery to her, but there was no question in her mind, no question at all, how much she wanted him. She wanted to blot out the world with the red race of pulses and bodies, the damp solace of kisses and sweat and hot, mind-wiping sex. She needed to feel alive, with Pat, now.

But she couldn’t. Because of Annie.

So she sucked in a deep, angry breath and backed away.

McCallister reached for her, but when he saw the look on her face, he let his hands fall back to his knees. He pulled in a deep breath, dropped his head against the cushion of the chair, eyes narrowing. “I still mean it about the zip-ties.” He almost succeeded in making it sound as if nothing had happened between them. Almost. But there was color in his face, and his lips were damp, and she couldn’t stop zeroing in on them.

On the shining focus in his eyes.

“I know,” she said. “And I want to…continue this. But if she’s out there, if Annie’s out there and loose, we need to find her before Mercer can. Please.”

It had been unfair of her to do that to him, but he only nodded and said, “Then we go in five minutes.”

He meant five minutes to tell Liam where they were going, put on body armor (Bryn didn’t need it to survive, but she did admit that not being shot was still preferable), and arm up with what Patrick kept on the premises—almost as complete a selection as Joe Fideli had in his workroom. Patrick and Joe had been friends a long time, and there was no doubt that part of what had built that foundation was how similar their backgrounds were—if they’d served together, they’d never spoken of it, but Bryn wouldn’t have been surprised.

Joe almost certainly provided Patrick’s armory.

It was five minutes on the dot when she met him downstairs. He was holding a shotgun and sliding a handgun into the holster he wore.

“Are you sure that’s enough?” she asked, as she checked her own sidearm. He handed her extra clips for her belt pouch, and after ensuring the magazine was ready and there was a bullet in the chamber, she safetied the weapon and put it away. “Remember who we’re dealing with.”

“I’m well aware,” Pat said. “But your sister’s in the middle of it, and as much as he probably deserves it, we can’t take the risk of killing Mercer. So pick your shots. Joe’s our backup. He’ll have the heavier stuff.”

She hadn’t seen him call Joe, but it didn’t surprise her that he’d managed to fit the call in while her back was turned. As she watched, Pat readied a small bag with more extra clips, shotgun shells, and three sealed preloaded syringes. “You said that Annie didn’t sound so great. She’ll need boosters, if so.”

“Manny’s formula?”

“No,” he said. “Pharmadene standard’s all we can spare. We don’t have enough of Manny’s to use for anyone but you.”

He strapped on his own bulletproof vest with smooth, competent, almost instinctive motions, and Bryn was suddenly struck by the fact that he was the at-risk one in this equation. She could take a bullet. So could Annie. So could Fast Freddy, Mercer’s slimy little thug, equally Revived.

But not Patrick McCallister. He was still alive, and vulnerable. “Pat, you don’t have to do this with me. I can go alone and just check it out. I promise, I won’t do anything stupid.”

He glanced up at her and smiled—a real smile, one that lit up his eyes, crinkled the skin next to his mouth, and made her shiver somewhere deep. “I’m not that fragile,” he said. “Trust me. And I need the practice.”

She sincerely doubted that last part. Pat looked about as comfortable with weapons as anyone she’d ever seen; his movements with them were precise, careful, and had the grace of incredible familiarity. He’d never told her exactly what his military experience had been, but it must have been far, far more intense than her own. And the fact that he’d survived it without too many visible scars told her that he was either seriously good at it or lucky, or both.

It was a very good combination, if so, because right now, she could use some serious luck.

And so could Annie.

Pat was right about the area of the marina.…It was murky, industrial, poorly lit, and in a part of town where the police traveled in numbers if they came at all. As she braked the dark sedan in a spot as far from the wan security lights as possible, another vehicle coasted to a stop beside her—a big pickup truck, in the same basic, lightless black. She knew it by sight: Joe Fideli’s vehicle. It wasn’t a surprise when he stepped out, dressed for battle in dark gray urban camo, with a black watch cap over his shaved head. As Pat had promised, Joe held the heavy arms: an FN P90, or a look-alike. The military had classified it as a PDW, a personal defense weapon, but it was capable of some fearsome offense and was probably highly illegal to carry around in the wild.

That was the weapon she could see, but she had every confidence that Joe had a selection at his fingertips. He was the kind of Boy Scout who came prepared.

Joe leaned against the bed of his truck as she and Pat got out of the sedan. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said. “Going for a midnight sail?”

“Nobody goes for a midnight sail out of this marina unless their passenger is a hundred pounds of coke,” Pat said. “Thanks for coming out.”

Joe shrugged. “You know. Five hundred channels on TV, nothing’s on. What’s the op?”

“Annie called me,” Bryn said. “She may be out here somewhere.”

Joe looked toward the marina and the bobbing shadows of ill-kept boats. His eyebrows rose, just a little. “Somewhere,” he repeated. “So, very specific intel, then. That’s always just so great. We got a plan, or is it just as poorly defined as our objective?”

“It’s loosey-goosey,” Pat said. “But we haven’t got much of a choice. If she is out there, she’s in trouble and she needs help. Joe, I need you to stay put and watch our backs.”

“Right. I’ll be lurking here, by the transformer. Pat, what channel are you on?”

“Three,” Pat said, and reached up to touch a control on his earpiece. “Test.”

“Got ya.”

“I don’t get one?” Bryn asked. The two men exchanged a look.

“You don’t leave my sight,” Pat said. “So you don’t need one.”

“Are you kidding? There must be a hundred boats here. If we stick together, we’ll never get through this in time!”

“Nonnegotiable,” Pat said. “Are you coming?” He was already walking away.

Bryn looked to Joe for some kind of support, but he just shrugged. “He’s the boss tonight. Sorry.”

She had to take long strides to catch up, since Pat didn’t slow, but by the time she reached him, she’d calmed down. He was right, of course. This wasn’t an area where either of them needed to be poking around alone. It wasn’t just the risk of Mercer and Fast Freddy getting the drop on them; there were plenty of paranoid, well-armed gun enthusiasts out here protecting drug-related investments. She didn’t see anyone, but she could sense the danger; the shadows were shifting as the boats rose and fell on the waves, and the constant creaks and groans of wood whited out other telltale noises. It was calm in the bay, but never silent.

Pat said, “We start on the right and work our way left. Don’t board any boats without signaling me first.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. She smelled rotting wood, the low-level stench of the still water, a sharp, foreign tang of oil and metal. She had good night vision, but she saw no one moving.

Certainly no sign of Annie at all.

She tried to redial, but got nothing except a recorded message from a robotic operator telling her that the mobile customer she had dialed was unavailable. The phone was switched off, or (just as likely) tossed overboard.…If Annie had been caught, that would have been the most logical thing to do. And then they would have raised anchor and gotten the hell out of here, not waited around for us. Unless, as Pat assumed, it was a trap. Her gut was telling her that this was bad, and turning worse with every passing moment.

But damn her gut. What it boiled down to was that she could not, under any circumstances, let a chance to get Annie back slip away. Not without a fight.

The docks were as slimy and ill maintained as she’d expected, but Bryn had worn thick, gripping boots, and she had no trouble with her footing as they methodically examined the boats. Most were fast, light craft without a cabin; there were only two moored at the first dock that had any chance of holding Annie in concealment, and Bryn slipped aboard each of them and searched. Empty.

The second dock didn’t hold anything of interest, either, but the third was clustered with larger fishing boats (probably not used for fish, these days; she imagined they were prime smuggling vessels). She and Pat were very quietly debating which to choose when he held up a hand for silence, and turned his head slightly to the side.

She mouthed Joe? and he shook his head, gestured sharply, and headed back toward where they’d parked.

Bryn had an urge to yell, but she was sensible enough to know it was not a good idea, not here. Besides, the speed with which he was moving was telling.

When he was off the dock and onto the dirty gravel beyond, he broke into a full run, and she had to work to keep up with the sprint…but it didn’t last long. Pat skidded to a stop, and drew his sidearm at the same time. Not the shotgun, which was in a canvas holster on his back. He had a steady aim almost before his feet stopped sliding.

Bryn pulled her gun as well, though she had no idea what she’d be aiming for…

…until she saw Joe Fideli, on his knees, hands laced on his bare, bloodied head.

With his P90 pointed at his skull.

Fast Freddy Watson, former embalmer for Fairview Mortuary, stood there with his finger on the trigger. He bared his teeth at Bryn. It was his version of a winning smile, and she supposed if she hadn’t been acquainted with him, it would have had a charming quality to it. He was a good-looking man, but there was something base and rotten behind the candy coating. Something truly awful that the nanites had enabled to be even worse, somehow. Whatever shreds of decency he’d ever had were long, long gone.

“Hello, friends,” he said, and pressed the P90’s blunt barrel to Joe’s head. “Drop ’em if you want Daddy here to see his kids again—”

Bryn let her weapon fall.

It hadn’t hit the ground before Patrick took the shot. No hesitation at all. The bullet hit Freddy in the exact center of his pale forehead. Freddy stumbled back, and his finger spasmed on the trigger once before the gun fell out of his hand to hit the gravel. The round went wild, spanging off the metal of the nearby transformer casing, and disappearing into the night.

Joe pitched forward onto the gravel and rolled. “Jesus Christ, Pat!” he yelped, and got to his feet as he wiped blood from his eyes. “Little warning next time?”

“He’d have killed you the second I disarmed,” Pat said. He sounded steady. He looked steady. “It was the best chance I had to save your life. The odds were bad either way. And since when do you get sucker punched?”

“Since I met you.” Joe bent down and picked up the P90.

He was in the act of putting the sling back over his neck when Annie’s voice said, softly, “Bryn?”

Bryn spun around, reaching blindly for the gun at her side, but that was instinct, and the weapon was still lying on the gravel at her feet. No time to get it, and when she saw her sister, the gun was the last thing on her mind.

Annie was dying. Worse than that. She was dead, dead and rotting and still standing. Bryn froze, unable to move, unable to think. She just stared, drenched in a cold, drowning horror. Annie’s eyes were cloudy, her face gray and wet, her hair in matted, thin clumps. There was something so wrong in the way her skin hung loose over her muscles.

The wind shifted, and the smell of death made Bryn choke.

“Bryn,” Pat said softly. “Don’t move. Stay where you are.”

She didn’t think she could move. There was something gut-deep wrong, seeing her little sister like this—sweet, vibrant, laughing Annie. This was nightmare Annie, bathed in stark moonlight and black shadows. Something no one who loved her should ever, ever see.

“Annie,” Pat said, and came a step closer. “Annie, we can help you. Where’s Mercer?” He didn’t bother to ask Is he here? because Fast Freddy went nowhere without his master. Mercer was here, somewhere. Watching.

She didn’t seem to hear him for a long moment. Bryn knew, with sickening certainty, how slowly Annie’s brain would be processing things—how hard it would be to put together concepts and understand questions. Decomposing like this was like being lost in the dark, fumbling for a doorknob on a door that might not even exist.

“Here,” she finally said. It came out a bare thread of sound. “He’s here.…”

Regardless, Mercer didn’t show himself. Pat continued his slow, steady progress to Annie, and Bryn didn’t understand why he was going so slowly, so carefully…until she saw what Annie was holding in her hand.

It was a grenade.

“Supposed to…” Annie froze up again, then slowly stuttered on. “Drop it. Next to you.”

Pat reached out and squeezed Annie’s hand tightly closed, then took away the grenade. “The pin’s out,” he said.

“Does she have it?”

“Do you want to search her?” Pat asked. “Joe, your throwing arm’s better than mine. Go.”

“Bad idea, man. We’re going to wake up the neighbors.”

“I’m pretty sure shooting Fast Freddy already rang the alarm clock.”

Joe carefully took command of the grenade, and ran to the docks, as far as he could get toward the ocean. Then he shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and threw the explosive out into the water. It hit, sank, and a second later erupted in a geyser of smoke and shrapnel.

Someone from a nearby boat fired on him.

Joe dropped and rolled, bringing up the P90; he returned fire, and Pat joined him, concentrating on the boat where the muzzle flash had appeared.

Bryn dashed past him to take Annie’s arm.

“I was supposed…to…do something.” Annie frowned, or at least that was what Bryn thought she was trying to do. “Drop it. I was supposed to drop it when he was close.”

He. Mercer hadn’t set this up to get Bryn. He’d set it up to kill Pat McCallister. To rob her of her support and leave her alone and vulnerable. Bonus points—he’d almost gotten Joe as well. The grenade probably wouldn’t have killed her, but it would have destroyed them.

“Pat!” Bryn said sharply. “Pat, we need to go, now!” Whatever else Mercer had in his bag of tricks, they didn’t need to stick around for the full show.

Pat nodded and poured a white-hot stream of bullets into the boat, allowing Joe to get to his feet and make it to cover, then zigzag his way back. Other boats were showing activity now; there were people in several of the larger boats, and Bryn was sure they were all armed to the teeth.

Joe made it back and said, “That was fun. Next time, you get to throw the grenade while people shoot at you.” He was panting, and favoring one side; Bryn saw a hole in his flak vest. He’d taken a round, but as soon as she noticed it, he was shaking his head. “I’m okay. The guy got in a lucky first shot, but the vest took the round. I’m just bruised.”

“I need to do something,” Annie said, with that same deliberate pace, and an edge of panic in her voice. “Something…It’s important.…”

“Hush, baby, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” Bryn said. She wanted to hug her sister, but she couldn’t, not when she was…like this. Fragile and rotten and falling to pieces. Dear God, please help us. Help…“We have to get her out of here, Pat!”

“I know,” he said. “Joe. Truck bed.”

Joe nodded and slammed down the gate, then jumped up on the raised surface. He crouched to present a smaller target, but the truth was the gunfire had died down. Whoever was out there couldn’t see the parking lot well, if at all, and they were more interested in taking their boats (and cargo) out of danger. One by one, the engines were starting up, revving noisily.

Pat took Annie by the waist and lifted her straight up. Joe took her in his arms and crab-walked back, laying her down flat once her legs were in. “Bryn,” Joe said. “Better ride with her. Watch out, she may forget where she is and try to get out.” He swung over the side and into the truck through the open window, a move he’d obviously practiced. “Meet you back at your house,” he said to Pat, who nodded. “Watch your ass, man. I mean it.”

“Pat!” Bryn called, as Joe started the engine. “I need the syringes!”

He unhooked the canvas bag from his belt hook and tossed it to her just as Joe put the truck in reverse.

Bryn braced herself against the wheel well and unzipped the case. There were three preloaded shots. She uncapped the first with her teeth as she ripped Annie’s sleeve open one-handed, and then drove the needle home into the graying, slippery flesh. Don’t think about it, she told herself grimly. Annie was watching her with haunting, clouded eyes. She looked afraid. “It’s okay,” she told her sister. “It’ll make you better again. It’s okay, Annie. You’re safe now. We’ve got you.”

“Have to do something,” Annie said again. She shut her eyes. “Have to.”

Bryn dropped the empty syringe and repeated the process with a second, then after a moment added the third shot. It’d make her very sick, most likely, but there was no telling how long Annie had been missing shots. Days, certainly. Or Mercer was giving her haphazard treatments, just enough to keep her ambulatory, trapped in a living hell. It was hard to tell, and Annie certainly couldn’t make much sense right now.

Bryn smoothed the damp, limp hair back from her sister’s face and held on to her as the truck bounced and swerved around corners. The cool night air masked the smell of decomposition, which was a blessing. Bryn turned her face toward the rushing wind and breathed deeply. Annie didn’t move, didn’t speak, but by the time the truck began to slow down and head toward the McCallister estate, she seemed to be looking better. That might have been wishful thinking, but the alternatives were grim. There were, Bryn knew, limits to what the nanites could do, and there was no real proof of how long the drug could continue to do its work. Everything failed, eventually. What if Annie was just unlucky? Developed a sudden resistance to the therapy? What if she just…wore out?

Don’t think that way, Bryn told herself. Face what’s in front of you.

What was in front of her was that she had her sister back. Maybe Returné-addicted, maybe fragile, maybe not the same person she’d been…but back. Surviving.

Annie whimpered a little. The repair process hurt—Bryn knew that. Annie’s nerves were coming back online. That would get worse; as the nervous system was reconnected properly, she would feel as though she were burning alive, at least for a few moments. She knew all the steps, the stages, the pain.

She wished it were possible to spare Annie, but the only way to get through something like this was to keep going. There weren’t any shortcuts.

“It’s okay,” she kept whispering to Annie, holding her trembling hand. “It’ll be okay.”

And then they were parked in front of the McCallister mansion, and Annie opened her eyes and said, “I know. I’m safe with you.”

And Bryn’s heart broke, just a little bit more, because Annie wasn’t safe anywhere anymore. She knew better than anyone that the drugs would have made Annie susceptible to all kinds of orders, made her capable of terrible things that the regular woman never would have considered. Mercer had invoked Protocols on Annie, and there was no telling how much she’d been compromised.

But just for now, at least, she was too weak to do much damage.

For now.

Annie stayed oddly passive as she healed up.

Bryn stayed with her, helped her shakily undress (those clothes would have to be incinerated), and helped her scrub down in the big claw-foot tub in the guest room next to Bryn’s. This one was called the Harvest Room, and it was decorated in muted autumnal colors, with reds and greens and yellows. Soothing and rich, as all the rooms in this ancestral pile of stone were. Annie didn’t even notice. She ran the shower for nearly an hour, until her skin was once again pink and clear and healthy. Her hair was thinner, but that would take time to regrow. At least she’d had plenty to work with in the first place.

Bryn dressed her in a pale pink robe, gown, and slippers, and tucked her into bed before asking Liam for some clear soup. He had it up to them in minutes, as if he had been waiting for the call. Annie didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound, but she obediently spooned up the chicken broth, and her hand trembled only a little.

Her eyes were clear now, but very distant.

“Sweetie?” Bryn said, and took the empty bowl and spoon to put aside. She put a hand on her sister’s forehead. “Hey. Do you feel okay now?”

“Fine,” Annie said. Her voice, like the frozen stare, was dim and far away. “Thanks for coming for me. I was…I was afraid.”

“Of course you were,” Bryn whispered, and smoothed the rich brown curls. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry you got caught up in this. It’s my fault. I should have made you turn around and go home first thing. I should never have let you stay with me, not even for a minute. But I wanted you here. I wanted to feel…alive. You helped me to do that. It was selfish, and I am so sorry.”

Annie’s gaze moved to focus on her, and her sister raised a pale hand to touch Bryn’s face. “Not your fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have fallen for it. But he was so cute.”

She must have meant Fast Freddy. Annalie had been on her way to the airport, headed home, when she’d disappeared; nobody had been able to pinpoint how that had happened, but now Bryn understood. Somewhere along the way, maybe even at the airport, her sister had run into Fast Freddy, and he’d sweet-talked her into a drink before her flight. Or something more intimate; there were hotels you could get to without even leaving the terminal. But instead of getting a free margarita, or a cheerfully sexual good time, Annie had gotten something else entirely.

Because Freddy liked killing women. He was good at it. And Mercer would have allowed that to happen, then administered the shots to bring Annie back, simply because she was someone he could use against Bryn.

Leverage.

I’m not going to cry, Bryn ordered herself fiercely. I can’t. Her sister needed her strength, not her self-pity. She could let that out later, in private, where only the dog could hear and sympathize, but now she had to be the older sister, and hold it together.

“You’re going to be fine now. I promise,” Bryn said. “You’re safe. Freddy’s not coming near you again. Neither of them is.” She swallowed hard. “Annie, I’m sorry to have to do this, but I need you to listen. I’m invoking Condition Sapphire.”

Annie’s gaze snapped to hers, suddenly and intensely unnerving. That wasn’t Annie looking at her. That was the nanites, waiting for a command.

“Cancel all previously invoked Protocols,” Bryn said. “Confirm Condition Sapphire.” These were Pharmadene codes, built for military operations; Mercer had developed them, and he would have used them on Annie. He’d tried to use them on Bryn, before Patrick had helped her find Manny Glickman and develop the blocking agents.

“Confirmed,” Annie’s voice said, but again, it wasn’t Annie’s at all. There was a cool, mechanical tone to it. “Protocols canceled.”

And then the shine in her sister’s eyes faded, and it was just Annie, shivering. Bryn adjusted the blanket around her. “It’s okay,” she told her. “You’re okay now.”

Annie, for the first time, seemed to take an interest in where she was. “This is—where is it? Not your apartment.” She almost laughed, but it was more of a rasping sound. “I’ve been to your apartment. It’s not this fancy.”

“No. I don’t have that place anymore. I gave it up.”

“Why?”

“Well…” Bryn gestured around vaguely. “This was kind of…available. And it’s safer. And nicer.”

“Huh,” Annie said. She blinked. “It’s his house, isn’t it?”

“Patrick’s. Yes.”

“Rich?”

“His family is. I don’t know that he’s personally dripping with it.”

Annie smiled a little. It was newborn and fragile, that expression, but at least it was an attempt. “Wow. Who knew you’d be the one to snag a billionaire? And I was really trying. I read books about it. I was thinking about going on one of those reality shows.”

“He’s not a billionaire,” Bryn insisted, and felt her cheeks heating up. “And you need to rest. Your body’s exhausted from the repairs. I’d give you something to help you sleep, but it doesn’t really work; the nanites burn it off fast.”

“Nanites,” Annie said. “There are times when I think this is all just a crazy drug trip. You know that, don’t you? We’re talking about tiny little machines. In my blood.” She was definitely much better, but she seemed drowsy. Exhausted. Maybe that was a good thing.

“I know it’s crazy.” Bryn kissed her forehead. She smelled like Annie now—clean, scrubbed, flowery as spring. But there was still something wintry in her expression, as if she’d never really let go of the fear again. “Please, try to sleep. I’ll check on you in the morning. I’ll be right next door.”

“Okay.” Annie kissed her when Bryn leaned down, then turned on her side. “Bryn?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Thank you,” Annie whispered, drugged by exhaustion. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

Bryn pulled the heavy tapestry coverlet up and over her, turned out the lamp, and left her bathed in the dim glow of the night-light. She didn’t want to leave her, but Bryn was exhausted herself, and full of a sharp, cutting tangle of emotions. She needed to talk, and she couldn’t with Annie.

She locked Annie’s door from the outside. Just in case. She changed out of her battle gear into a soft pair of pajamas and a thick robe, and then took Annie’s soup bowl and spoon downstairs to Liam.

He was in the kitchen, tidying up—there was never a spot, a crumb, or a thing out of place in this temple of culinary arts. He took the empties from her and rinsed them, then added them to the dishwasher racks. “You look tired,” he said. “I assume that Annie’s all right?”

“Better,” Bryn said. She wouldn’t go so far as to say all right, not without a full hearing of what Annie had been through. “Thanks. She needed something to eat.”

“Quite all right. If she’s hungry later, there are some premade things in the refrigerator you can heat up, or you can ring me.” Liam finished wiping down the sink and folded the rag before putting it in the laundry basket beneath the counter. “Are you in search of cocoa?”

“I could murder one,” she admitted. “Would you mind…? I know you’re probably off duty.”

“I live here, too,” Liam said, and sent her a sharp, kind smile as he got out four cups, cocoa, sugar, milk, and marshmallows. “And I make myself snacks from time to time. I expect we’ll have company as soon as they smell things heating.”

He was right about that. As he mixed and stirred the cocoa in a copper-bottom pot, Pat and Joe came in and took seats at the round kitchen table. Joe had a neatly applied bandage on the side of his head.

“I forgot to ask,” Bryn said. “Joe, how are you?”

“Flesh wound,” he said. “But Fast Freddy got me with a Taser from behind. My own fault. I should have known that little fucker is sneaky.”

She pointed at the bandage. “That’s from a Taser?”

“Nope, that’s from the gratuitous boot to the head after the Taser. Your friend Freddy’s a real piece of work.” Joe popped his jaw and winced. “Should have sawed his damn head off when we had the chance.”

“There were other problems at the time,” Pat said. “How’s Annie?”

“The shots are working. She seems better. Just tired. I’m letting her sleep.” She cleared her throat. “I canceled the Protocols. And just in case, I locked her door.”

He nodded, gaze lingering on her as if he was trying to tell without asking how she was. For her part, she wondered about him. He’d taken an awful risk, dropping Freddy like that with Joe’s life at stake. Even Joe had been rattled, and he didn’t spook easily.

Ice water in his veins. When Patrick had spotted the grenade, he hadn’t hit the deck; he’d calmly, methodically taken it away.

There were times when Bryn would swear Patrick, rather than she, was part machine. He could just…switch things off. She envied that a little.

As he accepted his hot cup of cocoa, he just seemed like a normal guy. His five-o’clock shadow was pronounced, and he looked tired, but not like the same ice-cold professional who’d done the things he’d done tonight. When that switch was off, it was off.

He looked like a man who badly needed human contact, just now. And when he saw her watching him, he smiled. There was warmth in that, and understanding. If we were alone…But they weren’t. All too often, really, they weren’t.

Liam joined them with his own drink. “So,” he said. “I gather tonight was productive? And, from Mr. Fideli’s bandage, eventful?”

“You could say that. Pat almost shot me in the head,” Joe said, with remarkable cheer. “Mmm, good cocoa.”

“Almost doesn’t count,” Pat said. “I told you, he was going to drop you if I didn’t drop him first.”

“Yeah, and I’m still partially deaf in that ear from the round he popped off on the way down. Next time, just give me a signal first, ’kay? I’d like to get a last prayer sent up.”

“I thought working with me, you’d be fully paid up on that account at all times.”

“Point,” Joe said, and toasted him. “You know what would make this so much better? Alcohol.”

“Irish whiskey, coming up,” Liam said, and rose to get it. He came back and poured a shot into each of their cups, including his own. “To surviving. May it happen every day.”

“Every day,” Joe said, and clinked china with Liam. Pat and Bryn echoed him, although Bryn’s had a strong taste of irony to it. Joe sipped, and winced. “Damn, I think I cracked another rib.” He held out the cocoa. “Medic?”

Liam added a second shot.

“Aren’t you driving home?” Bryn asked, and saw Joe and Pat exchange a lightning-fast glance.

“Nah, thought I’d stick here tonight. No sense in waking up Kylie. I already let her know I’d probably be out.” He sounded casual, and if she hadn’t caught the look that had passed between the two men, she would have thought it was legitimate. “Besides, staying here at the Millionaire Home for Wayward Orphans ain’t exactly stressful.”

Something was up. Bryn drained her cocoa, and the warm flush of the alcohol only stayed in her system for a few minutes before it faded, carried off by those industrious little nightmare machines. “I’m going to check on Annie,” she said. “Good night. Thanks for the cocoa, Liam.”

He nodded to her with another of those warm, gentle smiles. “I’m glad you found her safe.”

As she pushed her chair back, Patrick rose as well. He took both their cups to the sink and rinsed them, then put them in the dishwasher. Liam watched him with, Bryn thought, a certain amount of alarm, as if he hated seeing anyone else touching things in his kitchen. Which was probably the case. “I’m off, too,” Pat said, and Joe raised a hand in lazy farewell.

“Usual time for breakfast?” Liam asked.

“I’ll be off early tomorrow. I’ll catch some coffee on the way in the morning. Don’t get up.”

“But it’s the most important meal of the day!” Joe called after him, and then, to Liam, “Listen, if you want to make me breakfast, I’m damn sure going to let you.…”

His voice faded behind her as she followed Patrick through the dimly lit rooms. One of the estate’s many dogs—a greyhound—watched them from the comfort of his bed in the corner of the gorgeous sitting room but didn’t get up; they were all more Liam’s pets than Pat’s or Bryn’s.

She wasn’t planning on catching up with Patrick, but she found herself moving faster nevertheless, and by the time he was at the top of the stairs to the second floor, she was beside him, step for step.

Patrick stopped. “You’re checking on Annie?” His voice was neutral, and she couldn’t read his face at all.

“I should,” she said.

“Good night, then.”

“Yes, good night,” Bryn said, and watched him walk away. He didn’t glance back, just opened his bedroom door and closed it with a firm click. She went to Annie’s room and checked her door: still locked. Bryn turned the key in the lock, slid it open a crack, and peeked inside.

Annie was asleep in a tangled mound of covers and a storm of disordered brown hair. She looked so young this way and so thin that it made Bryn’s heart ache.

But she was breathing steadily, and she looked…alive.

And she was safe. Safe, finally.

Bryn shut the door again, turned the key, and leaned her forehead against the heavy wood. It smelled of lemon polish, a comforting, normal thing, and for a few seconds she didn’t move at all.

Then she pushed away and looked down the hall.

Patrick McCallister was standing in the darkened doorway of his room, looking back at her. His black shirt was unbuttoned halfway, as if he’d stopped in the middle of the task, and he looked deliciously, warmly rumpled. Like someone awakened from a vivid, sensual dream.

“She’s all right,” Bryn said. “Sleeping.”

“I suppose we all should be,” he said again. But he didn’t go in. He just kept watching her.

She walked to her door, passed it, and kept moving toward him.

He stepped back to let her inside, and for the first second they just…looked at each other. Then Bryn reached over, swung the door shut firmly, and said, “You look tired.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She pulled in a deep breath. “And…no. Not particularly. I thought maybe we could…continue what we started earlier tonight. In your office.”

He didn’t speak, but the incendiary look in his eyes answered for him. She reached out and drew her fingers gently down the exposed skin of his chest until she hit cloth and button, and began to undo the rest.

It was as if she’d unlatched a cage, and the tiger leaped out. Her reactions were by no means slow—faster, if anything, with the addition of the helpful nanites—but she wasn’t prepared when he lunged forward and pushed her against the door, then put his hands on either side of her head. He got kissing-close…but their lips didn’t meet. “I want this,” he said, and there was a rich, focused intensity in the words that made her shiver. “I want this very, very badly, Bryn. So don’t start this if you don’t. Just tell me no, and I’ll back off. You can go. And everything can be as it was yesterday.”

It was as much a warning as an invitation, she thought. And there was definitely something different about him now; Patrick was such a careful, controlled man, and seeing him trembling on the edge of letting go was like standing in front of an oncoming hurricane.

It was exhilarating and frightening.

“I need to know something first,” she said. “Don’t you care?”

“Care about what?” He took in a deep breath, as if he was savoring the smell of her skin.

“About me being dead.” There, she’d said it, and it surprised him, but only a little.

And it didn’t drive him away as she’d expected it would.

“You’re not dead, Bryn.”

“I’m not alive, either. I’m…stuck.”

“Oh, you’re alive,” he said. “Your heart beats. Your skin’s warm. You feel things.” For proof of that, he touched a fingertip to the notch of her breastbone and traced the hard outline of it, the hollows around it. “In no way do I think of you as dead.”

“I need a shot to stay this way.”

“And I need to eat and drink and sleep. Even then, every day I come a little closer to the end of my life. And you don’t. Which of us is dying, exactly?”

“You saw me,” she said. “You saw me with a bag over my head. I was dead. How can you—”

He put that single finger over her lips, stilling them. “That’s not what I remember,” he said. “I remember you turning on the water.” She blinked, because that made no sense, no matter how she ran it through her head; her confusion must have shown, because he smiled. “When you woke up in the room at Pharmadene, and I left you there to think about things, what did you do?”

“I—”

“You went to the bathroom and turned on the tap, and put a cup in place to catch the drops. You timed the drops to pulse beats. You made a water clock so you could keep track of the time,” he said. “It was brilliant. You’d been murdered. Revived. I’d just told you I might let you rot. And that’s what you did. You took control of your own existence in the only way you could.”

“I really don’t understand why that’s a turn-on, Patrick.”

“I like women who take control,” he said, and his lips came close again, but didn’t touch. “I also like women who know when to give it up. Do you trust me?”

Did she? Did she really? Suddenly, there were so many sensations and emotions in her body that she couldn’t sort anything out. It was all just…overwhelming.

“Say something,” he said. It came out as a bare, raw whisper.

“Yes,” she said. Just that.

It was more than enough.

He kissed her with so much force behind it, she felt a burning instant of panic, but then the hurricane hit, blowing through her defenses and barriers, and she met him at least halfway. His hands yanked the hem of her knit shirt up and fitted around the bare skin of her waist, and oh, the burning brand of them—she felt as if they’d left scorch marks. She finished loosening his shirt, but he was too busy to strip it away—busy pulling hers up, baring the black satin of her bra cups. She didn’t want to stop touching him, not for an instant, but she had to lift her arms. The soft knit was a cool counterpoint as it slid away, and then his big hands circled her wrists and held her arms pinned above her head as his lips came back to hers. She let out a trembling breath that was lost in the heat of his mouth, and the silky invasion of his tongue as it teased hers.

When he let her arms go again, he did it slowly, sliding his fingers all the way down the smooth, taut skin to her shoulders. As she reached for him again, he put his hands around her waist, pulled her forward, and spun her around with dizzying speed to face the door. She gasped and slapped both hands flat on the surface, about to push off, but he was close against her, heat like a bonfire at her back. Those suddenly gentle fingers traveled up her arms again, and he whispered in her ear, “Now do you trust me?”

In that flickering second, she wasn’t sure. He was so strong, so fast, so…decisive. Like he’d been out there at the marina, facing Fast Freddy and calculating the odds of killing his best friend. Could a person who could do that be trusted, really?

“No,” she said, and felt him go intensely still for a second before she said, “But I want to trust you. So help me.”

He sighed, breath stirring the hair on the back of her neck; it made her shiver in delicious dread. “I’ll work on it,” he promised, and settled a sensual, warm kiss where the gooseflesh had formed. She felt a faint pressure on the bra catch, and then it loosened; the straps slid off her shoulders and down her arms. “Do you want me to stop?”

God, no. A thousand times no, her whole body shrieked in protest at the idea. “Would you? If I said yes?” His fingers stroked down her back, and that was not helping her keep focused on words.

She almost missed the very soft answer. “With a great deal of effort. Of course.”

Bryn pulled in a shaking breath. There was something so…revealing about that answer, on all levels. It spoke to the depths of what he was feeling, and to the man he was.

And more important, she believed him.

She licked her lips and tasted the memory of his kiss. “Do you want me to stay like this?”

“For now.” His whisper this time was dark, deep, and as silky as the touch of his skin on hers. She moved her head to the side as his mouth touched her neck—a lick, and gentle suction, then moving up. She made an inarticulate sound as he sucked her earlobe, teeth clicking on the gold stud earring, and then his warm tongue traced the outer curve of her ear and left her shuddering with bizarre pleasure. She’d never liked that, but somehow, the way he did it…

And then his hands moved up her sides, and he reached under her loosened bra to cup her breasts. When his fingers crossed the aching surface of her nipples, she felt them swell under his touch, every slow caress harder, more demanding, just trembling on the edge of pain but tipping into pleasure.

She wanted him, with a feverish, vivid intensity that shocked her. She hadn’t ever wanted anything so badly. It frightened her, and delighted her at the same time.

He was expert at stripping more than her defenses. Her belt went next, and then her pants. He kept her panties on for the moment, but they were hardly a barrier to the relentless progress of his hands, and as they slid beneath the elastic, she arched against his chest in a silent explosion of pleasure. The contrast of the hard, cool wood against her bared breasts, his heat at her back, those clever hands exploring her boundaries, drove the breath out of her in hot waves. Not quite an orgasm, not yet, but he was toying with her, reading her frequency.

Patrick might be out of control, she thought in a rare lucid moment, but he was also more in control than she could have imagined. He was also deeply aroused; she could feel that in the pressure of his body against hers, and she teased him with hers, encouraging him without words spoken to go farther, deeper, harder.

It seemed to take hours before he finally let her panties slip away. His pants and underwear followed, and she’d almost forgotten how to interpret words when he put his lips to her ear and whispered, “Tell me you want this, Bryn.”

“God,” she said, and rested her cheek against the cooling wood of the door. She was shaking all over, flying apart with need. “Yes. Please. I do.”

He slipped inside her with a sudden, breathtaking thrust, pressing her against the solid surface, and she let out a low cry of pure, animal pleasure.

And then more, and more, and more, until the world shattered around them in a white-hot fury.