Fear No Evil

FIFTEEN

JACK CAME INTO KATE’S ROOM an hour later and Dillon looked up from the reports he was reviewing.

“I think I have him,” Dillon began. “Not his identity, but where he went-”

“I have some news,” Jack interrupted solemnly.

“What happened?”

“The cabin was wired-a magnesium burn. Fast and hot, but what really did the damage was the dry wood and accelerant in the corners.”

“My God.” Dillon shook his head. “Was Lucy there?”

“No, another girl, already dead. Unidentified.”

“And Patrick and Connor, are they on their way back?”

“Back to San Diego.” Jack sighed, showing a rare flash of helplessness. “Connor has some burns, but he’ll be fine. Patrick is in a coma.”

“Patrick?” Dillon couldn’t imagine his little brother immobile. “How long has he been out?”

“Three hours. The feds have arranged for transport to the States. He’s alive, but needs surgery.”

Lucy missing, Patrick in a coma, Connor burned. Dillon glanced at Kate, her face pale. She quickly looked the other way, avoiding eye contact.

“And Trask?”

“They’re no closer than we are.” Jack stared at Kate. “Are they?”

Kate shrugged. “They have good people working for them.”

“Few are as good as you,” Jack said. “I think you know where they are.”

Kate spun around in her chair. “If I knew where that bastard was, I’d be there. Do you think I’m holding out on you? Do you think I would jeopardize another innocent girl’s life? Do you-”

Dillon put up his hand. “Jack, that was uncalled-for.”

“Oh?”

“Do you have a basis for accusing Kate of keeping information from us?”

“Instinct.”

Dillon looked from his brother to Kate and back. He was in a room with two people he didn’t really know. The brother he’d shared the womb with, and a woman he’d just met.

“Jack, give me a minute.”

Jack shrugged, left the room.

“You can’t believe that I-”

Dillon put up his hand. “Kate, you are under intense stress right now. You’re acting like Lucy is your own flesh and blood, and that means a lot to me. You’re doing it because of duty and guilt and revenge-because of Trask-but you’re also compassionate. You feel for my sister, and I won’t forget that.”

He took a step toward her, put his hands on her shoulders while she sat in her chair. She swallowed but didn’t take her eyes from his.

“I also believe you will do anything you think is right to stop Trask from hurting Lucy or anyone else. Even if that means lying. To me, to anyone.

“Don’t lie to me, Kate. I’m on your side. We are on the same side. Together we’ll find Lucy. Don’t play the maverick.”

“I’m not,” she said, her voice cracking.

Dillon ached for Kate, but not half as much as he hurt for what Lucy had already endured. What Lucy would suffer in twenty-four hours if they couldn’t locate Trask’s island.

“Trust me, Kate.”

Her blue eyes searched his, full of agony and conflict. Any other time, Dillon would work on her, using his special talent to get her to open up. He wanted to, but he didn’t have the time or energy to worry about Kate’s mental health until after they rescued Lucy. He only needed her to trust him.

Kate diverted her eyes and Dillon suspected that she wanted to tell him something. Instead she said, “Before the colonel came in, you said you found something.”

“Colonel?”

“Your brother. Jack.”

“He’s a colonel? How do you know?”

“The pin on his jacket.”

Dillon had missed it, or if he had seen the pin, it hadn’t registered that Jack had the same rank their father had had when he’d retired.

“Trask?” Kate prompted.

Though he felt like he was being manipulated away from a conversation he needed to have with Kate, his discovery was important.

He showed Kate the files he’d been working with. “Roger Morton’s classmates. I pulled all students in his class, the year before, and the year after. Since Roger and Trask have been together for a long time, and since Roger didn’t attend college, I suspect they were in high school together. Stonebridge Academy is an elite boarding school for the rich and privileged.”

“Logical, but that’s a long way to look back.”

“Not that long. Roger graduated high school in 1989. Eighteen years ago. A few years later, Trask Enterprises formed and a twenty-three-year-old was at its helm. No college education. The FBI couldn’t find a prison or military record on him. Where was he for those five years? Apparently from these files doing absolutely nothing and living at home in Massachusetts. He wouldn’t have had to work; his family is worth tens of millions.”

“So why even start working at Trask Enterprises?” Kate said, beginning to follow Dillon’s line of reasoning.

“Exactly. And who would hire someone with no practical experience to manage a business?”

“Nepotism. Friendship.”

“Right. Roger’s parents are in shipping, old established business. He could have worked for that company, but no. He did nothing until Trask opened up.”

“I guess your theory makes sense, but Roger could have met virtually anyone in those circles. His father could have called in favor after favor to get him a position.”

“Nowhere in these files is there any record of the FBI interviewing Roger’s father except for one notation that an agent went out after Paige Henshaw was killed, and Roger’s father told this agent he’d disowned his son when he started the online pornography business. He also said he didn’t know who Trask was.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “But they didn’t ask the right questions.”

“Namely, who were Roger’s close friends during high school?”

“Makes sense.” The brief excitement on Kate’s face disappeared. “But it does us no good now! We can’t get to Massachusetts and interview the man. We don’t have the time.”

“But Peterson has the contacts. He can get someone out there first thing in the morning.” Dillon picked up a piece of paper where he’d handwritten fifty-six names. “And ask the father if any of these boys were close to his son. Trask’s real identity is unknown to us, therefore he is probably using it to run a legitimate business or any number of things.”

“And if we can get a photograph…” Kate’s voice trailed off. She was the only person alive who had seen Trask in person.

“I’m going to call Quinn Peterson, okay?” Dillon held up his cell phone. The call could be traced, which was why Kate had only used her double-blind IM account to communicate with Peterson.

She nodded slowly, understanding that if Quinn wanted to, he could turn over the records and the feds could burst in and arrest her.

“I trust him,” she said.

Dillon left the room since the cell phone couldn’t pick up a reception inside. The night was cold and he pulled his jacket around him. He walked to the vista where he and Jack had spoken earlier. He didn’t know where his brother had since gone.

The reception was mediocre. “Kincaid?” Peterson said, white noise distorting his voice. “I’m on a military transport with Patrick.”

“How is he?”

“Alive.”

“Has he regained consciousness?”

“No.”

Four hours now. That wasn’t good. “Thanks for getting him out of there fast.”

“I didn’t expect you to call.”

Dillon explained to him what he’d found in the files and about interviewing Roger Morton’s father about associates in high school.

Peterson didn’t say anything, but the crackle on the other end assured Dillon that he was still on the phone. “It’s a good lead,” Peterson finally said. “And we have nothing else. I have some men out at the island where the cabin exploded, looking for evidence, but everything was pretty much destroyed. Magnesium burns hot.

“Connor said Trask had to have been watching to know when to call the cell phone. That there was a camera across from the door.

“I’m sure it’s melted, but we have the best people looking at radio and Internet feeds. Time is not on our side.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Dillon said.

“I’ll send an agent out to Morton’s house first thing in the morning. E-mail me the list of names and I’ll get them out there.”

Dillon hung up and heard a voice behind him. “Feds know anything?”

Jack. Dillon turned around. “Patrick hasn’t regained consciousness. They’re heading back to San Diego for surgery.”

“I know. My team is on its way back to Hidalgo.”

“And you?”

Jack’s dark eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I’m in it till the end.”

Dillon raised an eyebrow. “I guess I just don’t know what to expect of you.”

Dillon’s brother stared into nothingness. “I suppose I deserve that.” He turned back to Dillon, a tic in his neck showing that he was angry. “I’m a lot of things, Dillon. But more than anything, I’m a man of my word.”

Jack walked off into the darkness.

Mick had hoped Roger would forget or change his mind. He’d been physically ill since Roger had told him he would be next up with Lucy Kincaid.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even get hard. Thinking about hurting her had him so twisted in knots he doubted he’d ever get it up again. He was perspiring and wondered if he’d eaten something bad.

Or maybe it was fear eating at him. He was about to do something that would get him killed. Get Lucy killed as well. But he didn’t see that he had a choice.

He’d used his homemade sextant at sunrise and sunset to figure out the longitude and latitude of the island. But if he was off by a fraction of a degree, he could send Kate Donovan miles in the wrong direction.

Did he trust his skills? He had to. He didn’t have much choice at this point. He’d been trying to figure out a way to get Lucy off the island, but she was never unwatched. Denise, Trask, or Roger watched her at all times through the numerous cameras on the island. He was being watched, too. He’d had to be extremely careful, and he feared that between his caution and fear of exposure his coordinates were off.

But he had to do something until he found a hole big enough to rescue Lucy.

He had no way of contacting Merritt without Roger or Trask seeing the transmission. If they caught him, they’d kill him and Lucy before the FBI could make it to the island.

The only thing he had was knowledge. Knowledge that Trask had an open line on Kate Donovan. Though Mick didn’t know why, Trask had been watching Kate closely, watching her every cyber move. If Mick could piggyback the transmission on the open channel, Trask wouldn’t notice. Probably wouldn’t notice.

If he did figure it out, Mick would be dead. But Mick was already staring at his death warrant. He didn’t see any way out of this operation alive.

Mick used an old FBI training code from his Academy days. It meant nothing except to other graduates. A joke. Kate would get it.

Mick had never met Kate, but he knew of her. Everyone did. She was almost a legend. His boss hated her, but Mick liked her. You had to like someone who went balls to the wall when they believed in something.

She’d be able to decipher the coded message, and then hopefully recognize the numbers as time and degrees of sunrise and sunset. Then all she had to do was look up the data on the Internet to get the exact longitude and latitude.

She was smart. She had to understand. He just hoped she was smart enough not to come alone. She had to know that Trask wanted to kill her. Torture her first. Trask hated her. Whenever he spoke of Kate it was with a sick, twisted anger that showed in every molecule of his body, down to his black soul.

It would be brutal, worse than anything he’d done to those other women. Worse than anything she could possibly imagine.

The transmission had just gone through when the door opened.

“You’re on, lucky boy,” Roger said, slapping Mick on the back. “Watcha doing?”

It was innocuous in tone, but Mick didn’t trust Roger.

“See this?” Mick pointed to a camera that was flickering. Mick had programmed it to flicker.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t know. I need to go out and check the wires.”

“It’s just a flicker. Come on. The show must go on.”

Mick followed Roger, wiping sweat off his brow.

As soon as Dillon walked out to call Quinn Peterson, Kate went to the time stamp that Trask had told her would lead directly to his location.

Too easy. Right there was the primary satellite information. She traced the satellite and found the computer that was bouncing the webcam to it. Northeast of Seattle, Washington, near Mount Baker.

It took her a little time, and she kept looking at the door waiting for Dillon to walk back in. But after hacking into every ISP in that area, she found him.

Thirty minutes, but still it seemed too easy. He’d had to point her to the time stamp. Why hadn’t her computer picked up on it? Had she messed up her program somehow? Had Trask planted the data and had her program ignored it because it wasn’t a live feed?

She rubbed her head. This was more than she’d had before. And Trask had contacted her. Why would he send her on a wild-goose chase? The FBI, yes-he didn’t want them around. But he wanted her. She’d known it since that night five years ago, and she knew it now.

She had the exact coordinates of the webcam that sent up the signal. That’s where Lucy was. Dillon and Jack were off somewhere. She hoped they were sleeping, but doubted it. Lucy’s screen had been quiet, and Kate packed her bag. Guns. Ammo. Emergency supplies. Check. Key to the plane. Check. Her codes and another laptop and a handheld. Her backup laptop wasn’t as fast as the one she’d given to Patrick, but it was all she had left.

She hated leaving Dillon. She wanted to trust him. She wanted to trust someone. But bringing him along would most certainly get both him and Lucy killed. There was no way Dillon would allow her to intentionally sacrifice herself for Lucy.

Kate didn’t see any other way to save her. If Trask even suspected that Kate was bringing in anyone, he’d kill Lucy. Without remorse, without hesitation.

Though she knew she could die, accepted it as part of her job, Kate didn’t want to die. She’d worry about that when Lucy was free.

Movement on the screen. A man came into view. He looked familiar.

No. Not another rape.

She frantically typed on her computer.

I’m coming, you bastard! Don’t touch her. You touch her and I’ll send the fucking military to your location!

Nothing. He wasn’t there. Damn him!

Lucy cried out, her voice vibrating in the small room. Kate muted the sound and prayed that Dillon wasn’t on the other side of the door, that he hadn’t heard his sister’s pleas.

Something odd came over her computer terminal. At first she thought it was Trask responding. She stared at the series of numbers and letters. It looked familiar. Why?

She glanced up at the screen. That man with Lucy. He was familiar. Why? Was he a fed? She couldn’t name him, but she’d seen him before, a long time ago.

She looked back at the code on her screen and it came to her instantly. The FBI training academy. A test code in one of their textbooks.

She wrote down the numbers and letters, then translated the code from memory. It was a simple code, something all trainees used to pass messages and have fun. It helped them see the patterns behind words and actions, not just learn to decode.

What did these numbers mean? They looked like degrees. Degrees of what? Or time. Military time. Wait. Both. The code had been backward, and now she saw that the numbers were definitely time of sunrise, noon, and sunset and degrees, which would be the degrees of the sun over the hemisphere.

But she didn’t know what they meant-if Lucy was south of the equator, the numbers meant one location. If she was north, they meant something completely different.

She typed frantically in her computer, searching for an online nautical map that would give her the longitude and latitude that corresponded to these times and degrees.

If in the south, she was in the middle of the ocean. If in the north… eighty miles from the location Trask had given her. Same latitude, different longitude. Was it her mistake?

She recalculated the data Trask had sent her and the mystery data. No, she knew this stuff. And her numbers were right. That meant that Trask was either messing with her, or he was deliberately sending her eighty miles away.

Why? To keep her away from Lucy. In case she brought in the feds. Once he had determined that she was alone, he’d bring her to Lucy.

He wanted Kate to watch her die. He’d get a sick, twisted pleasure in that.

Movement on the screen distracted her. She watched as the man on-screen climbed on top of Lucy. She typed frantically into the feed she’d locked onto with Trask.

Get that man off Lucy now and I’ll be there as soon as possible.

Nothing.

Dammit you fucking bastard! Don’t do this!

Nothing.

She kicked the desk. Who was she to be giving orders? Trask held all the cards. He knew where she was, but she didn’t know exactly where he was. Which feed was right? What Trask sent, or this FBI code?

Why would he send her to the wrong place?

What are you thinking, Kate? He wants to control you. If you’re nowhere near Lucy, he can do whatever he wants.

He’ll never let her go.

The man on the screen leaned over Lucy. Kissed her. She tossed her head back and forth, straining to get away from him. This man was different. He didn’t have the violent urgency to hurt Lucy that Roger had.

Did the FBI have an undercover agent there? An FBI agent who would rape to protect his cover?

She looked at the coded message again. An FBI training code from the Academy. Her gut instinct was that this man was, or had been, one of theirs.

She typed.

Don’t let anyone touch Lucy again and I’ll meet you. Fair trade. If anyone touches her, you’ll never get me. I’ll go so deep you’ll never find me.

He was there.

You’d never be able to live with yourself.

You’re right. But you won’t be the one killing me.

Nothing.

She watched the screen. The man seemed to be listening to someone off-camera, then he unzipped his jeans.

The man was leaning into Lucy, his face burrowed in her neck. But the expression on Lucy’s face changed. Almost imperceptibly. As if she were listening intently. Would Trask notice? He wasn’t a fool. Dammit, the fed was going to get himself killed. Maybe he deserved it.

Damn you, Trask!

Lucy didn’t want to be raped again. The humiliation of being naked and exposed to a camera was almost unbearable, but she was alive. Yet every time she thought about what had happened that morning, she screamed inside, her mind trying to make sense of it, trying to accept it. Her heart was crying at the pain, the embarrassment, the deep wound on her soul that the one thing that was hers, all hers-her choice-had been ripped from her. And she’d never have it back.

She had never felt helpless before, not like this. When she was seven and Justin was killed she had known what had happened-her parents never lied to her about it-but she hadn’t seen Justin dead, she hadn’t been physically hurt. The pain from that time was emotional, mostly from an overwhelming sense of loss, like part of her was missing.

Now death was a reality, the defiling sex, the humiliation of the film. Her rape was going to be replayed for everyone, even after she was gone. It wasn’t fair. She hoped that her family never saw, that they didn’t know what had happened to her. She didn’t think she could look them in the eye again.

More than anything, she wanted her mother.

Tears escaped from her eyes, and she hated herself for showing her pain and fear. She didn’t want Trevor to know how much she hurt inside. She tried to keep a straight face, blank, block everything out, but it was getting harder and harder the longer she was restrained.

“Don’t cry.”

The man on top of her, the man she’d been able to block out while he kissed her neck and breasts, had noticed her anguish and she froze.

She tossed her head back and forth, trying to avoid his lips. Avoid his eyes. In the background she heard Roger say, “Fuck her already. People are paying for a show.”

She heard his zipper. Felt him against her leg. He buried his face in her neck, his hands on her hips.

God no, please no, not again.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “I sent for help. You need to trust me. Watch carefully.”

Trust him? Her rapist wanted her to trust him? Was this some sort of sick mental game, a bastardized version of good cop, bad cop? She’d never trust him or anyone here.

“Get off me!” she screamed as loud as she could.

From the door, “Do it already. Spread her legs. Show the camera.” Then, muttered, “Amateurs.”

“Please trust me,” her rapist whispered in her ear. Then he raised himself up, looked down at her.

She closed her eyes. Just do it. Do it and I hope you die a horrible death and burn in Hell for eternity.

“Cut!”

It was Trevor’s voice.

Roger intervened. “What? Come on, we’re just getting going. Mick is a little slow to the task, but he’s finally getting into it.”

“Change of plans.”

The red eye of the camera was off. Lucy’s eyes widened. What was happening?

The man, Mick, stood up slowly. He turned to Trevor. “What the fuck?”

“You’re pathetic,” Trevor said. “Any other red-blooded man would have taken what was offered. Seven minutes to get that dick hard? What are you, a fag?”

Mick reddened. “I, I-”

“Just go. Monitor the cameras. Now.”

“What’s going on?”

“None of your business,” Trevor said and watched him leave. “Denise!”

The woman who hated Lucy came into the room. She wore a business suit with a short skirt, heavy makeup, and her hair had been styled and teased.

To Roger, Trevor said, “You and Frank play out the rape game with Denise.”

“Aw, come on, what happened?”

“Are you questioning me?”

“No, but-”

“Lucy will be back onstage in just a few hours. But I need to leave the island. I don’t want any down time from here on out.”

“You never leave in the middle of a show. You need to tell me what’s happening.”

“I need to tell you nothing.”

Lucy listened to the exchange, unsure what was going on, but seeing this as an opportunity. Both Trevor and Roger sounded angry.

Watch carefully, the man who had almost raped her had said.

Something was happening.

And she would definitely be watching carefully.

For the first time, she felt a tickle of hope that she might get out of here alive.