The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2

by Maegan Beaumont

  “You care?” Ben shot to his feet. “Well, look at you… all magnanimous and shit,” he said with a laugh. “I’d like to know where your nobility was the day Mason and Emily—”

  “That's enough, Benjamin."

  Ben went still. That’s where you’re wrong, dad. It’ll never be enough,” he said and Michael was sure he was seconds away from launching himself across the desk at his father. Instead, he turned and stalked his way toward the elevator. They watched him go in silence.

  “Benjamin has always had a flare for the dramatics, I’m afraid,” Livingston said, turning his attention on Michael. “Despite his suspicions as to where my motives lie, it’s imperative that Leo Maddox be found... so much so that I’m willing to offer you a deal. I’m giving you one week. If you can find and bring the Maddox boy home within that time, I’ll set you free.”

  6

  When Michael got back to their suite, he looked around the room and shook his head. The wall was now wearing the congealed nachos Ben had been eating before their meeting with his father and the coffee table that held them looked like it had exploded into kindling and was strewn around the room. “Like what you’ve done with the place,” he said, letting his gaze settle on his partner, sitting on the couch, playing X-box.

  Ben shrugged while working the controller. This time he was killing zombies by the dozen.

  “Who’re Mason and Emily?” he said.

  Ben was quiet for a few seconds, like he wasn't going to answer. “Mason was my brother.” He shifted the rest of the words around like he was having trouble making them leave his mouth. “Emily was his wife.”

  Michael rubbed the back of his neck and winced at what he was about to say. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Nothing to talk about, Dr. Phil. They're dead.”

  “Fair enough.” Michael looked at his watch. It was just after five in the morning. The marketplace where the Maddox kid disappeared would be up and running, the vendors and peddlers, setting up for the day. If they were going to find the girl, now was the best time to do it. “Come on, let’s go find the girl in the surveillance video, see what we can get out of her.”

  Ben shook his head, let out a brief bark of laughter. “Don’t you ever get tired of asking how high when he says jump?”

  Now it was Michael's turn to laugh. “Really? I don't have the luxury of saying no,” he said. “What I have is a goddamn dirty bomb in my back and a boss just looking for an excuse to blow me the fuck up, so you can take your little pity party or whatever the hell this is and shove it up your ass.”

  Ben cut him a look. “He’s not the only one who’s got your number, you know?” he said. It was a reminder that if he wanted to, Ben could make him just as dead as his father could.

  “You aren’t gonna kill me.” He sounded more sure than he actually felt. “No one else will work with you.”

  Ben smiled. “True... besides, you owe me a favor. I can’t kill you until I collect.”

  It was a reminder of exactly what Ben had done for him twenty-three months ago. He’d been shanghaied into another job. Taken away from Sabrina at the precise moment she needed him most. Ben had given him a small reprieve. Somehow used his status as the boss’ son to his advantage and gotten him back to Sabrina in time to save her life. She'd be dead if not for Ben. He hadn’t forgotten that, nor had he forgotten that Ben’s help had come at a price.

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Ben shrugged and changed the subject. “Let me guess. My father told you that if you find this kid, he’ll cut you loose, right?” Ben's glare was steady and fixed on the screen full of flesh-eating mutants.

  “Yes.” Michael leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest in an effort to keep his fingers from finding the capsule embedded in the small of his back.

  Ben finally paused the game. “He’ll never do it. He’ll never let you go. That’s not how my father is built. He’d kill you in a heartbeat if he thought you’d outlived your purpose, but let you go? No way.”

  He shrugged. Ben was right—Livingston kept his word only when it suited him. “I know, but that's a pretty hefty carrot to dangle, which means finding the Maddox kid isn't just about looking out for an old friend. There's a reason he's helping Maddox. If I can figure out why, I might be able to use it as leverage somehow. The only way to do that is to find the boy.”

  Ben un-paused the game only to let his on-screen icon be overtaken by the undead. He watched the carnage for a few seconds before shifting his gaze him. “Do you miss her?”

  The shift in conversation topic was abrupt. Michael didn’t understand the correlation between his feelings for Sabrina and Shaw's motivations in finding Leo Maddox but he knew he’d need Ben’s help if he had any hope of succeeding.

  “Every second of every day.”

  “What would you be willing to do to get back to her? To be able to stay with her.” Ben’s face had taken on a strange gravity, as if the weight of the world rested in this one question.

  “Anything.”

  His answer must have been the right one because Ben tossed the game controller on the floor, where the coffee table had once been and stood. “Good to know. Give me a few minutes to change and we’ll go.” Ben left the room, leaving him to wonder exactly what kind of debt he owed and what kind of man he owed it to.

  7

  Michael stepped around an old man spreading out a tattered blanket before dumping a box out onto it. Matchbox cars and antique lighters tumbled out along with bootleg DVDs and kitchen gadgets. “Perdóneme, señor,” he said. The old-timer shot him a glare as he passed, which he returned with a wry smile. He tended to have that effect on people.

  Midmorning at Mercat Del Encants. People were everywhere, young and old, every shape and size. Ben blended perfectly. The kid played hapless college student to a tee. Having changed into a pair of cargo shorts and a ratty AC/DC concert shirt, he flitted from booth to booth, smiling and chatting his way around the flea market.

  Michael followed at a safe distance, trailing a string of Pips behind him. Junior's outburst must've rattled Shaw more than he let on if he sent a pack of his specially trained lapdogs to make sure they didn't screw up. He began to wonder, same as Ben—what was the boss hoping to gain by recovering Leo Maddox? What had the senator promised him in exchange for his grandson's safe return?

  Finally, after about an hour of fishing, they got a bite. Ben asked about the scarf girl, described her to an old woman surrounded by several boxes of VHS tapes. He said he’d seen her around a few days ago and he’d thought she was pretty. He confided in the old woman that he’d been hoping to find her so he could ask her out for coffee. The old woman gave him a wide, gap-toothed smile. “Es Eliza… vale. Nadie va a danarte. Queremos preguntarte algo. Solo unas preguntas. Nada más, te prometo.”

  Bingo.

  “Let me handle it, okay?” Ben said as they wound their way through the market, heading toward the long, low row of wooden structures that housed the food and more high-priced shops.

  “She takes one look at you, she’s gonna rabbit.”

  He looked down at himself and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Faded jeans and an old navy blue Hanes. “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

  “It’s not your clothes,” Ben said. “It’s this.” He waved his hand in Michael’s direction. “You. All of you. The whole thing. Everything about you is hostile. You need to relax.”

  “Relax?”

  “Yeah, relax.” He hitched the backpack he carried up on one shoulder. “Do some yoga. Kill a Pip. Take the stick out of your ass—something. Just do it before I get back with the girl,” he said before disappearing into the crowd, leaving Michael alone with a couple hundred people and a half dozen of Livingston's walking, talking insurance policies.

  Relax? Every breath he took, every second he lived was because someone else had decided to allow it. How in the hell was he supposed to relax?

  He took a few turns around the market, keep
ing a close eye on the dark maze of shops and lean-tos that Ben had disappeared into and then suddenly, there he was. Talking and laughing with a pretty young woman with large dark eyes and a shy smile. It was the girl from the surveillance video and she was gazing up at Ben with a star-struck look as he led her through the marketplace toward a small outdoor café.

  They took a seat and placed their order with the waiter. Michael did another lap around the tables and booths. The Pips followed. He watched Ben and the girl. Coffee and bunuelos made an appearance. Ben smiled and charmed the girl for several minutes, putting her at ease before signaling him by looking at his watch.

  The girl looked up as he approached and the smile perched on her face wobbled and fell. She shot a hurried glance at Ben before she started to shove herself away from the table. Ben’s hand shot out and gripped hers across the table. “Es Eliza… vale. Nadie va a danarte. Queremos preguntarte algo. Solo unas preguntas. Nada más, te prometo.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “Hablasinglés?”

  The girl nodded slowly. “Yes, I speak English.” She looked up at Michael and shook her head. “But I know nothing worth telling. I sell scarves. I am no one.”

  Michael took a seat next to her and leaned forward just a bit, dropped his voice to keep the conversation private. He could tell she was lying. “There was an American boy here with his mother a few weeks ago. He was small—blond with hazel eyes. You spoke to his mother, distracted her while your partner in the Yankee’s cap snatched him. We have it all on tape,” he said. Her eyes widened just a bit and she started to shake her head.

  “No. I don’t know what you are saying. I—”

  “Stop—just stop.” He used his fingertip to turn her face toward the crowd. “Do you see them? The men in suits, circling like vultures?” He paused, waited for her to nod. “They’re here for you. To make sure you tell us what we need to know and when they start asking questions, I can assure you, it won't be over coffee and doughnuts.” He watched the tears well up in her eyes as understanding took root.

  She turned her face away from the crowd. “I can’t. You don’t understand… these men are very dangerous.”

  “Who are they?” Ben said.

  The girl shrugged, looked miserable. “I don’t know.” She swallowed hard, eyes full of tears again. “They took my brother first. Told me that if I helped them they would bring him back, but… it’s been a very long time.”

  “How long?” Ben said.

  “Eight months.”

  Eight months? Leo Maddox was taken only three weeks ago. A sick feeling began to form in the pit of Michael's stomach. “Was the American boy the only one you helped abduct?”

  Her eyes flooded with tears. She shook her head. “No. But he was the last. There has been no one since.”

  Michael looked across the table at his partner. How many children could be taken in eight months?

  “Eliza, where is he? Where do they take the children?” Ben said.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly, staring at the tabletop. She was scared, couldn’t look him in the eye. She knew more than she was letting on.

  “You're lying.” He leaned back in his seat.

  She looked up at him. “I don't know. But... the man who took the boy—the one you are looking for—he was not the man that usually comes.” She chewed her lower lip, seemed to be deciding if she could trust them with the truth. “The man that usually comes is shorter, heavier. This man was taller, thin. He had a scar.”

  “Where?” he said, the skin on the back of his neck went tight. He knew before she even answered him.

  “Here,” she said, running her finger along her cheek. “It was long—from his temple to the corner of his mouth. I saw him once, in the street. He was getting into a big black car with an older man in a suit.”

  “How do you know for sure it was him?” Ben said.

  She looked at Ben. “I recognized the scar, and—”

  The sudden impact of the bullet snapped the girl's head back, its exit making a hole the size of a fist in the back of her skull. Blood sprayed across the plate of pastries, soaked into the white cloth that covered the table. Brain matter and even more blood splattered onto the bricks beneath their feet. They stood and moved swiftly, away from the cafe, for the cover of a narrow easement between the cafe and neighboring bookstore.

  Screams and shouts sounded from the cafe behind them but neither one of them turned around. They kept walking—there was nothing they could do. The girl was dead.

  “Fuck…” Ben muttered under his breath, shaking his head almost in time with his long-legged stride. “Someone didn’t want her talking.”

  “I know who,” he said, stepping out of the alley where they’d parked their car, he gestured for Ben to stay in the shadows while he surveyed windows and rooftops for possible blinds. It was instinctual—the need he felt to protect his team. Ben ignored him and stepped out in the road alongside him.

  “Well, Michael—are you going to share your answer with the rest of the class?” his partner chimed brightly while skirting the bumper to his side of the car.

  “Reyes.” Just saying out loud made it almost too real to deal with. He should have taken him out a year ago. When he first found out that Alberto was targeting him

  “Reyes doesn’t strike me as the down and dirty type.” Ben pulled his door open before cutting him a doubtful look across the roof of the car. Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer. “Besides, Reyes doesn’t have a scar.”

  He thought about killing. Heard the crinkle of plastic sheeting beneath his boots. Felt the resistant tug of skin and muscle against his blade. Reyes, his lizard eyes flat and distant, watching as he got what he wanted. He yanked his door open and returned his partner’s gaze. “He’s not and he doesn’t—but his son does.” And is.

  Now Ben smiled but there was no humor in it. The sirens were close but it mattered little to either of them. “How do you know?”

  Michael shrugged, tried to unearth himself from the avalanche of memories he was suddenly buried under. “Because I’m the one who gave it to him.”

  8

  Cofre del Tesoro, Columbia

  March ~ 2008

  The tide was leaving, the shards of light scattered across the blue-green surface of the water losing their luster in the setting sun, growing dimmer and dimmer with each push and pull of the ocean.

  He looked down at the little girl playing in the sand a few feet away. “Time to go,” he said before casting an appraising look down the length of the private beach. It was deserted. Always was but he scanned the trees just the same. Looking for the flash a scope. The sudden scatter of birds. He’d been hired to keep Reyes’ daughter safe and that’s what he’d do. Even if all he was protecting her from were hermit crabs and sunburns.

  It’d been four months since he’d stood at the window in Reyes’ office, seeing the water in the distance. Four months since he realized that he’d never been to the beach without a gun on his back or a target to neutralize. Now, a day didn’t go by without him dumping sand out of his boots.

  He was living the dream.

  Looking down, he wasn’t at all surprised to find that the little girl was still loading sand into a bucket in careful measured scoops, giving each a pat with the flat of her pink plastic shovel before adding another. He sighed. “Christina.”

  “Why won’t you wear swim trunks?” she said. Ignoring the warning tone in his voice, she lifted her head just enough to eye the leg of his dark cargo pants. “I know you have some.”

  “Because they’d look funny with my lace-ups.” He wiggled the toe of his boot and she cracked a smile. “I’m serious—the tide’s out. Time to pack up.”

  The smile died and she allowed her gaze to travel upward until it hit his face. “You’re always serious.” Her dark eyes, the way they held his without wavering, were sharp. Too sharp to belong to a child. Sometimes it was difficult for him to believe she was only four. Correction. She was five. Her birthday ha
d been last week. No party. No cake and pony rides with her friends. Christina wasn’t allowed to have friends. Aside from breakfast with her mother every morning and the occasional visit from her father, all she had was him.

  Squinting behind his sunglasses, he looked away, pretending to do another visual sweep. Ignored the twinge—a mixture of guilt and pity. “I’m not your playmate, Christina. I’m your protector.”

  She picked up the bucket and turned it over, giving it a wiggle. “I liked the last one better,” she said, lifting the bucket to reveal a perfectly formed tower. “He had a funny mustache and told knock-knock jokes.”

  “Well, I’d hate to disappoint…” He smirked at her sass. “Knock-knock.”

  She looked up at him again. “Who’s there?”

  “Get your stuff, it’s time to go.”

  She narrowed her eyes, pitching her pink shovel in the direction of her beach tote. “Make me.”

  He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I’m warning you…” he let the rest of the sentence go; looking down at her with what he hoped was an appropriate amount of severity.

  “I’m warning you,” she mimicked him, dropping her hands to her hips. “You can’t do anything to me. I’ll tell my—”

  He didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence, just took a step forward and hooked an arm around her waist, lifting her out of the sand to sling her over his shoulder. She screamed, her tiny feet kicking against his chest, her equally tiny fists beating against his back. “You can’t leave my stuff here! Put me down!”

  He ignored her, heading for the black H2 parked in the sand twenty yards away. A sudden flutter of birds took the sky, bursting from the dense stand of trees, a breathless scatter that stopped him in his tracks. It was the girl’s screams that sent them flying, nothing more… but the skin on the back of his neck went tight, telling him something entirely different.

  Without thinking he dropped to one knee, slinging Christina off his shoulder. “Hush,” he breathed, pinning her with a look that instantly killed her protests. The little girl went still. Eyes wide, she nodded, understanding perfectly. “Good. Now,” he said, pulling a set of keys from his pocket. “When I tell you to run, that’s what you’ll do.”