SNAPBANG!
For a moment she was sure he’d shot her. Her head wrenched up so fast her neck seized, eyes bulging from their sockets, aimed up at the man standing in the doorway. Her bladder loosened, a stream of urine leaking onto the cement floor she sat on.
“Hush, now,” he said to her as he lifted the cylinder to pull at its top. Something inside it snapped loudly into place. “Answer the question, please—do you believe in miracles?”
Did she believe in miracles?
It was what her mother had been calling her since she was a child.
Her little miracle.
She’d been four years old when it happened. Her older brother, their father and she had been heading to Colorado to spend Christmas with her grandparents. A sudden winter storm and a slick patch of ice had sent them skidding through a guardrail and into the bottom of a ravine. She’d spent three days in the overturned car before they’d been found. Her brother and father had been killed instantly.
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “Yes I do.”
He smiled at her, obviously pleased with her answer. “When was the last time you attended mass?”
The answer bobbled in her throat. The truth wouldn’t please him but she forced it out. “Five weeks.” Something told her that no matter how long she’d thought she’d known this man, he’d known her—watched her—infinitely longer. Lying would’ve been as pointless as it was dangerous. “I just started a new job and I’m scheduled to work Sundays.” She was a vet tech at an animal clinic within walking distance of the apartment she shared with her mother.
He came toward her, crouching in front of her and she fought the urge to shrink further away. “Are you a virgin, Margaret?”
Ridiculously, the question stained her cheek. “No.”
He nodded, if not pleased with her answer then at least satisfied with the truth. “Come with me,” he said, holding out his free hand. “I want to show you something.”
It came back to her—the wet, sloppy sound of something being dragged down the hall and she started to cry again. Whatever it was he wanted to show her, she didn’t want to see it.
“Are you him?’ she whispered, her voice trembling, her hands cradled against her chest. “You’re him aren’t you? The man on the news, the one who…” She gagged, unable to finish the question but he answered her anyway.
“Yes,” he said, his hand still extended. “But I promise, I have no intention of hurting you. Not yet. Not as long as you do as I say.” He could have forced her to come with him. Grabbed her by the wire that bound her hands and dragged her out of the room but he didn’t. It gave her a small measure of hope he was telling her the truth. That he wouldn’t hurt her as long as she did what he said.
She finally held out her hands, placing them in his. “There’s my good girl,” he said as he stood, pulling her up. Her dress clung against the backs of her thighs, wet and cold and he looked down at the puddle they stood in. “You’ve made a mess.” He didn’t look pleased with her anymore.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… ” she kept stuttering it out, again and again, hysteria crowding her.
“Shhh,” he said, pulling her through the doorway into a corridor barely wide enough for them to stand shoulder to shoulder. Looking down at the floor, she forced herself to be quiet as they walked, his fingers gripping her elbow as if he were escorting her home from an evening stroll in the park. Between them a thick, red swath cut down the center of the floor. Bits of something, gelatinous and cool, squelched between her toes.
“Do you know how a Saint is made, Margaret?” he said, looking down at her as if he expected an answer. Afraid to open her mouth, she shook her head. She was walking through brain matter. If she opened her mouth, she would start to scream and she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“The canonization process is quite arduous. Often painful,” he said, stopping in front of another door, this one was cracked open, dim light peeking through. “Most saints aren’t even recognized until after they’re dead.” He settled her hands on the knob before releasing her elbow. Because he seemed to want her to and because she wanted out of the hallway, she pushed the door open.
The room was twice as long as it was wide. At its furthest end was a hospital bed. On top of it lay a man. At least she thought it was a man. He was dangerously thin, nothing but skin stretched, gaunt and tight, over sharp, protruding bone. His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, each breath shuttering in and out as if it could be his last.
Next to the bed was a folding partition. What she saw behind it sent her backward.
I promise I have no intention of hurting you. Not yet…
She wanted out of the room. Back in to the hallway, with the blood and the brains, but a hand at the small of her back stopped her retreat. Propelled her forward until they were standing at the man’s bedside.
“Margaret, I’d like you to meet Robert Delashaw,” he said to her as if he were making introductions at a cocktail party. “Robert, this is Margaret, the young woman I’ve been telling you about.”
The man on the bed gave no indication he even knew they were there.
“What’s wrong with him,” she heard herself ask. “He looks sick.”
“He is, Margaret,” he said. “Robert has stage-four renal cancer. The doctors sent him home to die.”
“I don’t understand,” she shook her head, swallowing hard against the hard knot that seemed to be lodged in her throat. “I don’t know what you want from me.” She was a tech in a veterinary clinic. She gave vaccinations and took x-rays. Nothing she was capable of would help this man.
“I think you know exactly what I want, Margaret,” he said to her, his tone taking on sharp edges. The kind of edges that promised pain if not heeded. “I want you to give to Robert what has been given to you. I want you to give him a miracle.”
10
Kootenai Canyon, Montana
“Again.”
Sabrina blew out an exaggerated sigh as she came out of the closet with an armload of clothes. “I don’t want to go over it again,” she said, aiming a sullen look in his direction. He was sitting on the edge of their bed, next to the carry-on suitcase she’d found in the ridiculously over-prepared closet. Forty-eight hours ago she’d been sure she’d never wear or use any of it. Now she was juggling sensible flats and trying to decide which of the two dozen pantsuits she should pack.
“Give it a rest, O’Shea.” She half wadded, half folded a pair of navy dress pants and stuffed them in her suitcase. “You act like I’ve never faked my own death before.”
“You’re not funny.”
She could hear the frustration creeping into his voice again. Now that it was settled that she’d leave, it was killing him to let her go. “I don’t think you married me for my sense of humor,” she gave him a cheeky wink, trying to keep the mood light but it didn’t work.
Michael retrieved the pair of pants from the bottom of the case and shook them out. “Humor me, Sabrina,” he said, refolding the pants into a perfectly formed rectangle before holding them out to her. “Again, please.”
She took the pants from him and tossed them over her shoulder. Turning toward him, and pulled her knees onto the bed to straddle his hips. “I’d rather do something else to you,” she said, pressing him back onto the bed. He let her have her way for a few minutes. Let her distract them both from the reality of the situation.
She was leaving.
“Okay,” he said pulling his mouth from under hers, groaning when she traced her tongue along the rigid line of his jaw. “Sabrina…” The groan deepened into a growl but he wasn’t giving up. “I need you to go over it again. And after that, I need you to go over it again. Over and over until I’m convinced you’ve got it down.”
She sat up. “Married less than thirty-six hours and you’ve lost all interest in me.”
Yesterday morning, they’d sat the kids down after breakfast and told them a sanitized version of the truth. That she was
leaving for a few weeks to take care of something that’d come up but that she was coming back.
“I need your help, Christina,” she’d said to the girl, watching her trace her finger along the wood grains in the kitchen table. As soon as she said it, her hands went still but she didn’t look up. Interested but still angry.
“Michael and I are getting married and I was wondering if you’d be my maid of honor?”
That was all it took. Christina was out of her chair in a flash, dragging her back into her bedroom and into the closet where she’d wrangled her into a sundress and talked her into taking her boots off. She’d even let the girl braid flowers into her hair.
By lunchtime, Alex was walking her down the porch steps to where Michael waited for her under a tree by the river. It wasn’t official—couldn’t be—but they’d promised to love and protect each other for the rest of their lives.
As far as she was concerned, that was enough.
Now, Michael glowered at her, digging his fingers into her hips in an effort to keep her still. “Right now, I’m more interested in keeping you alive than getting you under me.”
“No fun.” She blew out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine… my name is Sinclaire Vance, but you can call me Claire. I’m thirty-six years old. I’m a Libra. I love long walks in the rain and horseback rides on the beach—”
“Sabrina.”
“I’m originally from Portland, Maine but I grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan. I attended UNLV on a track scholarship where I double majored in criminal justice and communications. From there I earned my masters in forensic psychology after which I applied for and was accepted into the FBI training program.” She smiled down at him. “Anything else I should know about myself?”
“Where were you stationed after graduating from Quantico?”
“Phoenix. I worked their field office for nearly seven years where I aided in the apprehension of not one, but three serial murderers within a six month period by providing psychological profiles of the suspects. I was offered a spot in the FBI’s BAU taskforce in DC after all three arrests led to convictions.” She gave him an exasperated smile and flopped on to the bed next to him. “Satisfied?”
He lifted the hand that rested in the narrow space between them, pressing his lips to her knuckles. “Not even close,” he whispered against her hand before he closed his fingers around the thin platinum band he’d put there the day before. He started to pull it off and she stopped him by clenched her hand into a fist.
“Leave it,” she said, shaking her head, pulling her hand from his. Claire Vance was married to her job. Her personal ties were limited. Sabrina knew she’d have to take it off, sooner rather than later, but she wasn’t ready. Not yet.
He didn’t argue with her or tell her she was being unreasonable. He just threaded his fingers between her own and held on to her for a little while longer.
“I want you to call Phillip.”
It came out of nowhere and it took her a few moments to realize who he was talking about. Phillip Song. Leader of Seven Dragons, the most powerful arm of San Francisco’s Korean mob. The younger brother of David Song—the man who mutilated and murdered several young women in order to feed his own twisted delusion that her fate and his were intertwined.
“I can’t just call Phillip Song. I’m supposed to be dead, remember?”
She could hear Christina and Alex in the bathroom they shared, brushing their teeth. Getting ready for bed. She glanced at the wind-up clock on her nightstand. It was after nine. Dinner had been grilled steaks and sautéed asparagus that grew wild in the sandy soil along the riverbank. Afterward, they’d played Uno and ate homemade brownies.
As far as last days go, it’d been perfect.
“Yes you can,” he said stubbornly. “He made his cousin help you once. He can make her help you again.”
It had been Phillip’s cousin, Eun, who’d told her that Wade’s presence in her subconscious and been more spiritual than psychological. Trained in Korea as a shaman, she’d called him a Gae Dokkaebi—an evil spirit and given her a special tea that helped keep him at bay. Sabrina hadn’t believed it at the time—she still didn’t—but when she drank the tea Phillip’s cousin made for her, Wade was quiet. Not gone but silent. It had been the only thing that kept her sane before Michael came back into her life.
“That was a long time ago,” she said. “Phillip helped me because he felt like he owed me and because it amused him. I’m sure both feelings have passed.”
He laughed at her. “You’re adorably clueless, you know that?”
“Adorable?” she said, glowering as she pulled her hand loose and attempted sit up. “That’s it, I want a divorce.”
He kept laughing, and rolled on to his side, anchoring her beneath him with an arm snaked around her waist. “If you think the only reason Phillip Song helped you is because he owed you—” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on the hard line of her mouth. “then you know nothing about men and their motivations.”
“Phillip was a friend.” Her breath caught at the feel of his fingers trailing across her belly, skimming along the waistband of her cargos. “Nothing more than that.”
Michael pressed his lips to her collarbone. “Phillip was your friend,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck. “What you were to him was much more than that.”
“If that’s true…” She arched up, against the hand he slipped under her tank, pushing it up her ribcage. “why would you want me to call him?”
The mouth against her throat curved into a smile as his hand closed over her breast. “Because,” he said, brushing his thumb across her nipple, teeth grazing along her jawline. “I’m not above exploiting some poor sap’s feelings for you if it means keeping you sane and safe.”
She laughed, even as her breath caught again. “Phillip Song is hardly a sap.”
“Trust me—” he said, angling himself up so he could press a kiss to her jawline before looking her in the eye. “for you, he is.”
11
The chopper arrived before noon, its sudden appearance in the sky above their house sending Avasa into a wild flurry of alarmed barking.
Sabrina watched it touch down in the open grass on the other side of the river, its rotors slowing as whoever was piloting it powered it down.
It was time to go.
Christina appeared in the doorway. Her jovial mood had dissolved overnight into the same angry silence she’d been given the day Maddox had arrived and changed everything. Behind her, Alex stood quietly, his face as impassive as always. Sabrina doubted her departure even registered with him.
The faulty back porch step creaked moments before a sharp-knuckled rap sounded against the glass, the small figure beyond it vaguely familiar. Next to it, a larger, more imposing shadow. Moving across the kitchen, both children and the dog followed her, crowding around her as she opened the door.
“Miss Ettie.” Sabrina felt her chest constrict, a moment before she was enveloped in the elderly woman’s arms. “What are you doing here?”
“Ben sent me.” The old woman answered, pulling back until she could tip her chin to look up at her. “I’m Michael’s consolation prize for letting you run off on whatever fool errand he’s got cooked up.”
Miss Ettie was more than a consolation prize. She was a piece of home. That sharp longing she usually managed to fend off poked at her, causing her to catch her breath. The old woman ran a B&B the next street over from where she’d lived in San Francisco. They’d shared a fence line—it was what made staying there so convenient all those years ago when Michael had come looking for her in hopes of catching his sister’s murderer. The same man who’d abducted and tortured her.
Wade.
She pushed the thought of him from her head and focused on the here and now. Ben had sent Miss Ettie to them in hopes making her absence easier for Michael and the children to handle and in true Ben fashion, had absolutely ignored the potential dangers of it.
“Not to worry, dear,” her old neig
hbor said as she patted her cheek. “Everyone is fine… they miss you of course but they’re managing.” There was something else. Something she wasn’t telling her but she knew from past experiences that Miss Ettie said what she wanted and kept the rest to herself.
“You shouldn’t be here, Miss Ettie.” Sabrina shook her head while shooting Reese a disapproving glare. “It isn’t safe.” Reese was Ben’s personal pilot. He knew better than anyone how dangerous it was to bring her here.
“Nonsense. At my age, getting out of bed practically runs the same risk as jumping out of an airplane.” She gave her a grin, the depth of it folding into the soft, lined skin of her face. “Now, go on and say goodbye to that young man out there before he changes his mind about letting you leave.”
Looking past the old woman, she saw him standing in the grass, next to the helo.
Michael was waiting for her.
“I think I’ll get started on lunch,” Miss Ettie said, bustling her way into the kitchen. “From what I’ve been told, someone around here has quite a fondness for grilled cheese sandwiches.” She tied an apron around her middle and gave Christina a wink.
Sabrina looked at the man who’d brought her.
“I’m just following orders,” Reese said picking up her suitcase and angling himself in the doorway so she could pass through. “It’s what I’m good at.”
It was a very select few that knew Michael and she had survived the extraction of Leon Maddox’s grandson from Alberto Reye’s island fortress. Reese Harrison was on the short list and had proved himself trustworthy countless times—both before and after their disappearance. It was his ability to follow Ben’s lead without asking questions that not only saved him from disappearing off the face of the earth when Jaxon Croft started asking questions about Michael but made him an invaluable cog in a very dangerous wheel. Right now, it was not her most favorite thing about him.
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2 Page 39
