Past them, Conan spotted Oz watching worriedly while keeping Pippa safely locked in a truck. Her screams of fury could probably have brought down the helicopter if necessary, but they may have also flattened every man on the ground. Conan almost smiled as Pippa whacked windows and raged and Oz kept clicking the electronic locks shut.
He supposed, if the helicopter was dangerous, Oz just had to let Pippa loose. If they ever planned another such exercise, he’d bring earplugs for his team.
Conan signaled that he and Dorrie were okay and returned to feeding her.
“Bo,” Dorrie insisted, grabbing the rest of the bar from her cousin and feeding herself. “Take me to him.”
Did that mean her brother—and maybe his—were in the helicopter? Conan glanced anxiously toward the demolished shed where the shooter had gone down. His team was cautiously emerging from their vehicles. The helicopter had landed closer, and the occupants were at the guardhouse already.
He recognized the tall, broad-shouldered man dragging the struggling shooter off the ground. Magnus was alive! Conan let the relief wash over him as his big, bad brother dangled the gunman like a human punching bag.
The more slender helicopter pilot plowed his fist into the shooter’s gut, and Conan exchanged a look with Francesca. She nodded in wordless agreement—reading his mind?—confirming the fist wielder was Bo.
The rest of Dorrie’s eccentric family took off at a run toward the helicopter.
“Go tell big brother the man he’s holding could be dead shortly, and he’d better get some questions answered first,” Conan suggested.
“With all that pent-up testosterone to release, do you think they’ll listen to me?” Francesca asked.
Since his entire team and Dorrie’s cousins were now circling the fight and cheering Bo on, Conan understood her concern.
“Tell Bo his little sister used dim mak for him, and he’d damned well better listen to her for a change.”
Francesca’s eyes widened but she rushed to convey the message.
In his arms, Dorrie glared at him. “You just told the world I murdered a man.”
“He’s still alive and kicking,” Conan said with unconcern. “Your brother will be blamed for his internal injuries if he dies. I dare you to try defending him with your guilty conscience in a court of law.”
She shook her head and closed her eyes. “I don’t know why I love you. You’re the most annoying creature who ever lived.”
Stunned, Conan merely hugged her closer.
She loved him? Obviously, she’d rattled her brains. She’d remember that he was completely unlovable once he got a steak in her.
***
Dorrie settled for a McDonald’s hamburger this time. There weren’t a lot of choices in the desert, and the local roadhouse had been too crowded and noisy by the time the team had descended upon it.
Bo kept hugging her, in between calls to Amy and the kids and their father and his superior officer. Dorrie hugged him back, if only to prove that he was real and that she wasn’t dreaming. He stank of kimchi and dirt and fuel, and she still couldn’t get enough of him.
Bo was back! She’d done it. She’d actually used her ability and done something right. Finally. If she wasn’t so wiped, she’d bounce up and down. Instead, she leaned against his shoulder and just absorbed his excited energy.
Conan had protected her with his life, covered her with his body to shield her from bullets. She sent him a surreptitious glance, but he was hiding behind his wrap-around shades again. She thought she’d told him she loved him, but she might have dreamed that. His proprietary grip on her hand didn’t mean he’d heard her.
After ascertaining that Magnus was all in one piece and in shape to raise hell, Oz and Pippa had quietly slipped away earlier to avoid questions from authority and consequent media exposure. Dorrie still didn’t quite understand why Pippa preferred to hide, but Oz’s joy had nearly vibrated the car. Having the zigzag energy of three Oswins at the table would have put her in a coma.
Dorrie’s eccentric family also preferred their privacy. Before the media could descend, Francesca flew Cho back to San Francisco, while Tom and Jack caught a ride back with Oz to pick up their grandmother and take her to the airport.
That left Magnus and Bo to clue in Conan’s team, using technical terms they’d understand and not the real oddities Dorrie’s family had perpetrated to find them.
“No, I can’t tell you what our mission was,” Bo kept telling inquirers. “Let’s just say our orders were intercepted, and we were diverted from our practice maneuvers.”
“By whom?” Dorrie demanded, not for the first time. With tables dragged up around their booth and people talking all at once, it was hard to make herself heard. She’d sat down next to Bo, and Conan had squeezed in next to her and across from his brother. Conan squeezed her hand warningly.
Dorrie glared. She was tired of secrets. “I don’t know his name, but I recognized the guy who was shooting at you because he shot at me. The Feds are bound to identify him sooner or later. So why not tell me now?”
Bo leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Because he’s only a cog in the wheel.” Aloud, he said, “He’s the son of one the men who killed our mother. He blames us for his father’s disappearance.”
The man she’d killed on a cliff over a dozen years ago had had a son—whom she’d probably killed also.
They hadn’t caught Feng Li, the man who had been on probation for her mother’s death.
But around her poured more excited questions. Magnus took over answering. Taller and broader than either of his brothers, he looked like Special Forces, except Conan had told her he was a private contractor these days. When Magnus spoke, men listened, she noticed.
Magnus’s chi wavered when he lied, though. Interesting. Dorrie didn’t think Conan had ever lied to her. She studied his bristly, dirty cheek and watched his jaw muscle tighten as his brother expanded his story. Conan wasn’t buying it either. She was starting to understand the man, which warmed her feelings for him even more.
“The government will be looking into the operation,” Bo asserted. “The men who diverted us also interfered with restricted military radio bands. Homeland Security will be all over them. We’re just glad you got us out before they figured out how our copter worked.”
Dorrie elbowed her brother. He was lying, too. Maybe not quite as much. His chi was so tightly controlled, it was hard to tell with Bo. “So you deliberately made it look like a crash at sea and willingly flew to the desert, letting us think you were dead, because you were following orders?” she asked, keeping her voice low while Magnus was expounding on the technical capabilities of the experimental craft.
“We were told it was part of maneuvers,” Bo murmured, leaning over so Conan could hear. “We had no idea anyone had been told we were dead. Sorry about that, kid. Amy is going to kill me, isn’t she?”
“Twice over,” Dorrie agreed. “We held your memorial services over a week ago, and she cried harder than I did. She still loves you, even if you are a poopie head. You have utterly no idea what you put that poor woman through.”
He snorted at the old childish insult, but sorrow crossed his weary face. He wasn’t any more inclined to reveal his emotions than Conan, she realized. It was up to her to be the communicator.
“Explain how you ended up out here,” she demanded.
Bo shrugged. “Short version…” He kept his voice low, for her ears and Conan’s only. “Once we completed the tricky landing in an underground vault, we thought we’d successfully completed our mission. Except that’s when they shut the doors and locked them. It’s taken us weeks to study the vault mechanism and figure out how to get away. Your timing was brilliant. We’d just learned the security code that let us into the hangar.”
“But why?” Dorrie asked. “I just don’t understand.”
While Magnus kept the discussion diverted, Bo nodded at Conan. “Is he okay with what we do?”
“I’m not okay with anything tha
t hurts Dorrie,” Conan warned in a threatening tone.
Dorrie elbowed him this time. “Conan’s good. Annoying, but good.”
Bo raised an eyebrow but didn’t question. “We can’t talk here, too many ears, and I can’t talk about the helicopter until I’m debriefed. But the cruds know about our family talents. The kid Dorrie knocked down was on a vengeance kick, swearing she killed his father years ago. But that had nothing to do with Magnus. I figured Adams and his sons just got stuck with him because of me. But my knowledge is in my head, and it’s kind of hard to read minds.” He grinned.
“But someone did,” Conan said, surprisingly. “Someone passed on your coordinates.”
Bo nodded. “Just because the dumbasses holding us couldn’t read my mind, didn’t mean someone else couldn’t. I concentrated on our location whenever I could on the off chance that Francesca or someone like her was out there.”
“The Librarian,” Dorrie whispered in awe. “The Librarian heard you.”
Chapter 32
Conan commandeered the Humvee to drive Dorrie and their brothers back to El Padre. Dorrie curled up in the back seat and fell asleep. Beside her, Bo conked out half an hour down the road. Conan wondered if communicating with Francesca and using his GPS talents to maneuver the copter had drained Bo’s energy.
In the front passenger seat, Magnus kept checking over his shoulder to be certain the Franklin siblings didn’t tip over while Conan floored the gas pedal.
“She really took out the bastard with energy?” Magnus asked at one point.
“That’s how she explains it. Good luck testing whatever she does.” In the back of his mind, Conan wondered how many times Dorrie could totally drain herself like that without endangering her health, and prayed she would never have to do it again. His pulse raced erratically every time he thought about it.
“Her brother is pretty damned freaky,” Magnus said, “with spatial perception I’ve never seen on another human. I can see why the general wanted to study him. Or enlist him, or whatever in hell he meant to do.”
That their crazy tracing of Malcolm genealogy had actually nailed a possible clue still amazed Conan. “Adams? Did you meet him?”
“Only once, when he tried to convince us he was offering us positions on a special forces team. I knew better. That whole set-up under the desert was totally illegal. Bo simply wasn’t interested. Said his father had a stroke and he was getting out of the military. The general was pretty pissed and left us to his sadistic sons and grandkid after that. We’ll have to go after him at some point. He’s dangerously unbalanced—one of those megalomaniac paranoids who thinks he’s the only one who is right and that he can save this country from everything that’s wrong with it.”
Conan swore under his breath. “Homeland terrorist shit. Well, we have the grandkid in hand now and maybe he’ll answer a few questions. I’m guessing one of his family helped him escape from the hospital the last time we held him. The FBI should be a little tougher on holding him than the LAPD. We’ve been reaching the same conclusion as you have about the danger to gifted Malcolms—for lack of a better description. Oz has built a fortress to protect his wife and their family. But we can’t all build castles.”
“Now that we know Adams is out there, we’re better prepared.” Magnus nodded at the back seat. “Do you think she really killed one of the general’s sons?”
“I think she did the same thing to a man who murdered her mother as she did to the kid today. Beyond that, I swear to nothing.” Conan couldn’t find a niche to slide Dorrie in, and he was itchy all over at the thought of dropping her off in El Padre. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. But he’d have to take Magnus back to the city, and Bo would want to see his family, who were still at Oz’s place. And Dorrie would want to be with Bo. Life outside of his computers was a bitch. “Were you cooking kimchi?”
“Every chance I had. Told them I was on a special diet, and they were into survival foods anyway. The stench alone should have caught someone’s attention. Bo kept telling me about his crazy family and their abilities, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”
Conan snorted. “You’d be better off brushing up on your psychic abilities. Telepathy is the only thing I figure got you out of there. The Librarian is a mystery without any clues. We need to find her.”
For pretty much the first time in his adult life, he was having a hard time maintaining objectivity as he drove into El Padre. He’d wanted to pound Magnus on the back and jump for joy when they’d found him alive. He wanted to crow his triumph to the world. But Oswins weren’t equipped for expressing emotion.
And beyond his mind-bending joy in finding his brother alive was the nagging concern about what Dorrie would do now that she didn’t need him anymore.
She’d said she loved him, but Conan figured that was just the heat of the moment, adrenaline or something. He wasn’t the kind of person that people loved. He wasn’t entirely certain he knew what love meant. He supposed, if he was lucky, they could take it slow and figure it out.
He just knew he didn’t want to let her go yet, which was unsettling enough.
He wasn’t given much choice. Every light in Oz’s house was still on when they drove up. Amy and the kids poured out before Conan could turn off the engine. Bo and Dorrie rubbed their eyes and sleepily unbuckled their seatbelts.
Magnus had promised to return to the base and report, keeping the whole operation under cover while Bo took a slight detour. Magnus stayed in the front seat, obviously ill at ease with the family reunion. Since his wife’s suicide, he was damaged goods, uncomfortable even with his own family. He and Oz exchanged a few gruff words through the open window.
After stepping out to hug the kids, Dorrie leaned in the Humvee’s driver window to kiss Conan on his cheek. “Are you staying the night?”
He wanted a hell of a lot more than a kiss, but he didn’t think they’d have the privacy for what he wanted out here. He tugged her head back down and used a lot of tongue to show her what he wanted before asking, “I have to take Magnus to the base. Come back with me.”
She looked over to her brother and his family, then glanced at Magnus, who watched them with curiosity. She shook her head of curls. “I can’t. I may have to referee a family argument. And then I have to find a life.”
That sounded like dismissal to him. Maybe he’d send her a bill in the morning. For now, Conan geared up the car and stoically nodded. “Call,” he ordered, before driving off.
***
Dorrie fought the sinking sensation in her middle as Conan casually drove out of her life. She’d hired him to do a job, and now he was off to his next adventure. The unbelievable, earth-shaking sex had probably been normal to him.
She supposed, now that she knew she could get close to a man without falling apart, she might find another relationship, one with a man who at least communicated occasionally. But it would be a long time before she could pry Conan out of her heart.
He’d said to call him, but she wouldn’t. Not if he didn’t call her first. He may have taught her confidence, but she would never be aggressive. She needed a man who could accept that.
Watching the kids clinging to her brother, Dorrie thought maybe she could serve other purposes for a while, bury the heartache, and find a sliver of happiness of her own.
“Hey, babes, let’s go read Harry Potter. Let your mom and dad talk for a while, okay?” she called to the kids. They were demanding their father’s attention while Bo and Amy stared helplessly at each other across the driveway.
The kids didn’t want to go, but Pippa caught on and used a beckoning voice that diverted them. Dorrie raised her eyebrows at the ease with which Oz’s wife did that, but she followed them inside, leaving Bo to sort out what he wanted to make of his life, too.
***
Conan defiantly returned his computer to its original position on the opposite side of his desk and stared out at the night sky. That’s why he’d turned his desk toward the windows—so he c
ould look out. And know whether it was day or night, because he sometimes forgot.
He’d left Magnus to settle down in the basement, where Dorrie had been sleeping. Her stuff was still down there. Magnus had looked questioningly at the tea set and plant, but his stoic brother hadn’t gone into fits over a few misplaced balls and surfboards.
By the time Magnus came upstairs to rummage in the refrigerator, Conan had worked through a backlog of email and had a headache. He threw back a few aspirin and glared at his brother when Magnus made it plain he wasn’t going to bed even though it was bloody well near dawn.
“Nice place,” Magnus said noncommittally, gazing out the window at the dark surf in the distance. “Want to rent out a floor?”
“I haven’t finished it yet.” He’d always assumed if people wanted to talk, they would. If not, he’d just get back to work.
But Magnus had come back from the dead. Conan couldn’t dismiss that miracle so easily.
“Dorrie’s the reason you’re here,” Conan blurted out, surprising himself. “She didn’t believe her brother was dead. She made me start looking.”
“That, and the Librarian,” Magnus agreed, having heard more of the story.
“If you’re planning on moving back here, you have to know there’s some pretty weird shit happening,” Conan warned.
“Yeah, I think I got that,” Magnus said solemnly. “I’m ready to drive a bulldozer down the middle of the excrement and blow the general and his asshole brats sky high.”
Conan leaned back in his chair and studied his brother’s broad back. Magnus hadn’t shown much interest in anything except machines since his wife’s death. Maybe if he was finally expressing passion—even hostility—it was time for him to get back on track.
“Finish off the apartment and you can have it rent free,” Conan suggested. “I’ll set you up with computers and my files on the general.”
He was as much as kissing Dorrie good-bye with that statement. She wasn’t the bold type who’d move in with him when family was on the premises.
She wouldn’t have moved in anyway. He had bad chee. He wondered if bad chee smelled like cooked cabbage.
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