Mortal Ties wotl-9

by Eileen Wilks

  “Robert Friar?” Lily said sharply. “You know where he is?’

  “Not precisely. Not his exact location. But he’s in California, and I have information that may lead you to him.”

  “Is he behind all this? Did he hire you?”

  Machek slid her a glance as opaque as Rule at his most closed down. “I won’t answer questions until I have my property back.”

  He meant it. Lily was convinced of that. How much of the rest did he mean? He’d stepped around certain statements meticulously, as a man might who preferred to speak truth, but was constrained from real honesty. Or as a clever and expert liar might. He didn’t claim to know where Friar was. He didn’t say Friar was behind this. He implied the possibility, but he wouldn’t say who had kidnapped his partner. He wouldn’t admit King had been taken.

  If Lily weren’t here, he might have told Rule that much of the truth, instead of talking about “property.” Even with Lily here he might have taken that risk if they’d brought Cynna along, hoping she could find King before his captors realized the FBI was involved. Instead, they’d brought Cullen. How convenient, he’d said. “How is the exchange—” Her phone chimed the opening to “Boy” by Ra Ra Riot…Beth’s ring tone. Lily grimaced and reached into her purse to turn the ringer off. “How will the exchange be handled?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll get a call sometime today or tonight with the details.”

  Rule spoke. “You had us meet you here at your home. I take it this mysterious they know you’re talking to us. What do they think you’re telling us?”

  His eyes flashed with what might be amusement. “Why, right now I’m telling you that I’m acting as a go-between for the real thief, who is now willing to sell it back to you in order to avoid those violent types who attacked him and tried—unsuccessfully—to steal it from him last night.”

  Lily’s eyebrows lifted. “They assumed I wouldn’t see through that and arrest you?”

  “They expressed confidence in my ability to talk you out of that until you had the prototype back. To keep you busy, I’m to feed you misinformation about the attempted snatch so you’ll look in the wrong places until it’s time for the exchange. Then I lure Seabourne to the place named.”

  “Just Cullen?” Lily asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m to bring him alone if I can, but they accept that you might not agree to that. Once we’re all in place, ah…” He cast Cullen an apologetic look. “Seabourne will be incapacitated with wolfbane.”

  Rule said, “Do you know how, exactly, they plan to do that? It’s not as easy to do as it might seem, given your success with the stuff on Big Sister.”

  “They didn’t say. I assumed they’d burn it, but assumptions aren’t the best guide. Should I try to find out when they call?”

  Rule shook his head. “Too easy to make them suspicious. They’ll expect you to be focused on getting King…on getting your property back, not on what they do with Cullen.”

  “They know I’ve some concern about his welfare. That’s how I pried out of them that they’d be using wolfbane. They assured me he’d be treated gently, that he’s no use to them dead.”

  Cullen snorted his opinion of that.

  “Don’t get fancy,” Lily said to Machek. “Find out anything you can about the location and means of the proposed exchange, but don’t go beyond that.” She looked at Rule, wondering where he wanted this to go. He met her gaze, but his was shuttered, telling her nothing.

  When in doubt, ask questions. Lily did, coming back to the same ones in multiple ways, until Machek politely suggested she could either arrest him or leave, but he hoped they’d agree to the exchange. And at last Rule spoke again.

  “We can’t agree to anything without more information,” he said, standing. “When you know the where, when, and how for this proposed exchange, call me and we’ll discuss it.”

  “I have your number,” Machek said calmly, rising like a good host whose guests were departing.

  He hid differently than Rule did, Lily thought. He used lightheartedness for a shield. “And mine,” she added, taking out one of her cards and setting it on the cluttered coffee table. “Just in case.”

  NINETEEN

  THEY were gone. At last they were gone. Thank God.

  Jasper closed the door and scrubbed his face with both hands as if he could erase some of the lies he’d told. No point in dwelling on it. He’d done what he had to do.

  No, that was lying to himself, a sin at least as bad as lying to others and often far more destructive. He’d chosen to put Adam’s life above these strangers’ welfare. However terrible a choice it might be, it had been his to make, and he had to admit that. If one of those strangers was his half brother, did that matter?

  Not enough, he thought as he headed back to the couch where he’d snatched a few hours of sleep last night. He’d cleared away the pillow and blanket before Rule Turner and his entourage arrived. It was the first time they’d been put away since that bastard took Adam. Funny how his innate tidiness had fled ever since he got that phone call. He’d been deliberately leaving clutter around as if that would create a homing beacon for his messy partner. Adam would laugh when he saw…

  God, he hoped Adam would still be able to laugh.

  He sank onto the couch and picked up the card that Rule’s fiancée had left. Lily Yu. He turned it over as if he might find a clue on its blank back. She sure didn’t look like an FBI agent…she had the serious part down, but she was so little. Pretty, too, though somehow that word didn’t seem to fit. Flowers were pretty. She was…compact, he decided. As if something much larger had been crammed into a deceptively small size.

  Odd choice for his brother to make. He couldn’t picture Lily Yu putting up with a partner’s roving eye, but what did he know? Nothing, really, about the lady, and not much more about the man who shared half Jasper’s genetic inheritance. No more than however many zillion others who occasionally read a gossip mag. Jasper didn’t pick them up ordinarily, but he’d been curious. Now and then he’d toyed with the idea of meeting Rule Turner. Like when his mom was dying and he learned how much Isen Turner had paid for over the years. Or when he first came out. He’d come boiling out of the damn closet, pissed at the world, and that had seemed like a great target for his anger—the overwhelmingly hetero half brother who was sure to be disgusted.

  If he’d been disgusted today, he’d hidden it well. But he’d hidden everything well, hadn’t he? Jasper had seen a certain intensity, but he had no idea what the man was feeling intense about. Maybe Rule wasn’t the heedless tomcat he’d been made out to be. Maybe he used to be, but had changed. Now and then people did.

  The resemblance had startled Jasper. It had never seemed that strong in photos or on TV, but when he looked into his brother’s eyes…and just why did Rule look so damn young? He was six years older than Jasper, but he looked fifteen years younger. The best surgeon in the world didn’t give you back young skin. Could it be a lupi thing? Maybe in addition to being preternaturally strong and sexy, they didn’t age.

  That was an unsettling thought. But what about this day wasn’t unsettling, grim, terrifying—

  His phone buzzed. His heart jumped in his chest, loathing and longing coupling promiscuously with fear, shame, and more—a veritable orgy of feelings that had him snatching the phone up quickly, then hesitating. He didn’t recognize the number, but Adam’s kidnapper never called from the same number twice. “Yes?”

  “You did well, Jasper.” It was a warm voice, friendly, with just the right touch of sympathy, the kind of voice that could coax a smile from a sullen child.

  Fresh diarrhea was warm, too. And just about as welcome. This wasn’t the voice Jasper longed for. “I’ll speak with Adam now.”

  “Will you?” The amusement was light, not without that tracery of sympathy.

  “That’s our deal. You want me to remain confident that you’ll honor your end, don’t you? You want me to go on believing that Adam is alive and that I’
ll get him back.”

  “I do enjoy dealing with an intelligent man,” his nemesis said in an approving way. “And yet I suspect that hope would work as well as certainty. Maybe better. It might be helpful for me to find out.”

  Fear broke out the razor blades and sawed at Jasper’s gut. “I’m not a very optimistic person. I need certainty to keep me motivated. I’ll speak with Adam now, or I’ll speak to Lily Yu.”

  “The laborer is worthy of his hire, I suppose. The Bible is wrong about a great deal,” he added, “but there are nuggets of wisdom among the debris. You’ve done as you were told, and you will receive your agreed-upon pay…since Adam is in fact quite well, though not particularly happy at the moment. First, however, I have instructions about tonight.”

  “Wait while I get a pen.” He did that, collecting his notebook at the same time, then listened, jotting the pertinent facts down in his personal shorthand. Jasper had long since established the habit of putting any notes about a job down in a form no one could use against him in court.

  “I’m surprised by your concern,” the warm voice said when Jasper questioned one point. “Have you changed your mind about Rule Turner now that you two have met? You told me you didn’t know much about him, but what you did know, you didn’t like.”

  “Oh,” he breathed, “but I dislike you so much more.”

  “Do you not think it impolitic to say so?”

  “Who can we be truly frank with, if not our enemies?”

  A chuckle, rich with amusement. “Oh, Jasper, don’t fool yourself. You’re bought and paid for. You’ll do as you’re told, and that’s hardly the behavior of an enemy, is it?”

  TWENTY

  RULE headed down the outdoor stairs, so baffled by emotion he barely noticed the closed-in feeling piling on top of the rest. He was only too aware of how poorly he’d handled himself in there, but at least he’d realized that and let Lily take the lead.

  She’d done that efficiently, asking plenty of questions. Not the ones he’d wanted answered, such as: How did your mother die? Or Did she look like you? Like me? Or Did you ever think about contacting me? No, she’d asked the ones that should have mattered…and would, once he pulled himself together.

  Time to make a start on that. At the base of the stairs, Rule began, “If Friar—”

  “Let’s talk about it when we get to the car,” Lily said.

  He grimaced. If Friar was involved, he’d been about to say, it changed the possibilities considerably…including the chance that someone was pointing a directional microphone their way right now. That was unlikely but possible, and he should have thought of it. “Point taken.” Then, to Scott: “Keep Chris and Alan here to keep an eye on Jasper. The others will follow us to the hotel. Send Barnaby and Joe ahead to check the car.” As he started down the sidewalk he asked Lily, “Is Drummond around?”

  “Not visibly.”

  Which was supposed to mean he couldn’t listen in, but…“Would you mind putting on your necklace?”

  For answer she reached in her purse and pulled it out, closing her hand around the stones. “It works when it’s in contact with my skin. Or it’s supposed to.”

  She didn’t tell him it was understandable that he was shaken. She didn’t ask what he thought of Jasper Machek or how he felt. She held the ghost-repelling necklace in one hand and took his hand with the other one, then walked beside him in silence. Bless her for that, as for so much else. He didn’t know what he felt or what he thought, and he couldn’t afford to be shaken. Not if Friar had his finger in this pot.

  They moved briskly down the street. Rule tried to empty his mind. It didn’t work. He was still a jumble when they crossed the first street and Lily broke the silence.

  “I liked Jasper.”

  “I did, too.” He hadn’t expected to. He hadn’t expected…any of this. He wasn’t going to be able to put it aside, was he? He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the things that ought to matter until he’d dealt with what, inexplicably, did. He stopped and glanced back at Scott. “I need to walk a bit and clear my head. If the car’s clean, have them drive it around the block until I signal.” He made the quick gesture that told Scott to drop back several yards.

  “You want me to take a hike?” Cullen asked.

  “Or a ride. I’d rather you didn’t wander around where someone could grab you or attempt to. Either stay with Scott or get in the car with the others.”

  Rule resumed walking. Scott and Cullen fell behind. If he kept his voice low, they wouldn’t hear more than the occasional word. And now that he had this much privacy, he didn’t know what to say.

  Lily didn’t prompt him. For once, she didn’t ask questions. She just kept pace with him for another two blocks. But now, for whatever reason, he could at least turn his attention away from the noise in his head, listening to the city sounds…cars, voices from some of the houses they passed, a dog in the last block, a cat in this one. The soft sound of Lily’s footsteps beside him. Her hand was warm in his. He watched as a woman in workout clothes pushed a jogging stroller along on the other side of the street. Its occupant looked sound asleep. And he heard himself say, “It never occurred to me that she was dead.”

  Lily stopped, so he did, too. She looked at him. “Oh, Rule.”

  “It should have occurred to me. She’d be over eighty by now if she’d lived, so it was an obvious possibility. But as long as I didn’t think of her…” He shoved his free hand through his hair. “She wasn’t real. She wasn’t a person to me, yet as long as I didn’t think about her, she was still alive somewhere.” Frustrated, he added, “I don’t know why it matters.”

  “Death cuts off possibilities. Even if they were possibilities you never meant to act on, it feels different when they’re gone.”

  Possibilities he never meant to act on, never thought he wanted. And now he ached from their loss. “She wasn’t a mother to me, but she was a person. I’ll never know that person. I never thought I’d want to.”

  “She was bipolar.”

  “What?” He stared. “I mean—I know what that is, of course, but how do you know that?”

  “Isen told me last night. She was in treatment for it several times, on his dime. I thought he should have told you years ago. He and I argued about that.”

  A dozen thoughts and memories tumbled around in his head. The past was supposed to be fixed, unalterable, but it was shifting on him. Finally he said, “It takes determination to argue with Isen.”

  “The Rho thing doesn’t work on me.”

  “Even so.” He started walking again. After half a block he said, “I want to get to know Jasper.”

  “That would be good. We’ve got some heavy shit to get through first.”

  Too damn true. “Speaking of which…” Rule stopped again and looked behind them. Scott and Cullen were half a block back. He gave the signal for them to approach.

  “Jasper thought you’d be upset about Adam.”

  He quirked a surprised brow at her. “I am, of course. Assuming that our assumption about his kidnapping is true.”

  “Not that kind of upset. Upset because his lover is a man. Once he got past the shock of me figuring out what property had been taken from him, he watched you. He was waiting for you to go all ick on him.”

  “How did you see that? I didn’t.”

  “Not so much baggage. No,” she corrected herself. “Different baggage. Mine doesn’t involve Jasper.”

  He felt better. Not good, but not as jumbled. He smiled to tell Lily that. “Why do you suppose he never contacted me?”

  “He was raised by a bipolar mother who didn’t get adequate treatment for years. He grew up gay in a society that made him a target for every kind of hate and bullying. Chances are he has his own baggage, don’t you think?”

  The rented BMW reached them quickly. Rule and Lily took the backseat; Cullen sat up front with Scott. Lily, he noticed, put her necklace back in her purse. Why didn’t she just keep it on? She had some kind of crazy
tolerance for Drummond’s ghost that he couldn’t fathom and didn’t like.

  “All right,” Rule said once they were moving. Short of planting a bug—which the guards had checked for—it was almost impossible to target a moving vehicle either electronically or magically. “I’d like to hear your impressions. How much of Jasper’s story was true, do you think?”

  Lily shrugged. “All, some…impossible to say.” She reached for her laptop and popped it open.

  “He smelled anxious and guilty,” Cullen put in, “but the anxiety could be about his lover. So could the guilt. Nothing gets the guilt gland pumping like thinking you’ve endangered someone you love.”

  “That part I’d put money on,” Lily said. She was typing something on her laptop as she spoke. “The part he didn’t admit—that they’re threatening his partner to force him to do what they want. Not that I’m taking his word that it’s ‘they’ rather than ‘he’ or ‘she.’ ”

  Rule hadn’t noticed Jasper’s use of the plural pronoun to refer to whoever had Adam, but now that Lily brought it up…“If Friar’s involved, ‘they’ is appropriate. Especially on this coast.” Friar’s East Coast lieutenant was in jail awaiting trial, having been refused bail as a flight risk. But his West Coast lieutenant was still free and active.

  “Friar must be part of it,” Cullen said. “How would Machek know to mention him otherwise? The official story is that Robert Friar died when the mountain came down in September.”

  Lily looked up. “But Machek didn’t mention Friar by name, did he? I did. He said something about us wanting to find the one behind the October attacks. I filled in the blank for him.”

  Cullen looked over his shoulder at her, startled. “Son of a bitch. You’re right. Did he do that on purpose?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you guess that he was talking about his partner, anyway?”