Mortal Ties wotl-9

by Eileen Wilks

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THREE-PLUS hours later, Little Mo had made it through surgery. The doctors put his chances at around fifty percent, but they’d go up if he made it through the night. Beth was at the hotel in a small but luxurious room on their floor. Her friend Deirdre had opted to stay there with her tonight, which sort of negated the don’t-put-your-friends-in-danger argument, but at least they were guarded.

  Murray was at Laban Clanhome. It was on a small ranch outside the city, much closer than Nokolai Clanhome—the ranch where the black dragon picked up his payment for overflying San Francisco once a week, in fact. This was one of the ways Laban had benefited from its association with Nokolai. The government paid them handsomely for providing Sam a cow or three. Housing Murray gave Laban another opportunity to regain face.

  Tony was somewhere in San Francisco, presumably looking for Hugo. Rule was back at the hotel, and Lily was headed there.

  “Did you eat?” Rule asked.

  “I ordered in for everyone. Bad enough I kept them late. Didn’t have to keep them hungry, too. You ate, too, right?”

  “It’s nine thirty-five.” Meaning of course he’d eaten. Rule never let himself get too hungry, and his metabolism insisted on plenty of fuel. “Pizza or hamburgers?”

  “Hamburgers.”

  “Extra pickles for yours.”

  She smiled. “Right. See you in ten.” She disconnected.

  “More like fifteen, in this traffic,” Scott said. He was driving. Lily sat up front with him; Mike and Todd were in the back. As squad leader, Scott probably should have been at the hotel, but she hadn’t argued when Rule wanted to send him and the others with her. She knew he trusted Scott the most. Rule had a real problem with the two of them splitting up when she might be targeted.

  But he’d needed to stay at the hospital until Murray could be moved, and Lily couldn’t wait there with him. In the hours since she dropped her sister off at the hotel she’d talked to her father, Ruben, Grandmother, and the agent monitoring the taps on Jasper Machek’s various phone lines. Nothing of note there. Next she’d sat in on the SFPD interview with the man who’d probably given Little Mo and the rest their orders—Robert “Peep” Holland. The nickname was a reference to his first arrest. At the downy age of fifteen he’d been booked as a Peeping Tom, but he’d probably been planning a robbery, judging by his subsequent career. After that, she’d needed to brief Bergman and her people, and that had turned into a brainstorming session.

  The interview with Peep had been brief and unproductive. Not Detective Jones’s fault. Peep had been around the block so many times he’d mapped out each crack in the sidewalk. He had no idea what they were talking about and he wanted his lawyer.

  The session with Bergman and her people had gone better. Lily had needed to tell them about Jasper Machek’s unofficially missing lover, the theft of the prototype, and Robert Friar’s possible connection to both. She followed that with a rundown on Robert Friar—what was known, what was suspected, how his Gifts worked. Of course, they should have known that already. Friar might be officially presumed dead, but there were “watch for” bulletins out on him all over the country. But unGifted cops sometimes glazed over about magical shit. They didn’t understand it, wanted it to go away, and so they tuned out.

  They would be treating the attack on Beth as an attempted kidnapping, and the disappearances of Sean Friar and Adam King as suspected kidnappings.

  Why kidnappings? That was the ten-thousand-dollar question, and they didn’t come up with any answers. Murder was a hell of a lot easier. Even with a good team to handle the snatch itself—and Little Mo’s bunch were competent; they’d have succeeded if they hadn’t been up against lupi—you had to keep your hostage alive, locked up, and hidden. Holding multiple people hostage for several days compounded the difficulty. Why would Friar do that?

  Lily didn’t think he was. Neither did Bergman. Chances were that Sean Friar and Adam King were already dead, but maybe not. They had no idea what Friar’s game plan was, so maybe he needed them alive. In any event, they had to proceed as if the hostages were still around to be rescued.

  At the end of the briefing Lily had turned to Special Agent Bergman and said, “This is a Unit case, both because of Friar’s probable involvement and because of the prototype. But we’ve got two kidnappings and one attempt, and you’ve got ten times my experience with that sort of thing. You know your people and you know the city. What do you want to do?”

  Bergman had taken off like a racehorse given its head. She was quick, she was precise, and she knew her stuff. In five minutes she’d outlined a course of action that included liaising with the locals on the attempt on Beth—one of Bergman’s men had worked with Detective Jones and had a good relationship with her; bringing Carrie Ann Rucker back for a second round of questions; putting more people on Sean Friar’s disappearance to find out when, where, and how he’d been snatched; and finding out what Peep was afraid of. “We can’t sweat him with threats of prosecution,” she said. “Prison’s his home away from home. We need to know what scares him and use that.”

  She also wanted to look for matches to the attempt on Beth because “those assholes knew what they were doing. This wasn’t their first tango, but nothing in their priors suggests that kind of expertise. I think they had help.” And she wanted to put a tap on Jasper Machek’s phone.

  “Help…as in training?” Lily nodded thoughtfully. “Well worth checking out. The tap’s in place as of two hours ago. I’ll see that you get transcripts. You’re in charge of investigating the kidnappings.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Drummond demanded.

  He’d faded in to join them in a misty-white-cloud sort of way when Lily began the briefing. Now he was fully formed, floating, and fuming.

  It was really hard not to react.

  Bergman spoke levelly. “It’s a Unit case.”

  “Yes, it is, and you’ll report to me, but you don’t need me to tell you how to tie your shoes.”

  Drummond glared down at her. “No, I can do that! Dammit, Yu, with me to help, you can handle this just fine.”

  “Set things up,” Lily went on briskly to Bergman, “keep things moving, keep me informed. If your people get anything—anything at all—that gives a tug on Robert Friar’s whereabouts, call me that instant. Do not attempt him yourself.”

  Drummond announced that she was a goddamned idiot.

  Bergman nodded, still wary. “That’s standing orders for Friar. ‘Contact Unit Twelve immediately. Do not attempt to apprehend.’ ”

  “I’m underlining it. This is not about territory or who gets the collar.”

  “I’m not territorial.”

  Sure she was, but Lily didn’t have a problem with that. “Robert Friar can’t be handled without magical protections that your people don’t have, and I can’t give them.” She paused to glance around the small conference table at the four agents other than Bergman…

  Drummond sank to floor level and stomped silently up to Lily. “Dammit, you need to listen to me! Investigations like this are what I do, and I’m damn good at what I do. If you can’t handle an investigation this big, let me help so—”

  Shut up!

  He looked startled—and did. That disconcerted her as much as his yelling had. Lily hoped her reaction didn’t show as she finished her visual circuit of everyone present—everyone but Drummond. “Everyone clear on that? Okay. What do you need that you don’t have?”

  Bergman snorted. “A dozen senior agents, a car that doesn’t stall out when I try to go over fifty, and a vacation in the Bahamas.”

  “Can’t help with the vacation. Do you have an immediate need for a dozen senior agents, or was that number just for ha-ha?”

  Bergman’s eyes narrowed. “You can get me a dozen senior agents?”

  “To get Robert Friar? Damn straight. I can pull in the army if I need them, but I’d better really, deeply need them. How many senior agents do you really, deeply need?”


  Bergman went silent, her eyes unfocused. She was taking time to come up with a real number. Lily appreciated that. “Three seniors, three juniors,” she said at last. “I can put the three seniors to work right away, and the juniors can handle some of the grunt work.”

  “How fast do you need them?” Lily glanced at her watch. It was after ten in D.C. “I don’t want to wake Ida up if I don’t have to.” Lily could make the calls herself, but in a nonemergency situation it was better to let Ruben’s secretary handle things. She’d pull in agents in a way that didn’t disrupt their current workload too badly.

  Bergman smiled slowly. “How about by noon tomorrow?”

  “Works.” Lily made a few notes, talking as she wrote. “While you handle the heavy load, I’m going to be coming at this from another angle—the prototype. If we knew who wanted it so damn bad and why, we’d have a better idea who the players are.” She looked up. “If no one here’s going to miss their kid’s birthday or an anniversary or something, I’d like to order in some food and bat this around while we eat.”

  That’s what they’d done. Drummond had reverted to his misty, untalking shape for most of the session, though he had formed up enough to comment now and then. They were useful comments, so Lily had passed them on. And maybe no one came up with any breakthrough ideas, but brainstorming got them farther along. And more invested. It put them on her team. Lily had felt satisfied as she rode down to the ground floor.

  Drummond joined her as she stepped out of the elevator in his fully formed version, his usual scowl in place. “What you did—that was creepy as hell.”

  Lily glanced around. The lobby was empty except for the security guard, but her back was to him as she walked away, and he was plugged into his iPod, listening to something with lots of bass. That made for lousy security, but came in handy at the moment. If she whispered…“A ghost is telling me something’s creepy?”

  “You yelled right in my mind!”

  “That’s how mindspeech is supposed to work.” Lily felt a bit smug. Mostly she couldn’t make the mindspeech thing work. She’d been practicing for months now with Sam, but her ability remained so erratic as to be useless. Maybe this was a breakthrough? Can you hear me now?

  He winced. “Don’t do that.”

  Get used to it. I don’t want people to wonder why I keep talking to myself.

  He sighed. “I can see that. I handled it wrong up there, but I was so…why did you hand it off to Bergman? I could have helped. I’m supposed to help, dammit.”

  The lobby had revolving glass doors. She could see Scott waiting right out front, as arranged. She glanced at Drummond and shoved on the glass. Because she’s good, and this frees me up to do what I’m good at. Unless you know something against her, she added as she stepped out into a chilly San Francisco night. Maybe Drummond had worked with Bergman and had some reason to object. They were roughly the same age. The age he’d been when he died, anyway.

  “No,” he said grudgingly. “Bergman’s competent. But you don’t get anywhere by handing the juicy cases off to someone else.”

  “Depends on where you want to go, doesn’t it?” Whoops—she’d forgotten and spoken out loud. She glanced over her shoulder—no one nearby, so maybe no one noticed.

  Not even Drummond. He’d stopped dead and was staring at the car with loathing. “I hate it when you go in the car,” he’d said—and winked out.

  He hadn’t come back when she called him. Lily was beginning to understand why responsible mediums rolled their eyes when asked about getting supernatural aid from the dead. Ghosts—coherent or not—just weren’t much help.

  She didn’t see him at the hotel, either. Marcus and Steve were on duty in the hall when Lily approached the suite trailing her own contingent of guards. She greeted them absently, used the key card, and opened the door.

  Joe sailed down the short entry hall to land on his back with a grunt, right at her feet.

  TWENTY-SIX

  LILY’S gun was in her hand before she even thought about it. Joe grinned up at her. “Whoops. No alarm needed. Rule’s been showing me a few tricks.”

  Joe was wearing boxers. Period. Rule was in shirt and dress slacks when he appeared at the end of the short hall. The shirt was unfastened. “Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, which was already pretty messed up. Sweat gleamed on his chest. “I should have warned you.”

  Lily holstered her weapon. “Or at least thrown Joe the other direction.”

  Steve was shamefaced. “It’s my fault. I knew they were working out. I should have told you before you went in. It didn’t occur to me you’d…sorry.”

  “No one got shot, so I’ll accept the apologies.” Steve hadn’t been around her much, and he was Leidolf. He wasn’t used to women who reacted the way she did. “Next time you’ll know.”

  Rule, however, had been around her plenty, and while she hadn’t shot anyone, she might have. It wasn’t as if he never made mistakes, but this…this had been stupid in the didn’t-bother-to-think sense. That wasn’t his kind of mistake. Lily closed the door and moved on into the room, studying him while trying to look like she wasn’t. “I don’t see any damage to the furnishings.”

  “We moved things around to make room.” Absently he began buttoning his shirt.

  “Where’s Cullen?”

  “Casting his Find spell. Again.”

  “It didn’t work?”

  “Oh, he claims it worked. He said the spell located the prototype, but it doesn’t know where that location is. Apparently that makes sense to him.” Rule ran a hand through his hair a second time, but this time with fingers spread to smooth it down. He glanced around. “It was a good bout, Joe. Thanks. Everyone on duty, take your posts. Off duty, get some food or sleep or head for the hotel gym.”

  The sitting room emptied quickly. She and Rule were as alone as they’d been since she climbed in his lap last night…God, yes, that was only a little over twenty-four hours ago, wasn’t it? As alone as they ever got lately. She walked up to him and put her arms around his waist, leaned her head against his chest, and hugged.

  He sighed and hugged back, rubbing his cheek along the top of her head. For a long moment they just stood there, neither of them speaking. He smelled of fresh sweat and the faint, underlying scent that was his alone. Even her poor human nose could identify him from this close. “What do you smell like?”

  “Hmm?” He raised his head. He was smiling slightly.

  “If I could smell you the way your men can, I mean. What were they smelling when you and Joe were working out?”

  His smile fled. “Tension,” he said at last. “I hope they didn’t smell the anxiety. If they’d been in wolf form, they would have.”

  “Hence the sudden need to throw Joe around.”

  “Hence that.” His smile returned, but didn’t make it to his eyes. “Hence turning suddenly stupid. I thought I was dealing with this better.”

  “This” being his unexpected acquisition of a brother? His worry about her? The war? All of the above, she thought, and stretched up and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “You’re dealing okay. You sent Patrick to look out for Beth. If you hadn’t, they’d have gotten her.”

  “I didn’t claim to be stupid all the time, but I can’t afford even brief bouts of it.”

  “I didn’t shoot.”

  “And thank God for that, but—”

  “Point being that you aren’t perfect, you aren’t going to turn perfect just because you feel like it’s all up to you, and sometimes you have to rely on other people to do the right thing. What did Scott do when I drew?”

  “Shifted to the side so he could leap past you if needed. Todd turned enough to keep both you and the hall in view. Mike…his posture suggested he was ready to take you to the floor if there was a threat. I need to talk to him about that. Standing orders are that they never block your shot. And yes, I take your point, which I gather is something about teamwork.”

  He sounded irritated about the
whole concept of teamwork, which she gathered had something to do with being a Rho and, therefore, a control freak. The latter condition she understood only too well, so she gave him another quick kiss to tell him that, then simply lingered, held close, and thought about all the questions she’d been saving up for when they were alone. And didn’t want to ask any of them. She didn’t want to talk at all, not with her body stirring and beginning to yearn.

  She sighed. “We need to talk.”

  “Why do those words always sound so ominous?” he murmured. But he was more relaxed now, more himself. “You want to discuss the venue for the wedding?”

  Their wedding had been so far from her thinking the last twenty-four hours that his question took her aback. She shook her head. “This is about the case. The cases.”

  He squeezed her waist and let go. “All right. Would you like some wine to go with our words? I had a pleasant Syrah with dinner. There’s some of that left, or I could open the Riesling the wine steward recommended.”

  “Some Riesling would be good.” As he moved to the room service cart she took off her jacket, draped it over the back of a chair, and began unfastening her shoulder harness. “Why Leidolf?”

  “Hmm?” He inserted the corkscrew and began twisting.

  “I wondered why you brought an all-Leidolf squad with us.”

  “Oh.” With a soft sound like a sigh the cork came out. He reached for a wineglass. “Call it a gut impulse, but my head agreed.”

  She set her shoulder harness on the table and toed off first one shoe, then the other. It felt good to wiggle her toes, dig them into the plush carpet. “What did your head say?”

  “That it’s hard on my Leidolf guards at Nokolai Clanhome. They’re surrounded by Nokolai and constantly see me in my role as the other clan’s Lu Nuncio. They need time with me as their Rho.”

  He wasn’t making any effort to lower his voice, which meant any guards in the other bedroom who were awake could hear him easily. Which meant he was okay with that. Maybe he wanted them to. Lily picked up her jacket, shoulder harness, and shoes and carried them into the bedroom that was hers and Rule’s. “It’s kind of weird to hear you call Nokolai the other clan. I know what you meant, but…do you think you’ll become more Leidolf than Nokolai?”