Bad because it made any kind of tail harder to notice.
Good because it also gave him a way to get lost in case there was a tail.
Mick had been vigilant for the first twenty miles or so, always checking the rear view mirror for any telltale signs that he had been made. The roads had been clear of any suspicious vehicles and it had remained that way for the entire trip.
Occasionally he checked on his passenger, who had barely moved in all that time.
Caterina was battered, hurt, and possibly undernourished.
Exhausted judging from the nearly blue-black circles beneath her eyes illuminated by the bursts of light from a passing car or street light.
He let her rest, hoping that with rest would come some greater mental clarity than what she had displayed at the Music Academy. Of course, maybe that was all that was left of her brain after the tumor and treatments.
Once again, he didn’t know why that possibility upset him.
Maybe it was because of the woman he had come to know through his investigations. The determined, but pleasant and intelligent woman who had not let anything get in her way.
Not even a life-threatening illness.
Not even the good doctors Wells and Edwards.
He wondered what they would make of her condition. Whether they would find it routine or if they would even care?
Edwards certainly had seemed more worried about how his partner’s murder would hurt the business rather than his violent death.
A death caused by the woman beside him, the voice of the mercenary cautioned, reminding him that emotion could play no role in the job he had been hired to do.
Up ahead on the road was his exit off the parkway and once again he paid careful attention to the cars around and behind him as he pulled onto a smaller county road. For the few miles on that thoroughfare there were barely any cars, making it extremely easy to see if someone was following.
No one was.
Relief filled him that the existence of his home – a temporary safe house for tonight – remained unknown for the moment. Neither his old friend Franklin nor any of his other current associates knew the whereabouts of it. The deed was recorded in the name of a business he had set up, lessening any connection to him. That made it a good location for dealing with Caterina for the moment, although he didn’t like the idea of bringing work to his home and near his family.
He had always tried to keep his business life away from his family life. Caterina would be the first business he had ever brought home. For that matter, he had never brought another woman to this house. Caterina was also a first in that category and under different conditions, he suspected that might have been a good thing given all that he had learned about her so far.
The turn off from the county road to the side streets came quickly and barely a few miles later he was pulling into the driveway for the large old colonial located a little more than a block away from the ocean.
He pushed the button on his visor for the garage and the door rumbled open, the sound low enough that he hoped none of his neighbors would hear at this fairly late hour. He drove into the garage and then shut the door behind him.
With the car in the garage, his neighbors and others would be less likely to notice he was back.
For good measure, he flipped the switch he had installed by the door into the house to disable the remote open. Entering his home, he punched in the code to shut off the security system and returned to the Jeep for his captive.
Caterina didn’t rouse as he lifted her from the SUV, carried her into the house and up the stairs to the larger of the two guest bedrooms.
After laying her on the bed, he rushed back down to close up the Jeep and the house. He was about to enable the security system once more when he caught a glimpse of headlights on the street in front of the house.
A second later his sister pulled up in her dependably boring mid-sized sedan. An old person’s car, but then again, his sister had an old soul. Luckily for him, a reliable old soul.
He walked to the door and opened it, and as her face brightened with a wide smile as she saw him, he felt the smile erupt on his own face.
She hurried up the cement walk, medical bag in hand, and embraced him tightly at the door.
“Missed you, bro,” she said as she buried her head into the middle of his chest.
“Missed you, too, sis,” he replied as he hugged her petite body tight to his.
When Liliana stepped away, she inspected him up and down with motherly concern, but sisterly sarcasm in her tone. “You’re not hurt?”
“I have a . . . guest upstairs. She – ”
“She?” his sister said, one brow flying upward with interest as she pushed past him, wasting not a second in her quest to discover the identity of his female visitor.
Mick chased after her, wanting to warn her about Caterina’s rather unusual abilities, but he was relieved to see that his guest was still conked out in much the same position that he had left her earlier.
Liliana stopped by the side of the bed, perusing Caterina before she turned an accusing eye in his direction.
“Please tell me you’re not responsible for the bruises.” She flicked her hand at the obvious damage to Caterina’s face.
He raised his hands in surrender, although he was slightly annoyed that his sister didn’t know better than to ask such a question. “Found her after she’d been hurt. She’s been shot as well. I’m sure the bullet’s still in her shoulder.”
He joined Liliana by the edge of the bed, gently removed his jacket from Caterina, and tossed it to the side to reveal the bullet wound. Caterina murmured another soft protest as he moved her, but otherwise did not stir.
With the jacket gone, the odd iridescent blood splotch was fully visible as it stained the shirt surrounding the injury to her shoulder.
An injury that seemed even smaller than when he had inspected it in Philly.
Liliana bent to peer at the wound and then reached for the bedside lamp, removed the shade and turned up the bulb as high as it could go.
“What’s with the glowing green paint?” Liliana asked even as she placed her physician’s bag on the nightstand and removed a pair of surgical scissors.
“It’s not paint. It’s blood.”
Liliana shot him a disbelieving stare, but then reached out and touched the splotch on the shirt. Picked up her finger and smelled it, her reaction much like his had been earlier.
“Definitely blood. How’s that possible?”
“Wish I knew, Lil.” He leaned over his sister’s shoulder, watching as she carefully slipped the surgical scissors beneath the sleeve of the T-shirt and began to cut away the fabric.
Caterina immediately roused then, her eyes wide with fear as she noted the scissors and realized what was happening.
“No,” she said and jerked away from Liliana. The motion must have caused her pain because she moaned, grimaced, and screwed her eyes shut.
“She’s here to help, Cat. Do you understand? Help,” he repeated the way he might speak to a young child.
Caterina shook her head and whispered “no” before passing out once again.
Liliana pressed forward despite her patient’s protest, her movements efficient and so capable that the shirt was cut away from the damaged shoulder without her patient noticing. As his sister revealed the damage caused by the bullet wound, she muttered a curse. “Damn, this is almost closed up, but I can see there are still bits of cloth in there.”
“And the bullet. Can you clean it up?”
Liliana nodded as she placed the scissors on the nightstand. “Definitely have to get it clean, otherwise she might go septic. We can admit her – ”
“No hospital, Lil, and don’t ask me why not.”
Liliana turned and planted her hands on her hips, head tilted up defiantly, and the lines of her small body vibrating with tension. “You can’t expect me to cut her open here.”
“I can. It’s not life-threatening.�
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“It could be if infection sets in. Plus I’m obligated by law to report any gunshot wounds,” his sister warned, obviously hoping she could convince him on a different course of action.
Which left only one thing he could do.
“If she’s discovered, she could be killed. And how would you explain the lightning bug blood? It’s her blood, Lil, and when I found her . . .”
He looked away and dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s almost too weird to believe,” he admitted.
* * *
Sensing the truth and frustration in her brother’s words, Liliana reached out and laid a hand on his arm. She had never seen him this upset, not to mention that he had never reached out to her for help on a case before. That he had done so now said a lot, but she wouldn’t be quick to judge what his actions were saying. And if what he said was true about the young woman’s life being in peril, it justified not reporting the shooting.
At least, not for the moment.
“If I’m going to deal with the wound, we’ll have to sedate her. Then you’ll have to monitor her carefully for any signs of infection.”
Mick nodded and she reached into her medical bag and removed a vial of sedative that she kept in case of an emergency. It would take very little of the powerful drug to keep Mick’s guest knocked out while she cleansed the wound and stitched her up.
She prepped a syringe and then picked up the young woman’s arm to administer the medicine. The woman’s eyelids fluttered up and down as she responded to the movement, then immediately flew open at the sight of the syringe.
“No,” Caterina protested, stronger than before and suddenly, the pale blue of the sheets spread across every visible inch of her body.
Liliana glanced down at where she held the woman’s arm, just to make sure she was seeing right. The olive tones of her own skin clashed with the sky blue hue the woman’s skin had taken on. Shock tightened her grasp on the woman, who attempted to break free by wrenching her body away.
“Easy, Cat,” Mick said, immediately at her side, grabbing hold of the woman’s shoulders in an attempt to pin her down. That only made her react even more forcefully.
The woman thrashed in earnest, heaving her shoulders up off the bed. Bringing her knees up so she could try to kick at Mick.
Mick climbed up on the bed and wrestled his captive back down until he was straddling her. He pinned her arms and legs down with his body, but she continued to twist and buck upward in an effort to free herself.
“Hurry, Lil. She’s damn strong.”
As one powerful surge of the woman’s body nearly upended her much bigger and supposedly stronger brother, Lil didn’t hesitate.
She jabbed the needle into the woman’s bicep and pushed down the plunger to administer the sedative.
When the woman reared up again, nearly snapping off the needle in her arm, Liliana withdrew the syringe and stepped back to count down until the medicine took effect, watching as Mick attempted to keep her contained.
He was tempering his force she could see, while softly murmuring to the woman, “We’re not going to hurt you, Cat. We’re here to help.”
Liliana waited anxiously since the sedative was taking much longer than she expected. So much longer that it occurred to her she might have to administer another dose of the medication, although she feared too much of it might present another round of complications.
Finally the woman calmed down and as she did so, the blue of the sheets receded from her skin, leaving behind the normal tones of her pale white skin.
Mick slipped off the woman, but he paused by her side, gazing down at her. The emotions on his face a mix of confusion and concern.
Liliana stepped close to him and asked, “How does she do that? The skin thing.”
“Don’t know. Her medical history mentioned a complication from a full gene expression and maybe this is part of it. It was some radical kind of treatment.”
“Someone’s used her for a guinea pig?” Liliana wondered aloud.
“A damn strong guinea pig. I’m going to have to tie her down,” he said.
Liliana didn’t much care for forceful restraints and as she considered doing so to this injured young woman, she unconsciously rubbed at her own wrists, almost lost in recollection.
The movement of her hands snared Mick’s attention and he finally noticed the bruises on her forearms. Reaching out, he tenderly took hold of her wrist. Raised her arm up higher so that he could inspect it.
“Who did this to you?” he asked, the anger in his voice barely contained.
Liliana shook her head and yanked her arm away. “No one. I hurt myself doing some chores.”
A lie and they both knew it. “Did Harrison do that to you?”
Harrison had done that and more she wanted to say, but worried about how Mick would react. She worried that no one would believe her. After all, Harrison was successful. Head of his department at the hospital and well-known in his field.
Who would believe that such a man – her fiancé – was capable of abusing her?
“I got banged up doing some gardening this weekend,” she offered up, but Mick wasn’t buying it.
“If he’s hurting you, we can put a stop to it.”
“I’m okay. Better than you are, obviously,” she said, pointing back to the injured young woman who needed their immediate attention.
A muscle ticked along the hard strong line of Mick’s jaw before he reluctantly said, “When this is done, we’ll deal with Harrison.”
She left it at that, hoping that by the time this problem with Mick was finished, she’d have found her own way to deal with Harrison. For months she had been contemplating leaving him, but had delayed, fearful of what he could do to her career at the hospital where they both worked. He was better connected politically and she feared his vindictive nature.
But no career was worth what was happening to her.
For now, however, she had to help her brother.
She handed Mick the scissors. “Cut away the rest of her clothes and get her restrained, but not this shoulder. I’ll start – ”
She stopped as Mick held up the young woman’s wrist, drawing attention to the raw spots and ligature marks on her arm.
She gazed down at the wrist on the young woman’s wounded arm and noticed similar injuries.
“Someone’s already restrained her. Repeatedly.”
Mick gently laid the young woman’s arm back down and with the scissors, cut away her socks and jeans, revealing additional bruising and ligature marks along one ankle.
“Fuck,” he said, his head hanging down as he braced his hands on the bed.
When he raised his gaze to meet hers, Liliana detected anguish in the depths of his dark brown eyes. Laying a hand on the hard muscles of his arm, she said, “Go get a basin with warm water. We’ll clean all those areas and get them bandaged.”
He immediately did as she asked and while he was gone, Liliana tackled what remained of the young woman’s clothes, cutting them away. With each piece she removed, it became apparent just how badly Mick’s guest had been abused.
Her tall body had previously been lean she suspected, but now was even thinner, the edges of her ribs and hip bones prominent. Assorted bruises marred her body and fearing her brother’s reaction, she worked quickly to remove the clothes and cover the injured woman with a light sheet before his return.
Liliana would take care of sponge bathing her once she had finished dealing with the wound to the young woman’s shoulder.
Mick returned a moment later. As he set a plastic bowl filled with water on the opposite nightstand and pulled a washcloth from his back jeans pocket, she reached into her bag and removed a tube of ointment and roll of gauze.
“Wash her wrists and ankles. Once they’re dry, apply this,” she said and tossed him the tube and then the gauze.
Mick did as he was told and she went to work, carefully cleaning the bullet wound. Picking out pieces of fabric and finding th
at the bullet was not all that far in. If she didn’t know better, she would say it was almost like the injured woman’s body was expelling it the way a human defensive response might contain a splinter.
But a bullet was no splinter and Liliana had never seen this kind of behavior before.
As she worked and more luminescent green blood slowly seeped from the wound, Liliana wondered just was happening with this woman. Especially since with the bullet and bits of cloth removed, the injury appeared to be healing even more quickly.
For a moment she considered that it might not even be necessary to stitch the wound closed, but decided not to risk it.
Working quickly, she made a series of neat tiny stitches to finish, hoping they would not leave much of a scar.
As Liliana straightened, her back protested how long she had been bent over while she worked on the woman.
Placing one hand at her waist, she stretched out the kinks and watched as her brother fashioned restraints from what remained of the gauze she had given him earlier.
“Are you sure that will hold her?” she asked, recollecting the force of the woman’s earlier struggles.
* * *
Mick examined his handiwork and tugged on the lengths of gauze he had braided for extra strength and tied to the legs of the bed. Recalling how Caterina had fought him, he had contemplated using handcuffs, but the sight of the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles had guilted him into finding a kinder way to confine her.
The guilt was not good.
It was affecting his judgment about Caterina and he couldn’t afford that.
He also couldn’t afford not knowing what was going on with his captive, from the weird blood and healing to her decidedly limited mental capacity.
“Do you think you could run some tests for me?” he said, shooting a sideways glance at his sister.
“I’d be a shitty doctor if I didn’t. Blood test. DNA analysis. Maybe even a full tox screen because something is definitely not right with your friend.”
A friend she was not, but his sister didn’t need to know that. “I’d appreciate anything you can do only it needs to be on the down low.”
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