On Midnight Wings

by Adrian Phoenix

  James unlocked the Lexus’s doors. “In the back seat, pumpkin, passenger side,” he murmured, yanking the door open. “Strap yourself in.”

  Heather arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. The request didn’t surprise her. She got into the car, sliding into the backseat as requested, knowing that James had put her there to make it more difficult for her to interfere with him while driving.

  She was his daughter, yes, but he was no fool.

  Once James had slipped behind the steering wheel, he leaned across the seat, his trench coat rustling against the leather, and popped open the glove box. A holstered gun—a Colt .38 like her own—and a pair of tin snips remained inside. But Heather’s heart sank at what he removed—flex-cuffs.

  “That’s not necessary,” Heather said, managing to keep her voice even. “I’m not going to cause any trouble. I want to get away from the FBI, remember?”

  “Oh, I know you do,” James replied. “But you also want to go running back to”—the lines creasing his forehead and bracketing his mouth deepened as his expression corkscrewed into one of utter contempt—“him. You aren’t free of that bloodsucking bastard yet, so I need to watch out for you. Now, hands up on the back of the seat.”

  Heather opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again when she saw the set look on his face. She could talk herself blue, she wouldn’t change his mind. She considered bolting from the car, but imagined he had more tranks and could put one into her before she made it to the woods.

  “The sooner you cooperate, the sooner we’re out of here,” James said, waving the flex-cuffs.

  Heather noticed that the cuffs weren’t a single tie, but double cuffs, which would actually allow her much more mobility than a single tie. Hope surged through her. Maybe she could still put her fork to work like she’d planned, after all. With a sigh of false resignation, she placed her elbows on the seat back and offered her wrists. She felt the fork slide toward her elbow.

  “That’s my girl,” James murmured, looping the cuffs around her wrists, then pulling them tight. A happy, all’s-under-control smile curled across his lips. “Allrighty, then. Sit back. Fasten your seat belt and let’s get this show on the road.”

  Heather heard a thunk as James engaged the car’s childproof door locks.

  Christ. You’d think he was transporting Hannibal Lector. Guess I’m lucky he didn’t strap a muzzle over my mouth.

  Sitting back as requested, Heather strapped her seat belt on and waited, muscles coiled and ready. She glanced out the window into a night scudded with pale streamers of clouds as James started up the Lexus and drove through the parking lot to the guard station at the gate.

  Once again, she felt a strong tug to the east, the irresistible siren call that would lead her to Dante. Soon, she promised him. I’ll be there soon.

  Heather kept her cuffed wrists discreetly out of sight while the guard on duty at the gate briefly examined the discharge papers, before handing them back to James and waving them on.

  “Y’all have a good night,” the guard said.

  “Thanks,” James replied. “You too.”

  Heather pretended to doze while James steered the Lexus along a night-ribboned highway, headed for the soft glow of lights at the horizon that was Dallas. Keeping her breathing even and her movements as small as possible, she gradually worked the fork down to the heel of her sleeve again, its tines poking and scraping along her skin. Sweat beaded her forehead as she slid the fork into the palm of her right hand. She curled her fingers around the smooth handle.

  Risking a quick glance through her lashes, Heather saw James shift his gaze from the windshield to the rearview mirror.

  “Are you actually sleeping?” he asked, voice amused. “Or just avoiding conversation?”

  “Dozing.” Heather opened her eyes and met James’s shadowed regard for a moment before he flicked his attention back to the road. “Must be all the drugs that’ve been pumped into my system since my arrival.”

  “You gave us no choice, pumpkin. You were pretty hostile.”

  “Really? Gee. I wonder why.”

  “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done with your best interests in mind.”

  “You actually believe that, don’t you?” Heather said, voice flat.

  Now that she was finally free and clear of the institute, she was done pretending, done with the bitter burn of acid at the back of her throat while she played the role of daughter-struggling-to-understand-and-forgive. Done.

  “Absolutely.”

  “What about Annie’s best interests? Or Kevin’s? You have theirs in mind too?”

  James’s eyes flitted to the rearview, a frown wrinkling his brow. “Of course,” he replied, returning his gaze to the road. “Always. But I know it may not look that way. I’ve had to use tough love on your sister and brother from time to time.”

  Heather’s pulse pounded at her temple. Tough love. Fine words for coldhearted manipulation and emotional abuse. For shoving aside his bipolar daughter, then dangling the carrot of his love and acceptance in front of her just so he could use her; for shutting out his son and belittling him for refusing to follow in James’s FBI footsteps.

  “Tough love, my ass,” Heather said, throat tight. She pressed her fingers against the seat belt latch. She muffled the quiet snick with her sleeve, then held the seat belt in place with her arm. “It was never about love, just control.”

  James shook his head. “You don’t have the proper perspective. Being a single parent hasn’t been easy. Not by a long shot. But I’ve always done what was necessary, even if it was hard.”

  Heather tightened her grip on the fork handle. “What about Mom? Was her murder one of those necessary but hard things too?”

  James Wallace went still. He watched her from the rearview, his shadowed eyes unreadable. But mild disappointment underscored his words. “You say that as though I had something to do with it. Good God, Heather, your mother’s death—”

  “Murder.”

  “All right—murder—was tragic and difficult for us all. But so was the way she lived.” The Lexus’s interior filled with blue-white light from an approaching car, drawing James’s attention back to the highway. The vehicle passed, and darkness returned. “I don’t know how many times I came home from work to find you kids alone and hungry because your mother was off drinking or . . . whatever.”

  “She was bipolar and an addict,” Heather said, slowly leaning forward toward the front seats. “She needed help. Just like Annie.”

  “Your mother didn’t want help. Flat-out refused it.”

  “Again. She was bipolar and an addict.” Heather shrugged free of the seat belt. “You should’ve insisted. Kept her best interests in mind.”

  Provided you weren’t busy blackmailing your partner into murdering her and setting up a local serial killer suspect to take the fall.

  Something, even now, Heather desperately didn’t want to believe. She hoped with all she had that he would prove her wrong. She shifted her grip on the fork, steadied it. Pressed against the back of his seat.

  “I tried, pumpkin, you have no idea,” James said softly, his tone low and haunted and utterly false. “As horrible as your mother’s murder was, in many ways—and I truly hate to say this—it was a blessing. With her gone, you kids finally had stability and a shot at a normal life.”

  Heather glanced away, a muscle ticking in her jaw. The worst part of that statement? The lying bastard actually believed it. Drawing in a steadying breath, she looked at him again. “I know what you did,” she said quietly. “At the club.”

  “Risk life and limb to rescue you? You’re welcome.”

  “This isn’t a thank you, you smug son of a bitch. I know you tried to murder Dante, I know you left him and my friends to burn. I know what you did to Annie too.”

  “Do you? How is that poss—” A quick glance into the rearview. His jaw tightened. “So Annie was right, you are linked mind-to-mind to that bloodsucking bastard. He must still be alive,
then.”

  “No thanks to you,” Heather growled, lunging forward and jabbing the fork tines into his neck just above his carotid. “Pull over. Now.”

  20

  RECEDING IN THE REARVIEW

  “WHAT THE HELL DO you think you’re—”

  Heather jabbed the fork harder into James’s throat. He winced, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. The fork bobbed in time with his rapidly increasing pulse.

  “Heather . . .”

  “Now.”

  Heather applied a little more pressure to the fork as incentive. Beneath the tines, blood stippled James’s skin. Sudden sweat glistened on his forehead, at the back of his neck, blotting out the scent of his spicy aftershave. Icy displeasure radiated from him in nearly palpable waves.

  Without another word, James Wallace steered the Lexus onto the shoulder of the road. A cold sweat slicked Heather’s body, plastered her sweater to her back. She knew, without a doubt, that once James stopped the car, he would stop at nothing to regain control of the situation. To regain control of her.

  Even if it meant killing her.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as the car slowed to a stop. In the rearview, Heather caught a peripheral flare of red from the brake lights. Adrenaline flooded her veins. She sucked in a breath. Time slowed. Stretched. And everything took on a sharp-edged, crystal clarity.

  The muscles in James’s neck twitched. His shoulder tensed. But before he could jerk his head away from the fork, Heather threw her upper body over the seat back and slammed the fork deep into his thigh with both hands.

  James screamed.

  Pulse roaring in her ears, Heather slithered and squirmed her way over the seat, landing on her side. She groped for the glove box with cuffed hands. Slapped the latch. It tumbled open. Beside her, James’s cry of shocked pain gave way to a clenched-teeth snarl of rage.

  “I don’t think so, pumpkin.”

  A metallic glint, then Heather felt a punch to her lower back, right above her left kidney; felt another. She felt the warm trickle of blood. Bastard was using the fork. She knew it should hurt, knew it would hurt, but adrenaline blurred the pain, kept it at bay—for now.

  She lashed out with her foot, felt it connect. Heard a pained grunt. And kept kicking. Grabbing the holstered gun with both hands, the worn leather almost slippery beneath her sweat-slick grasp, she fumbled with the holster’s snap.

  Hands seized her foot, immobilized it. Twisted. Heather felt something give in her ankle and this time, a nauseating twist of pain corkscrewed up into the pit of her belly.

  Shaking the holster free of the Colt Super, Heather flipped off the safety and rolled onto her back. Aimed the gun between James Wallace’s eyes. Curled her finger around the trigger and began applying pressure.

  Her aim was true. Her hands steady. She wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.

  And in that moment, in the sudden contraction of his pupils, the thinning of his lips, the emotions chasing across the hard landscape of his face—disbelief to indignation to scorn to ice-cold fury—he knew it too.

  Time’s slow stretch stopped, snapped back in on itself.

  “You don’t want to do this,” James warned, her foot still held between his hands. “I can only overlook that bloodsucker’s influence on you for so long.”

  Heather ignored the comment, refusing to waste any more time and energy arguing with him or trying to convince him that she was an adult making her own decisions. His opinions had ceased to matter a long time ago.

  Breath rasping hot in her throat, she tightened her finger on the trigger, adding more pressure. James released her foot and shoved it away, a muscle bunching in his jaw.

  “Leave your cell phone,” Heather said, scooting upright on the seat, her aim unwavering. Her ankle was beginning to throb and her back, sticky with blood, stung. “Then get out of the goddamned car.”

  Pulling his cell phone from one of the trench’s inside pockets, James tossed it carelessly onto the floorboards. He held Heather’s gaze, his eyes bitter and cold. “I’m not sure I can forgive this, pumpkin. One straw too many and all that.”

  “Ask me if I care.”

  “No need. I’m pretty sure I know the answer.”

  “Great. Now get out.”

  James studied her for a moment, then nodded—almost as if to himself. Swiveling in his seat, he unlocked the doors, and climbed out of the Lexus. The door shut behind him with a solid thunk.

  Heather slid into the driver’s seat and hit the door-lock button, her pulse still racing. He was outside and she was in, but she still wasn’t safe, not by a long shot. Not until he was many miles behind her.

  Heather motioned with the Colt for James to move to the side of the road. As he complied, walking around the front of the car, he turned his head and squinted as headlights flared on the road behind them.

  Heather shifted and looked out the rear window. The headlights loomed larger and brighter, twin miniature suns illuminating the empty stretch of road and sweeping light and shadows across the brush and trees along its edges. She glanced away, blinking dazzles from her vision. Headlight glow filled the rearview mirror.

  The car cruised past without slowing, its passengers probably assuming, given the lack of emergency flashers, that James was heading off into the brush to take a leak. Heather exhaled in relief.

  She decided to drive a distance, maybe find a rest stop or gas station, before pulling over to use the tin snips to cut off the flex-cuffs. Wrestling with the tin snips would probably be more like it, she reflected ruefully.

  Then she would call Annie and ask to speak to Von.

  Tucking the Colt into the front of her jeans, Heather fastened her seat belt. She slid the gearshift into drive, then did just that, curling her fingers around the bottom of the steering wheel. She watched James recede in the rearview until he vanished from sight, swallowed by the night.

  Deep down, like an ache in her bones, Heather had a feeling that the next time she and James met, it would be the final time—and, for one of them, fatal. Her throat tightened. Even though she never wanted to see or speak to him again, even though a part of her believed he more than deserved to die, nothing in that stark realization offered her any comfort.

  With each mile rolling beneath the Lexus’s tires, the eastern tug grew stronger, as though hooks had snagged her at heart and mind and were reeling her in. She needed to get off the highway she was on and find one that would take her into Louisiana.

  After nearly twenty minutes, she spotted a sign for a gas station five miles ahead. Perfect. She’d pull off, get out of the flex-cuffs, call Von, then get directions and—

  Her heart jumped into her throat.

  A car was slanted sideways across her lane, lights off, an accident or a barricade, and she was almost on top of it. A figure stepped out from beside the stopped vehicle and aimed something at her.

  Jesus Christ, is that a gun?

  Ducking down in her seat, Heather jerked the wheel to the left, swerving into the passing lane. She goosed the gas, hoping to arrow past any bullets. The Lexus surged forward, then the soft green dash lights winked out. The headlights vanished. The engine switched off. The sharp odor of ozone and scorched circuits curled through the air.

  Heather’s heart sank. Not a gun, no. The Lexus had been brought down with a mini-EMP bomb. Headlights flashed on ahead of her and two cars arrowed down the dark road toward her coasting Lexus. Light flared in her rearview as the posed vehicle behind her started up.

  A trap. A goddamned trap.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if someone at Strickland had contacted the FBI to let them know that James Wallace had just checked his daughter out ahead of schedule.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Heather tried to steer the Lexus off the road to the shoulder, but the damned thing was about as maneuverable as a mountain. She settled for tapping the brakes as she rolled to a stop. Headlight glare filled the car. Unstrapping her seat belt, she leaned over, popped open th
e glove box, and grabbed the tin snips.

  It was easier than she’d expected. A turn with her wrist, an adjustment to the angle, then two quick snips, and her hands were free. Tossing the snips aside, Heather scooped up the cell phone and tucked it into a pocket of her jeans. She pulled the Colt Super and chambered a round.

  Two dark sedans pulled to a stop in front of the Lexus. One—the decoy—stopped behind. Doors opened and suited figures sheltered behind them. Air curled in front of the headlights like blue twists of smoke.

  “Heather Wallace,” a man’s voice called, muffled through the windshield. “Toss out your weapons, then slowly step out of the vehicle.”

  Guns lifted. Aimed.

  Wiping her sweaty palms against her jeans, Heather considered her options. If the Bureau had wanted her dead at this particular moment, they could’ve arranged for a car accident instead of an EMP guaranteed to stop her without harm. And the guns might actually be trank guns or Tasers.

  She’d just escaped from one institution. She’d be damned if she’d just surrender and allow herself to be taken to another—one with top-level security and no visitors allowed. Heather blew out a breath. Okay. She’d started the day with a gamble. No point in stopping now. It was all in or nothing.

  Picking up the tin snips, Heather opened the door, and tossed them out as though they were her gun. They hit the pavement with a hard tunk. “All right,” she called. “I’m coming out.”

  “Slowly,” she was reminded.

  She stepped out of the Lexus. Then swung up the Colt and fired several rounds at the lead cars. She whirled, ignoring the twinge in her ankle, and ran for the woods. Startled shouts slashed into the air behind her.

  She felt something bite into the backs of her shoulders and, just like the Lexus had, her muscles shut down as an electrical pulse thrummed through her. She flopped to the ground like a dynamite-stunned fish.

  Heather heard footsteps in the dry grass, then the rustle of cloth as someone crouched beside her. The Colt was wrenched from her rigid grasp. Polished black shoes moved into her field of vision.

  “Here’s another taste,” a male voice grumbled. Her muscles contracted as another surge of electricity danced through them. “Shoot at us, will you? Damned fed. I should zap you all the way to Alexandria.”