“Cerridwen will make exceptions to the rule if you ask.” Siebel lifted a shoulder as she set one drink on the rail and sipped from the other glass. “I never bother because there’s always someone to pass the extras off to.”
Alex laughed and tested the drink. “Mmm, sex on the beach. Not bad.”
“I take it you’ve tried it a time or two?” Siebel’s expression turned mischievous. “Maybe with Chad?”
“Not yet.” Alex made a show of looking at the sky. “It sure is a beautiful evening, though.”
“Ah, someone has plans in store. The two of you make such a great couple. He’s a terrific guy. You make him happy.”
“He makes me happy.”
“Does that mean you’re going to stay on the island? I bet Sheriff Cabelly would offer you a job in a heartbeat if you let him know you’re interested.”
Alex took another, larger swig of her drink, loving the way the fruity taste exploded on her tongue. “He’s already has.” It was true, even if John Cabelly hadn’t extended the offer so she could stay on the island with Chad.
“You’re going to take it, right?”
Prolonging her answer, Alex sipped again. “It’s a big step. My job with the bureau has been my driving force for years.”
“Then you meet someone fantastic, start to fall in love, and life takes on a whole new perspective. That’s how it usually works.”
Or you are reunited with the two men you’ve never been able to forget and realize what you thought you wanted may not have been what really made you happy in the first place.
“It does.” Alex stared down at her glass, surprised that she’d drank more than half of it. “And, yes, meeting Chad has made me think about things differently. I came here to do a job, not to fall in love, but…” She purposely trailed off for emphasis and stared across the beach. She would’ve expected the crowd to start to thin out by now given the setting sun. Instead, it seemed like there were more people out there than before, almost as if the crowd had doubled in size.
“But you did fall in love and now that job doesn’t seem as important as before.”
She heard Siebel speaking, but the woman’s words sounded oddly far away and so very close at the same time. She laughed, not knowing what brought on the reaction. Siebel hadn’t said anything funny and, yet, a fit of giggles hit her so fast she couldn’t control them.
“I’m insane.” She certainly felt that way. What the hell was going on? Her energy level felt like it was rising off the charts. “They make me so happy that I’m actually considering throwing away my life’s dream to be with them?”
“Them?” Siebel shot her a puzzled look. “Oh, you mean Chad and Michaela. I didn’t realize you’d accepted that part of Chad’s life, too. Of course, you would have to. Chad wouldn’t be the same man without her.”
Concentrate. Alex forced herself to grab onto her composure even as she threw an arm around Siebel’s shoulders, both for balance and because of the strange closeness she suddenly felt toward the woman.
Siebel thought she’d been talking about Chad and Michaela. Good. She hadn’t given anything away by that slip of the tongue. She bit said tongue and realized it felt numb. The world was spinning. No, not the world, her head. It was all in her head.
And spreading through your body.
Holy shit! She’d been drunk before, but this didn’t feel like any alcohol intoxication she’d ever experienced.
Siebel’s arm folded around her waist and the woman leaned in. “Careful now. You must really be a lightweight. I expected it to take longer than that to kick in.”
“Expected what to take longer to kick in?” Though she said the words she’d intended, they came out far more jubilantly than they should have.
“The drug I put in your drink. Silver Lining is an awesome substance, don’t you think?”
Silver Lining? Oh, dear God.
“But I watched the bartender serve you the drinks,” she slurred.
“Yeah, but you turned your head just in time. It only takes a second to spike a drink up real nice.” Siebel started walking for the steps leading off the deck, dragging a stumbling Alex with her. “Of course, you won’t think it’s so nice once the Silver Lining runs its course. We should move a little faster, FBI bitch. We need to get out of sight before you lose control of your muscles and I have to carry you. That’ll draw way too much attention for what I’ve planned tonight.”
* * * *
Rhett’s gaze danced from one list to the other on the split-screen of the laptop as his mind processed what he was seeing. “Drake, when was Chad in the rehab facility?”
Drake sat at the other end of the conference table pouring over pages of notes and other reports. “A few of years before he moved to the island. Why?”
Rhett shook his head. “Exact dates, man. What were the exact dates?”
Drake shuffled through the papers scattered on the table in front of him until he came across the right one. “Three years ago, June to December, start to finish. Santa let him out two days before Christmas Eve.”
“Three weeks before Siebel Kenney left the place.”
“What the fuck?” Drake pushed to his feet. “Siebel Kenney? As in the cook at the Karma Café? That Siebel Kenney?”
“Apparently, the one and only. Look at this.” Rhett turned the laptop so Drake could see the screen as the other man leaned on the table next to him. They had pulled up employment histories along with the deep background checks on all the islanders, but hadn’t paid much attention to the previous jobs they’d held. “Siebel Kenney was a cook in the rehab center cafeteria.”
“I’ve never heard either of them talk about knowing each other back then.”
Rhett shook his head. “Neither have I, but they were both already on the island when we came here.”
“Chad started setting up Divine Playthings the minute he hit the island. We’ve talked about that several times.”
Rhett tapped the computer screen over Siebel’s name. “And Siebel went to work for Arianrhod at the café a couple of days after she came onto the island, but was that before or after Chad got here?”
“Arianrhod is the only one that can tell us that.”
Rhett was already halfway to the closed conference room door with Drake at his heels when the door opened and Paige stuck her head inside. “Chad Divine just called. He was frantic and said for the two of you to get down to Ménage à Drink. Something about he got there to meet Agent Sykes, but she was gone and someone told him they’d seen her stumbling out of the bar with Siebel.”
Fear tightened every muscle in Rhett’s body. “Fuck! She must have drugged Alex.”
* * * *
Alex fought the strange lethargy pulling at her muscles as Siebel steered her away from the crowded beach.
Think, Alexandria. Think!
She struggled to obey her own command, but each passing second made it harder and harder to do.
Scream.
Yes, that’s what she needed to do. Though she managed to give herself the order in her head, she couldn’t get the demand to travel to her throat.
The MDMA gives…euphoria…sensuality…energy…GHB… impairs…muscle…thought control.
Drake’s description of Silver Lining and its effects came to her in broken bits. Could willpower overcome what a drug tried to do to the body? She didn’t know, but it was her only hope.
She continued to fight, to focus, and work through the too-relaxed feeling taking over her body. One minute she’d been too giddy to understand what was happening to her and, the next, she’d felt too lazy to care.
Except she did care. She had to. Not giving a damn would land her dead in the Gulf where her body would eventually wash up on some distant shore. She forced herself to process her surroundings. There were no people around now, yet she could still feel the sand giving beneath her feet. The sun had set, bathing the beach in darkness broken only by the sparkling light of the stars and the quarter-moon in the distanc
e.
“Why?” The word sounded as weak as her muscles felt and brought with it a surprised, yet broken thought. Say…that…not…scream?
“Chad belongs to me. He doesn’t see that yet, but he will. It’s been years, but I don’t mind waiting longer. Bitches like you have to stay out of my way, though. He won’t ever see it if sluts like you keep interfering and clouding his mind.”
“Nette.” She tried to say Lynette, but only managed the last syllable.
“That druggy cunt didn’t deserve to be within ten feet of my man. Neither did that bitch in Gulf Shores. I took care of both of them, but then I guess you’ve figured that out by now.”
“F…” It was getting harder and harder to push any words through her throat.
“Hmm, you’re either trying to tell me to fuck off or remind me you’re an FBI agent.” Siebel scoffed. “Like I give a shit about that. You fit the profile. You knew that when you came here. If you didn’t, Chad wouldn’t have given you a second glance and I wouldn’t have to kill you now.”
Alex gave up trying to talk and centered her attention on trying to move on her own rather than continuing to be dragged down the beach by this love-struck lunatic. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess of words that didn’t want to fit together, but she managed to glue a few here and there and got them to make sense. Years of training and time on the job had honed her observation skills to sharpened points that required little encouragement from her to stick. Processing what she observed proved to be the biggest problem, but she got enough of it to develop an idea of where Siebel was taking her.
She saw a dark object on the shoreline in the distance, but couldn’t make it out. Before and beyond it was nothing but an empty beach. Fleeting and broken memories reminded her that a portion of the beach on the ocean side was rarely unoccupied unless islanders were coming or going. It was area near the private docks, slightly away from the resident cottages, but not so far that someone wouldn’t hear her scream if she could gather the control to do so.
“You don’t give up as easily as the last two did,” Siebel commented. “Of course, Lynette was so gone over the drug, she loved riding it out right up until the moment I slit her throat. Kelli was different. She didn’t like it, but she didn’t put up much of a fight. It won’t do you much good, though. It hit your system faster than I expected, but it’ll stick around long enough for me to get you away from the island.”
The object grew closer and Alex realized Siebel was taking her to a boat. The woman’s step faltered when a figure moved into the darkness closer to the street side of the beach and Alex dimly heard a voice call out.
“Everything is okay, John,” Siebel called out to the figure. “My friend just had a few too many at Ménage à Drink. I’m taking her to my place to sleep it off.”
“No.” Alex tried to yell the word, but it came out little more than a whisper.
“Nice try, hon. Old man John couldn’t have heard that even with his hearing aid set to full blast.”
Feeling like a ragdoll, Alex didn’t have much choice but to succumb to Siebel’s strength while she concentrated on rebuilding her own. They reached the boat and Siebel stopped, shooting a cursory look around, obviously to make sure John was no longer watching and she hadn’t attracted anyone else’s attention, before hefting Alex over the side of the boat.
Alex felt herself fall in a surreal sense of slow motion. She hit the deck hard, the breath spewing from her lungs in a whoosh, and found herself staring up at the star-filled sky. The boat rocked and footsteps came closer. Then she was staring at the silhouette of Siebel’s evil face. She made out enough of the woman’s features in the pale moonlight to see the evil sneer tilt the woman’s lips as she dropped to her knees next to her. Then she saw the knife.
“I’d planned to get you into the open sea before I did this, but I’m afraid the drug won’t last as long as I’d hoped.” Siebel shoved her free hand beneath Alex’s head, fisted her hair so tightly it felt as if the strands were being yanked from her scalp, and angled her chin up.
Alex’s back arched and she felt the handle of her Glock in her shoulder holster brush against the side of her hand even as she felt the cool blade of the knife settle against her throat. Drawing on every molecule of determination she’d ever collected, she willed her hand to move. Her fingers closed around the grip of her Glock just as a shout spit the night air.
“Drop the knife, Siebel.”
Alex heard Drake’s bellow from somewhere too far away.
Siebel didn’t budge. Her evil smile widened and sheer craziness overtook her eyes. “I’m still killing you, bitch, even if they kill me next.”
Alex felt the sting as the blade pierced her skin. Her free arm gave a reflexive jerk and lifted as if being pulled by a puppet string. She clamped her fingers around Siebel’s wrist, somehow managing enough control and strength to push the knife off her throat and heard the bullet whiz through the air.
Siebel fell limp at Alex’s side, the knife clanking on the aluminum deck of the boat before sliding out of reach, and Alex finally let lethargy have its way as she dimly heard Rhett yell at someone to call Dr. Weller.
* * * *
Drake focused on the monotony of the beeping machines next to Alexandria’s bedside, listening for any consistency in the noise. She’d fallen into a coma by the time Kip Weller had gotten her to the island’s hospital. So far, three hours had passed with no sign of her coming back to them.
He held her limp hand as he studied her angelic face, her features relaxed as if she were merely sleeping, and said a silent prayer to any supreme power that might be listening. He’d been trying to prepare himself for the moment when he’d be forced to learn to live without her again, but no amount of preparation would making going on knowing she was no longer alive possible.
“She’ll come out of this.” Rhett paced the floor on the opposite side of the bed, his restless movements carrying him back and forth across the tiled floor. “She has to.”
Drake didn’t comment, wishing he hadn’t gained so much knowledge on Silver Lining in his search for Lynette Cross’s killer. There were victims of the drug who had fallen into a coma months and even more than a year ago who still hadn’t regained consciousness. Others had come to in few days. However long it took, he refused to leave her. He didn’t care how many times Kip Weller came into the room and told them they should get some rest or find something to eat. He intended to stay planted right here by her side until she opened her amazing eyes and looked at him again.
They’d figured it out too late. He’d gone over it in his mind, again and again. They should’ve put it together sooner. They’d had the information right there in front of them all along. Alex had known their killer was a resident of the island, but they’d wasted their time checking out the regular visitors and looking for other leads instead of putting their concentration where it should’ve been.
He and Rhett had made it to Ménage à Drink in record time. A slew of witnesses had seen Siebel taking what they had believed to be a drunken Alex down the beach. Siebel had spiked Alex’s drink, tainted it with a heavy dose of Silver Lining that had hit Alex’s system far too quickly. No one at or around Ménage à Drink had thought anything of seeing two women making their way down the beach, one appearing to be a good friend to the other as she helped her overly intoxicated friend home.
The direction Siebel had taken Alex had been all they’d needed to know. He and Rhett had followed it easily, coming up on Siebel’s boat just as she’d thrown Alex inside. The shot he’d taken had been a huge risk, but one he’d felt compelled to take. He’d waited until Alex had miraculously gained enough strength to push the knife away from her throat before he’d fired at Siebel, praying the woman’s arm didn’t jerk and put an end to Alex’s life even as she fell at Alex’s side, her own life draining from the fatal wound he’d put in her temple.
Rhett stopped pacing, gripped the rail on the side of the bed, and eased it down. He slid onto the ma
ttress next to her and took her hand, mindful of the wires connected to her flesh. “Sweetheart, if you can hear me, Drake and I are right here. We’re not going anywhere until you come back to us.”
Drake listened as his friend said the words that had been going through his mind. He’d wanted to tell her those himself, but couldn’t find the voice to speak. His throat felt too tight, his eyes burning with tears he wouldn’t let fall, and his heart so full of fear and love for her that all he could do was look at her and wait.
“We love you, Alex. Come back to us. We can’t live without you again.”
Drake closed his eyes as his breath hitched. He hadn’t shed a tear when she’d left them before and hadn’t even cried when he’d found his mother dead. Was this a test? If he’d allowed himself to cry then, would he have been spared this agony now?
It was a stupid thing to think, but he couldn’t stop the wonderment from taking over his mind for a moment. Wanting so desperately to hear her voice, needing to feel her touch more than his next breath, he figured it was his imagination when her hand shifted in his.
“There you are.”
Drake’s eyes shot open at Rhett’s words as Alex’s glazed gaze slid from Rhett to him and he felt the warmth of a tear slide down his cheek.
Chapter Nine
Alexandria heard voices through the door of Sheriff Cabelly’s office and started to turn away when Paige came up behind her.
“Agent Sykes, it’s so good to see you up and around again. How are you feeling?”
“Better than I have in years.” It was true. She’d woken up two days ago in the island hospital to Rhett on one side of her and a teary-eyed Drake on the other. A teary-eyed Drake! That was a sight she honestly hoped to never see again. What she did pray she would see every day for the rest of her life was the two of them still by her sides. She’d taken one look at them and her decision had been made. She belonged with them and this blessed island gifted her with the opportunity to not only openly be with them forever, but to continue protecting and serving those in trouble like she’d always wanted to do.
Safe and Deputized with Ecstasy [The Heroes of Silver Island 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 17
