The Lynx Series Boxed Set II: Books 4-6 (Iniquus Security Action Adventure Boxed Set Book 3)

by Fiona Quinn

  “I didn’t. The wind must have blown it.”

  The guy leaned out. “You think someone came up here and saw what was going on?”

  “Like who?”

  “The roommate?”

  I froze where I was. Push come to shove, I could leap over the side, drop, and roll.

  “Stop being a chicken shit. Check and see if she’s dead and let’s get this over with. I wanta collect the money and…”

  I was shadow walking. But shadow walking has its limitations, and I just pressed up against a major one. Shadow walking doesn’t hide my shadow. If he looked down…

  With the door swung open wide and the interior lights beaming outward, a man stepped out past me.

  He looked down the steps and saw nothing.

  He leaned over the rail to the ground, and there was nothing.

  Get here, Ridge!

  How many times had I sent out that kind of psychic call for action to an Iniquus team member?

  It never worked on humans. But Zeus and I communicated in the ether all the time. This time when I sent out my thought waves, Zeus barked his frustration, furious that he couldn’t do just that.

  When the man turned to go back in, he focused on the platform outside the door where my shadow stretched.

  The guy reached out and grabbed me by my shirt, turning me and thrusting me into the apartment.

  The thought that was foremost in my mind was, don’t let him hit you in the head.

  A ridiculous concern since he was reaching under his shirt in his back waistband.

  A gun?

  He now stood between me and the only other exit in this fire hazard of an illegal apartment. With a snarl, he slammed the door shut.

  Reaching to the side table, I picked up a drinking glass, half filled with water, and I threw it with all my might at his head. It bounced off and clattered to the floor, leaving a bleeding welt near his temple.

  He staggered a foot out to the side to try to regain his balance.

  At that moment, I crouched then leaped into the air in a hitch kick, raising a knee to distract him from my true strike.

  His hands fumbled wildly behind him for his weapon as my other leg kicked up under his chin. His head snapped back, catching his spine on the metal coat hook.

  He crumpled to the ground.

  I stepped forward, stomping on his crotch with vicious heel strikes. If he came to, I didn’t want him to be able to stand. He lay right in front of the door where Ridge and Zeus needed to enter.

  I reached for the guy’s pants to turn him and get to his weapon when his buddy emerged from the bathroom. “What the—” Instead of finishing the sentence, he roared.

  This guy was a monster. His bald head dissolved into a tree trunk of a neck. Tattoos covered most of his visible skin. He wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and jeans. His biker boots had studs that could do immense damage.

  Intimidating as hell.

  Holy cow, but he was big.

  Protect your head was the marginally helpful phrase circulating through my mind, taking up strategic space. I worked to cast it off. To focus. Concentrate. Plan my moves and execute them.

  He dragged a knife from the sheath on his hip.

  All right, here we go. My brain shifted gears pressing the fear to the side, moving me to the chess board. It was all about thinking. Strategy. Interpreting his upcoming moves so they could be thwarted or used to my advantage.

  This was what I trained to do since I was five years old and started my daily private lessons with Master Wang.

  Stepping back, I snatched off my t-shirt, hoping that such a bizarre choice would buy me a moment of goon brain stutter.

  Loose T-shirts were a liability, I had found. They gave the bad guy something to grip and hold me with. And a T-shirt was its own kind of weapon. I whipped it out, stinging the guy across the eyes. It was enough that I could safely take two steps forward, wrapping the cloth around his wrist gaining some control of his knife-hand.

  With a quick twist and tug to lock his arm out, I tried to break his elbow by dragging his arm down as I raised my knee.

  No go.

  He was a behemoth.

  But with a second try at jamming his elbow into my knee strike, the knife spiraled through the air. With my peripheral vision, I tried to keep track of where it landed. It needed to be in my hand, not his.

  I flicked the t-shirt again and again at his face.

  Irritation, possibly some loss of immediate vision, I was merely trying to keep him away until Zeus could get a bite in.

  This last swipe, he grabbed the hem of the shirt.

  With his size, and the close confines of the room, honestly, all I could do was try to keep him off mental equilibrium.

  Pulling on the T-shirt, I spun into him, lifted my foot, and grazed the edge of my tennis shoe down his shin, an excruciating strike that lights up the nerves up and down the leg. Right leg, his dominant leg, based on the side he carried his knife.

  Slamming my heel into his toes, I fisted my hand, dropping it over the back of my shoulder, so my elbow strike hit him under the chin.

  I needed to get his jawbone out of the way.

  My next strike was a punch to the throat.

  Chugging air past his collapsing windpipe, the ogre snatched the T-shirt from my grasp and wrapped it around my throat, pulling me up against his chest. This time, there would be no headbutts and broken noses. Not only would that be a strike to my head, but the man was just too tall. He wasn’t in my striking range.

  I could hear Zeus outside frantically barking.

  Ridge’s shoulder was hitting against the door.

  The ogre lifted me off my feet.

  The worst thing I could do is try to wrestle with the cloth.

  I reached over my head, trying to press my thumbs into his sockets to dislodge his eyeballs. Or maybe just inflict enough pain that he’d give me a little breathing room.

  Not working…try…something else.

  Reaching behind me, I undid his belt, whipping it from his loops. I flipped the prong up and jabbed it back at his face. I felt it slide into his flesh. It elicited a grunt, and that’s all.

  Ridge had the door open, but the guy had passed out in front of it. Ridge was having trouble getting through.

  I lifted my legs. Pressing my tennis shoes into the goon’s thighs, I tried to lift up higher to release the pressure. My vision was getting blurry. My eyes bulged. My tongue extended from my mouth, trying to make room for more air to get into my lungs.

  As I lifted up, I slammed my elbow first left then right toward his temples.

  Then, like an avenging angel, a fur rocket vaulted into the room.

  Zeus brought his jaw down on the ogre’s bicep, dangling his weight while he shook his majestic head.

  I was tossed aside as the ogre screamed.

  When I hit the ground, I rolled to the knife, afraid that if it should somehow end up in the guy’s hand that he’d hurt Zeus.

  I grabbed the unconscious guy’s hand and crawled backward, scooting on my butt as I dragged him far enough into the room that Ridge could make his way in, gun in hand.

  “Call off your dog!” The ogre bellowed.

  “On your knees.” Ridge’s voice was ice.

  I slid further back on my butt until I made it all the way to the kitchen, where I opened the fridge and stuck my head inside, looking for a blast of cool air to right my systems.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Destiny was dead.

  Dead.

  Dead.

  A deep moan escaped from the bowels of my being.

  I hadn’t left the galley kitchen, hadn’t crawled up from the floor. I sat there with my legs extended in front of me. Zeus laid across my lap, his focus intent on the comings and goings in the room. En guard.

  The two men had been cuffed by the FBI guys in their tactical gear and hauled away for interrogation.

  The medical examiner had come and gone with the body. />
  Ridge stood out of the way, vigilant.

  Prescott and Finley moved into the kitchen and sat on the floor with me.

  “I’m sorry, Lynx,” Prescott said. “You handled yourself beautifully. But that should never have happened. We thought we were monitoring The Grove effectively. I can’t imagine this originated with them. We would have picked up some chatter.”

  “There are other players, though, that you couldn’t manage?” I asked.

  “We didn’t think they’d become aware of Modesty’s living arrangements,” Finley said. “And if they did…well, Modesty had done a good job for someone with little knowledge of how the world works at keeping herself under the radar.”

  “Was the muriatic acid already up here?” Ridge asked.

  “Not when I left for the diner earlier this morning.”

  Finley and Prescott looked at each other. “Well, it’s strong enough that it might make her unidentifiable. Destroy her fingerprints.”

  “If they had DNA, they’d still be able to figure out what she looked like. There’s an artist in New York that can make a fairly realistic mask out of Destiny’s genomic material, enough that a picture on the news and someone would recognize her. Of course, mostly Destiny only knows—knew people from the diner and The Grove.”

  “What are you saying about the artist?” Prescott asked.

  “Can I tell you about that later?” I asked. My stomach was queasy, and talking made it worse. I was so glad that all I saw of Destiny was her feet as the goon carried her into the bathroom. I had no idea how they killed her and had no desire to be caught up on the case.

  As far as I was concerned, I was done.

  Though Spyder was involved…

  Prescott reached out and patted my leg. “This will keep. Let Ridge take you home. Try to get some rest.”

  As he said that, Zeus climbed from my lap.

  Finley stretched out a hand to help me up.

  “Do you need to go by the hospital?” Prescott asked.

  “Yeah, just to be sure. Strangulation, even as lightly and for as short a time as it happened to me, can have bad outcomes. I should probably check-in and make sure I’m not going to swell up and die in my sleep.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Hey, Spyder,” I said when I found him sitting in my living room. Somehow, I wasn’t at all surprised.

  Ridge and Zeus had escorted me away from Suburban Hospital with my clean bill of health. Ridge let Zeus sit on the floorboard in the front with me in the SUV.

  Zeus rested his head in my lap, and I got to pet his soft fur. He was balm to my heart.

  I had bent forward and kissed Zeus between his velvety ears. “Thank you for saving me from the bad guy,” I whispered as Ridge pulled up in front of my house.

  Dawn would break soon.

  Striker met me at the door with a hug and a kiss. I could tell he was trying to keep things light. He wasn’t going to ride me.

  Good choice.

  “I am sorry that things unfolded the way in which they did.” Spyder was sitting in the rocking chair. The length of his legs made it look like the chair had been made for a child.

  “It wasn’t the way I thought things would go, that’s for sure.” I moved toward him to offer a kiss of welcome.

  Hopefully, now I’d get a clearer picture of what kind of mess I’d been playing in.

  After Striker took his place on the sofa, I toed off my shoes and curled up against his chest. “Now that Modesty is unable to provide information, do you have another route to whatever it was that you were trying to figure out?”

  Man, that sounded cold. Modesty was a young woman who hadn’t even met her prime or her potential. She’d been brave enough to try to save herself. I didn’t want her to be forgotten or considered a statistic. But too, there was some personal relief from thinking about her in the abstract. I’d have to reevaluate those thoughts later. Was that a safe and sane way to handle this? Compassionate? Yeah, much to meditate on.

  “Modesty, or Destiny as she reinvented herself, tried to remove herself from a situation far more concerning than being raised within the confines of The Grove. As we know, treachery happens when seeking wealth.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As it happens, this case has some ties to your social activities this week. You will be attending Christen Davidson’s wedding.”

  I pushed to sitting.

  “The Hydra includes Sylanos, who owns many ships from the times when he engaged in software pirating. And some Assembly men, since the data dump that sent many into hiding and others into prison, have sought a new relationship with Sylanos to engage in a new way to rob Uncle Sam’s pockets.”

  “Christen’s dad, William Davidson?” I curled back into Striker, who held me close.

  “While William Davidson walks a fine line between the criminal and the innocent, it is his son who displays the black heart.”

  “Karl,” Striker said.

  “Exactly.” Spyder laced his fingers, steepling his index fingers, and pressing them into his chin.

  “So Karl is into energy monies, especially around fossil fuels and natural gasses,” I said, thinking back to the debacle where Gator and Christen had met last July. “including helium.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And this goes together with The Grove and Modesty Blackburn?” I asked.

  “Indeed. Allow me to explain. A little history first. In the 1970s, well before you were born, there was a petroleum crisis. It was quite disruptive to America. There were long gas lines, and drivers were only allowed to fill up their cars on certain days.”

  “I studied that.” I nodded.

  “As a response to our dependence on foreign oil, the U.S. government thought that it would be wise to mandate the use of biofuels, those made from soy and corn oils, for example.”

  My brows pulled together with concentration.

  “The science of creating biofuels has a place in understanding the current crimes. Vegetable oils and oils taken from restaurants cooking vats—for example, from your beloved Burger Go! restaurant.” Spyder sent me a wide smile. “All of these oils are high in triglycerides. To make them useable in vehicles, one mixes the vegetable oils with an alcohol such as methanol as the beginning of the transformative process. This is very expensive to perform.”

  “Okay.”

  “And as you well know, our planet is facing an emerging catastrophic state due to the levels of carbon monoxide in the air, among other issues.”

  “Yes.”

  “To try to combat this, and here is the crux of the issue, Congress decided to subsidize the biofuel market by creating billions of dollars in incentives.”

  I scowled. I could see how Karl Davidson would both be knowledgeable about such subsidies and have the Assembly help manipulate things behind the scenes. But The Grove and Modesty?

  “B100 is the name of the fuel stage where the vegetable oil has been treated with some form of alcohol. A step in the process of being able to use the fuel in our vehicles. Those who produce B100 are compensated by the government.”

  Striker and I nodded.

  “In order to claim subsidy money, every gallon of B100 that is produced is provided with a specific number so that it might be tracked. Big oil producers, such as the Davidsons, are required to buy biofuel. They are supposed to mix the B100 with diesel to make B99.”

  “I’m following. Sort of. The Grove? They’re in California near Hollywood.”

  “Patience, Lexicon. One must take all of the steps on the path to proceed without mishap.”

  “Yes, sir.” I shifted against Striker, and he rubbed his hand up and down my arm, which helped me calm my impatience.

  “A gallon of B99 creates a dollar in tax credit, which is paid directly from the IRS. Skipping to our friends in California. Barnabas Blackburn was welcomed back to The Grove and offered the first of his wives when he came up with the scheme of producing B99. Even with the enormous governmental incentives,
he was barely breaking even.”

  “I’d imagine shipping costs were eating into his bottom line. He’d have to ship the oil from the mid-west, right?”

  “Precisely. One would have to do that to be legitimate.”

  “Ah.”

  “From what information I was able to glean, Karl Davidson approached Blackburn with a deal that included Sylanos.”

  “Selling your soul to the devil,” I muttered under my breath.

  “If one believes that such an entity exists.” Another broad smile. “Barnabas Blackburn, who was Modesty Blackburn’s uncle, agreed to work with the Hydra. And it was quite lucrative for him and those who lived at The Grove. He brought in millions, which meant that many eyes followed him and became curious. This is especially so as The Grove is protected from taxes and other requirements as The Grove claims to be a religious order.”

  At the mention of Modesty, I needed a moment. Holding up a “please pause” finger, I asked, “Can I get anyone anything in the kitchen? I need a cup of tea. My throat.”

  Both men shook their heads.

  I had called Striker from the SUV on the way home from being cleared at the hospital. Ridge and I updated him about the status of the mission, the apprehensions. It seemed like Striker had decided not to be a mother hen. He said nothing to my throat comment.

  I was glad to have a long moment while the microwave heated the water. But having dunked in a tea bag, it was time to hear the reason behind Modesty’s murder.

  “Are you ready?” Spyder asked.

  I curled back into my place under Striker’s arm, pressed up against his chest, my tea mug balanced on my knee. “Yes, sir. Excuse me for interrupting.”

  “Not at all, my dear. I was about to talk with you about the Three-card Monte.”

  Striker nodded. “In that grifter’s card game, the dealer wants you to follow the ace and point it out. But it’s shuffled in with two kings. Through sleight of hand work, the ace is shifted, and the dupe loses his money. Back in my early Navy days, I had a friend who made a lot of money that way. Ended up in the brig.”

  “Darn.”

  “What is this ‘darn,’ Lexicon?” Spyder raised his brows in question.