“One could almost hypothesize that the fire was set to cover up the murder,” Barnes continued thoughtfully, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“One could,” Kassian smiled his agreement, “but if that were the case, don’t you think it would have made more sense to put the body inside the warehouse first?” He could easily read the detective’s annoyance. He was fishing, pure and simple, and had expected Kassian to be far more anxious about both the fire and the murders.
“Perhaps,” the detective returned stiffly. “I’ll need a phone number and address in case I need to talk to you again, Mr. McAllister.”
Kassian chuckled with absolutely no discernible trace of concern, his white teeth flashing against his soot streaked face. He fished his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open, pulling out a business card and handing it to Barnes.
“Here you are, Detective, but frankly, I’m pretty easy to find.” Kassian heard, as much as felt, Luca and Alec coming up behind him. Detective Barnes tucked the card inside his breast pocket and turned to leave.
“I’ll be in touch” was his parting remark.
“I’ll look forward to it, Detective.”
Something struck the back of Kassian’s knee causing his leg to nearly buckle. Kassian turned around quickly and swung at Alec’s shoulder. He grinned when he caught nothing but empty air. The kid had reflexes.
“What was that all about?” Luca asked, jerking his chin in the direction of the retreating policeman.
“The good detective is looking for someone to pin a couple of murders on,” Kassian replied dryly.
“Yeah, well he’s not the only one…difference is, we know who we’re looking for,” Luca observed. “You about done? I could use a shower, a beer, and a great big steak.”
“Yeah,” Kassian sighed wearily. “It’s all a matter of paperwork from here. Let’s…” Suddenly he stopped and became eerily still. His muscles tightened with a strange sense of foreboding and a ribbon of dread snaked through his bones. He felt an urgent and overwhelming desire to talk to Kat, to assure himself that she was safe. Of course, he’d left Galen to protect her so there really should be no reason for concern. Still, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. He needed to get home.
“What?” Luca looked around tensely.
“I’m not sure,” Kassian began slowly. “It’s like I’m picking up on Kat, but not her thoughts exactly. I can’t seem to touch her mind….but something. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“You’re picking up on Kat?” Luca sucked in a breath. “Damn, Mac, you bonded her? Does she even know what that means?”
“You object?” Kassian’s brows lowered ominously. Kat might be Luca’s sister, but she was now Kassian’s mate and that trumped everything as far as Kassian was concerned. Sure, he should have explained it to her better, or given her a choice, or, well, or something…but sometimes you couldn’t play by the rules; sometimes you had to make them up as you went along.
Luca stared him down for what seemed like hours but was, in fact, brief seconds. “No, of course I don’t object, exactly…hell, Mac, you should know better. I’m surprised, is all. I thought you’d give her more time.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta go with the flow, my brother. Why postpone the inevitable? Now, let’s get back to my place and make sure that she’s okay, we’re done here.”
Kassian walked quickly to his car with Luca and Alec close behind. With so many people milling around the fire scene, it was nearly impossible to find a spot from which to fade. Ten minutes later, Kassian swung the car into his parking spot beneath the building. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of unease, and his increasing disquiet had communicated itself to the other two Earthbounds. After climbing out of the car, with a quick look around to make sure that they were unobserved, the three quickly faded into the hallway outside of Kassian’s apartment. All of them noticed two things simultaneously; there was no sign of Galen, and none of them could detect a trace of Kat. She wasn’t here.
“Dammit,” hissed McAllister as he stormed through the door. He refused to acknowledge the clawing fingers of fear that were working their way into his throat making it hard to breathe. The note Kat left for him sailed from the table and fluttered to the floor from the force of the door flying open. Luca scooped it up and quickly scanned the contents.
“Sonofabitch.” He held the missive out to McAllister. “Miranda…she’s gone to meet her cousin for coffee.”
“Well, hey, that’s good news, right?” interjected Alec with a puzzled look. “I mean, Galen is with her, and she’s with her family.”
“I don’t trust Miranda as far as I can throw her,” Luca growled, “and from the little Kat told me, I strongly suspect that Kat has something Miranda wants. Call Galen and see where they are and then let’s go get her.”
Kassian had his phone out and was punching in Galen’s number before Luca had finished speaking. Luca and Alec watched as the color left Kassian’s face completely then rushed back like a tsunami as the rage kicked in.
“Don’t move,” Kassian snarled at Galen, snapping the phone closed and shoving it in his back pocket. He started for the door without a word.
“Mac?”
“She’s gone,” Kassian threw back over his shoulder. “Galen lost sight of her for a few minutes and when he looked back, she was gone.” Kassian was fighting to keep his anger in the forefront and not let the unfamiliar taste of fear override it. He knew that he’d been very clear; Kat was to stay inside the apartment until he returned. The minute he was gone, she’d charmed her guard and sneaked away. Just like Calli.
****
The three warriors materialized in the alley behind the coffee shop. Galen waited, pale and tense, a slinky blonde in heels pinned against the building by his massive body. The woman looked frightened and confused and the appearance of the three angry looking giants did nothing to reassure her.
“Speak,” McAllister growled in a clipped tone.
“Mac, I…, Galen began in a stilted voice. Kassian held up a hand for him to stop.
“Later, Galen…just tell us what happened, and who the hell this is.” He gestured at the quivering blonde.
Galen’s brows drew together in a dark frown. The blonde shrank against the rough brick of the coffee shop’s back wall. “Someone paid her to distract me. I’m ashamed to admit that it worked…only for a minute, but I guess that’s all it took.” The big man dropped his head. “Hell, Mac, I’m sorry. I should have never let her talk me into this. Even though she faded into the elevator, I had her outside the building, I should have marched her right back upstairs.”
Luca’s brows rose. “She faded? Without any training? Merda, we Fiorelli’s are a talented lot.”
“So not the issue, right now, Luca,” Kassian said shortly. Pushing Galen aside, he leaned forward and addressed the girl. “Who put you up to this?”
Surrounded by four of the biggest and most menacing looking men she’d ever seen, the blonde’s eyes were so wide with alarm that they nearly rolled back in her head. “I…I can’t remember.” Her features screwed up in confusion. “It was a man…I remember that, but I can’t see his face. He gave me a hundred bucks to distract your friend here for five minutes. A girl’s gotta eat. Seemed like easy money to me.”
Kassian leaned forward and captured her gaze, staring hard and quickly shuffling though her recollection of the morning’s events. Someone had altered her memory leaving gaping holes. He couldn’t see the man’s face, but the voice he knew as well as his own and his jaw clenched tightly enough to shatter teeth. The girl had been approached at least two blocks from the coffee shop which would explain why neither Galen nor Kat had felt any inkling of a threat. He turned from the woman with a moan and punched a fist into the unforgiving façade of the building with an anguished roar that echoed through the empty alleyway and beyond.
“Alec,” Luca commanded tightly. “Find out where she lives. You and Galen get her home and
make sure she doesn’t remember anything that happened today, including her conversation with us, got it?”
“But…” Alec began.
“Just do it, Alec.” Alec didn’t look happy and Galen had yet to meet anyone’s eyes. They each took the girl by an arm and led her down the alley and out toward the street.
“The bastard knew he couldn’t get close to her without someone picking up on him.” Kassian hissed. “How in the hell did he get to her cousin?”
“Only two ways that I can think of…a promise or a threat.”
“What now?” Both anger at himself and fear for Kat threatened to overwhelm Kassian. He knew he had to swallow both and think logically if they were going to find her and get her back. And they were going to get her back. He would not even contemplate the alternative. He should never have left her alone, especially after last night. He should have seen through Rapier’s plot to get him out of the apartment. If that bastard laid one finger on her…
****
Kat woke in utter darkness to the damp, earthy smell of confined spaces and buried secrets. Her senses were immediately assaulted by anger, despair, and desperation all swirling together in an overstimulating vortex. She couldn’t differentiate how much of it was her own. Combined with the aftereffects of whatever drug Miranda had slipped into her coffee, her head felt like an overplayed bongo drum and she struggled to gather her shields around her and block out the emotions. The air was dank and murky, thick with the scent of mold and decay, and it took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she knew exactly where she was. Behind her home, where the trees and brush began to climb toward the mountains, there was a series of caves. In the basement of her house, there was a tunnel connecting the house to the caves. Her mother said they’d been used by whiskey runners in the days of prohibition. Kat hadn’t been down here in years, but had often explored them as a child, much to her mother’s consternation. Her mother had finally barricaded the entrance to the tunnel with crates and boxes to keep Kat from wandering. She knew she was in one of the deeper chambers by the steady drip of water echoing eerily and the faint rush from the underground river in another chamber far below. Why on earth would Miranda have brought her here, how did she even know about the caves, and more to the point, what could she be up to that required such extreme measures?
She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious, but it was long enough for the chilling damp to penetrate her jeans and creep into her bones where she rested on the moist ground. She was already cold and stiff and knew it was going to be difficult to muster the agility and energy to escape. She hoped that Galen had pried himself loose from the blonde quickly enough to have seen something. She was worried, but she wasn’t particularly terrified, not yet, anyway. Kassian would come for her, she knew he would. He would be as pissed as hell that she’d gotten herself into this mess, but he would come. Coupled with that, she knew these caves like the back of her hand and Miranda was older and slower. Kat figured that even cold and stiff, she had the advantage; at least she thought she did until she realized that her ankle was encased in an iron manacle and chained to the wall. This had obviously not been a spur of the moment decision on Miranda’s part.
She detected a scuffling noise from the darkness on the other side of the chamber and realized she wasn’t alone in the gloom. The hair on her neck stood on end as she thought first of rats, and then every other manner of creepy, crawly thing, but when she strained her eyes toward the sound and focused, she could barely make out the hunched figure of someone curled up in the far corner wrapped in a blanket that looked more like a fetid ball of dirty rags. She opened herself a bit and realized that the pathetic figure was the source of the overwhelming despair she had felt upon awakening. Before Kat had a chance to call out to whoever was sharing her misery, she felt it, the insidious creep of evil. It crawled over her skin and agitated every nerve ending filling her with a heavy dread that made it difficult to breathe. She recognized it instantly. It was the same evil she’d felt at Elle’s party. Oh, God! Rapier was here. She hurriedly swallowed the thick knot of terror that clawed its way into her throat. She thought she’d only need to outsmart Miranda; she never dreamed she’d be up against the evil Fallen, as well. The figure in the corner must have felt something, too, since it curled into itself to appear even smaller, as if hoping to go unnoticed. Kat quickly drew on everything that she’d learned by following and observing the minds of Kassian, Luca, and the other Earthbound and imitated them as well as she could in an attempt to block the worst of the malevolence and protect her own thoughts from anyone who might be trying to read her. As terrified as she was at the thought of coming face to face with Jack the Ripper, she knew that her only hope for staying alive until Kassian could find her was to use her head.
****
Kassian’s phone buzzed from the inside pocket of his jacket. He fished it out and glanced at the display. His heart leapt in his chest. Was it possible that they’d been wrong and she’d simply slipped out the back door with Miranda to get out from under Galen’s watchful eye? He quickly hit accept and raised the phone to his ear.
“Kat?” he barked hoarsely, his heart pounding.
“Ah, McAllister! It has been far too long, mon ami, c’est vrai?”
“If you touch a single hair on her head, you piece of shit, I swear to God I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Jacques interrupted in a hard, bored voice. “I’m the one running the show. Exactly as it’s always been.”
“Let her go, Jacques. We both know it’s me you want. You can have me. Let her go and I’m all yours.” Kassian knew that it was pointless to reason with a madman, still he had to try.
“You? Oh, you silly, silly man. I don’t want you. Oh, no, McAllister…I want you very much alive…alive and suffering the loss of those you love. The way I have suffered the pain of losing my beloved Jean-Marc all these years.”
“That was war, Rapier, not personal. You already got your payback when you took Callista. Kat did nothing to deserve this.”
“Ah, but who is to say what someone deserves? She brings you happiness, non? In my book, that is reason enough to die. But to prove that I am not the animal you think I am, I have called to let you say au revoir. Quite magnanimous of me, c’est vrai?”
Kassian could hear the phone being jostled and Rapier’s warning growl. Then he heard a small, breathless voice.
“McAllister?”
“Kat, baby, are you all right? Do you know where you are?” She sounded terrified and the pain of her fear cut him like a knife. This was his fault; again.
“Say your goodbyes, McAllister. My patience is not limitless,” Rapier broke in, letting Kassian know he had Kat’s cell on speaker. Kassian hit the speaker on his phone so that Luca could hear, as well. Maybe he would hear something that Kassian didn’t, pick up a clue that Kassian missed.
“Kat, I’ll find you, baby. Don’t be afraid.” Whatever happened, he didn’t want her last moments to be filled with fear. He had no idea how they would find her, but he had to make her believe that they would. Hell, he had to believe it, too, or he was going to fall apart right here in the street.
“McAllister...” Her voice caught on a sob. “Please don’t forget to check on my fairies and gnomes.”
He saw the puzzled look Luca gave him, but he smiled slowly with the first glimmer of hope he dared to feel. She was as brilliant as she was beautiful. The smile didn’t last long as he heard Kat’s muffled exclamation of pain. Rapier fed on fear and pain. They didn’t have much time.
“Ah, l’amour…it makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy!” came the raspy voice once more. “Nevertheless, our lovely chat must come to an end now. Other matters demand my attention.”
“Get your affairs in order, Jacques. Today is the day you die.”
“Ah, but first you must find me, mon ami. I look forward to it,” Jacques maniacal cackle was the last sound they heard before the line went dead.
Kassian’s smi
le was chilling as he turned to Luca. “And I know exactly where to start looking.”
Chapter 15
Kat lifted her chin with her jaw tightly clenched to hide the trembling. She stared at Jacques Rapier with far more defiance than she actually felt as he dropped her cell into the pocket of his jacket. She understood now how he had been able to lure his victims. It should be illegal for insanity to look so good. He was a man most women would find compelling with his dark hair and eyes, classically chiseled features, and lean, muscular physique. But unlike most women, Kat felt the evil that swirled around him like a cold, dark cloud, obscuring any semblance of charm or appeal. As she regarded him boldly, the corners of his mouth quirked upwards in a slight grin, but Kat saw only that the smile was cruel and his eyes were dead pools. No light, no emotion, and most assuredly, no mercy. Kat sent up a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that Kassian understood her reference to the gnomes and fairies and figured out it was her way of telling him she was being held near her home. She readily acknowledged that she’d gotten herself into this mess, but she wasn’t altogether convinced she was going to be able to get herself out of it. It didn’t help her state of mind to know that Kassian was, no doubt, blaming himself exactly as he had with Calli. She desperately hoped she lived long enough to convince him that neither of them being captured by Rapier was his fault. Miranda hovered slightly behind Rapier, watching his every movement with a rapt gaze, oblivious to the true nature of the monster with whom she’d obviously aligned herself.
Rapier reached back and drew Miranda to his side, wrapping an arm about her shoulders to draw her close. The infatuated look on her face turned Kat’s stomach. She felt the thick desire rolling off of Miranda; the woman was gone on Rapier, hook, line, and sinker. Miranda had no clue that her feelings were unreciprocated. Kat thought he must be one hell of an actor to inspire such utter adoration; she felt nothing from him but unadulterated evil, mixed with a healthy dose of irritation and revulsion.
Undiscovered Angel Page 20
