“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered.
“What? Morgan, I’m sending some police out to the ranch . . . ” The rest of what he said faded away.
There on the shelf was a bottle of absinthe. A bottle she’d seen too many times in the presence of Mikhail. Round, green and gold, it seemed to be the perfect frame for the almost glowing green liquor within. A green liquor that brought on hallucinations—a bite of the green fairy—an aphrodisiac.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, fear clawing to get out. All she could do was stare at the bottle placed in the middle of the top shelf.
“Come, you stupid girl. I’m trying to help you,” Dame said.
“No, I don’t want any.”
“It’ll make things easier,” Dame’s voice whispered . . .
“Drink up, Dusk, you’ll need the buffer this little fairy will give you,” Mikhail’s voice slithered as the bright green liquid sloshed into the glass.
But it hadn’t. She’d seen fangs, and red eyes. Too much, they’d said and laughed.
Her hand trembled, and goose bumps pricked her skin. She stood frozen.
“No. No. No,” she whispered.
“Morgan!” Lincoln’s voice pierced through her fear.
She was panting.
“Absinthe, Linc. There’s a bottle of absinthe in the refrigerator. Right there. Right there on the—”
Creak . . .
“Top—” She didn’t dare look away from the open fridge.
The air in the kitchen tightened, tears stung her eyes.
“Oh, God.” She didn’t dare look around. Didn’t dare.
“Morgan. Morgan, listen to me. Get out of the house. Get out of the house and to a police station! Now!” His voice whiplashed through the phone.
Morgan looked to her right, back toward the hallway, to the door that still stood against the wall.
“I think it’s too late for that, Lincoln,” she whispered.
Creak . . .
She knew. Knew someone was already in the house.
Her breath panted sharp in her lungs.
“Someone’s in the house,” she whispered, swallowing past the nausea that churned her stomach, and took a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she stood very still, took stock of the kitchen. Door to her right. But where was he . . . they?
Still. Stay very still.
Pepper spray was behind her on the center island.
She turned to the right to pick it up. It was gone. The table bare.
The bright light of the refrigerator cut across the empty table.
“This isn’t happening, it’s not happening. It’s not happening . . . ” It was the mantra she often used when she woke up from nightmares.
Then it worked.
Now it wasn’t.
Not so much as helping to stop the trembles. She faced the refrigerator. The bottle mocked her.
They’d found her.
“Morgan. Morgan, the police are on their way . . . ” Lincoln’s voice continued in her ear, but she barely heard him over the roar of her own blood.
Slowly, she turned to her left, reached in and grabbed a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Tabasco sauce? She almost laughed. But the bottle was sloped, almost to a point.
The door swung toward her.
The shadows behind the door from the nook shifted.
There he stood, dressed in black. Something glinted in his hand.
“Leave me alone,” she said, a tremor in her voice.
He smiled, a flash of white teeth in the shadows.
He lunged.
She screamed. “No!”
Morgan whirled, but he slammed into her, shoving her down the side of the center island. She felt a nick in her upper arm, the sting of whatever he shoved into her bloodstream.
Utensils clattered onto the floor. One of the tines raked her arm open, splitting the skin as she stumbled and fell. Another tine had fallen to the floor.
“Stupid bitch,” he said, slapping the phone from her as she tried to twist away, clawing at the floor.
She stabbed the bottle at his eye. He cursed and backhanded her, pain exploding behind her eye. She felt the metal end of a tine bite into her rib cage.
She fisted her hand on the metal handle and twisted up and around, even as he straddled her, holding her down.
“Let me go,” she bit out between her teeth.
He smiled at her. “Mikhail has plans for you, Dusk.” His hand grabbed her jaw. “I remember fucking you.”
Rage and fear crashed together.
The lights illuminated his squared face, the blond hair and brows. The cold blue eyes.
“Vescilly,” she whispered.
His chuckle grated across her terror.
Mikhail.
“No. No.”
He only nodded, his hand still holding her chin.
She yelled and bucked, twisted, bringing the tines up and straight into the soft left side of his neck. “Never!”
For a moment, his eyes met hers, his hands automatically letting go of her to reach up and jerk the long metal fork free.
As if in slow motion, she saw the gleam of blood on the coppery woven handle, saw it slither down the metal, run across his hand, drip onto her.
His eyes met hers, angry, disbelieving.
The world tilted, swam, narrowed.
She felt the warm splatter of blood across her, a roar filled her ears.
“Never again,” she muttered.
A body pressed hers into the floor, even as blackness closed around her.
Chapter 25
Lincoln stood in the aisle of the plane.
“Morgan!” he shouted into the phone.
He heard Tarver’s voice barking orders to the Ellis County sheriff’s office.
“Morgan!”
Nothing. The world on the other end of the phone was silent.
His heart beat against his lungs, shoving all the air out.
God. Please God, no.
“Morgan,” he said more softly.
In his mind, he saw her struggling, wondered who, Mikhail? Another messenger? One of Mikhail’s men?
Raking a hand through his hair, he sat, wishing he had another phone.
He didn’t want to disconnect this one. He couldn’t.
He might hear something . . . something . . . anything . . .
Blood raced, iced in his veins, even as it felt as if he were on fire. Fury beat hard and fast. At himself, at the nameless bastard at the other end of the line who dared to harm Morgan.
“Someone’s already in the house . . . ” Then her scream. The clatter of the fucking phone. He’d heard a man’s voice. But was it just one? More? Did they already have her?
He stood and paced the aisle again, grabbing the leather captain seat as the plane dipped from turbulence.
Tarver disconnected and said, “Sheriff’s department is on its way and an ambulance. I figure, with Texas, we’ll also have to contend with their state boys or Rangers. Anyone else you want me to call?”
“Shadow,” Lincoln answered and tried to hear through the phone. Nothing. Not a single blessed sound.
It was silent as a bleeding tomb.
He rattled off the number. Tarver quickly gave Shadow, who was en route to Dallas via a rented car, the situation. Apparently Shadow wanted to speak with Lincoln, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone and merely shook his head.
How much fucking further could it be?
Tarver placed another call into his superiors.
Lincoln sat, cold inside, his stomach tight, his focus skewed.
“Who all knew where Morgan was?” Tarver asked him.
God, what if they had her now? Lincoln knew, knew that they’d find Amy’s body in much the same condition as Glenda’s. And the other missing woman in Orlando?
“By the way, Mikhail Jezek is still in Miami,” Tarver said softly.
“I. Want. Him,” Lincoln said, piercing his associate with a glare. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I want that bastard.�
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Tarver nodded. “You’ll get him. This one is too much. The girls are all linked to him. Stupid, really.”
“He’s egoistical. Figured he’d get away with it. No one bests Mikhail Jezek and makes him look like a buggering sod, which is what these ladies did when they escaped. Tarnished his name.” He still listened to the silent phone, noted he wasn’t disconnected as the ticker on the mobile was still counting the seconds.
“Again, someone tipped him off to the girls’ locations. Can you account for everyone on your team?” Tarver asked.
Lincoln’s immediate reaction was fury, but he’d heard her scream. Seen the blood splatters left in Amy’s apartment and seen the finished product with Glenda.
“I’d like to say yes, but then I’ve lost contact with all but Shadow,” he muttered. He cleared his throat. “Shadow I can account for. He’d have no reason to do this,” Lincoln muttered.
Still nothing on the other end of the mobile. “Bugger and blast! Why can’t I hear anything?”
“What of the others?” Tarver pressed.
Lincoln took a deep breath, tried to calm his racing heart, his twisted emotions, and find the way back to level, calm ground.
“The other two you could trust in a crunch. George Baskins and Becca—Rebecca Linsey.” He tried to remember where they both were. His brain wouldn’t wrap around it for a moment, then seemed to click into gear, sharpen, focus.
“Baskins is with a medical team, some research at Johns Hopkins, I believe. Got out about the time I did. I think Becca is working for some of your state boys. Though I can’t remember which ones.”
“ATF,” Tarver answered.
Lincoln glared at him. “Why did you ask, then?”
Tarver’s unrelenting gray stare pierced him. “To see if you knew.”
“What a load of bollocks.” He didn’t need Tarver to speak the words to hear them. Someone had tipped off Jezek, given him classified locations of targets. The first ones to know, to have access to the files, would be Lincoln’s task force team, the main players.
It couldn’t be any of them. Why? Bloody hell.
“Morgan?” he said back into the phone. Only the quiet answered him. “Give me your mobile. I want to try their home line.”
* * *
Gaelord Ranch; 11:42 p.m.
Jackson Gaelord pulled into the driveway at home. It was almost midnight. He was tired. He’d been sitting in various airports since seven this morning. He was home. He wanted a beer, a shower, and bed. Storm would be here before long. A late warm front was moving in off the Gulf, colliding with colder northern air. Thunderstorms all up and down the I-35 corridor.
He drove the car around to the back of the house and pulled in under the carport. He noticed Morgan’s car sat in the front drive, as it always did. She never asked him to move either his Range Rover or Suzy’s old truck that stayed parked in the sheltered area.
Whatever worked for her. Weary, he climbed out, stretched, then grabbed his bag, leaving his briefcase in the SUV. No need to get it out. He wasn’t going to look over anything tonight.
Something niggled at the back of his mind.
He scanned the area and realized Samson wasn’t there. Granted, the dog had been a gift to Morgan, but in the recent years he’d become more attached to Jackson. Samson always came running when Jackson drove up.
“Samson?” he asked and whistled.
He shut the door and started across the concrete. He also noticed the motion-censor light he’d installed didn’t click on. His boot slipped on something and he looked down, trying to see in the dim light from the kitchen window what he’d stepped in.
At the back porch steps, he smelled it. Coppery and thick, blood. He quickly unlocked the door, reached inside and flicked on the back porch light. Scanning the ground, he saw the dark puddle he’d stepped in, saw the long dark trail smeared across the cement, to trail behind Suzy’s old red Chevy truck.
His stomach dropped. He knew that smell, knew blood when he saw it. He might work in the city, but he’d handled the ranch long enough to know what he was seeing.
Samson? His heart kicked up.
“Samson?” He stepped back down the three steps to the cement floor. Probably should grab a flashlight first.
Inside . . .
The hair on the back of his neck prickled and darkness tensed his muscles. Something was wrong. He could feel it. He hurried back up the porch steps, dropping his bag on the wooden floor of the screened-in back porch. The old rocker sat shadowed in the corner. Flashlight. Flashlight.
Kitchen drawer. He jerked open the back screen door, then shoved the inside door into the dimly lit kitchen. The Sub-Zero refrigerator door stood open. The phone was ringing. Ringing. Ringing . . .
The smell hit him again. Metallic, heavy on the air. His breath froze and chills danced down his back.
The house was still, silent. He stepped further into the kitchen and looked to his right.
His heart stopped.
“Morgan!” Jesus. He rushed to her, bumping into the counter. She was barely visible to him with the man atop her. He jerked the man off and shoved him aside. She was covered in blood, pale as death and not moving.
“Oh, no. Oh, Jesus.” He reached for her shoulders, but paused. A syringe protruded from her arm. He jerked it out, tossed it aside, where it landed on the man. For a moment, Jackson stared at him, saw the sightless staring blue eyes, the gaping wound in his neck, the slacked face, the dark clothes. And still clasped in his fist was a knife.
Then, as if someone snapped their fingers, Jackson blinked, shook his head and cradled Morgan against him.
So much blood. It soaked her white blouse to crimson, splattered and marred her face, matted the side of her hair. “Oh, God, Morg! Morgan! Answer me. Dammit! Please, please, please, baby. Come on. Don’t do this. No. No.” His hand shook as he tried to find her pulse. His fingers smeared blood across the smooth column of her throat, across the cream collar of her silk blouse. But he felt it. Faint, slow, but there. He had to stop the bleeding. He reached up and opened the drawer beside the sink, grabbing towels, half of them falling on the floor beside him. Grasping her shirt, he ripped it open, buttons splattering across the floor. Her skin was smeared red, but smooth, whole . . . A tremor shook him.
He closed his eyes, felt the tear slide down his face. “Thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God.” He jerked his phone from his belt and pressed 911. The phone against the wall was still ringing.
Just as dispatch answered, he heard them . . . sirens.
“Hang on, Morgan. Damn it, you hang on!” He sat in blood, holding his sister, waiting for the sirens and help to reach him as he talked to the dispatcher and prayed.
* * *
Dallas Metroplex Hospital; 1:11 a.m.
Jackson paced the corridor. He’d been here for half an hour before Gideon had come rushing in, soon followed by Suzy, who was brought by a sheriff’s deputy. She was still crying. She couldn’t believe she didn’t know what was going on over at the house. All that time . . .
He didn’t bother telling her if she had gone over, she’d probably be dead. Dead like Samson. One of the sheriff’s deputies had found the old dog out behind the house. Dragged there after he’d been killed.
Jackson had no fucking clue what the hell was going on, but by God, he was going to find out.
They’d all been silent in the waiting room down the hall from the ER. Police were trying to question him, question Suzy. How could he answer what he didn’t fucking know?
A doctor had come and asked questions and a cop—Jackson forgot his name. They knew nothing. Had someone been after her? Had someone been bothering her? Well, that was a given, wasn’t it? A man didn’t attack a woman in her own home ten minutes from the nearest town arbitrarily. Who had been bothering Morgan? About what, they wanted to know. If he knew that, she damn well wouldn’t be in one of those beds beyond the metal doors.
She’d lost a bit of blood from the ga
sh on her arm. Thank God there had been no other wounds. With all that blood, J.D. had just known she was dead. They’d stitched up her arm, given her antibiotics and a tetanus. There were narcotics in her bloodstream. But the police had the syringe. He’d told the doctor, the nurse, the cop, she wasn’t a user. He had no idea what the bastard had given her.
But it was the other things that played at the back of his mind. The other things the doctor had asked about. Given the attack, her torn clothing, they’d checked to see if she was sexually assaulted.
In their own fucking home! Jackson felt like ripping the damn doors off and going back to make certain his sister was all right.
The doctor wanted to know if she’d recently, in the last couple of years, been assaulted or in an accident.
Jackson didn’t know. There was evidence of recent trauma the doctor had told him, old fractures healed in her ribs, her cheekbone, her arm. Jackson still hadn’t seen her, and he was about to rip into someone if he didn’t get to make certain she was all right. They’d stood outside the trauma room, where doctors had worked on her. She was so pale, so listless. Someone in the ambulance had tried to clean some of the blood off, but it was still smeared across her face, her neck, on her hands. Thankfully, there hadn’t been as much as he’d remembered. She was still hooked up to machines, a bag of blood and some clear liquid dripping into her arm from an IV, oxygen in her nose.
Helplessness washed over him and he wanted to hit something.
Suzy sniffled. “Why won’t they let us see her?” She looked up to the officer standing guard in the little room. “We want to see her.”
“Ma’am, I’m only following orders,” the policeman answered. He was dressed in a patrol uniform.
Jackson had no idea of the man’s rank or even what his name was, and Jackson really didn’t give a damn. Thunder from the storm outside boomed and shook the windows.
“Whose orders?” Gideon asked, lifting his head from where it was cradled in his hands.
Suzy continued to cry. “All my fault. I should have waited up for her. Why would someone do that to her? She shouldn’t be in here, in there,” she said, digging another tissue out, shaking her head, and wiping her palm down a jean-clad thigh. Her maroon sweatshirt only made her paleness more prominent.
Hunted Page 27
