The Mercenary and the Shifters (The Turning Stone Chronicles)

by C. D. Hersh

  The helicopter circled toward them. Rhys cawed to Alexi as he flew in front of her, urging her higher in the sky. Falhman must not be as far away as they first thought, since the pilot seemed to be doubling back. The craft did a big loop then headed south, away from the lake. Was the pilot just circling to disorient Mike and Fiona?

  Certain of the location of the chopper, Rhys let his gaze drift to the ground. The earth below him teemed with life: rabbits, squirrels, rodents, and smaller birds rushed in and out of clearings. On the lake beach families picnicked in the warm spring air. He spotted some fish just below the surface of the water, and he dove closer to get a better look.

  Alexi flew above him, squawking, the sound of her displeasure at his detour understandable even as a bird. Rhys flapped his powerful wings and rose to her level. Apparently satisfied she had him back on track, she flew forward, trailing the chopper.

  Riding the wind, time passed without urgency, despite his desire to find his son. They alternately made lazy circles in the cumulus-clouded sky and flew forward in pursuit of the chopper looping and detouring across the landscape. The sun warmed Rhys, making him grateful for cool air rushing over his feathers.

  Ahead of them, the chopper banked and descended toward the lake. Rhys’ instincts kicked in. They were getting close. He scanned the horizon for a sign of the building Fiona had described. Then he saw it. A chain of white buildings snaking across an emerald lawn.

  He squawked. The sound, hard and bitter, drifted on the air. Leave it to Falhman to live in a house resembling a snake. He powered forward, his wings flapping against the air currents. When he reached Alexi he called to her. Together they dropped toward the ground, diving at the tops of the trees bordering the expanse of lawn surrounding Falhman’s estate.

  As they landed in the treetops, the roof of one of the buildings opened and the chopper descended through the opening. Once the roof had closed, Rhys surveyed the landscape. The clump of trees where they had landed was well beyond the thirty feet scanning distance of a high-level shifter. He searched the surrounding area for a sign of shifters. No tingles. Nothing.

  With a powerful flap, he lifted off the branch and descended to the ground below. When he touched earth, he used his hawk vision to search for humans. Finding none, he shook his wings and willed himself into human form. Bone and sinew twisted and groaned as his wings reformed into arms, and his claws into feet. His beak shrunk, and his head grew. When the transformation was complete, he straightened his clothing, grateful the magical transformation included them. He stood, stretching his leg muscles while Alexi completed her transformation.

  “What now?” she asked, shaking her shoulders.

  Rhys removed an earpiece from his buttoned shirt pocket and inserted it into his ear. “We wait and we listen to what Mike finds out.”

  “I didn’t get one of those,” Alexi protested.

  “Eli thought it best. He was afraid if you heard anything about the children you’d rush in like a fool.”

  Alexi slugged him in the arm then reached for the earbud. “Share, buster, or you’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight.

  Rhys leaned toward her, holding the device between them so she could hear.

  “Wow, Pete, this is sweet,” Mike said when he saw the setup in the helicopter hangar.

  Fiona stared in disbelief at Mike. In the forty-five minutes it had taken them to reach Falhman’s estate, Mike and the pilot were tight as compression stockings on a fat man’s ankles. She’d listened to more “Oorahs” and male grunts than she ever wanted to hear in this life and her next life.

  Schmoozing. That’s what Mike was doing, and doing it well. He was also wasting her valuable time. Falhman asked her here for a reason. She wanted to know what it was and get the heck out before he discovered he had a traitor in his midst.

  “Excuse me,” she said, waving her hand in front of the gabbing men. “Falhman wanted to see me.”

  “Yeah,” Pete said, breaking off his conversation with Mike. “This way.”

  He led them along the same winding glass corridors she had walked the first time she visited. As they passed a corridor Fiona thought she heard a cry of some sort. She stopped and listened.

  “Someone’s in distress,” she said, inching toward the hallway.

  Pete blocked her. “Probably one of the boss’s cats. He keeps them for the rodent population coming in from the woods adjacent to the estate. One of the domestics must have stepped on a tail.”

  “Sounds like a child crying,” Fiona said.

  Mike shot her a meaningful glance.

  “Cats screaming sound just like kids crying,” Pete explained. “Especially if they’re in heat.”

  Except she was highly allergic to cats. One sniff of cat-dandered air and her eyes swelled and she went nasal beyond belief. She’d spent an entire day in Falhman’s house and had absolutely no reactions. Cat dander infiltrated air ducts and could not be kept in one area. This close to the fur balls she should be swelling like a puffer fish. Could Rhys be right about Falhman and the children?

  She looked out the glass-walled corridor, searching for a landmark she could use to remember the hallway location. A bit of bright yellow tucked against the blue flowerpot on the patio caught her eye.

  Fiona let her handbag slip off her shoulder. The bag hit the ground, the contents spilling across the tile. She scrambled toward the floor-to-ceiling window, surreptitiously kicking her lipstick closer to the glass. What she saw next stopped her in her tracks. An octagonal plastic child’s toy, the kind children dropped into matching openings, lay at the base of the pot. Fiona retrieved her lipstick tube then scooped up the remaining items near the window, hiding what she’d found from Pete and Mike with her body.

  “Sorry.” Her voice quavered and she hoped neither of the men noticed. As Mike placed the items he’d gathered into her hands, his eyebrow rose in a question. “I’m clumsy. Wedding jitters I suppose.”

  His mouth screwed up in a disgusted manner, and he snorted under his breath. As he spun away from her, she stuffed the dropped items into her handbag.

  Thank God Mike couldn’t read her like Rhys could. Her fib wouldn’t have held for a single second.

  As Pete hustled them along the hall, Fiona sorted through her tumbling thoughts. What would a child’s toy be doing on the patio? Were those really cats yowling? And how could she find out the truth?

  Chapter 36

  From his perch on the catwalk surrounding the entrance hall, Falhman eyed the newcomer whom Pete had identified as Mike Corritore. After the shooting at Fiona’s engagement party he was glad to see she was taking her safety seriously. He was also piqued she had not come to him for a security detail. But, he understood since she’d hired this one herself she might be more confident in him.

  Corritore had the physical qualities of someone he normally would choose for his select team. Solidly built, muscular and strong, yet apparently light on his feet. His keen eyes didn’t appear to miss anything as he scoped out his surroundings. The biggest disadvantage Falhman saw in the man was his unshakable aura of honesty. It shone round him like a beacon from a lighthouse.

  His honesty was probably the very quality Fiona recognized and why she had hired him. It was also the reason he couldn’t trust Corritore.

  Pete pointed Fiona in the direction of Falhman’s office. Then he and Mike left in another direction. As she crossed the entrance, Falhman hurried down the back staircase to meet her. He would have to find Fiona another bodyguard. One he could control.

  The secret panel to the catwalk closed seconds before Fiona knocked.

  “Come in,” Falhman said, as he dropped onto his executive leather chair. When she opened the door, he casually rose to greet her, as if he’d been sitting for hours waiting. “My dear, I’m glad you could make it today, and that you brought your s
ecurity along.”

  Her eyebrow rose in surprise.

  Falhman hastened to modify his supposed happiness at her security tagging along, lest she get too suspicious. “Although I must confess, I’m a bit irked you didn’t let me provide my men for the job. Shifters have to look after other shifters, you know.”

  “I’d hired him before we even met,” she said. “It would seem odd if I fired him for no reason. He’s saved my life on several occasions now.”

  “Several?” he hiked his silver brow high on his forehead, hoping to show surprise. “Were they all reported to the police?”

  “You’re the police captain. Don’t you know?”

  He couldn’t miss the edge to her voice. Sharp as glass. Totally unfriendly. Something was amiss with her. He scanned her aura. Smoky mustard yellow. Dark muddy gray. Streaks of red. She was agitated, and frightened, and a bit angry. But then after her encounter with the Mafia, who wouldn’t be? He decided to ignore her attitude, for the moment, and give her some good news.

  “Speaking of police captain, I’ve swept everything regarding the hit at your fiancé’s home under the rug.”

  She gave him an incredulous stare. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I don’t joke about such things,” he replied. “I promised I’d take care of it, and I did.”

  Fiona swayed and blanched as pale as moonlight. He rushed to her side and gently seated her in one of the leather chairs facing his desk.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered in a quavering voice.

  Not exactly the reaction he expected. “I thought you’d be pleased, my dear.” He perched his hip on the front edge of the desk and studied her.

  “I am, I am,” she said quickly, her voice trilling up the scale. “I just didn’t know you were this . . .”

  “Powerful?” he suggested.

  She raised her gaze until she stared directly at him. Fear shone brightly in her rounded eyes.

  Fear was . . . acceptable. Although, he’d prefer something more positive from her. Building the sort of relationship he wanted with her would be difficult if she merely feared him.

  She blinked several times and her expression slowly transformed to awe.

  Ah. Much better. Her mother had once looked at him in that manner. Falhman’s cold heart melted at the memory. “Then it pleases you?”

  Pleases me? “Yes,” she replied. And utterly terrifies me as well. She shut the second thought down as fast as possible, dropping her gaze to the floor to avoid tipping him off to her fear.

  To hide her newly aroused fear of him, she changed the subject.

  “Since you’ve managed a major miracle with the shooting, can you make the Port Authorities’ investigation of the sinking of the KayFion disappear as well?”

  To get rid of the mess, she’d risk alignment with the devil. From what she could see, she was staring him right in the face.

  “I only control the local authorities. At the moment. But I should be able to help you in the near future. You must be patient, however, my dear, and abide a bit longer with me. It takes a higher political circle than Cleveland police captain to make a felony charge go away.”

  “They’re going to charge me with a felony?” She jumped from her seat and paced the room. “But I didn’t sink the ship. I didn’t take the cargo. I’m not guilty of a felony.”

  “Not regarding the KayFion,” he said smoothly. “But there is the matter of the cigarette shipment.”

  She stopped pacing and stared at him. “How do you know?”

  “You told me about it.”

  “I did?” Crap. All these lies and intrigue were starting to run together. She could hardly remember what she said to whom.

  “The first day we met at my penthouse. I phoned you and said I had a job for you. Don’t you remember?”

  “You called?” The room tipped as she recalled the conversation, and she grabbed the top of a chair to steady herself.

  Swindell contacted me that morning, not Falhman.

  She blinked as her thoughts tumbled. Swindell always addresses me as ‘my dear’. Could they . . .? Were they . . .?

  “Oh, God” she said in a rush of breath. Swindell and Falhman are the same person. Everything that’s happened to me has been because of Falhman! She sank onto the chair, her trembling legs no longer able to support her. “I suppose you did. I mean, I did.”

  Falhman rushed to her side. “Are you all right, my dear?”

  She covered her face with her hands and muttered, as melodramatically as she could, “I’m overcome by all the events of last night. Delayed shock, I suppose.”

  Falhman crossed to the mini fridge located in a corner of the room and withdrew a bottle of water. “Drink this,” he commanded. I’ll get my staff nurse to check you over.”

  “No, no. Please don’t. I just need to sit quietly in the fresh air for a few minutes. Then I’ll be fine. Could you ask my bodyguard to help me outside?”

  “Nonsense. I’ll take you myself.”

  “Could we go to the gazebo where we had dinner?”

  Falhman smiled and she knew she struck a chord with him. He’d been the gentleman and seducer that night, and she’d fallen for his ploy. But not anymore. Now she saw him clearly for what he was.

  The Walrus who planned to eat those poor little oysters.

  She was not going to be anyone’s dinner.

  As they exited Falhman’s office, alarms shrieked, the noise bouncing off the marble floors and hard, Venetian plaster walls. Falhman released Fiona’s arm and rushed to a phone hanging on the wall.

  “What’s going on?” he barked into the receiver. Anxiety wrinkled his normally smooth face. “Are they safe? Yes? Then turn those damn things off!” He slammed the phone into the cradle. The alarms stopped wailing almost immediately.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Unscheduled security test,” Falhman said as he gripped her elbow. “Perhaps we should choose a place closer to the house and less exposed.” He steered her toward the foyer’s ten-foot-tall glass windows then pressed a button, disguised as part of the doorframe design. The glass pivoted at the center top and bottom, one half rotating into the entry and the other half to the outside.

  The security system shrieked again. Falhman flipped open a panel hidden in the side of the doorjamb and slid a switch downward. The racket quieted. After they exited, he reversed the procedure on the exterior of the frame. The door pivoted closed.

  He led her onto a small stone patio surrounded by hedges. As he seated her on a teak bench, Fiona said, “We forgot my water.”

  “Allow me, my dear.” Then he repeated the steps he’d used to close the door, sliding the switch down before pressing the hidden button in the frame design.

  Fiona stared at him, certain there must be another hidden button or switch she missed when he opened the door. Otherwise, why would he have been this casual about showing her how to get in and out of his fortress? Unless she had completely fooled him the way he’d fooled her. But it didn’t make sense. If he was the devil, like Rhys and Eli said, how could she hoodwink him? She was not in his league.

  He returned with her water. As he handed the bottle to her, Falhman gently caressed the top of her head, smoothing her windblown tresses. “Are you feeling better, my darling?”

  Darling? What happened to the smarmy ‘my dear’?’ She glanced at him. Concern, tangible and pure, shone from his eyes. She’d seen the expression before. In Mike’s and Kyle’s eyes.

  She remembered Falhman’s earlier compliments. He’d called her beautiful. Exquisitely beautiful, like her mother.

  Realization slammed into her. Oh, dear God. He’s in love with me. Or maybe he was in love with who he believed was the incarnation of her mother.

  Her heart pounded so
furiously she feared he could hear it. What to do? What to do? She decided to play along. Bitterness was easier to swallow with a lump of sugar, even if it was saccharine.

  “Yes, thank you, Fal—” She paused and gazed at him through her lashes. “I don’t even know your first name.”

  “No one does, my dear.” He sat beside her and gave her a snake charmer smile. “It’s better this way.”

  Her stomach flipped over and knotted. She stared blankly at the bushes, trying desperately to calm her jangling nerves, and prayed for Mike to come rescue her.

  Chapter 37

  “I’m hungry,” Alexi said, glancing at her watch.

  Without dropping his binoculars, Rhys replied, “Go hawk and catch a mouse or something. I saw some vole’s yellow urine trails in the dirt when we landed.”

  In fact, he’d seen a lot of them. His ultraviolet hawk vision revealed more about the landscape than he’d ever dreamed possible. If he’d had this talent in Iraq he’d have been a thousand times more accurate as a sniper.

  Alexi made a gagging sound and jerked the binoculars from him. “I’d rather starve. How much longer do you think they’ll be in there?”

  “As long as it takes.” He retrieved the binoculars and continued studying the landscape. “This is one of the strangest houses I’ve ever seen. There are no doors. Just ground-to-ceiling windows.”

  “It could be similar to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home where the windows open from the bottom and you walk out through the lower half of the sash. Or the glass might be a passive solar thing. Maybe it doesn’t open at all. Perhaps there’s only a single entrance at the rear and front. Could make the house more secure.”